San Ramon council sets April 22 hearing on FY 2025–26 master fee schedule; special‑event permit fee decision deferred

The San Ramon City Council on March 25 set a public hearing for April 22 to consider adoption of the city's FY 2025–26 master fee schedule, but members agreed to defer final action on new special‑event permit application fees while staff and council review nonprofit impacts.

Staff presentation: staff member Joe (presenting for finance/administration) summarized the master fee schedule changes. The packet lists 9,780 fees citywide; staff said 4,087 would remain unchanged, 4,678 would be adjusted (largely by CPI at 3.53% or a construction cost index) and 13 fees would be new. Joe described three special‑event tiers used to set processing fees: tier 1 (events processed only by Parks & Community Services), tier 2 (requires parks plus other departments and possibly traffic control), and tier 3 (involves multiple city departments, the county or the fire district). Under the two‑phase approach recommended earlier by staff, tier fees would reach full cost recovery by FY 2025–26: tier 1 = $440, tier 2 = $970 and tier 3 = $3,101.

Council questions and staff clarifications Parks staff (May, Parks & Community Services) explained how tiers differ and said the city budgets roughly 4 tier‑1 events and 4 tier‑2 events per year, and about 2 tier‑3 events per year; staff said many tier‑2 and tier‑3 permits are submitted by nonprofit groups. May said the fees reflect staff time, site visits and permit processing time and that the numbers came from a consultant cost‑of‑service analysis.

Council members asked for more detail and asked staff to return with a clear breakdown of staff hours, the number of events in each tier and the expected fiscal impact of phasing increases over two versus four years. Council member Adler and Vice Mayor Varoz both requested more transparency on the calculations and comparable fees from neighboring jurisdictions.

Nonprofit concerns and staff policy recommendation Several council members and commenters noted the impact on nonprofit event organizers and suggested a waiver or reduced‑fee policy. The city manager and staff recommended developing a formal policy (to go to the policy committee) to address fee relief or waivers for local nonprofits or special circumstances, which could be considered separately from the master‑fee adoption. Council asked staff to return with a draft waiver policy for council consideration.

Public comment Resident Jim Blickenstaff urged the council to lower a separate fee he flagged as prohibitive: the administrative appeal fee for appealing Planning Commission decisions to the City Council. "This fee for that, as far as I can tell, is $4,500 for residents to appeal what they consider a poor decision by the planning commission," Blickenstaff said, and compared San Ramon's appeal cost unfavorably to Danville's ($311). He argued the high appeal fee discourages civic participation and asked the council to reconsider the amount and whether fees should be refundable if the appeal is successful.

Council action Council voted unanimously to set the April 22 public hearing to consider the master fee schedule and directed staff to prepare additional detail on the special‑event fees, provide comparative benchmarks and draft a nonprofit/fee‑waiver policy for committee review. The council's motion excluded final adoption of the special‑event permit application fees pending further analysis and policy work.

Ending Staff will return with the requested breakdown of event counts, staff‑hour calculations, peer comparisons and a draft nonprofit waiver policy for committee/council review prior to final fee adoption.