2023

The fire chief reports a fast-moving grass fire west of Motorcycle Hill, reached three minutes after dispatch and held at under an acre by a fuel break cleared two years earlier and maintained annually — “the fire came right up to that fire road.” Asked about causes, he confirms this was the second fire in the hillside natural area and that both are classified undetermined for want of cameras or witnesses, but “they were sets.” The City Manager, who watched the response by chance on her way back to the office, credits the department and adds that “we benefited from some luck that day. It was good weather, not a lot of wind.”

Two residents raise the library. Betsy Basher says she “heard there was a financial analysis that was done that isn't being released to the public,” and a survey too, and “anything to do with this really should be public” — the same complaint Ira Sharenow makes two weeks later about records requests. Sherry Drobner, who spent her career in Alameda County and Richmond libraries, says she wants the new library and cannot yet champion the tax, because “the tax measure comes at a time when there seems to be so many questions of trust and confidence about transparency and accountability” — questions “really apart from the discussion about a need for a new library.”

The Council amends the United Against Hate Week proclamation, on a motion recorded as Councilmember Fadelli's, to record that the city “has experienced racist comments through its public comment process”. And the city awards a $184,269 contract to PlaceWorks for the first comprehensive safety element update since 1999, driven by state law now requiring evacuation route capacity analysis and identification of residential developments in hazard areas with fewer than two points of access. Draft state seismic maps show “a pretty large net increase” of landslide area.

The environmental scan reports that average income is 33% above the California average, that over 50% of residents and over 50% of city employees identify as non-white, that authorized positions have decreased and retirements spiked, and that El Cerrito has the second highest property crime rate among Contra Costa cities — down from first, with two BART stations named as a likely factor. Councilmember Quinto says: “things were hidden the past 10 years about unfunded liabilities, and it was skewed to make it one way.”

The Council then drafts aloud. “Sustainable” is replaced with “resilient” because “sustainable often can be inferred as sustaining the status quo.” “Fostering” a high quality of life becomes asserting one, because “fostering sets a very low bar.” “We champion public transparency” becomes “we practice” it, on the argument that the original sounds like asking for credit. A draft proposes reducing eight organizational values to five; ethics and integrity and fiscal responsibility are in the top three for both Council and employees, who differ only on the third.

A resident raises the participation gap: over half the population is non-white, and “at most of these meetings they are not present.” Councilmember Wysinger answers that “there is a history for certain people when it comes to the city of El Cerrito” and that many “don’t feel that these services by the city are for them.” Mayor Motoyama explains why the day looks as it does: because of the Brown Act, “this is our only chance to talk among ourselves” about the plan before the Council has to decide on it. The library appears nowhere in the livability strategies until a councilmember asks why.

After a brief statement by Mayor Motoyama, Mayor Pro Tem Rudnick speaks: “as your Jewish council member, and the only Jewish municipal elected in West County… children who I saw playing in Gaza only a few months ago are now among the horrific images.” She quotes Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg — “we will not get anywhere by damning entire nations of people” — and adds that “Hamas is not the Palestinian people, and Netanyahu [and his government] are not all Israelis.” The City Manager separately apologizes for a remark caught on a hot mic at the previous meeting.

Councilmember Wysinger, objecting to the removal of virtual participation, reports that a man in apparent distress called her the N-word and the B-word on the street that day, and that she was called the same at the dais the month before; her objection is not the words: “the harm is not in the name calling… [it is] that we have decided that we’re gonna placate to people who don’t feel that they should have to go through” hearing it. Three weeks later the Council adopts a proclamation recording that racist comments have occurred in its own public comment process. A high school student identifies a door-zone bike lane outside Harding Elementary and proposes swapping it with the parking lane — a change that nothing in the archive reports being made.

The year closes with an unaudited surplus of about $5.6 million: revenues $2.2 million over, expenditures $3.9 million under, the underspend attributed to vacancies. And the fire chief answers the question residents have been asking since Lahaina, a state system built since 1976; closing the parks and shutting off power lines on hot, windy days to remove “our 2 largest causes” of wildfire; warnings and hillside cameras; and aircraft that “can be here in 30 min.” A resident reports that a member of her group found a patch still smouldering in the hillside natural area that same day.

