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Passengers riding Pleasanton Paratransit Service (PPS) will have uninterrupted service when a local business assumes management and day to day responsibilities of the nearly 50-year-old city program next year, officials said at last week’s City Council meeting.
“There will be no service interruption, we have a plan for that already,” community services manager Jay Ingram told the council last Tuesday night.
The council unanimously approved a $896,400 agreement with Pleasanton-based Black Tie Transportation, which will take over daily operations starting Feb. 1 and provide door-to-door shared-ride service to the Livermore Amador Valley Transit Authority (LAVTA) for seniors 70 years and older, and 18 and older Americans with Disabilities Act-qualified individuals for the next three years.
In a report, staff said contracting with Black Tie would “reduce the general fund subsidy to a three-year average of approximately $64,500 and reduce the three-year operating expense to an average of $363,800, down from the previous five-year average of $661,500.”
Current riders will also be notified about the change in advance, according to Ingram.
“During COVID we are doing well-check calls with seniors,” he said. “We’ll have that same approach with this change in program where we do outreach via phone…to connect with each of the PPS riders and talk about the service change, what that really means, so that will be a really hands-on discussion with our riders we already have.”
A mix of public dollars from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), city general funds, and the countywide Measures B and BB are used to support PPS operations. Under the new agreement, the city will relinquish its MTC Transportation Development Act 4.5 funds.
In other business
* Nearly 200 local businesses celebrating milestone anniversaries this year were recognized at the start of that night’s meeting. City economic development manager Lisa Adamos led the virtual ceremony, stating, “We have changed our format but certainly not our sentiment.”
“We have seen the Pleasanton community rally to support our businesses and we’ve witnessed businesses banding together to support each other through these difficult times,” Adamos said.
Throughout the pandemic “we have seen the perseverance, resilience and commitment of many Pleasanton businesses to remain in operation,” she added.
Adamos also called Pleasanton’s diversity of “small sole proprietorships, regional operations, national retailers and corporations representing a breadth of industries” one of its key attributes.
A total of 189 businesses are marking 15, 20, 25, 30 and 40 years of business in Pleasanton this year. Among those with 40-year anniversaries are Big O Tires, Footlocker, Macy’s and Forest Chiropractic Office Professional Corp.
For a complete list of local businesses celebrating anniversaries this year, visit here.
* The council approved a $259,111 purchase to upgrade the city’s virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) system during approval of the consent agenda, which are items considered routine in nature and usually voted in one motion without discussion.
The city’s current virtualized desktops used by staff, which “replicate a user’s regular desktop and access to information and programs needed to complete their job duties,” are at the end of their useful life, according to public documents.
Staff recommended the purchase of Dell/EMC VXrail “hyper-converged equipment” to “allow desktop computers to continue to run (VDI) to seamlessly allow teleworking while capacity restrictions limit the number of on-site employees in city facilities.”
* A public hearing regarding a conditional use permit application to modify the Public Storage facility on Stanley Boulevard has been continued until the Dec. 15 council meeting, according to city officials.
The project to demolish seven existing structures and build three brand-new buildings — including a 900-square-foot office, 9,750-square-foot single-story storage building, and a three-story storage building encompassing 197,410 square feet — on the 6.5-acre site located at 3716 Stanley Blvd. was approved by the Planning Commission, 4-1, in late October.
Public Storage has also requested a 98.8% reduction — down to a total of $25,898 from the original $2.1 million estimate — on the affordable housing fee that is applicable to most residential and commercial projects in Pleasanton, based on city criteria and “particularly in light of the projects very low actual employee generation rate,” according to a staff report.
