2020

State law requires the changes be read aloud, and there are five: “reduce her base salary by 3[%] to $230,000 annually”; “remove provisions for cost of living increases unless provided to unrepresented administrative employees”; “removal [of] payment for an automobile allowance”; incorporate “her previously volunteered additional contribution to” CalPERS; and “extend the term of the contract by 2 years.” Fadelli asks why now, “when she has a year to go.” The answer, in the Mayor’s reading of the existing contract: giving notice of non-renewal “with only 12 months left… triggers the severance paragraph and we are then obligated to compensate the city manager with 12 months of base salary.” Abelson: “it is admirable that Karen is willing to take a pay cut… she’s showing us by her example that we need to do this kind of pay cut.” A speaker is “disturbed by how quickly this has come up.” The Council’s answer is that the extension “does not change the fact” that she is still an at-will employee who “could still be let go,” though that would mean paying severance — and the Mayor thanks those questioning it, saying they should not think it a rubber stamp.

The first December meeting is traditionally ceremonial, and two long-serving officers retire. Lieutenant Stephen Bonini, who started in 1997, notes his retirement “brings to a close… decades of service here from the Bonini family to the city” — his grandparents having “fled Italy and Mussolini” for El Cerrito. Captain Robert De La Campa devised, with another officer, the community police academy, which took the department “from having one police department volunteer in 2009 to having over 20.” Pardue-Okimoto, a nurse, names the part that isn’t visible: “being a police officer [is] like being a nurse — you see a lot of things that people can’t even imagine.”

Also: garbage rates rise about 2%, from under $1 a month for the smallest cart to just over $2 for the largest; asked whether the regional authority's use of reserves helps El Cerrito, which runs its own recycling, the consultant says it “is receiving the exact same benefit.” SB 1383 enforcement costs are excluded and not yet quantified. The policy subcommittee brings Rosenberg’s Rules of Order and “a process for basically admonishing a council member who has acted poorly.” The eleven o’clock adjournment rule turns out to be duplicated in two sections, and a live search finds “11 o'clock” “in four places.” And a resident asks how to get information out of the city — the answer being that direction to staff must come from a Council majority, on an agendized item.

The department’s 2019 review, delayed from May by the pandemic and the budget. Its central finding is one the department made about itself: reviewing 2017 citations, the chief was “quite alarmed at the trend” that “black motorists” were “the most likely to get tickets” in El Cerrito “compared to other groups,” which “certainly doesn’t match our regional trends.” The response was to “reorient our officers to focusing on moving violations and unsafe driving” and deemphasize “license plate and registration violations”. A second change has officers “meeting with the witness to the crime and confirming that a crime actually occurred before we started detaining people outside of stores.” Across 2017–19, “the group that saw the biggest change were black arrestees. They went down significantly.” He calls it “a bit of an experiment” still under review. A departing councilmember asks for policies that would last if the chief were to “move up or move on,” and for more public engagement.

He also compares enforcement demographics against four separate populations — city residents, the local high school, the whole school district, and the department itself — preferring the high school, since the community served includes people who shop, work and commute there. State stop-data reporting becomes mandatory for agencies of 200 officers or fewer in 2022. On low-level offenses: officers “have chosen not to make the arrest because they don’t perceive that the outcome is going to be worth the enforcement action.” And on encampments, county health guidance during the pandemic was that they not be disrupted, “because they don’t want to cause interchanging of people”.

Also: a battalion chief retires after 35 years — 37 including his time as a reserve — having created the city’s CERT program after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and built the fire hazard abatement process, “the cornerstone of our fire protection program.” Two councilmembers took his CERT training; for one it was “my introduction to the city.” A resident reports a pole fire outside her house causing an outage from Friday into Saturday, and at least four major incidents on her block in 21 years. The BART board considers the Plaza station developer two days later, with the library already identified as the city’s own decision. And the council policy document turns out not to have been revised “in 20 years.”

