Concurrent City Council and Public Financing Authority Meeting October 20, 2008

0:02:28of the of come ca County uh in for the East Bay division executive board um so which I appreciate and um I I just wanted to mention that I think it's a real worthwhile conference for people to attend and um I would recommend it highly to folks for next year um one

0:03:50will eventually end up impacting legislation that's uh before our state so I um highly recommend participating in this if you have the uh time there's usually four meetings a year throughout the state and we often have the legislators come who are working on bills in subject areas and then we'll

0:04:11we'll work on what what the concerns are for um local government so thank you thank you uh I'd just like to formally thank the uh City staff for putting on three events to celebrate our our new city hall the uh Kosta mayor conference we're all 19 Mayors from the con cities of

0:04:37Conor Costa we here uh also our first city council meeting and then Saturday our public uh celebration so thank you all for doing such a fine job okay any other uh comments from staff okay uh city clerk announce the next agenda item please appear on the agenda all persons

0:05:15wishing to speak must sign up with the city clerk remarks are limited to 3 minutes per person please state your name and city of residence for the record comments regarding consent calendar items will be heard first comments related to items on the policy matter port of the agenda are taken up

0:05:30at the time the city council deliberates each action item I wanted to um take an opportunity to end to introduce our new speaker Timing System when you come up to the podium you'll see a green light that will shine up here when it turns yellow you'll know that you have 1

0:05:47minute left and when it turns red you'll know that your 3 minutes is concluded great thank you yes yeah I just had a question if you're using a wheelchair how would do you use that I have if you have a wheelchair I have a cordless mic that I can hand you okay you use the and you

0:06:08can use the table the table that's right here okay great thank you and we have a number of speakers this evening um the first speaker is Ray turnup seed I'd like to for go and I speak first it's okay okay Valerie Snider you hear me my name is Valerie Snider I have been

0:06:39a homeowner and a resident of the Castro Park neighborhood for 19 years I would like to talk about the school district's proposal to move portal Middle School to Castro school and park people talk about property values and whether they will go up or down if we do or do not have a middle school in

0:06:58elero the folks in our neighborhood believe that their homes will decline in value if the middle school is moved to Castro one might argue that that is a necessary evil and it's for the greater good but it is a valid concern that needs to be taken seriously I have three issues I would

0:07:18like to draw to your attention traffic crime and the loss of the park cast School currently has an enrollment of fewer than 300 students at 600 students the population would more than devil the traffic situation is already difficult with the increase in students and staff traffic will become

0:07:40unmanageable most of the portalist students arrive by bus or by car the neighborhood cannot accommodate a big box commuter School Porta middle school has a 29% suspension rate for drugs and violence are you surprised that we are not anxious to have the Middle School in

0:08:01our neighborhood please do not respond to our concerns by saying that there will be a school resource officer assigned to the school this does not allay our fears the fact that an SRO is even necessary is what triggers our anxiety in their effort to sell the Middle School to our neighborhood the

0:08:21district asserts that Castro Park will remain intact does that mean that anyone can enter the park during school hours including drug dealers whose customers are students at the middle school who will take responsibility for the litter and the graffiti that we can expect to

0:08:36see at the park when I attended my kids kids spring band concert at Porta I was appalled to see foul language spray painted in large black letters and the school was covered with litter when I commented on a community bulletin board on how shabby the campus looked here was

0:08:54the response I got from Robert stord who is running for the school board he said the reason is because the district doesn't have enough money for janitorial services well if measure D fails the school district's budget for janitorial services will be even tighter than it is

0:09:09now I suspect that there has never been an issue which so divides our city as the relocation of Portland Middle School my community has been accused of nism this is an unfair charge we care about public education we care about the quality of life in our neighborhood and

0:09:27throughout the city and we believe there are solutions that the school board for political reasons refuses to consider we would like to see the city more actively engaged in this process thank you thank you next speaker please H Miller the new uh acoustic system aren't

0:09:56as nice as we'd like them I guess I have two issues or two subjects I'd like to address tonight I'm Al Miller from El Sero one is I want to be sure everybody understands that for the first time the we had uh a group of activists in the West County have created a West Contra

