Planning Director Andrea Kiefer told the council on May 22 that the planning department seeks to update the city’s interim Transportation Impact Analysis (TIA) guidelines and asked the council to authorize a $16,000 agreement with ATE, the city’s on‑call traffic engineering firm.

“ATE is the city’s on‑call traffic engineer. They’ve been providing traffic analysis services regarding development projects and related transportation policy guidance to the city for well over 20 years,” Kiefer said, describing the firm’s institutional knowledge and the timely need to align the TIA guidelines with the draft land‑use and circulation goals in the comprehensive general plan update and with recent CEQA and Caltrans guidance.

Kiefer told the council the work would update interim TIA thresholds and criteria used in environmental review and would provide a user‑friendly guidance document for development reviews during the general plan transition. The proposal would also reflect recent changes in how traffic impacts are measured under CEQA and include coordination with Caltrans where projects affect state roadways.

Council voted to authorize the city manager to execute the agreement with ATE for $16,000 and directed staff to adjust the current budget to cover the amount. The motion passed with roll‑call aye votes from Council Member Barnett, Council Member Sanchez and Mayor Silva.

The contract is intended to ensure that traffic assessments for projects currently in the pipeline use updated thresholds and that the city has tailored, implementable traffic assessment tools while the comprehensive general plan update is completed.