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The Livermore City Council directed staff last Monday to draft a resolution expressing the city’s solidarity with the Asian community amid the uptick in anti-Asian violence and discrimination in the Bay Area, nationally and abroad.
The resolution will focus on “denouncing xenophobia and anti-Asian racism arising due to fears of the COVID-19 pandemic and affirming the city council’s commitment to the well-being and safety of Asian/Pacific Islander communities and reaffirming its support of a culture of welcome, inclusion and respect,” according to the city staff report.
Mayor Bob Woerner initially requested the resolution after attending last month’s Alameda County Mayors Conference, where they adopted a similar resolution and extended a call to all counties, cities and local city governments across the country to make a similar commitment to “reaffirm their solidarity with Asian/Pacific Islander communities and commit to combating hate and improving health equity.”
“I’m pleased that we’re able to bring this forth and join all of our other cities in Alameda County and other parts of the Bay Area and the country,” Woerner said before the council unanimously voted to move forward with drafting the resolution.
The move follows a series of rallies held in support of the Asian community throughout the Tri-Valley, the greater Bay Area and throughout the U.S. In Livermore, community groups Livermore Indivisible and Tri-Valley for Black Lives co-hosted a rally on March 28 at the new Stockmen’s Park downtown where residents, educators, students and city leaders — including all five City Council members — gathered to denounce hate against people of Asian descent.
In other business
Earlier in last Monday’s meeting, the council discussed modernizing the city’s historic preservation program.
The Planning Commission, Historic Preservation Commission and city staff are developing a project that would “adopt a new citywide historic context statement and historic resources inventory, and would authorize changes to the Development Code, Zoning Map, and Downtown Specific Plan in order to better preserve Livermore’s rich heritage and unique character, consistent with the General Plan,” according to the staff report.
The city wants to develop a more streamlined process for identifying and documenting historical properties throughout the city. The most recent historic resources inventory identified 70 historic properties in the city and 220 potentially historic properties, which in total represents about 1% of all the city’s parcels. Some of those properties include Ravenswood and Hagemann Ranch, among others.
The project focuses only on physical buildings and does not include historical artifacts or documents.
Livermore currently maintains a preservation ordinance that requires historic review of any activity, including paint or landscaping work to any property that is over 50 years of age. According to city staff, one of the goals of updating the standard, is to narrow down the properties with significance to Livermore’s past and alleviate the burden for residents with homes that are more than 50 years old to seek additional permits to make changes on their property.
The council unanimously voted to move ahead with staff’s recommendations in an effort to develop a more efficient framework and process and better protect the city’s historic resources.