0:10:16Costa County United Democratic campaign office and it's right here in elero it's at 11760 San Pao Avenue S A it's in ad Del project it's about halfway between Maggie's coffee shop and Supervisor joya's office uh it's open every day until November 4th uh anyone who wants

0:10:38to get involved in a campaign uh that's a good place to go it covers the State offices federal Offices and you can get information on the local uh races that are being held also a big event is coming up Sunday October 26 it's a rally to get out the vote it's sponsored by by

0:10:59our candidate to replace Lonnie Hancock Nancy Skinner and the West County UDC uh it features the California uh speaker of the California Assembly Karen bass uh we expect Congressman George Miller to be there state senator Tom toxen assembly woman Lonnie Hancock assembly member Mark dong

0:11:22and other local leaders and I've been in elero almost 30 years now and that's the biggest concentration of political names in one place that I've seen in the city the other event that I wanted to mention took place at the Sero theater on Sunday September 28th primarily through the

0:11:40efforts of Elo residents Emily and Ken Duffy uh it brought together a part of the community that's forming around the Sero theater uh an and Ken and Emily are both Art Car enthusiasts Emily's got an art car and a trailer and they were the co-organizer of art carfest 2008 which

0:12:02brought almost 30 of these vehicles to the H Berkeley canyu be parade and that evening Sunday evening over 20 of these art cars were lined up on San Pablo Avenue in front of the San El the Sero theater for the world premiere of uh Herod blank's movie automorphism famous documentary producer

0:12:26it was a full house it was a great attention get uh bring her to El Sero and uh I just wanted people to know that events like this are only possible now that we have a venue like the Sero theater and it gives people like Ken and Emily uh typical uh talented uh creative Elsa

0:12:45residents a chance to show off their skills and their hobbies and bring us all together thank you thank you next speaker please Nicolo bolo I've lived in a Castro neighborhood for uh 62 years and I don't want to see that neighborhood changed thank you Ray turnup

0:13:18seat good evening I've lived in the Y stre area for over 50 years the thing that bothers me most is that when we go to the school board and we talk about these issues we were told initially that they wouldn't touch the park they since changed their mind and say they're going

0:13:32to take out several trees they're going to use the park during school hours and we won't have access to it we brought up the issue of parking there was an arrangement with the city also the school board about dropping kids off the neighborhood because of the drug

0:13:46problems they agreed not to do that there's no such agreement now they're going to drop the kids on surface streets let them walk to school they've come up with a solution to the other kids to expect 25% of the kids to ride bikes the school when I asked Mr Savage

0:14:01how many children they had contact that had bikes he didn't have an answer and I said where are they going to ride these bikes a lot of these kids are come from caning in Madera you expect them to ride their bikes down the hill and you're going to do like you do on Richmond

0:14:13Street and put little bicycles on it you're putting the children in danger we do not have the surface streets to move the buses in and out and put 600 kids to that school I hope that the city council and the mayor would take a stand on this and get in- depth studies done I know

0:14:30the IR is doing part of that have a major problem with that but it is a major problem we have a lot of senior citizens in our area that are very concerned and I think you should rethink and and support the school moving somewhere else they do have Alternatives thank you thank

0:14:46you next speaker please no other speakers anybody else would like to speak before we move on thank you next item please next item on the the agenda is presentations uh item 4A is accessibility of Prime data through crimereports.com good evening mayor Jones distinguished

0:15:11council members Michael rigan from the police department this evening you will receive a demonstration on a new tool that's in use with the police department that tool is crimereports.com in keeping with the Department's desire to inform the public of criminal activity

0:15:24occurring within the city we've put in place an online system which will allow our citizens to obtain upto-date information about crimes occurring within the city your presentation will be provided by Sergeant Robert dampa who's currently assigned to the administrative services division in that

0:15:40capacity he supervises the records unit he oversees the Recruitment and selection process for new officers as well as access to the Department's training manner with him this evening is detective Corporal Susan Garmin she's assigned to the investigations unit where in addition to

