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After six months of holding its meetings at the city’s Operations Services Center, the Pleasanton City Council moved back into its newly renovated council chambers at 200 Old Bernal Ave. last week.
Among the list of improvements to the room, the main ones include four new accessible seating locations, a ramp to give people with mobility issues easier access to the dais and assistive hearing devices that people can connect to upon request.
“Our council chamber was last updated in the 1990s and so after about 30 years, it was due for a refresh,” City Manager Gerry Beaudin told the council during the Jan. 16 meeting, which was the first meeting back in the chambers.
The council first moved out of the chambers back in July and had been meeting out of a conference room at the city’s Operations Services Center, located at 3333 Busch Road.
“It is nice to be home,” Vice Mayor Julie Testa said during the meeting. “It feels really good to be back here.”
She also added that it was more important that the renovations, like the ramp and hearing assistance devices, were done for Americans with Disabilities Act and technology requirements.
“It’s so much more than kind of sprucing things up and making it more functional. The renovation was really focused on a few really critical needs for us — accessibility was probably one of the main drivers,” Beaudin said. “We did not have a ramp or a way for anyone who had mobility issues or needed any kind of assistance to get up to the dais. That is an improvement that needed to be made.”
Apart from the ADA improvements, the chamber dais table has been expanded, the room has been repainted, new carpet was installed and the lighting was replaced with energy efficient lights.
The rest of the public seats will also be replaced sometime between the spring and summer as Beaudin explained how, due to supply chain issues, delivery of those new seats have been delayed.
There’s also a significant amount of new technology or other tech improvements including larger display panels for the public audience and new monitors for the council and staff to use during meetings and for presentations, which are all connected to an integrated system that will allow city and Tri-Valley Community Television staff to change monitors more efficiently, Beaudin said.
The chambers’ telecommunications equipment, Wi-Fi signaling, cabling to the sound system and electrical system have all been upgraded as well and have been connected to the integrated system for efficiency purposes, according to city staff.
Beaudin also pointed out that the city did not use any of its general fund money on the chamber renovations; instead it used public education and government funds, which are designed to allow the city to “deliver public meetings and broadcasting on Tri-Valley Community Television.”
Most of the new technology was fully functional as it was tested out during the first meeting but Testa did point out that there was a bit of disconnect between the council in the room and Councilmember Jack Balch, who had to join the meeting virtually – such as those on the dais not being able to see him on their screens although the live audience and home viewers could.
Because Balch joined virtually, which is allowed per state law and council policy, members of the public were also allowed to join and provide public comments remotely even though the council recently voted to stop allowing remote comments from residents, requiring them to be in the room in person.
The one person who did speak during public comments, which was longtime resident Vicki LaBarge, saw a similar issue when Testa couldn’t tell whether or not she was there virtually.
Beaudin said that staff were still waiting on one more monitor to be added to the room so that the public and anyone joining remotely can be seen there.
LaBarge joined virtually to address an issue during non-agenda comment that she brought up to the council last month regarding Pleasanton police staffing levels and what the status of the department’s traffic, crime prevention and student resource officer units were as the department continues to face low staffing issues.
She asked whether Beaudin would be providing an update or not, as he previously said he would in December. As Testa began to talk about there possibly being misconceptions on the issue, LaBarge – whose mic feed was left on – was loudly uttered an expletive in response to Testa’s comment.
LaBarge was immediately placed on mute after Testa acknowledged the comment with a “hello” before Beaudin explained how he would be working with staff on drafting a data-driven memo, which should be available to the public later this month.