The fire chief opens on the anniversary: “29 years ago yesterday afternoon,” a five-acre grass fire above Buckingham Boulevard was worked “into the late evening and thought it was under control.” The next morning “an incompletely extinguished fire reignited” into a firestorm with gusts “measured over 70 miles per hour.” The battalion chief sets out two evacuation scenarios — a fire at the base of the hill leaves no time and means going door to door, while one starting in Lafayette allows a coordinated warning. Evacuation preplans are printed on paper with a QR code so mutual aid crews arriving from other cities share the same operating picture. And the abatement figures show what rewriting the paperwork achieved: about 13,000 inspections a year across El Cerrito and Kensington, “over 800 properties” cited in 2019, and after the fire marshal “reworked the standards, creating an easier to understand inspection form,” “less than 200 properties were cited compared to 800 citations a year ago.”

Station 72’s role is explained in operational terms: “having an engine already up on the hill that doesn’t have to fight traffic that’s maybe coming off the hill is highly critical.” It had been used a week and a half earlier at a fire in the hillside natural area, staged “at the top of the eucalyptus grove” because if the fire “had reached the canopy, there was no stopping it.” A councilmember notes that Berkeley’s red flag alerts tell residents to park off the street and El Cerrito’s do not.

The first quarter budget shows revenues at 11% of budget, mostly because property tax arrives in December, but “averaging well below 25% on most of these categories.” A county software glitch meant August's property transfer tax had not been sent; the county expected to send August and September together. About $800,000 of underspend, which staff confirm reflects vacancies, largely offsets the revenue shortfall against expectations; “absent further revenues,” the quarter shows a deficit of about $4.2 million. The Mayor sets the trigger in advance: one more month of weak charges for services and “we’re going to be needing to look at… a mid-year budget amendment.” And at his request, staff explain a figure that had confused the previous meeting — an apparent $900,000 saving in a summary table was “a line missing,” a spreadsheet total that summed correctly over the wrong range.

The City Manager opens with the state audit: “I’ve been in communication today with the state auditor’s office. We are going to be kicking off the state audit shortly,” conducted mostly remotely, “we’re going to sort of play that by ear.” The report published five months later names the city high risk. The amended budget itself was designed to be adopted late — a one-year budget passed before July with amendments deferred to September, when “we would have a clearer picture of the sustained revenue losses.” Her admission: “unfortunately, that has [not] come to pass as much as we’d like.” The police restructuring plans to eliminate a lieutenant, a sergeant, and the Special Operations division, which had “traditionally been charged with follow up on investigations, school resource officer response, traffic enforcement and community outreach”; one traffic officer moves into detectives for follow-up on major crimes. The fire chief on his own: “we’re taking about six or seven people’s jobs… and we’re going to spread it out among three,” which “can’t be something that we do without forever.”

Quinto: “we’ve done three taxes since I’ve been an elected official in six years. Three tax hikes. And what has this gotten us? This has gotten us in worse shape, because we’re still spending, spending, spending.” Pardue-Okimoto, voting no, says the Financial Advisory Board’s approval “does not carry with me anymore.” Mayor Lyman votes yes while disagreeing — “reluctantly voting yes, just so that we can have a document to which we are comparing all future decisions.” Pardue-Okimoto votes no on the budget motion and the Council's budget resolution, and yes on the Public Financing Authority and appropriations-limit resolutions. Twenty residents wrote in; their names are read out and the comments posted online.

Also: a 50-by-50-foot fire under the eucalyptus grove, in an area with no hydrants, held by two engines with a third staged for the houses that would have gone first. County Supervisor Gioia presents Measure X, noting Contra Costa has no county sales tax unlike other large Bay Area counties, and holds a triple-A credit rating; the Council votes to endorse it. A councilmember makes the connection to the 2020 protests: the services being demanded — mental health, homelessness, addiction, housing — “all that is done by the county.” Of 75 properties declared public nuisances in July, 55 complied under further notice and work plan agreements; 20 required forced abatement. And the meeting adjourns in memory of Chizu Iiyama.