0:15:57her investigation responsibilities she puts together the the Department's weekly report as well as all uh press releases she also works on obtaining compliance within the city uh for the city ordinances such as the Clos Clos circuit TV and massage ordinances this time I'll turn things

0:16:14over to the detective Corporal Garmin thank you I'm Susan Garmin as Commander Regan mentioned I'm a detective with the elero police department um one of my duties as a detective Corporal is is to prepare the press releases and the weekly reports for the Department historically the

0:16:32weekly report has been the means utilized by the department to keep City officials Community leaders citizens and the Press informed about the criminal activity occurring in the city these weekly reports contain publicly available case information about any robberies burglaries vehicle thefts and

0:16:48Grand thefts occurring in the city each entry gives a case number a general location for example a block where something occurred excuse me for just a second can you hear about back there okay good thank you I just wanted to check uh the sound thank you uh the time frame during

0:17:05which the crime occurred in a brief description of the crime this information is the same information that's also used by officers to plot and address any developing crime Trends in the city although the weekly reports contain factual information about the criminal activity in the city the format

0:17:19has some notable shortcomings and the weekly report case information covers only the week involved so it provides no historical data for comparison additionally since the information is provided in a narrative format it can be quite dry and hard to process also uh unless a person is quite

0:17:37familiar with all the streets in the city it's hard to visualize where crimes are occurring when all you're given is a Street location or maybe an intersection if a person wanted to know how many car thefts that occurred in a particular neighborhood over a certain period of

0:17:49time it would require them to review all of the involved weekly reports going back whatever time frame they wanted pulling out the cases they were interested in just to find the information that they seek because of these shortcomings the ELR police department has been searching for a

0:18:03better way to keep the public informed earlier this year the administration of the ELO Police Department discovered a company crimereports.com which assists municipalities in making crime information more easily accessible after working with the company for several

0:18:17months to assure a acceptable working product uh the crime information for the city of Elso is now available online through crimereports.com crimereports.com takes publicly available case information provided by the police department and tracks it historically and it plots the criminal

0:18:34activity on a map of the city and differentiates each incident by type of crime the information provided by the police department to crimereports.com is publicly available information and does not include any personal information not required by law for public access the

0:18:51website currently contains information for elrio going back to Mid April of this year information on the website is updated daily but is only as current as the information provided by our records division when you allow time for report to be taken investigated written

0:19:08submitted and recorded it'll take about a week from the time the crime is initially reported before it shows up on the website the crime reports.com website which sergeant Del Camp is going to show you is quite userfriendly and it quickly provides for the person accessing the

0:19:25information the information that they seek they can view crime activity for the entire city or they can focus more centrally on a particular Street or neighborhood they can also limit their search to certain types of crimes they can just find out about burglaries in a

0:19:39particular area and they can also extend the search for the time period they're interested in for example a week or a month or eventually a year when you view the map of Elso on crime reports.com you'll see that the information is available regarding crime in some of our

0:19:55neighboring jurisdictions as well uh crime reports.com is currently being used by the contracosta county sheriff's office which deals with East Richmond Heights so when you look in the North End Of The Hill area of el you'll see those reports also the S paba police

0:20:09department and the penol police department the Richmond police department and Albany Police Department are not currently utilizing the service and not online access to crimereports.com can help neighborhood watch groups and crime prevention committees more readily

0:20:21identify problem areas uh it could also assist police officers in quickly recognizing and addressing noticeable crime trends the crime information available through this new format will also Aid City officials community and Business Leaders and citizens in understanding the nature

0:20:36of criminal activity in the city and Sergeant Dela Camp is going to help you navigate the website good evening Robert dampa from the police department so what I'm going to do is just show you the the website and go through how it works I would suggest just following along with me at first

0:20:55and then you can go in and you'll find that it's quite easy to navigate once you get used to it basically I already have put up an address when one goes to the homepage of crimereports.com you will generally see what's up on the screen now you the whole country they have

