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General Plan -2- September 17, 1998 The first step would be to inform the community about the General Plan update and to define the specific issues and goals to be addressed in the Plan. This could begin with an outreach and publicity campaign featuring a town hall "kick-off' meeting. We anticipate that a General Plan Advisory Committee (GPAC) of 30 to 50 citizens would guide the planning process, with the members of the GPAC appointed by the entire City Council, as recommended by the ad hoc committee. The Affordable Housing Committee and the West San Leandro Advisory Committee have shown how the City can include meaningful citizen input in the planning process. Moreover, cities like San Jose have effectively used advisory committees of similar size in their most recent General Plan update. It will also be important for the Planning Commission and the Board of Zoning Adjustments to be involved in this process in order to ensure that decisions are being made in a representative way. Once the GPAC begins to meet, its role would be to set the direction for the planning process, and to evaluate alternatives. At its first meeting, the GPAC could begin to develop visions and goals for the future of the City. The Committee could also begin to consider how they feel about the existing situation in San Leandro. The Committee could ask what problems the City currently faces, what the existing economic and social conditions are, and what policy objectives they would like to accomplish. Planning staff, along with the selected consultants, will be available to assist the GPAC in its work by providing alternative proposals, information, and professional advice. A survey of City residents could be another way of finding out how people feel about their city and what their thoughts are for its future. While the GPAC is meeting, the consultant team will be collecting and analyzing data on the issues identified by the GPAC as important. The consultants will use existing plans and reports from the City, and will conduct new research, to identify the ways that San Leandro has changed in the past, and the challenges that it can expect to face in the future. This work will include updating population, demographic, transportation, and land use statistics. By bringing accurate and comprehensive information into the planning process, the GPAC will be better able to make informed and relevant decisions. We expect that the GPAC would meet approximately once per month. Staff would recommend that they break up into smaller sub -committees to discuss more specialized issues. The consultants could prepare "issues and options" papers based on their background research to be presented at each of the committee meetings. These would include an analysis of the fiscal implications of different courses of action for the City. These papers would help the GPAC to know what questions it needs to address, to know where the City stands today, and to know what the realistic options for the General Plan are. The GPAC would ultimately make recommendations on what should be included in the General Plan, and the policy directions that they feel the City should take. These recommendations will have to be analyzed for their cost and benefit impacts on the City and its budget. After the GPAC makes its recommendations, public meetings would be held, led by City staff and consultants. These meetings would give people from around San Leandro a chance to comment on the work of the GPAC and to offer their own suggestions and ideas. Involving the public is critical to the success of any general planning process, and these public meetings would offer a valuable opportunity for the community to work towards a consensus around a Plan that everyone can support. However, people have many different ideas about how the City should evolve in the future. Therefore, it is essential that these different ideas be represented in the planning process. An excellent way for this diversity of ideas to be included in the planning process is to ensure that the GPAC is representative of the City, including all of its different socioeconomic and ethnic groups. 230