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The Pleasanton City Council is set to review and accept the 2024 Eastern Alameda County Human Services Needs Assessment report, which outlines gap areas in Tri-Valley public services.
According to the staff report, the overall goal of the report is to assess these gap areas, present the findings and provide actionable solutions for the county, cities and nonprofits to implement during the next two fiscal years.
“The Tri-Valley is economically stable; however, there are pockets within each of the three cities with high concentrations of individuals living below the federal poverty level,” the staff report states. “While there are significant numbers of social service providers in each of the three cities, some services require recipients to travel outside the region, which has implications for transportation and accessibility and creates barriers to accessing services for some recipients.”
The council identified updating and implementing the 2011 Eastern Alameda County Human Services Needs Assessment as a 2021-22 City Council Work Plan priority. It also included the priority as a goal in the ONE Pleasanton five-year Strategic Plan.
Last year, a regional city staff team made up of people from Pleasanton, Dublin and Livermore conducted the 2024 Eastern Alameda County Human Services Needs Assessment.
The report identified challenges and opportunities to fix them at both the community and organizational level. Some of the challenges were related to housing; difficulty accessing health care and mental health services; a lack of awareness for available services and a need for service navigation; a need for outpatient and residential substance-use treatment services; and a desire for more linguistically and culturally responsive providers.Â
According to the report, community members also expressed concerns about safety, a need for more transportation services and the need for youth services such as high quality, affordable childcare and early childhood education for young children.
“For older children, parents and youth alike expressed a desire for accessible extracurricular activities, including after-school and enrichment programs, affordable summer programs, and recreational activities, including sports,” according to the staff report. “Older youth identified concerns around academic pressures and responsibilities, mental health and physical safety, substance use, including a need for prevention programs and treatment services, and a lack of access to school restrooms.”
Organizations that provide services also expressed frustration at the perception that needs are lower in the Tri-Valley. According to the report, those organizations identified funding challenges such as the need for grants that cover infrastructure, operating costs and marketing. Another challenge the organizations identified was the high burden for grant applications and reporting requirements.
“Organizations also identified a need to increase awareness of services among each other, to avoid service duplication and to leverage resources optimally,” the report states. “They also expressed a need to improve recruitment and retention to support a racially, culturally and linguistically diverse workforce.”
The City Council meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. Tuesday (Feb. 6). The full agenda can be accessed here.
In other business:
* As part of its consent calendar, which are items routine in nature and are approved by a single vote, the council will be voting on adopting a resolution to allow City Manager Gerry Beaudin to sign and file an application for a financing agreement to help fund the city’s plans on building two new water wells.
The Financial Assistance Application for a Financing Agreement from the State Water Resources Control Board, if approved, will authorize the allocation of one million dollars to the city for the City Water-Well Construction for Clean Water program.
Specifically, the resolution will allow the funds to be used for the planning, design and construction of two new water wells (Wells 9 and 10) as part of the city’s water supply alternative project that the city selected back in October 2023, which is expected to cost the city a minimum of $23 million.
* Staff will be looking for council approval during the consent calendar to increase the professional services contract with Raftelis Financial Consultants — the company that has been helping the city with water and sewer related studies in the past — by just over $57,000.
The contract agreement increase will be so the company can prepare a water and sewer connection fees study, according to the staff report.
* The council will be looking to accept the city’s Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) as well as other related audits for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2023.
According to the staff report, the city is required to prepare audited financial statements and other related reports for the council to review and accept each year. The city’s Audit Committee, which is composed of Councilmembers Jack Balch and Jeff Nibert, reviewed the reports last month and have recommended that the council formally accept them.
The staff report states that Lance, Soll & Lunghard, LLP — which is the accounting firm that performed the audits — gave the city its unmodified opinion on the financial statements.
“In addition, all requirements have been met to achieve the highest standard in government accounting and financial reporting: the Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting issued by the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) of the United States and Canada,” the staff report states. “The city has received this certificate annually for the last 26 consecutive years.”
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