0:21:17clients in every almost every state the ones that are shaded there click on California you'll see the jurisdictions listed that they are working with click on elero it quickly narrows it down to local information up here we have the address now of the city hall so as you look at this this is what

0:21:46you know in old police terms was called a pin map you take a map you put up different colored pins for the crime type to get a visual of what was going on in a given area so this is basically using that same idea and brought it into a a modern format from this screen you can do a lot

0:22:01this is basically the homepage in the frame to your left you can see a list which can go down quite a ways and that'll show incidents occurring within the time period specified up where I've got the mouse now I have it set to 30 days so we can see the most of the

0:22:21activities you can calendar back further as Susan said and you can filter the crime types and by doing so you'll see that each of these icons signifies something different the B here is a breaking and entering 6,500 block of Stockton Avenue this bubble will give you the distance

0:22:41that's from the address that's listed it's from where we're at now identifier is our case number the time and it's a burglary now there's little features here you could send it to your friend if your friend lived there and was interested in what was going on you

0:22:54could send have this thing send them an email notifying them we go back to the list you'll notice there's a scale here this is for the scale of what you're viewing I like to bring you a little bit tighter gives you a better up close view of neighborhood but again because of the

0:23:13block numbers these aren't exactly where it necessarily happened so and it would give you a block number anyway we can get a good view here of what's going on now via crime types we can filter the information these are the options before we came up here I took out

0:23:33traffic we could put it back just to see the difference this will start showing traffic collisions DUI rests and the like and it really clouded up the screen so I filtered it out for now but if someone's interested they could just show everything now from here again back to

0:23:52the mapping feature we have a map of the city if we were to click on satellite view it goes to a different form of a View satellite photography we'll get to that this here is actually the address that's targeted City Hall so you can actually see this was this photo was taken during the

0:24:18construction of City Hall by the way there's still construction going on a lot but with that you can see the streets and if you go to hybrid it fills in the streets names because again from the satellite it's hard to to orientate yourself unless you're really familiar with an

0:24:33area so this is actually one of my favorite views there's also the terrain view which looks more like a topographical map shows uh Hills and whatnot I prefer the hybrid so again you can get as close in as you as you would like using this feature okay you may be wondering what

0:24:57what these little buttons are the crime types there is a legend down here on the right and this gives you a brief description of what things are if that helps okay the crimes to the left you could just read down this list and say well this one interests me click

0:25:19on it and it pops up with the location pointed 10900 blocks that's the same block that the police department's on case number it's the less you know 410 of a mile from us now there was a vandalism and you can just go on and on traffic accident sometimes the system

0:25:39doesn't like intersections so it shows at zero block that's a glitch that we haven't been able to get them to change yet their program is designed to work with many different uh vendors of police record software hasn't quite covered everything so you sometimes see that zero block and

0:25:57that will me mean an intersection okay some more accidents as we were stating earlier the data is coming from any of the agencies that have contracted with them so if you were to slide this map you can go further north along the freeway and you'll get into San Pablo you can go further east and you'll

0:26:21see Wildcat Canyon East Richmond Heights County area so they're all they're all covered among the county sheriff areas includes all of their County areas so if we were to put in rode or El brani it would show up in the same fashion distance guide is another little

0:26:42button you see down here uh if you're curious about how far an event is from you go back to the city hall version distance guide will put this in and show you the distance from the location so you can get a real specific picture of what's been going on there is a print friendly view one

0:27:11could print it out for future reference close that another nice feature is the analytics upper right Blue Button takes a second to get back to ELO's information it seems to go back to the default again this is a list of all the jurisdictions using them in alphab

0:27:41order click on Elso Okay so we've got pie charts and other graphs showing activity and you can change the calendar you could check month to month with this um it shows a lot of traffic I haven't to figure out how to screened that out yet I'm still working on that

0:28:01but it can show changes in other crimes you know for the given time period And there's other visual formats so the company believes this is very useful not only for the Public's use but often for the agency's internal use because it can give us a rather quick overview of what's going on what's

0:28:20the quality of life crime those are kind of Miss that's one of their miscellaneous categories they don't have their program doesn't seem to match every crime type the seven universal crime reporting offenses are the same throughout the country they have those that being auto