Over four hours on the draft amended budget, presented explicitly as a first cut three weeks before adoption. The fire proposal inverts the usual logic: three hires cost “about $400,000 at a minimum” but “eliminate at least… an estimated 325 overtime shifts, which… is about $568,000” — a net saving of about $150,000, which the Mayor attributes to senior staff working the overtime and lower pension costs for new hires. The department hires already-certified firefighters rather than running an academy: 18 weeks, “between 15 and 18 thousand dollars, plus five months of salary,” plus equipment, “and then there’s no guarantee they’re going to work” out. The City Manager expects to share the analysis with the state auditor — “I do expect that they will come to us at some point.”

One exchange concerns why claimed cuts do not appear in the totals. Pardue-Okimoto notes the police pages show “a difference of about $85,000” year on year against claimed cuts of “almost $600,000… it just doesn’t seem like it’s being realized within this budget.” The explanation is a distinction the document does not draw: a vacancy is “an authorized position that is funded” but assumed unfilled, so “the salary savings would be realized” as an assumption — against city management, taken “down by one and a half… that’s not a vacancy. That’s a complete reduction.” The Mayor’s summary: “the budget book needs to tell a story. And right now the story is not clearly told all the way from front to back.” He also asks for “cost reductions in our back pocket that we can implement if and when the revenue… is not there”.

Also: the revenue anticipation note is expected “to be around for two to three more years at least,” bridging five consecutive negative cash months between July and November totalling nearly six million. Abelson establishes that a month-end cash statement can hide a mid-month low, and notes the city can “push things around” within the month. The seniors’ 60-plus newsletter turns out to have stopped being mailed — discovered by a councilmember who was a print recipient and had noticed she no longer knew what was happening. And the City Manager states the history plainly: “the city and the city council has chosen to dip into its reserves in order to continue to provide those services… we find ourselves now in a position where we can’t do that anymore.”

A councilmember proposes the one-word amendment: “I would love to use the chief’s own words instead of improving — reimagining policing in our city.” Asked what action the “commits to act” clause refers to, the answer is “not yet”: the Human Relations Commission is meeting to come up with actions for the Council. Pardue-Okimoto speaks from both sides: she describes being protected by police as a fourteen-year-old after an attempted rape, and then says “now that I’m the mother of black sons, I do have a different view of the police.” Public comment presses further — a petition based on the Color of Change platform, signed by over 330 people, asking for use of force limits, civilian review of all force reports, a no-knock ban, surveillance equipment limits, and settlements paid from the police budget rather than the general fund.

The compensation presentation gives the date: “the last time the city did a comprehensive study” of classification and compensation “was in nineteen ninety six.” So the benchmark cities the city sets pay against were chosen twenty-four years earlier, updated piecemeal in-house, because such studies are expensive. Pardue-Okimoto questions both the list and the target: those cities have “larger budgets” and more taxpayers, and “I’m not sure if shooting for the median is really where we should be at.” All the vacant positions, fire and police, are worth “close to another 1” million, with “zero plans to fill” the police posts, and furloughs apply only to non-sworn staff “in the interest of trying to save overtime.”

Also: CAHOOTS is put with figures — “with only 2 percent or less of the city budget for police, [they] are responding to nearly 20 percent of the calls that come in to 911.” About eighty properties are declared fire nuisances (75 still out of compliance after inspections), with the Mayor noting the pattern: “in the past we have gone from 80 properties to as few as three or four that we have to abate.” A councilmember says of fires: “This is every month now.” Outdoor dining is approved as “a bit of a social experiment… to see how much we can all behave,” enforced by complaint. And a written comment alleges a councilmember named a constituent’s real surname and street in a public online exchange — the second such complaint in two months.

