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The Pleasanton City Council will be voting on bringing back the First Weekends on Main program during Tuesday’s council meeting.
But instead of closing down Main Street for 10 weekends from May to December — like it was last year — the program will now be scheduled for only six weekends from May through October.
According to the staff report, this shortened time frame is a result of the Pleasanton Downtown Association (PDA) garnering input from downtown businesses through a survey conducted during the last two months of 2022.
These responses reflected mixed feelings from some merchants regarding First Weekends on Main since the program was rebranded to a monthly event, instead of a weekly event, like it was in 2020 when it first started.
“These Weekend on Main seasons were well received by the community and helped to bring much-needed activity into the downtown during the pandemic; however, merchants’ experiences were mixed,” according to the staff report. “After considering the collective responses to the member survey, the PDA Board of Directors is requesting a total of six street closures as part of PDA’s annual downtown events schedule.”
Having the program end in October will also allow for other activities in preparation for the following busy holiday shopping season, according to the report.
“The PDA board believes this approach achieves a balance among all stakeholders and, importantly, can be delivered by the PDA again this year given limited staffing and resources,” the staff report reads. “This schedule also takes into consideration the likelihood of inclement weather during the late fall, which keeps much of the foot traffic out of downtown.”
The weekend events will still start Friday afternoons by closing down the downtown portion of Main Street until Sunday evening.
Along with the revised schedule, the council will also vote on approving the estimated city expenses for things such as contracts with barricade vendors to close down the street, Operations Services Department staff overtime, and overall garbage removal services.
According to the staff report, the street closures would generate direct expenses of approximately $54,000 to the city for the six weekends scheduled this year.
The City Council meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. Tuesday (Jan. 17). The full agenda can be accessed here.
In other business:
* City Manager Gerry Beaudin will be seeking council approval to execute a letter of intent with the Alameda County Fire Department (ACFD) to negotiate the terms of a proposal for emergency medical services in Alameda County.
The resolution, which is part of the consent calendar, comes as the county fire department begins its bidding process on its next contract for 911 Emergency Medical Services transport.
Items on the consent calendar are routine in nature and are usually approved without discussion.
In Pleasanton, 911 ambulance transport services are currently being provided through a contract between Alameda County and a private ambulance contractor — which as of now is still Falck Northern California.
But according to the staff report, the transport services have had some performance issues in terms of response times since their contract first began in 2019.
“For a variety of reasons . . . at multiple points during the contract term, Falck has had difficulty in meeting its contractual obligations primarily related to ambulance response times,” according to the staff report. “Falck was out of compliance in October, November and December of 2021, such that Alameda County placed Falck on a monitored performance improvement plan intended to improve response times.”
And as Alameda County fire chiefs, fire department and local firefighter unions work on overall system improvements, they are not sure whether Falck will bid on the county’s next contract and the new model that will come with it.
“This new model would generally look similar to the model in Contra Costa County, whereby the county fire department contracts with a private ambulance provider (not yet identified) to provide primary response service to cities within the county,” according to the staff report. “This model would be more financially viable than the current model because cost recovery rates for public entities are higher (statutorily) than for private providers.”
If the council approves the resolution allowing Beaudin to execute the letter of intent, it will allow Pleasanton and Livermore to join in negotiations with ACFD to refine the bid proposal and the terms and conditions of local participation in the model.
A similar resolution will be presented to the Livermore City Council on Jan. 23 — if authorized, both city managers will execute the letter of intent both in their roles as city manager and as Joint Executive Directors for the Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department.
“The Letter of Intent recommended in this report will enable the city of Pleasanton and the Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department (Joint Powers Authority) to enter into negotiations with the Alameda County Fire Department to develop the commitments and obligations that meet the service delivery needs of our community,” the staff report reads.
* Also as part of the consent calendar, the council will be voting on a professional services agreement with Miracle Playsystems for the Val Vista Community Park south playground renovation project.
Construction of the project, if the agreement is approved, is scheduled to start in late spring or early summer.
The city had first identified the need for reconstruction of the playground located in the southern portion of the park near the community garden as part of its 2021-22 two-year work plan.
According to the staff report, after the city solicited community input in November, the designs and community input were incorporated into a final conceptual design and presented to the Parks and Recreation Commission on Dec 7.
The design that the council will be looking at approving includes additional, “monkey bars, more interconnectivity between play equipment, swings at the play area for 5- to 12-year-old children and at the play area for 2- to 5-year-old children and accessible play elements.”
The agreement with the contractor, Miracle Playsystems, totals $324,608.24, which includes the final design per public input, fabrication and installation of equipment and associated engineered wood fiber installation.
Pleasanton had previously allocated $360,000 for this capital investment project and is anticipating additional expenditures, including a 10% contingency, for a project total of $357,307.