Two weeks after councilmembers were targeted by hate speech over Zoom, the city has suspended remote public comment. Mayor Motoyama: “we do not want to give a platform to hate speech and allow our council meetings to be a venue to amplify it” — and “over 35 cities, including El Cerrito, have been targeted,” mostly by people who “do not live in our community, and some likely not even in California.” The City Manager frames it as an employer’s duty to prevent “an abusive, hostile, or intimidating working environment” for staff, not as a rule of order.

Staff recommend purchasing up to two diesel recycling trucks for $1.1 million. The two being replaced are fifteen years old against an industry standard of seven to ten; three trucks run daily routes with one backup; delivery takes a year. An electric equivalent costs about $1 million against $500,000 for diesel, and Santa Cruz’s purchase turned on a $600,000 grant El Cerrito does not have — there are “3, or maybe 4” electric refuse trucks in the entire state. Councilmember Fadelli asks for evidence the trucks are unsafe; staff say they are not demonstrably unsafe but need repair more often, and industry practice replaces trucks at seven to ten years. The Council approves one truck, not to exceed $550,000, and directs staff to look into funding for EV infrastructure.

Mayor Pro Tem Rudnick notes that a 2021 study on privatizing recycling collection had not been reported back, and elicits its conclusion: the city provides the service at lower cost than a private hauler would. Gary Prost commends the Measure X-funded 100-foot firebreak and warns “that shaded fuel break has to be maintained — in 2 years it’s gonna be overgrown again,” and notes his group has asked for an evacuation drill for five years, both departments having agreed before Covid that it was a top priority. Trail Trekkers report a signage plan approved in 2016 whose Measure WW funding expires next year.

This is the meeting targeted by the coordinated hate-speech campaign that leads the city to suspend remote public comment a fortnight later. The archive’s captions contain a gap of several minutes in the first public comment period, immediately after a remote speaker is called; what was said is not in this record. Earlier the same evening, Councilmember Wysinger had corrected a colleague’s account of where the current wave of hate came from: Trump “did not open the door to hate and racism, it was always here”; he emboldened people to say openly what they had been “saying in private circles.” “I want to make sure people know this is not new.”

The Council establishes the PARS Section 115 pension trust with a $1 million deposit — “it started with the state auditor” — and introduces an ordinance raising its own compensation from $441 to $650 a month, the first change since 1991. Councilmember Fadelli supports the motion but abstains, on a principle he says he has held for decades: he will not vote to raise the pay of a sitting council. Councilmember Wysinger supports it with a disclosure: she lost her job a month after being elected, lived on unemployment, and considered resigning.

On consent, the Public Works Director reveals that Richmond Street had been deliberately held back from the paving program “in anticipation of the East Bay MUD pipeline project,” with a year spent negotiating EBMUD paying the city toward restoration — and that the city planned to use that restoration to improve pedestrian crossings, curb ramps and bike routes. Ira Sharenow gives the source of the pavement figures quoted for the next two years: a Harris report showing the index at 69, projected to fall to 65 by 2027, with deferred maintenance rising from about $15 million to $17 million.

The City Manager discloses that on 9 August the city became aware of a cyber incident, with third-party specialists and law enforcement “actively investigating this issue and monitoring the unauthorized actors.” This is the attack the mid-year budget names in March 2024 as an unbudgeted cost; nothing in the built record reports what was taken. Six days after Lahaina, Sue Duncan gives the measurement: “from the top of Terrace Drive above the Arlington to the Costco parking lot is 3.2 miles… All of El Cerrito is at risk.” Councilmember Quinto adds the Santa Rosa comparison: “it was the flatlands… that burnt down.”

The Council adopts the surplus waterfall drafted by a Financial Advisory Board subcommittee — general fund reserve first, then the emergency disaster relief fund to 100% of target, then a minimum 33% of the remainder to pensions, then one-time spending — and funds the EDRF for the first time since its creation in 2019. Mayor Pro Tem Rudnick notices the FAB vote was not unanimous and invites the dissenting member to explain: folding the emergency fund into the general fund balance means “when we talk about a percentage, it was a percentage of one thing, and now we’re talking about a percentage of 2 things.” That ambiguity recurs.

The sixth cycle housing element is adopted without any major rezoning, because much of the required inventory is already permitted under the San Pablo Avenue specific plan, though staff warn zoning changes may be needed during the cycle. Howdy Goudey objects that the last cycle overperformed on market-rate housing while falling 151 units short on affordable, and that the new policies are “a lot of encourage” with “no real hard policies… no good timelines.” A councilmember pulls the countywide smart signals item to question its cameras: “these systems are getting so intrusive… if people understood what these cameras could do, there would be more concern.”