Pardue-Okimoto speaks about her own children: “losing a child is every parent’s worst fear. The fear is so terrible that we don’t even want to speak [it], in fear that it might come true. But we must talk about this now, because if we don’t, it will come true again and again.” She describes two white friends reaching out, one asking what she could do — which “kind of struck me, like, well, what would you do for me?” Her answer: “just speak up whenever you get the chance — not because I’m there or some other black person is there, but just if you know something is wrong.” Her reason: “if racism were up to black people [it would] be over already.” The Mayor: “racism is fear and hatred. We have no room for racism in El Cerrito.” The police department holds a town hall on policing on 1 July, recorded in the resolution the Council amends that month from “improving” to “reimagining” policing.

The borrowing resolution draws the most questions. A resident notes that on 4 June 2019 the Council approved the note “as a consent item… unanimously approved without any discussion — the 9 million payday loan” He asks how the cash flow projections were computed and whether “the 2021 sales tax amount will be larger than the 2020 amount[s].” Another argues it “does not pass the smell test and needs an independent review… such as” by the Financial Advisory Board, and that debt capacity used for cash flow is unavailable for a disaster. And a councilmember, reading the offering statement, finds the November split roll initiative undisclosed to investors — bond counsel: “that’s a good point… we will add that for the next draft.” The city had issued a note in each of the last eight years; this one passes unanimously, with the underwriter’s discount cap corrected from 3.5 to 0.35 percent.

Also: the affordable housing fund holds about $300,000, left from a former Redevelopment Agency repayment, while one approved project, the Griffin at 183 units, will contribute $1 million. A resident analyzes the rent registry at “about 10 units each day” covering roughly 66 percent of rental units, and argues the form itself is the bottleneck: “why not hire a consultant trained in designing forms for data collection? We seem to hire consultants for everything else.” Management and confidential employees are required to pay an additional 1 percent of the employer pension contribution , and the City Manager an additional 3 percent. And a speaker proposes a four-step admission: the city is in crisis, it was before the pandemic, the cause was lack of oversight, and the remedy is fixing chronic over-optimism.

The first: “last week one council person took it upon himself to denigrate one of our fine citizens and a group that has advocated for progressive causes, in a comment on a Facebook post… to call out where someone used to work and use that as a weapon against them is awful.” And: “this is not the first time this council member has attacked a member of this group in public.” The second is more formal: “I shouldn’t have to tell you that elected officials should try to listen to their constituents, not attack them on social media… there is now a pattern that has emerged. Three individuals who are also members of El Cerrito Progressives… have been repeatedly disparaged by one councilman.” Both compare the conduct to national politics — the first to “the same bullying manner that we see daily from the president” — and the first notes that absent an ethics violation “there seems to be no recourse.” Neither names him. A councilmember admonishment process is proposed to the Council that December; a third, separate complaint is read on 21 July.

The budget study session introduces the framework that becomes the fiscal response plan. Services are scored zero to four on whether they are mandated, whether the service level is mandated, and whether anyone else could provide them — with a qualification: “oftentimes with mandated services you are required to provide it, but the level of service is not mandated. And so there is some flexibility within that.” The worked example is deliberately from another state so no El Cerrito service is named in the demonstration. And the tool totals the options: “once we have an idea of what number we’re trying to hit… then you can say, well, I don’t want that.” A councilmember asks for the options to be published — “we need to lift that out for the public”.

Also: Supervisor Gioia notes the 16 March Bay Area shelter order was “the very first shelter at home order issued in the United States,” that the county will have spent “about one hundred and thirty million dollars out of our reserves,” and that over 96 percent of April property tax was paid despite a penalty waiver — but the assessor’s roll is delayed to August, so cities may not know the impact on their budgets until after 1 July. The financial adviser says a revenue anticipation note “is not a solution for long term structural deficits.” A hillside subdivision hearing turns on a finding that runs backwards: to refuse, the Council would need evidence the exception would “actually cause injury” — in California law, physical damage to another property. And two labor agreements, for the general employees and the police association, and the management resolution are adopted with no cost-of-living increase this year; the management group also takes at least 13 unpaid furlough days.