0:28:43theft burglary assault robbery rapes and homicides and arson however a lot of the other ones that are more State specific crimes they don't have they don't seem to have software for those so usually when I would look at this I would filter those out disorder drugs

0:29:00liquor uh it has proactive policing so you can look car stops and the like missing persons so I probably wouldn't leave those in most people are generally interested in the burglaries and the robberies but if they're interested they're there now one of the other features that

0:29:17we're going to show you here is the join that window that popped up a few minutes ago and again no cost this doesn't cost the viewer the public anything to use one can set up to be alerted when something happens in a given area could be near your home could be near your

0:29:37work the home of a loved one school what have you and this doesn't necessarily have to be in else read of one of those locations in your case happens to be in another city that's a client you could set up the alert so for demonstration purpose we'll just put uh city

0:29:55hall or location put in the address and we can make that our default now let's say we want to be notified of just everything select all you be notified weekly and anything that happens within a 1 mile distance okay we'll check in new user and you can check the boxes if

0:30:41you'd like to be notified regularly have to put in an email address it'll take a minute to get used to us okay so we are all set up now I can log out log back in from another computer you could add more locations um whatever you'd like to do you'll see also there are some

0:31:25interesting tabs across the body here you might want to check the uh news coverage there are some links to television newscasts that have been featured in the Bay Area one is from the San Jose police department was on channel 2 they adopted this system last year and uh a lot of big city

0:31:45departments are using it so you can see the news releases and whatnot there and there's a frequently asked questions kind of thing to the left we'll go ahead and log out for so now weekly this is going to generate an email to that address talking about anything within a mile of City

0:32:03Hall so is this a this would be a link on the city's website yes well that's the gist of how the program works if there are any questions i' happy to field them or if you'd like to see any other feature demonstrated but that's the gist of it questions I just had one they get

0:32:27their information directly from the city or does it go through the state and then they pick it up from the state what that's a good question the way it works and this is what Susan alluded to about the time is the information comes from our records management computer programs

0:32:44which are actually hous at Richmond Police Department so a program was installed at that site which uploads or pings however you want to call it the information from there to this these people so it doesn't go through the state it just is based on what we report

0:33:01and then based on that we also make our reports to the government high levels of government but this comes directly from our records some cities apparently use this via their computer A dispatch records we chose not to now what that means is if certain agencies do that it's going to upload

0:33:22all the calls they go to the way we do it if the officers go to a call in a certain area and decide that there was not a reportable crime committed that is not going to show up on crime reports.com through US certain other jurisdictions it might so you'll see on the channel 2

0:33:40newscast if you choose to watch that they suggest that the person could find out why the police were called to a house on the certain Street let's say by looking this up in our case that's not necessarily true unless the officers went and found that there was a

0:33:55reportable crime and they then ined investigated so you're not necessarily against see all calls for service that answers your question thank you uh doesn't look like we have any uh questions any further questions report was very thorough self-explanatory and I'm glad we have it

0:34:15oh we do have one so is this loaded on our website now or it's something that's going to be on our website or it is going to be I sent an email to Susanna asking that it be put on today I haven't checked since then and maybe she's already done it but I suspect this week

0:34:31there'll be a big large Banner um I can show you real quick how it's displayed by the sheriff's office tomorrow morning tomorrow morning okay well tomorrow morning it'll be it's very obious it's a banner that comes from the company so um so if you go into the the sort of the

0:34:49first homepage for the city of elero there'll just be a banner going across I asked her to put on the police department's page okay so you you would go into our main website and go into the police department click department choose police and that's where you would find

0:35:06it okay um seems like maybe in the beginning we might want to put an alert in the general website that this is a new thing that you can find in the police department just a thought thank you thank you thank you very much next agenda item please next item on the

0:35:34agenda is live and ond demand webcasting of City Council meetings thank you city council I'm happy to show you the city's [Music] new that do not subscribe to C it also makes me available to resident STA and those [Music] excuse me longterm recordkeeping there are two ways to

