2024

Twenty-eight speakers sign up, and fifteen are heard before comment is closed at the thirty-minute cap. Most address Richmond Street — including a child, Phoebe, who says the Richmond and Potrero intersection “is really bad” and gives three reasons, the last of which she says “isn't really a safety issue,” and Steve Price, who states plainly that “entirely removing all on-street parking is not proposed in any of the designs floated so far.” Five address a Gaza ceasefire resolution the outgoing Council never placed on an agenda, one of them naming three members individually. A protest outside produces closed doors and three formal warnings; asked whether to continue, the Mayor says she will attempt it because “public expression is incredibly important, and we have those times for it,” and when a recess is offered, the honoree answers “let's just keep talking.”

Paul Fadelli, leaving after eight years, recounts the crisis: a financial crisis, “a state audit placing our city sixth from the bottom in the State,” and 2021 as “a year of action” — cutting staff, holding vacancies, freezing salaries, reducing services. He names the two outside factors too: federal Covid relief and a strong property transfer tax. Tessa Rudnick departs after one term as mayor, with two colleagues alluding to racist abuse and “the cost of being” in the role. Jose Jaramillo is honored for 38 years, having started at the recycling center in 1986.

Lisa Motoyama is sworn in for a second term, Rebecca Saltzman by Judge Vicki Kolakowski — who had appeared before this same council three decades earlier to argue for recognition of its LGBT employees and residents — and William Ktsanes for his first. State Controller Malia Cohen swears in Carolyn Wysinger as mayor. Her address names Janet Abelson, who “chose me specifically to take her seat” because the city “has not always been the best to black and brown people”; dates the first Black mayor to 2007; and says: “there was an unspoken socioeconomic divide in the city, and San Pablo Avenue was that line.”

BART explains why efficiency is not an available answer: only about 40% of costs vary with service, so “a 30% cut in costs would require an 85% cut in service.” A funding failure — 60-minute frequencies, 9 p.m. closures, eliminated lines, no weekend service — would mean “three additional lanes on the Bay Bridge” to absorb the traffic. A $400 million saving on the railcar procurement legally cannot move to the operating budget, so the only remedies are tax measures requiring a public vote. Councilmember Quinto asks for license plate readers at every BART station; Mayor Pro Tem Wysinger asks about crisis intervention teams and is told “sometimes the best answer to somebody’s worst day isn’t somebody with a badge and a gun.”

The first report on the real property transfer tax: adopted in 2019 at 1.2% of sales price, it has collected about $25 million and rebated $386,000 — 1.5% — across roughly 93 rebates. The climate action and adaptation plan recommends ending rebates “for anything gas related.” When a councilmember does the arithmetic aloud, staff concede the numbers need review: the city “didn't set up our database necessarily to collect info in a certain way,” so the totals were pulled from building permits by hand. A resident separately says she has requested a copy of a $200,000 parking management plan contract approved on consent, which many believe will affect parking within half a mile of the BART station.

Staff recommend El Cerrito deliberately not be first to buy electric refuse trucks, citing a bus electrification program where “everything went wrong”; the hauler adds that ratepayers could be “talking about buying two trucks at a million dollars compared to one truck at $400,000.” A purchase order roll-forward plus three labor agreements bring general fund commitments to “just under a million” — a combined figure produced only because a councilmember asked. And the Council approves a five-year extension of the City Manager’s contract through 2029, restoring a parity provision she had voluntarily given up during the crisis.

The police chief presents three technologies. Licence plate readers for parking enforcement — IP Solutions with Data Ticket, $44,000 in year one from the vehicle abatement fund — replacing tire chalking, which the chief dislikes partly for the repetitive-motion injuries it can cause. An expanding drone program with 12 trained pilots, aimed at drone-as-first-responder in partnership with Richmond, San Pablo, Pinole and Hercules; one is flown around the chamber. And a proposed one-year facial recognition pilot using Clearview AI at $7,000 a year. Two El Cerrito cases had already been solved by other agencies running the searches — “the computer did, but the cops didn’t.”