A written comment asks: “have you considered terminating the city manager’s employment? While she and her predecessor may not have defrauded our city, they certainly mismanaged our finances… [and put us] in a situation that has nothing to do with covid-19.” Failing that, “I urge the council to reduce the city manager’s compensation substantially… it will demonstrate that you are holding her accountable.” The Mayor takes a point of privilege to respond to public comments: payroll is “seventy five percent of the general fund expenditure”; the Council hires exactly two people, “the city manager and the city attorney”; and negotiating labor terms “in the press or from the d[ais]” can constitute bad faith bargaining. Then the framework: “we need to reduce payroll and reduce positions before we reduce services… [and] reduce the level of service before we reduce range of service.” A written comment two weeks later objects that statements by councilmembers at this meeting felt like attacks on the public.

The fee schedule hearing shows where staff chose not to raise fees. Community center rates had risen 3 to 4 percent a year until almost the only renters left were co-sponsored groups paying half — and lowering the resident rate brought a big increase in private rentals: “we’d rather go after more volume, more rentals, as opposed to raising fees.” Tree permit fees are deliberately set below the arborist hours they consume “so as to encourage new plantings.” And a written comment attacks the building permit fees: “just a couple of years ago a comprehensive fee study was supposed to have established appropriate fees. Why are the building permit fees… so wildly out of sync with actual costs already?” — adding that the separate 65 percent plan check charge, explained in small print, makes the fees “not easy to understand with quick inspection.”

Also: the landscape and lighting assessment stays at $72 per parcel because a 2006 attempt at a new district “actually passed for all of the residential properties” and was defeated by commercial property weight — the ballot being weighted by assessed value, not one vote per parcel. The projected year-end deficit is given as $2.3 million; the completed audit revises it to about minus $110,000. Furloughs are noticed rather than imposed because the personnel rules and MOUs “are silent on furloughs.” And monthly financial statements are requested and agreed by straw poll near the end of a four-and-a-half-hour meeting; monthly reports follow through 2020.

The auditor’s central findings. A material weakness “which is… continu[ing] as a going concern” — treated as an internal control weakness because “we believe that [action] would have been taken to address the matter sooner” — and it “is not new.” The reported surplus: general fund revenues exceeded expenditures “by one hundred forty nine thousand,” but “that was after several one-time revenues that are not going to be coming in the future” — about $800,000 from a property sale and “one point one million transferred from grant funds to correct some previous accounting issues.” On fee-funded departments, not covering costs is “the case with almost every city we audit”; on the structural question: “over the years the tax revenues were never higher than” the net cost of services. And on the pandemic: “cities that have built balance and reserve… are probably going to be able to navigate that… cities that have not would have to figure out some other ways,” adding that he “would be looking for a management plan”.

A separate finding: the city spent over $750,000 in federal funds without reporting it, so the compliance audit that threshold triggers was done late. And the auditor explains that fund balance overstates what is usable — prepayments and redevelopment-era amounts are equity but not spendable, so “the spending” portion is “the one that’s gonna be available for you to respond quickly” in an emergency. Pardue-Okimoto sets the timeline: before the pandemic the city was “in the black half a million dollars” with a $2 million reduction plan already agreed for July — “our low reserves made us unique” while the crisis itself did not.

Also: the $4 million covid revenue estimate is sanity-checked against Oakland’s own projection at $160 per head. The biennial budget cycle is deferred because “you don’t even know what the economy is going to do… people don’t yet know what their habits are going to even be”, and Abelson recalls a budget committee finding that a one-year budget is better when things are not going well. The City Manager answers the charge of delay by describing the constraint: “our civil service system exists in order to make [it] difficult for management to just cut people.” A resident restates the Mayor’s hierarchy and asks “why is there only a proposal for the city council division?” — the Council takes up its own budget four days later. And the teleconference platform fails completely mid-meeting, members rejoining one at a time while the city attorney takes a roll by sight.