0:36:46access the live webcast and video archives I will show you both ways from the city's homepage on the left sidebar you'll note that there's a button called streaming media you click on that and it offers you two two options you'll see upcoming events right here and that's broadcasting this

0:37:05meeting right now as well as archive meetings down here people at home that are watching this through webcast would click on the view event screen and from here you'll see the webcast there's a bit there's a bit of a delay going back to the streaming website I'll

0:37:35show you the archive section from here you can click on the meeting of October 6 or search by keyword let's go to the video link the video and agenda appears from here you can navigate to a particular item on the agenda into two ways first from the jump to screen for

0:38:00example I'll select mayor's comments or from the agenda from the agenda you'll note as you scroll down that each item on the agenda is hyperlink these links provide um access to that particular part of the webcast of the meeting you'll also note that on the on the agenda you also have links to

0:38:23the actual um staff reports or in this case the resolution and Proclamation anyone that's clicking on this site can bring it up and print it from this space another way to access this this site is to go through from the home section from the homepage whoops sorry if you scroll down from the

0:38:53homepage you can select click here for the current city council agenda and from here you have the not only the current agenda but you have the document Archive of Staff reports minutes and agendas and I want to take the opportunity to remind the staff and the public that um the

0:39:10minutes are posted from 2005 present and bookmark city council meeting p e packets are here from April 2007 for example you can click on the report um getting back to granicus on this page oops sorry from this page you'll also see that there's a new column called video

0:39:50from here you'll have the archive of videos from the October 6 forward and you can click on this link and it will take you to the streaming page where you can again search for the video I've now demonstrated how easy it is and what a nice tool this is for staff and residents and I want to close

0:40:10by thanking you for providing me with an opportunity to preview this this evening I also want to take um an opportunity to thank Scott Hannon for his um vision of making public more making information more available to the public that's it if you have any questions any

0:40:33comments go I just want to say thank you for uh putting this together I I'm finding it uh I tried to think a little bit at home and and um it's really uh easy to use and um I like the ability to be transparent um thank you you're welcome I also wanted to thank you I've been

0:41:02using it online and I especially like those icons so you can pick up the agenda you can if that's what you want or the attachments that go with it and now we have the video so everything is available and it's really well organized and I appreciate your efforts and so now

0:41:16from last meeting moving forward we have a complete um record of the business of the city and the city council right any other comments yes thank you very much it's great step forward here and letting people know what's going on even the copy of the uh proclamations are are there if anybody

0:41:38wants to read them that's good thank you very much I'll announce the uh next agenda item while the uh city clerk is getting back uh item five is adoption of the consent calendar items 5 a through 5f e e goes through 5 e through e I'll move to adopt items 5 a through

0:42:08e I'll second it there's no off what did it oh okay I misread it okay yes soor we do have a motion in a second right there's been a u motion to adopt items 5 a through 5e on the consent calendar all those in favor I I oppos motion carries thank you uh next item please

0:42:40next item on the agenda policy matters 7A city council recognition process discussion and possible action on the city council Wall of Fame subcommittees recommendations regarding one consideration of a process for nomination and selection of appointments to the wall of Fame two consideration of

0:42:58an annual Wall of Fame event three consideration of guidelines and policy for nomination and selection of inductees to the wall of fame and four consideration of the nomination of Miriam wilcoms to the wall of fame and direct the city clerk to return the council to the council with a resolution

0:43:15if desired confirming the City council's action on the subcommittee's recommendations we do have one speaker for this item I'm sorry we have one speaker for this item oh great why don't we take that now okay Al Miller uh I want to address the number two part of this agenda the

0:43:39consideration of an annual Wall of Fame Day event uh I like to speak strongly in favor uh of that activity uh some of you may know that last year we had the first annual Arch Scher Day celebration ation uh honoring both the proclamation that you made creating AR schroer day but

0:44:02again uh giving the friends of Art and members of the community a chance to remember him what he gave to us and what he did for the city when you commemorated the new wall of fame in our new building uh last meeting it reminded me again of if you can imagine all of