The department’s model policy came from a public meeting four people attended: one attendee supplied the Detroit police policy written under an ACLU settlement, which requires that a match be treated as an investigative lead only. Councilmember Quinto asks the differential-accuracy question from personal experience of systems failing to identify him. Asked about data retention, the chief answers “same guidelines as our Flock system” — confirming Flock was already operating, sixteen months before the Council learns those cameras had been sharing data with federal agencies by default.

The Financial Advisory Board’s recommendation to raise the general fund reserve from 10% to 17% — the GFOA’s two-months standard — is adopted, along with restating the EDRF as 13% of operating expenditures, giving a 30% minimum and 42% total. But Mayor Rudnick proposes replacing “the city shall maintain” with “it is a goal of the city to maintain,” and it carries that way. The Section 115 trust is placed in the second-most-conservative of five PARS portfolios. Also on consent, and discussed only by one councilmember and, earlier, by the Police Chief: the Dixon Resources contract to write the city’s parking management plan.

The AHSC standard agreement for El Cerrito Plaza Parcel A South sits on the consent calendar. Councilmember Motoyama comments on it, without pulling it, because when the award was announced “we got the presentation, and then we went on to the next one” — $39 million in grant, “almost 50 million” with the loan, against a project total of about $90 million, with the building permit application already under review. It is the same program El Cerrito applies to again in May 2025 with Richmond Street inside the application.

The Citizens Street Oversight Committee reports no audit exceptions on the dedicated street tax for fiscal 2022-23 — and that it is down to three members with two vacancies. Councilmember Fadelli notices a rebate line in the check register and asks for a staff presentation on the real property transfer tax rebate program, which had not yet been given; it arrives seven weeks later as the “inaugural” report. Greg Lyman announces the 75th year of the Sundar Shadi holiday display, with a ceremonial lighting in honor of Jane Bartke.

The final subdivision map for 1715 Elm Street is approved: 14 residential condominiums and one commercial unit in a historic building that was physically moved across a creek. Approvals were granted in 2014-15, construction began in 2022, and completion is expected within months — a decade from entitlement to occupancy for fifteen units. And a four-year SEIU agreement is adopted, the first labor contract after the classification and compensation study, raising tuition reimbursement from $1,000 to $3,500 a year.

The City Manager announces the GFOA Distinguished Budget Presentation Award, noting the city had not applied for three fiscal years “mostly because we had obviously a very depleted staff” and had been presenting a simplified budget. A second GFOA award arrives by email during the meeting. Then the unfortunate news: the El Cerrito and Kensington libraries have closed early because heat inside reached “unsafe levels for their staff and for our patrons” — five months before advocates list “no air conditioning” among the Stockton building’s defects.

The quarter’s El Cerrito Centurions are read out: six residents, the eldest 104, and a councilmember adds that President Carter turned 100 that day. The clerk notes something unusual — “this might be a first, but I do not have any requests to speak.” Councilmember Motoyama’s questions on a consent item establish that a law firm agreement is not a retainer and is capped, and staff add that the city has used the firm before.

The Wall of Fame received exactly one application that year. Dave Weinstein speaks for the Historical Society, and Police Chief Paul Keith, introduced as speaking in his personal capacity and describing himself as a community member “and also as the chief of police,” speaks as one of the nominators, describing an MLK parade held through the pandemic. Councilmember Fadelli says Patricia Durham “demonstrated courage to leaders in this community 30 plus years ago… and stood up to those leaders. And the result has been our greatest event in El Cerrito.” The meeting adjourns in memory of Judy Katz, the city’s longtime senior fitness instructor.

The Council approves a five-year, $785,193 agreement with Axon — roughly triple current spending — covering body cameras, Taser 10 devices, evidence.com, and in-car cameras with a license plate reading component, “basically adding additional license plate reader cameras to our current system. Only these are going to be mobile.” The chief notes Axon “have an integration with Flock Safety,” so the captures flow together with no extra steps. Councilmember Motoyama asks whether outside agencies’ searches appear in the audit trail: “the audit should also represent their inquiries… but I’ll have to go check and confirm.” Nothing in this archive reports that check coming back.

