City Council Preview – Levi’s Stadium Again in the SpotlightBy Robert Haugh

Once again, the center of discussions at this week’s April 4 City Council meeting revolves around issues pertaining to Levi’s Stadium.  

This week, the council will review the closure of the San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail (STACT) on stadium event days. 

Other stadium issues include service contracts for staffing, insurance, janitorial services, parking services and elevator services. It’s a lot of information and it seems to be coming at a rapid pace, with little time for Council and staff to review properly.

Other items of interest include:

1. Minimum Wage Ordinance – requests the City manager to initiate community outreach and stakeholder feedback to try and obtain regional consistency with minimum wage. This will come back to Council at a later date.

2. Municipal Fees – an array of outdated fees at many City departments will be reviewed in the study session. Of note are proposed increases in a number of development related fees like variance requests and zoning changes.

3. Convention Center Operating Model – this will be another study session. Dan Fenton, Executive Vice President of JLL Hotels & Hospitality Group, will make a presentation. He has over 25 years of experience in tourism, branding and destination strategic planning and has assisted a number of convention centers and Convention and Visitors Bureaus with operational strategic planning and implementation. The matter will come back to Council in the coming weeks for possible action.

4. The Fire Department is purchasing a half million dollar fire engine to replace an outdated fire engine that has been in service since 1999. That’s an expensive vehicle.