The consultants call their steps to avoid insolvency “precautionary.” The test: “a municipality is or will be unable to pay its obligations within the next 60 days” — so “filing for Chapter 9 in California really looks at the overall cash flow,” and “those aren’t necessarily external creditors, those are your employees as well.” The city was pursuing a revenue anticipation note to cover its cash flow, not yet secured: “if the [note] doesn’t come through, that’s a different ballgame.” On the federal package, the coronavirus relief fund sends 45 percent of California’s $15.3 billion to “cities over 500,000 population,” so “there’s not going to be any relief… as it relates to the city of El Cerrito. Frankly, most cities in California.” And the general fund, the consultant said, had no reserve to buffer the storm.

The diagnosis also identifies pressures that predate the pandemic. The utility users tax shrinks as people drop landlines for internet and cable for streaming. The landscape and lighting assessment is fixed against rising costs. Infrastructure in the parks master plan and pavement study is “funded below” required levels. An engagement finding: “very high levels of expectation for service delivery… maybe this is in part a reflection of the accessibility and the sense of responsiveness.” The finding they put in bold is the budget and staffing limitation. About $400,000 of the planned $2 million reduction assumes employees forgo their cost of living increases, still under negotiation; if every unit agrees the savings pass $750,000.

Also: the county would not offer a scaled library option — “they’re not giving us choices” — and required an answer by 1 May. The Mayor recalled El Cerrito as one of only two of the county's 19 cities with a library open on Sundays. A written comment sets out the EMS billing case with the city’s own figures: 3,643 fire calls in 2019, a record and an 18 percent increase, of which 1,200 were medical, while Albany and Berkeley both bill insurers at around $300. The “events and field trips” line turns out to house the budgets for every board, commission and committee. And the strategic planning workshop scheduled for 14 March was canceled by the local emergency declared the day before.

Fire overtime alone “runs around 1.1, $1.2 million” while “the budget had provided for just 700,000”; together with police, “public safety overtime came in at 1.6… and the total budget for that was only 700,000.” It was absorbed by the transfer tax — “without Measure V we’d have been… extremely tight.” The mid-year update then explains the mechanics: out-of-county deployments are reimbursed at 150 percent, covering the backfill, but “we don’t track that overtime… because this isn’t a revenue line item. This is an expense line item” — so the figure looks worse than it is. The real driver is absence: training, family leave, injury, “a firefighter out for almost four months due to worker’s comp.”

The annual financial report carries a clean “unmodified opinion” on statements that also carry a going concern warning. Program revenues rose $3.73 million while expenses rose $8 million. And the finance director presents a five-year pension chart: contributions “increased from $3.8 million in 2015 and have reached… $6.3 million in 2019,” assembled from five annual reports, whose notes record each year’s payments. The liability is projected to reach “66 million potentially” the following year.

Also: twenty speakers at the podium, cut to two minutes each by the traffic-light system — a teacher on why children need the library (“they live in small spaces with a lot of people… many of our students find it difficult to find that peace and quiet”), a resident urging eucalyptus removal as “something that might be easier than undergrounding,” and another using two minutes on the design rules of the city flag, holding up a redesign. El Cerrito qualifies as a Tree City USA for the first time. The council policy subcommittee is formed, its founder noting “we don’t have a policy on how items are introduced right now.” And the Council decides which city events to suspend, keeping the Fourth of July with reduced costs, more sponsors and arts funding; by April the festival is not happening.

Three reduction scenarios are shown as three lines on one chart, each labeled with the reserve ratio it produces — $1 million, $2 million, $3 million — and the Council’s guidance out of this session is the middle line. A councilmember questions the revenue side: the transfer tax, expected to bring $2–2.2 million that year, is forecast flat at $2.5 million — “is 2.5 million in 2021 aggressive?” The finance director, noting “we haven’t had a recession in the last 10 years,” concedes “2.5 could be aggressive.” And the item dragging the reserve ratio down in the forecast’s later years is a $1.3 million write-off against $1.4 million owed to the general fund, taken “just being conservative” because a matter has been at the Court of Appeal “since 2016” and “we still don’t have a hearing date” — either “backed up with other litigation, or they just have swept us aside.”