Three speakers thank the Council for declining to adopt a Gaza ceasefire resolution — the other side of a dispute the December transition meeting records from the opposite direction. Ayel Shahar puts it this way: “we all want a ceasefire,” and his objection is to the language used in the chamber rather than the position. Separately, residents organize around converting the underutilized county veterans building into a dedicated senior center, an idea a speaker says Supervisor Gioia supports.

The year closes with revenue 7% over budget and spending 5% under, turning an approved $6.4 million use of fund balance into an actual $185,000 — a six-million swing. A councilmember supplies the baseline: “when Lisa and I started 4 years ago, we were negative — minus 110,000.” And 1715 Elm Street, applied for in 2005 and approved in 2014, gets a new development agreement; the city is permitted a 99-year lease on the relocated historic house at one dollar, with no process yet for deciding who uses it.

The City Manager announces a public meeting for residents “to learn about new deployments of cameras, ask questions and communicate any concerns” — the August 2024 outreach cited at later surveillance items. She also announces the Richmond Street Complete Streets workshop and the hillside natural area draft plan. A 350 Contra Costa representative asks that the climate action plan, now reporting every two years against a timeline running to 2045, be placed on every meeting agenda.

Questions on the consent calendar produce most of the meeting’s content. The Fourth of July had so far cost about $115,000 against $126,000 in donations and contributions, with the year still being reconciled. Prepaying the CalPERS obligation saved $216,835 — possible, the City Manager adds, not just because of the fund reserve but because of the city's cash position. The city's procurement is not centralized, and staff do not think there is a local purchasing requirement, though buying local has “always been a practice.” And a $432,000 lease purchase of cardiac monitors is financed at 7.76% to capture a promotional price saving $96,559, because “coming in with an over $300,000 ask with a budget this tight would have almost been impossible.”

At the fire abatement hearing, three properties remain non-compliant; Shawn Cook, whose property has just come off the list, attends to describe the $700 he spent clearing weeds, having gone ten feet beyond his property line, with photographs taken that evening. His own remaining concern is a hillside that is not his. A councilmember takes care to say the list is not a list of shame. He came to explain what he had done to get it off.

The Climate Action and Adaptation Plan is adopted in honor of Janet Abelson, targeting carbon neutrality by 2045 and reporting an 11% community-wide emissions cut achieved while population grew 12%. Transportation is over half of community emissions, and staff concede BART and AC Transit gave “not tons of input.” The all-electric building requirement had been drafted and sent to the city attorney when the Ninth Circuit struck down Berkeley’s ordinance; staff recommend “wait and see” and rely on air district and state rules arriving 2027–2030. The only amendment made is the reporting interval, cut from five years to two.

Two residents ask for a senior center: Jenny Hammer holds up a 71-page recreation brochure from 2001 advertising the Open House Senior Center that no longer exists, noting over 20% of the city is 65 or over, and Linda Kalin reduces the ask to “not a perfect space, not a future space — space.” Three others return on the Gaza ceasefire resolution; one is cut off mid-sentence and alleges a conflict of interest requiring recusal, which is not specified or answered at the meeting.

The Council places the Measure R extension on the November ballot with no expiration date. Godbe Research found 74.8% support after both informational and critical statements, and tested sunsets: “the shorter sunsets would have less support.” The pollster reads the opposition arguments into the record, including “the measure is a forever tax. It will never end.” Two councilmembers would have accepted 30 years. The City Attorney notes a citizens’ initiative can put an ordinance to voters at any time — the route used on the library ten months later. Adjourned in memory of former mayor Jane Bartke, whom Councilmember Quinto calls his mentor, who “told the truth about local government.”

The State Geologist presents new earthquake zones of required investigation for El Cerrito. The Hayward fault zone is unchanged; the liquefaction and landslide zones are new — and Councilmember Motoyama supplies a clarification: “it’s not that these are new areas. They’ve always been here.” The consequences: geotechnical reports for new construction in the zones, and disclosure on every sale. Fifteen residents then speak, mostly about a Gaza ceasefire resolution, and one restates the demand that the mayor recuse herself “because of your bias on the topic.”

