On Tuesday, Brentwood City Councilmember Jovita Mendoza requested a future report on the new “daylighting” law and how to opt out of it.
AB 413 was introduced by Assemblyman Alex Lee (D-San Jose) last February which aimed to increase visibility of pedestrians and bicyclist for drivers at crosswalks and intersections. Under the law, it prohibits vehicles from being stopped, left or parked within 20 feet of a marked crosswalk or intersection.
The daylighting law went into effect January 1, 2025 and many cities are now wrestling with the impact from reduced available parking across a city to police departments providing grace periods or issuing “warnings” while others have started issuing fines. Other cities will simply begin paining curbs red and have a phased approach such as Davis.
On Tuesday, Brentwood took the first step in a future agenda request to simply “opt out” of the law altogether.
“There is a new law in California where you can’t park within 20-ft of a crosswalk, but you can choose as a city not to enforce that if you don’t want to,” stated Mendoza. “So, I want that to come back to us and see if that is necessary for us.”
Mendoza cited the City of San Francisco because of the way its designed and a big city.
According to ABC 7, in San Francisco, the Municipal Transportation Agency estimates the new rules will cause a loss of about 5% of its total parking, or about 14,000 spaces.
“I need to see if we can opt out of it as there are avenues to do so,” said Mendoza. “If we do this, its going to take away a lot of parking from our residents.”
According to assistant city manager Darin Gale, the assistant city engineer has been working on new laws and the potential impacts on the downtown.
Mendoza stated the impacts on the parking would be throughout the entire city where there is a crosswalk. Staff confirmed it would impact the entire city.
“If you can send a memo, can we opt out or is there any safety reasons why we should opt in for crosswalks. If we have to opt in, we can just paint them red because I think its going to be very difficult to enforce because folks are not going to understand what 20-feet is,” stated Mendoza.
Allen Baquilar, Director of Engineer, said he would provide a summer of the daylighting law (AB 413) and how they are addressing it with the police department and how other cities are dealing with it.
Mendoza questioned if the sentiment was they were enforcing it and not looking at an “opt out” option.
Baquilar said there was an “opt out” option but was difficult to justify the opt out and would outline in a memo.
Mendoza said she wanted to see what it would take to opt out or in some cases, police departments are just not going to enforce it.
Brentwood will first issue a memo to the council and that memo would drive a future agenda item on daylighting. No timelines were set on when the item would return.
Other future agenda item requests:
Mendoza made a series of requests for future agenda items:
- Police hiring update on 5th beat / process for hiring in Brentwood
- Bring back Summerset wall update
- Update on Vineyards Academy Parkway traffic study
- Farmers Market configuration
- Revisit the role of Public Information Officer
- What is going on with Traffic Engineer position
- Update on amphitheater
- Update on townhall with businesses
- Land behind Pioneer Elementary – get it back from Contra Costa County Fire.
Councilmember Tony Oerlemans
- Update/Change the Downtown Specific Plan to allow tattoo shops within the downtown.
Councilmember Faye Maloney
- Facilitate a mental wellness and resilience workshop in collaboration with the Contra Costa Justice Center – to be virtual while covering suicide prevention, mental wellness, mindfulness along with trauma and treatment.
Councilmember Pa’Tanisha Pierson
- Requests a presentation by Supervisor Diane Burgis – this would be expanded from her public comment several meetings ago. Get a presentation on a rollout plan for the fire department, youth center and county building.
Mayor Susannah Meyer
- Request a report from Contra Costa County Fire Protection District on vegetation control, fire risk, maintenance, and reliability of hydrants, emergency response to wildfire incidents – what would response and prevention look like.
- Vasco Flag Barn – work with EBRPD to take the flag barn or portion of barn and rebuild it as a memorial somewhere in Brentwood.
4 comments
God forbid you lose a parking space to save a life 🙄
Common sense would save lives. Like cutting overgrown shrubs, trees and bushes. Or actually enforcing existing traffic laws, like writing tickets for people who park in front of handicap ramps?By your method let’s just outlaw cars. No one would be hit by one.
Finally some sense from the dysfunctional council. Its a stupid law and every city should opt out.
Perhaps Mendoza will send her husband to threaten the state, like they did the priest.
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