Private Street Workshop - August 27, 2019

After aggressively petitioning the City in meetings with staff, Council Members and at CIOC and City Council meetings since April 2017, the City agreed to hold a "workshop" so that the City and the public could openly discuss the issue of converting private roads to public roads or maintaining with public funds private roads that provide public access.  The City agreed to hire a moderator to chair the meeting and provide a report following the meeting.

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The entire City Council attended the meeting as did about 200 Orinda residents.  The format of the meeting included presentations by staff and then by member of the citizen group requesting inclusion into the public road network (now called Orindans for Fair Road Funding).  After that the floor was opened for questions and comments. 

 

The meeting was meant to open a dialogue with the City Council which does not seem possible at City Council meetings.  Unfortunately, the members of the Council chose not to engage at the workshop either.  The participants of the workshop left unfulfilled.

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A month later, the moderator's report was discussed at the October 1, 2019 City Council Meeting.  The report was ten pages long and included 17 items the moderator felt that the City could follow up on.

 

There were 20 pages of notes in the minutes of that meeting.  However,the "discussion" was, again, comments from from the floor from residents and then discussion / statements by Council members among themselves and staff.  13 pages into the minutes the discussion diverged from incorporating private roads into the city's road network into a discussion of maintaining the existing road network.

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At the end the Mayor (Miller) closed with the statement: "staff had sufficient direction and she and Councilmembers
thanked everybody for their comments and input."

 

Since then (this is being written on November 20,2020, 14 months later), nothing more has evolved even though at various points in time the Council has received dozens of letters from the public and numerous statements from the floor.