Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The Pleasanton City Council Tuesday is set to review the key elements of the newly negotiated tentative agreement between the city and the labor union that represents over 200 employees across various departments, which includes higher wages and compensation benefits.

The agreement between the city and Pleasanton City Employees Association (PCEA), American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 955, would replace the previous memorandum of understanding between both parties, which expired on March 31. 

“Representatives from PCEA and the City of Pleasanton met and conferred in good faith and have agreed on terms for a successor agreement,” the Dec. 2 staff report states.

According to the staff report, the PCEA represents about 204 employees across a range of positions at the city including clerical positions, police dispatchers, recreation employees, planners, engineers, and maintenance employees. The previous contract that expired in March had been in effect since April 2022.

Both parties began the “meet-and-confer process” in May to begin reaching consensus on a successor agreement.

According to staff, both parties met 11 times to discuss terms and developed the initial agreement, which is set to expire on March 31, 2028, if approved by the council. 

Following Tuesday’s initial review and discussion, the City Council will return on Dec. 16 to vote on adopting the agreement.

One of the key elements in the updated agreement are general wage increases for employees. Per the agreement, the salary ranges will go up by 3% once after April 1 of next year and once again in 2027 during the same month.

The new agreement stipulates that the city provide $1,000 in longevity pay annually to bargaining unit employees who have been with the city for 10 consecutive years, with payments distributed bi-weekly. That total payout will also be raised to $1,100 in 2027.

Police Dispatchers and Police Dispatch Supervisors who obtain a Peace Officer Standard Training (POST) certificate would also receive a certain percentage of certification pay depending on the level of training they obtain.

Other details of the newly proposed agreement include an increase to the amount for bilingual pay from $50 to $100; a slight increase to the meal pay for employees required to work more than 12 hours consecutively without a dinner break; an increase to allowances for safety boots; and increase to both the call back and standby time policies.

“A recent compensation study showed that most classifications in this bargaining unit are at or above the market for comparable agencies. However, the City continues to experience retention challenges in certain classifications, as nearby agencies offer competitive compensation structures that appeal to qualified candidates,” according to the staff report. “To maintain competitiveness and support workforce stability, general wage increases and targeted incentives are recommended.”

The City Council meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. Tuesday (Dec. 2). The full agenda can be accessed here.

In other business:

* City staff will be bringing forward a series of amendments to the city’s municipal code that staff say will streamline and improve the permit process, which the City Council previously identified as a strategic priority for the next two fiscal years.

The amendments concern project noticing, design review, and the appeals process.

“The amendments will reduce barriers to obtaining building permits for certain types of projects, improve and clarify processes and approval findings, align appeal periods with neighboring jurisdictions and more closely align noticing requirements with the government code,” the staff report states.

* The City Council will be receiving an update on economic development activities and the plans to implement the updated 2024-28 Economic Development Strategic Plan.

According to staff, the report “highlights programs and tasks completed or in progress under the five Implementation Plan Priorities of the Economic Development Strategic Plan (EDSP), as well as providing a look ahead to the focus areas for the coming year.”

* As part of its consent calendar, the council will be voting on entering into a $742,800 contract with FE Controls Corporation, an engineering consultant that will be tasked with the retrofitting and replacement of the city’s fire alarm systems across 12 buildings including the Operations Service Center, library, and police station. 

Consent calendar items are considered routine in nature and are typically approved by a single vote with little to no discussion.

According to the staff report, the construction contract includes the design of the new systems, which will ultimately be reviewed and approved by the city and the Livermore Pleasanton Fire Department. 

* Another item the council will be voting on as part of its consent calendar is a pair of purchase orders that would effectively allow the city to buy six new trucks to be used for city-wide operations.

These heavy duty trucks — three of which will be Ford F-150 Lightning electric vehicles in order to comply with clean energy regulation — will replace three utility trucks that were “identified as high-risk due to age, escalating repair costs, and diminished reliability.” The electric vehicle trucks will replace three other Ford F-150’s that have “exceeded their useful life.”

According to the staff report, the just over $571,000  needed to purchase the vehicles will come out of the city’s Internal Service Funds, Sewer Fund and Water Fund. The city approved this funding in the 2025-26 fiscal year budget.

* Pleasanton residents who live on Winding Oaks Drive, a dead-end private street off of Vineyard Avenue, will be seeking the council’s approval to amend certain city codes so that they can install a gate at the beginning of the street for safety purposes.

City staff supports this consent calendar item — even though city code does not typically allow these types of residential community gates in this area of the city — due to a string of recent break-in attempts at various homes on that street and because the gate won’t impede any through traffic, according to the staff report.

Most Popular

Christian Trujano is a staff reporter for Embarcadero Media's East Bay Division, the Pleasanton Weekly. He returned to the company in May 2022 after having interned for the Palo Alto Weekly in 2019. Christian...

Leave a comment