Resident David Marshman gives his account of the senior center: “we lost our senior center because of Covid. That was 2 years ago. We’ll never get our senior center back, because I saw it go down the highway on the back of a truck. It’s just gone.” He adds that “the Kensington Police department has got our space.” He adds the financial charge: “you did make money on not operating a senior center, because now you’re making income from where our senior center was.”

The Council commissions the LSA contract for the Hillside Natural Area Fire Resilience plan — about a year to develop, then CEQA, with adoption hoped for August 2024. Mayor Pro Tem Rudnick asks what the city can fund in the interval and what future budgets should carry; the plan received in June 2024 explicitly excludes costing. Sue Duncan connects insurance non-renewals to the city’s own revenue: “having insurable homes is key to home value, and home value affects the RPTT, and therefore the city budget.” Scott Tipping: the hillside is “in horrible shape right now, the worst it’s been in 20 years.”

The military equipment ordinance is renewed after a public meeting on 3 May that nobody attended, noticed thirty days ahead to 3,600 Nixle subscribers, with no complaint received all year. Under questioning from a councilmember, the Chief explains that a fire department drone is not military equipment until the police use it. The proposed budget carries a $1.6 million list of one-time projects sitting outside it entirely, modeled only to show the reserve would survive funding all of them — and $10,000 in the City Manager’s budget for every board, commission and committee in the city, whose budgets had been cut to nothing.

Fire Chief Saylors, asked about internal diversity work, answers that the department’s policy is sound and “honestly, our big gaps are in infrastructure — meaning that the actual buildings are geared toward one gender.” Station 51 has one small shared bathroom and locker room; his evidence is time spent with the department’s last woman firefighter, who retired, whose experiences “were all positive except for the infrastructure at station 51.” Asked whether it can be remodeled: “I do think it has to be entirely rebuilt.” Police Chief Keith says the state of the building is “a really big drag on our recruitment of women applicants” and asks for basic improvements and deferred maintenance. Mayor Motoyama: “we need to do better than a pink powder room.”

Chief Keith explains that state law requires encryption of police communications, with a secondary channel for personal identifying information, at a cost of “about 150 to $160,000” from the COPS grant. He also proposes a second license plate reader system, for parking enforcement, from the abandoned vehicle abatement fund, and describes how camera data and cell phone extraction combine in retail theft investigations. Fourteen officers were trained in fifteen months, leaving many of patrol’s sixteen officers with under eighteen months’ service.

The finance director has resigned effective 12 May, and the city’s recently retired IT manager becomes interim finance director at the top of the pay scale under a 960-hour CalPERS annuitant cap. Community Development — seven or eight people, down two positions — processes 1,200 permits a year and also runs economic development, affordable housing, parking permits and business licenses. Director Mintz offers her own diagnosis: “we actually don’t have business vacancies. What we have is properties that are vacant and not being built.”

Asked about the library property, the City Manager explains that the city owns the building “and probably just about the equivalent of a parking space around” it — then adds an account of the senior center: “if you remember the old senior center which was behind the library, that was on school district property… the reason the senior center is gone is because the school district declined to renew the lease with the city.” By her account the loss followed the school district's decision, not a city decision.

The general fund reserve stands at $16,624,174; “at the end of 2019 it was negative $110,000.” Three things did it: ARPA funding, a strong property market with the new transfer tax, and cuts — about “10% of our budget,” with ten staff laid off, salaries frozen and furloughs, and “none of those revenue enhancements would have made a difference” without them. Of the $16.6 million, about $10 million exists because of those cuts and the market, and “there’s going to have to be some investment back.” The city moved from sixth to thirteenth on the state auditor’s high-risk dashboard.

The Financial Advisory Board chair, asking for himself, supplies a detail: around 2017-18 the general fund reserve minimum was, he believes, reduced to 10% because the emergency disaster relief fund was created alongside it; the City Manager says that fund could be “fully funded right now, if the Council chose.” The City Manager goes on record that “10% is too low,” while naming the counter-pressure: “are we then going to be accused of hoarding money?” She also volunteers that the city’s public outreach has been inadequate for three or four years, the eliminated position being the reason.