In public comment, one speaker: “the charts really don’t appear to assume negative consequences… I’ve never seen a budget like this… there continues to be no discussion about diversifying the tax base. You’re sunk unless you diversify. You’re done. This is headed toward bankruptcy, and if you don’t see that, let me be clear. You’re bankrupt right now.” Another challenges an answer she was given at the Saturday town hall: “housing does not generate revenue — it actually puts more pressure on our services.” And a third credits the process: “it was good to have you guys listen to us,” while conceding “these decisions… are going to be painful, and a lot of people are going to be hurt by them.” About a hundred people, some twenty of them staff, attended that town hall; it was not recorded.

Also: Quinto on why economic development falls to councilmembers — “we don’t have an economic development” function, so “I’m committed to going to Dublin and Concord and speaking to the owner of those car dealerships.” Fadelli: “we will get something on the other side of the ledger” — and on the specific plan, “it may not be bringing in the revenue, but it’s taking shape the way our planners have thought it should.” The transfer tax collection moves to the county because the city gets records “approximately 30 days after these transactions occur” while the county gets them “prior to the close of escrow.” And the school district’s superintendent, teachers’ union president and two board members present Measure R, a $575 million bond; the Mayor asks them to answer the cost-overrun criticism, and the Council divides.

The department bought its drone in June 2018, eighteen months before any policy governing it came to Council. After a November public meeting, permitted uses were narrowed to “felony crimes or… severe threats to life or property,” and non-evidentiary footage is kept “for 366 days before we destroy it.” Asked whether the drone could film the MLK march, the chief declines: “I don’t want anybody at that event to feel like the police are watching them.” Public comment asks for something larger: “that El Cerrito adopt an overall policy on the use of surveillance equipment and data before allowing any specific devices… not because of any known issues with the police department.” A speaker notes “the fire department also has a drone and apparently no city council oversight.” Another: surveillance technology “needs and deserves a law of its own”. “The actual presence of a drone whirring overhead is deeply intimidating. It chills speech.” A councilmember says the purchase before the policy encourages her to pursue an ordinance, and the chief agrees to return before buying another drone. License plate readers are adopted in March 2023.

The City Manager reports the state auditor’s five concerns — reserves and the plan to replenish them, pension and retiree health liabilities, a general fund unable to support “our full service city,” and “sustaining our full service fire department and the overtime costs versus vacant positions” — and reads the city’s draft response: “the city does agree that we are facing significant financial challenges, and we do recognize the benefits that a formal audit could bring.” The response also disputes the auditor on retiree health, which the city does not fund. The general fund ended 2018–19 at a negative $56,692. The Mayor sets out what the budget process must explain: why the utility users tax and transfer tax are “not climbing as rapidly as expected,” and “how stores like Target, or Orchard Supply, or Guitar Center leaving caused… large drops in our sales tax revenue.”

Also: former redevelopment land at the Potrero gateway sells for $350,000, with a guard against speculation carried over from earlier sales: if it is resold before development, the city takes half the net proceeds. A project stabilization agreement for municipal work is taken up at a former mayor’s request, and a union representative tells the Council that workers building its own City Hall were paid for “16 hours a week” while “working them 16 hours a day… sleeping on the ground here at night,” and that someone went to prison over it; staff reply that it happened on other jobs: “It did not happen on our job.” A library at Plaza BART comes up again, first floated by the City Manager in June 2018. The Urban Forest Committee reports 551 tons of carbon sequestered a year and more than 4,000 vacant planting sites. And a creek clean-up finds piles of clothing where an encampment had been.