Not an official site of the Town of Los Altos Hills

Two Brown Act violations, if not by letter, then in spirit.  Failure to provide required notice and enable input.

• City Manager Performance Ad Hoc Committee findings and sunsetting

• Report on new problem with Building Deposits
   

Broadband- Technology committee recommendation to install underground fiber to Town Hall and the CERT ARK at Foothill College rejected.  Council plans to rescind previous $800,000 ARPA commitment to Broadband at April 15, 2024 Council Meeting and reallocate ARPA funds.
 

Cybersecurity Public Information Meeting How to Avoid being Scammed- Council rejected Technology Committee’s recommendation to hold the meeting in May.  Suggested Chair Bhateja’s involvement was a campaign effort that cannot be supported with Town assets.  Council voted to delay training until December.  A general public safety information meeting will be provided by the  Town in the near future.
 

Representatives from PG&E, AT&T and Comcast were present to be verbally flogged for the four-day utility outages along Page Mill Road during last February’s storm.  No concrete solutions were proposed. Parties agreed to meet with Town.  Councilmember Schmidt stated residents should not expect any utility support or information from the Town during storm outages.
 

Public Safety- Councill agreed to continue existing level Sheriff and security patrols through the end of the fiscal year with enhanced focus on holiday weekends.  Study session to be conducted to address sustainability of long-term security patrol  levels.
 

Ad hoc Committee City Manager Performance Evaluation.  Committee comprised of Council member Swan and Vice Mayor Schmidt read a statement on their assessment of the City Manager’s performance and recommended sunsetting their ad hoc committee. This report out was not on the agenda and occurred at 11:30 PM. Transcript of statement follows:

• Council Member Swan: As a member of the ad hoc committee appointed by the Council to check in after six month of the city manager’s performance evaluation, I along with Vice Mayor Schmidt, would like to share our findings and recommendations following our assessment over the last five months. Our review process focused on areas highlighted during the 2023-2024 performance review and with the eye toward understanding both the responsibilities directly under the purview  of the city manager and the broader  organizational and regional context within which these responsibilities operate.  Throughout our assessment we observed notable progress and improvement in several areas where the city manager has a direct influence such as actively engaging with staff on ways to make LAH an employer of choice including greater attendance at committee, council and community events. We recognize that the number of committees and the number of events make it challenging to attend them all but appreciate the city manager’s efforts to attend as many of the meetings as possible. Simultaneously, we recognize the challenges that extend beyond the city manager’s control for example,  trends that have increased employee turnover and have presented challenges in attracting and retaining  talent in a post pandemic environment.  The city manager has done a good job in filling staffing holes with contractors and keeping town hall operating.

• Vice Mayor Schmidt: After careful consideration and deliberation we are pleased to report that we see a positive trajectory in the city manager’s performance while there remains room for ongoing improvements, such as the improvements in the development review process, we believe the demonstrated commitment to address the areas of concern coupled with the acknowledgement of progress made warrants confidence in the city manager’s ability to continue effectively serving our community.  Based on our assessment we do not see the need to bring up this matter for further consideration and review before the entire council at this time, and suggest that his next evaluation be on his three year anniversary be on or around October 2024. We trust that the positive momentum observed will persist and we look forward to continued collaboration in advancing the interests of our town. Thank you all for entrusting us with this important task we appreciate your ongoing support and we are all working together for the betterment of our community and we ask for the ad hoc committee to be sunseted. See 5:31:38 in the video.
   

Building Deposit Presentation- Jay Bradford Asst. Community Development Manager.  Mr. Bradford described the problem the Town has been having with the timely processing and refunding of building deposits.  Suggested the magnitude of the problem was $1 million. Stated the problem would be cleaned up as part of the future fee study consulting effort in 2025.