0:44:21the people on that wall of fame all of the contributions and the things things that exist in our city that came directly from their activities and what it would be like living in this city without those things I don't think many of us would enjoy ELO as much as we do

0:44:40now if that was the condition there are many people in our community who knew the knew the wall of fame members who worked with them or members of their family or members of their club we can learn more about the people on the wall of fame from from these people if we

0:44:57celebrate an annual day uh recognizing the wall of fame I believe the most important aspect of that will be is to be to try to create an awareness of what individuals can do for our city without being elected officials or with being elected officials and try to transfer

0:45:19down into the Next Generation uh and the friends of that generation and our children sense of what it means to be a member of the community and that each of us we might not be an AR schroer we might not be a Louis Flynn or we might never be a sunders shotty but we can do

0:45:37something to give back to the city uh some of the enjoyment and the uh benefits that we get living here and I think if that's the focus of the wall of fame day honoring what went on before and encouraging others to continue those Traditions it would be one of the most

0:45:56important days of the city thank you thank you any other speaker on this item okay I'd like to thank uh the subcommittee council member uh Moore and council member bridges for a meeting and coming up with this um it was a request on the part of the council that we

0:46:19formalize uh our selection process uh of the wall wall of fame and in some cases there there has been there were guidelines and and criteria set forth this kind of clarifies some things and focuses in on some of the issues that were out there uh do either one of you

0:46:37want to kind of give a rundown of this uh of your report I think one of the things that um we formed of course was the the subcommittee and I think this is something that's um kind of important for us to kind of formalize how candidates will be evaluated who's going to do the evaluation and and when

0:47:01that's to take place in the the scheme of of the year and um I think some of our our thoughts were um to give a kind of a separate recognition um on an annual basis to all former members but also to have something um for the newly elected for that calendar year to have a a special

0:47:23recognition on the day when we recognize so many of our other committees and Commissioners at our commissioner's um dinner um we the application process itself had already been in place we didn't make any substantive uh substantial changes to that um we thought the the deadline of March

0:47:4715th was probably an appropriate time because usually in the um spring is when we do the the recognition of of other committees and Commissioners and um we thought that uh having the recognition at the meeting in July was probably a good time um people tend to be around in

0:48:08the summer and thought that fit into our schedule uh fairly well um the showcasing I think is pretty much stayed the same and uh of course we made a we do have a a nominee right now that uh we reviewed and after reading some of the um papers that were submitted to us son

0:48:35Mariam welcom we went ahead and and thought that she definitely deserved uh to have recognition on our wall of fame um we did have an evening where we recognized her at one of our meetings already this year in 2008 and um I myself don't have a very green thumb but

0:48:56for people who who actually um Can propagate plants you know they have a rose named after you is a very big deal and people who are into Old roses throughout the the world actually know this woman and that was rather stunning to both Leticia and I as we were kind of

0:49:12reviewing her application that you know people knew her from Australia England and France and that was that's pretty admirable for our town and of course we we have many excellent residents that um you know have gone before her on the wall maybe Leticia wants to add anything

0:49:31um I just think in in going through the process and the guidelines and the policy and then reviewing this particular nomination I think part of what struck us is is having um people on the wall of fame who have had an impact on this community but also who have an

0:49:49impact Beyond Els Sero so to um provide service to your community doesn't necessarily stop at our borders because your impact when you start to do something within your community tends not to stop stop at the border so um we thought that was um a good thing to recognize and I think it's true of

0:50:09everyone who's on our wall of fame that what they've done for elero didn't stop at ELO's borders great she also taught school in elero correct I don't know that I don't remember I don't remember reading that may have been on an earlier uh communication but she was a teacher uh

0:50:29in elero at Fairmont Elementary School that's my understanding I had a question um and maybe this is more of a technical legal Point than anything else but can the city council have a standing subcommittee yes um city the city council can have standing subcommittees

0:50:57um if they are not ad hoc then they will be subject to the brown act and so their meetings will have to be um noticed the same way that that any other um border commission meeting is noticed U minutes will have to be taken Etc um but they don't have to be extensive but in