Three public hearings — the master fee schedule, the 1988 landscape and lighting assessment, and the storm drain fee — pass without a single public speaker. The assessment district has no inflation adjustment: its general fund subsidy has grown from about $403,000 to $685,000 against eligible costs near $1.5 million, and raising the rate would take a new district through a Proposition 218 property-owner election, tried in 2006 and defeated; otherwise the costs are subsidized “either by the general fund or another funding source.” The storm drain fee remains $58, set against 1993 bonds retired a decade ago. Parking fines, the police chief explains, are punitive penalties set by the Council not bound by cost recovery “in the same way as other fees might be.”

In a budget study session covering every department, the police chief gives the first accounting of the 40 license plate reading cameras installed in 2023 — a 64% rise in stolen vehicle recoveries, 177% in arrests, with the effect on overall clearance still being analyzed — and names Peregrine and Cellebrite as “2 brands we're looking at,” which he plans to pay for from a state grant. The fire chief discloses that El Cerrito has received no Measure X funds directly, only crew time charged by the county. And the community development director explains why parking requirements were reduced: “we used to require 2 parking spaces. We got nothing built.”

Godbe Research presents the feasibility survey for renewing Measure R. Support tested at 75%, and after respondents heard both informational statements and the negatives — including that the tax “would be until ended by voters” — it came back at 74.8%. Councilmember Fadelli notices “will never end” was left out of the summary and asks for its number: it moved 41% toward a no vote, below the majority needed to defeat a measure requiring only 50% plus one. No decision on a sunset is taken at this meeting.

Eighteen people speak, most on a Gaza ceasefire resolution. Albany residents describe how their council engaged with them over one; an opponent says every city that agendized a resolution saw “an orgy of hate speech,” and asks “has there been polling done?” An Israeli-born resident tells the Council that the accusation made against them, that they took a position because of money, is a recognizable antisemitic trope: “so now you know how we feel.” Separately, a resident reports writing to every councilmember about two police incidents, in 2008 and 2020, and receiving no reply.

In the budget study session, insurance other than workers’ compensation is up 24% and general liability has tripled in five years. The forecast shows the city falling below its own 10% reserve policy if nothing changes — while excluding new debt, the Section 115 trust, and any funding of internal service funds for vehicle and building replacement. The police chief discloses eight administrative vehicles over ten years old, two approaching twenty, and that bicycle patrol is gone with five sworn vacancies. And Councilmember Quinto states that the city’s senior population will double by 2028–29 and “we’re not prepared.”

AT&T explains its March 2023 application to the CPUC to remove its carrier-of-last-resort obligation — the duty to provide copper landline service to anyone who asks. Fewer than 5% of households statewide are on copper; in Contra Costa it is 1.6%, or 19,000 residents. AT&T says that of the 21 states in its copper footprint, 20 have approved a transition plan and California is the only one that has not. The proceeding is stayed while a judge investigates a reverse auction to see whether another provider would take the network on. Councilmember Fadelli, who worked on telecoms in Sacramento, asks whether there could be special designated areas, as for wildfire, and is told “I don't foresee that being on the table.” A resident is blunter: “the network is in bad shape because they didn’t maintain it.”

The FY 2022-23 general fund surplus is distributed under the comprehensive financial policies’ waterfall — emergency reserve, general fund reserve and Section 115 trust first, leaving $727,000 for one-time needs. Asked why the surplus was so large, staff answer that the largest component was unfilled budgeted positions, “a very high amount of salary savings,” adding that “that's also work that the city really intends to do,” so they do not aim to budget for many vacancies. It arrived in a year when the transfer tax came in about $800,000 under target. A councilmember notes that a $1 million purchase order roll forward had surfaced unexpectedly, found “through your forensic work.”

The library reports it is the busiest branch in West County by items circulated, in its 75th year on Stockton Avenue. On consent, a $28,000-a-year HdL contract buys an audit of the utility users tax — $3.5–4 million a year that the city had no staff capacity to verify. And staff disclose that the new stormwater permit withdraws the 10% offset credit the city earned for its plastic bag ban and food ware ordinance: “the bans that we conducted aren’t going to be worth anything.”