A 20,000 square foot library on Parcel C West with a $21.2 million budget in 2025 dollars, $20.4 million of it bond-eligible — about “60 to 80 percent of what a standalone would be,” because costs are shared and the developer builds the shell, foundations and mechanical systems. The Library Foundation’s president puts the saving at “up to 10 million dollars.” El Cerrito sits at the bottom of its comparator chart at 0.22 square feet of library per resident; 20,000 would put it mid-chart. The existing branch was “built in 48, renovated in 1960.” The developer moved the library from phase one to phase three specifically to give the city time to find the money.

Staff examine each alternative in turn: general fund reserves, developer financing, a parking benefit district whose revenue assumption the pandemic destroyed, an enhanced infrastructure financing district that “would take several years,” and the state library grant program, which “requires matching funds and we don’t have those matching funds right now.” Staff conclude none of these is the answer “at this time,” though they will keep pursuing the grant, and present a ballot measure as “an effective mechanism.” Both instruments then required two-thirds: a general obligation bond taxing assessed value, or a parcel tax that “cannot be based on value” but could be flat, by parcel size or by building square footage — the structure Measure C eventually takes.

Asked about “the signature type” of measure, the City Attorney explains that the appellate district covering El Cerrito has held that a special tax reaching the ballot “as a result of a voter-sponsored initiative” requires “only a simple majority.” His worked example is what happens three years later. The pollster sets the decision rule in the same session: about 75% support would make a two-thirds measure comfortable. The October 2023 poll returns 57%. And the newly created Committee for a Plaza Station Library is announced from the public microphone.

A CCTA-led collaborative wins just under $29 million from the federal Safe Streets and Roads for All program, with El Cerrito’s share funding the Richmond Street redesign — and the East Bay MUD pipeline named as the reason the timing works, because the city can design while the utility digs. Three quarters of the grant is earmarked for underrepresented communities. El Cerrito is separately named one of ten pro-housing cities in the state, which buys preference points in state funding scoring.

A FEMA-funded seismic study counts about 1,200 units in roughly 250 soft story buildings — 11% of the city’s housing stock, but 39% of its multi-unit stock. No designated affordable, senior or assisted housing appears on the list apart from possibly one building. About fifty buildings look as though they came from the same set of plans, a finding the consultant says he has not seen elsewhere. And the state’s Brace and Bolt rebate covers only one and two family dwellings — it cannot be used on a single one of the buildings identified.

From 1 March, under AB 2449, remote participation without a public location is limited to two just-cause uses per member per year, and 20% of meetings in all, and a quorum must be physically present. The consequence for everyone else: all thirteen advisory bodies return to in-person only, because “the current technology in this room does require 2 to 3 staff members to run a hybrid meeting, and staffing level simply cannot support” it. The Council also approves a $350,000 predevelopment loan for 70 affordable units at the BART site, and three Caltrans maintenance agreements — one of which renegotiates a reimbursement rate unchanged since 1992, producing savings of over 50%.

Howdy Goudey, chairing the Environmental Quality Committee, reports that the committee sent staff a memo recommending “better protocols for communicating between advisory bodies and council and staff” — and that “we were very disappointed that there was no response. After 2 months staff elected to take no action, and not reply to us.” So the committee voted to pass it formally to the Council. What he asks for is modest: “a more meaningful dialogue… doesn’t mean you always have to do what we say. But I think responses are warranted.” Two months later the Mayor forms an ad hoc committee on advisory bodies; the regulations it produces are adopted in March 2024.

The same committee’s other recommendation — that the outdoor dining ordinance encourage electric rather than gas patio heating — produces ten minutes of procedure. A motion to add it had failed in December; the guidelines are part of an urgency ordinance needing a four-fifths vote; the City Manager twice offers to direct staff to do it without any motion at all. Councilmember Fadelli insists on voting anyway: “if we pass a motion, then the city manager has to act on that.” A councilmember states the reason — write it down “so nobody forgets to say, oh, by the way, would you consider a non fossil fuel heating system.” Carried unanimously.

Public works reports on a month of storms: nearly 2,000 free sandbags, 94 work orders since 19 December, a sinkhole on Calusa where a storm drain pipe failed — and seven work orders where staff delivered sandbags to disabled or senior residents. The cash and investment report, pulled by the Mayor to understand it, explains how city money above FDIC limits is protected: a contractual pledge of 110% collateral from Mechanics Bank against a statutory minimum of 100%. And the retired IT manager is hired back for twenty hours a week under a CalPERS exception.