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Vice Mayor Brown asked and Mr. Fialho confirmed that the city's drought ordinance, with a 25% <br /> mandatory conservation and fines, was reinstated effective May 15, 2015. <br /> Mayor Thorne asked how many in the audience felt that the investment of the Task Force to date <br /> should be respected. <br /> Sandy Yamaoda shared a petition with over 312 signatures asking the Council to halt all planning and <br /> EIR efforts for the East Pleasanton specific plan. She explained that most had not attended any of the <br /> city sponsored community meetings but rather learned about the plan at First Wednesday and the <br /> Farmers' Market. She displayed an organizational community chart, noting the citizens located at the <br /> top and the distinct absence of either developers or the Chamber of Commerce. She urged the Council <br /> to remember the wishes of the citizens who voted for the Urban Growth Boundary in 1996. <br /> Alfred Exner said he finds the proposed plan completely unacceptable in terms of meeting the <br /> character of Pleasanton. Specifically, he objected to its failure to address athletic fields or public safety <br /> facilities for the east side, its destruction of existing wetlands, and the potential flooding issues that <br /> might result from the project. He said he felt the EIR was inherently flawed and asked the Council to <br /> support Option 3. <br /> Mayor Thorne asked how many in the audience believed any plan should include athletic fields, <br /> believed the proposed plan would destroy wetlands, or were concerned about fire and police protection. <br /> Kelly Cousins, speaking on behalf of those Task Force members who recently authored an editorial <br /> piece for The Pleasanton Weekly and The Independent. The article described the desire of the 5 <br /> authors to halt all EIR and planning efforts, best reflected by Option 3. She said she felt the Task Force <br /> has done its job and what was developed is not supported by the community and therefore not a good <br /> plan for Pleasanton. She also expressed frustration that the Task Force was, in her opinion, driven <br /> largely by the infrastructure of El Charro and a potential school site as opposed to community desires. <br /> Darlene Miller explained that her educational and professional experience focuses on operations <br /> research and mathematical optimization models. She cautioned that the inputs in any model are critical <br /> to the output and that she had strong concerns with the forecasts, which are essentially guesses, used <br /> to identify the traffic, school and water impacts of the plan. She described the value in ensuring the <br /> validity of any model through the use of sensitivity analyses, as minor variations in input can result in <br /> significant variations in output. The latter would result in an elastic model which does not yield a <br /> realistic sense of the negative impacts. She said she would like to know whether the city's models were <br /> elastic to changes in the number of children per family and if so, she would strongly recommend <br /> conducting a sensitivity analysis to determine what the best, worse and expected case scenarios could <br /> be. <br /> Mayor Thorne asked how many in the audience felt the modeling was flawed. <br /> Sidney Cohen said that the public comments at the three community meetings were fairly uniform in <br /> their disapproval of and anger over the plan, the process and the current circumstances. He said he is <br /> opposed to urban sprawl and its deterioration of the quality of life that is so important to this community. <br /> He encouraged the Council to support Option 3. <br /> Mayor Thome asked how many in the audience were concerned over the impacts to their quality of life <br /> or felt anger over the current process. <br /> Lou Astburg disagreed with earlier comments that a decision to support Option 3 would be an <br /> emotional one. He stressed that in light of the complex situation that is the drought and with no solution <br /> in sight, the only choice is Option 3. <br /> City Council Minutes Page 9 of 15 May 19, 2015 <br />