Twenty-three speakers sign up, almost all addressing a Gaza ceasefire resolution, amid chanting and repeated warnings. One reports being called a Nazi, repeatedly and within earshot, by an opponent at a previous meeting. A warning from the dais sets out the Brown Act remedy and asks speakers as well as the audience to stop responding to each other. The disruption resumes during the auditor’s presentation and the Mayor calls a recess, with the city’s auditor waiting on a video call.

Superintendent Chris Hurst and Supervisor John Gioia present a five-city collaborative. A third of district students are chronically absent, about 8,500 missing more than eighteen days; in El Cerrito the elementary driver is term-time family holidays and the secondary one is period cuts, because a C is still a pass. The county commits about $400,000 a year to cut the cost of nonprofit youth groups using school sports fields by 75%. Gioia also hands over a check for $206,783 — a FEMA reimbursement the county claimed on the city’s behalf for fire department mutual aid at Covid vaccination sites in 2021.

The auditor reports no exceptions and no control deficiencies, and on request lists the nine from the previous year: procurement policies, IT segregation of duties, missing accounts payable documentation, financial system safeguards, journal entries, payroll monitoring, centralized record keeping, account coding and overall financial reporting. Earlier the City Manager reported that every state auditor recommendation is now complete. The Council also adopts twelve months of advisory body reforms — two-year work plans, quarterly minimums, non-voting youth members — and joins the East Bay Hills wildfire MOU, used instead of a JPA because a JPA would have required a ballot across two counties.

Koff and Associates report after two years: 93 classifications studied, 17 new ones created, 62 surveyed against 18 comparator agencies. The city is 7.9% below the market median on base salary but only 1.9% below on total compensation, because retirement and health contributions are “very competitive.” In the consultant's experience, the positions further below market “tend to be more management positions,” “because there's more competition at that level.” Asked what happens to cities that stay below market: “difficult recruiting and retaining staff.”

The police chief reports an arrest in Hayward on 28 February, with the district attorney convening a hate crime panel and proceeding with hate crime enhancements alongside charges of grand theft, robbery and arson. Stuart Sonatina reports that his four-year-old was hit by a car two weeks earlier while riding his bike on their cul-de-sac. And the City Attorney steps away from the staff table before an item about his own new firm, Redwood Public Law; a councilmember then catches a $1 million liability limit carried forward unchanged from a 2008 agreement.

The mid-year update discloses $1.9 million in purchase orders incomplete at year end, $300,000 of which proved no longer needed; a cyber attack against the city as an unbudgeted cost; and insurance costs tripled in five years. The $1 million of ongoing structural adjustment appears as a modeled correction on a forecast chart. Councilmember Motoyama names what concerns her: “this is the bad number — the 1.8 million left in unrestricted fund reserve,” against a few million in one-time draws every year. She also finds two adopted resolutions, about $62,000, that never reached the budget.

Seth Morrison specifies the conflict-of-interest allegation against the Mayor: that she controls the agenda, has (he had been told) spoken against a ceasefire resolution, participated in a heavily subsidized JCRC-sponsored visit to Israel, and is regional chair of a JCRC project — an organization publicly opposing ceasefire resolutions in Bay Area cities. He asks the Council and City Attorney to examine it; nothing in the built record reports that they did. Toby Blome shifts the ask: “we need to change our city council rules” so that one mayor does not control whether a resolution comes forward.

Mayor Pro Tem Wysinger pulls the Black History Month proclamation to respond to a speaker who said the war had made her understand “what it feels like to be a black parent in this country” — calling it the most offensive thing she had heard, and noting the speaker had already left. Library Commissioner Michael Fisher gives the comparative figures: eight of the nine county libraries with higher door counts are open 52 or 56 hours a week against El Cerrito’s 46, capped by the building.

The city decides not to outsource its curbside recycling collection after a roughly $60,000 analysis begun under the fiscal recovery plan, reporting back to the State Auditor on 16 March. A landscape maintenance contract goes to Rubicon, a re-entry employment program, at a higher price for four separable reasons — including a state ban on gas-powered equipment. And a deferred maintenance amendment of $1,084,800 funds six projects out of a list whose estimate had risen from $1.14 million to $2.75 million; staff capacity, not money, limits delivery.