0:51:11general yes you can form a standing committee but we would have if it's a standing committee then they have to go uh through the brown act that's correct okay versus um appointment made each time we have a application we could appoint a a committee and that would be

0:51:29what uh considered ad hoc or that's correct okay great thank you um so I I guess I can address that we we did not have the subcommittee did not have an ad hoc standing committee discussion we just thought that in terms of making this process work rather than um any

0:51:51given year we may get no nominations or we get one nomination or multiple nominations that rather than have it come to a public meeting of the city council to be hashed through that it would be better to have a subcommittee go through the initial application and

0:52:07make a recommendation and then the final decision would be the full city council but we did not in fact have a discussion about ad hoc versus standing right yeah I was going to suggest that um maybe the uh our uh criteria could read something that uh um excuse me that the mayor

0:52:27would assign a subcommittee uh when there is an application and then I think uh the reason is I think uh it can get to be a sensitive issue reviewing people reviewing their information and I don't know if we uh I would like to treat that like we would an employee um privacy

0:52:48type of thing that we we talk about that at least initially in the subcommittee and and not in the public record and with the provision that the final approval obviously comes to the city council in a public meeting so I think we're covered uh transparency wise in

0:53:06that regard and I think if we have an app Point ad hoc committees as the applications come in following the same everything else follows the same the timelines and all that um then I then I think we can protect at least initially the privacy of of some of that information that we receive on the

0:53:27application also on a practical note because the city council can change every 2 years and these subcommittees only meet once a year it might be hard to um assign a fixed person into that position well we originally proposed if it was going to be a committee that's

0:53:44just um continued that you treat it like we do our Council AIS on assignments where each December one that's get reorg the mayor would make an appointment but I I agree with um mayor Jones that certainly the mayor can appoint an ad hoc committee if we have applications in

0:54:01and then you follow this process in terms of getting it done okay any other comments or very well put together appreciate the effort on that okay uh so what what action would you like to take tonight on this do we need to do a motion or yeah I don't know if the subcommittee member

0:54:27should make the motion oh okay I I move approval of the recommendations of the wall of fame city council subcommittee as um itemized in item 7A with the provision that the uh recommended subcommittee be an ad hoc committee appointed by the mayor when applications are received

0:54:52second it's been moved in second that we approve uh the action set forth on on the agenda all those in favor I I opposed motion carries um just want to remind item four that uh staff will return to the council with a resolution for Mariam Wilkins and the new Hall of

0:55:18Fame and we will duly uh contact both Miss Wilkins and the sponsoring Group which was the elero Garden Club yes great thank you very much next item please 7B residential curbside recycling and collection and processing changes staff is requesting direction from the city council on the

0:55:40following three items one ceasing on-site processing at the recycling center of residential recyclables collected via the curbside recycling program and redesigning the new center without processing capabilities two providing recycling carts with lids and wheels to all Integrated Waste

0:55:58Management fee paying customers and three changing the residential curbside collection program to a no sort recycling system and we have two speakers on this item okay good uh why don't we take those speakers now please let's do the staff report staff report okay we'll go with

0:56:20staff report first okay thanks as we technology can see it we can see it oh you can see it yeah well all right but the public can't okay well I can begin anyway um hello I'm Karen Pinkus assistant city manager and I'm with I'm with G Schultz environmental analyst and

0:56:50together we are here to present to you um a study done by the environment Al services division um and I'd like to say right now that gu did a great deal of analysis and I'd like to thank him um we are bringing to you um some proposed changes and asking for Council Direction

0:57:07on those changes in our recycling program um some of the background the way that our recycling program runs right now is based on recommendations of the recycling Services Task Force which presented its final report to you in 2003 at that time the city council approved a modified residential curbside

0:57:29recycling program where there are two 18 gallon bins that uh residents Place cans bottles and Plastics in one and paper mixed um mixed paper and cardboard in another or stacked at the curb um the pro the processing continues at the recycling center and the council

0:57:50gave direction to pursue reconstruction of this recycling center based on the program program approved and that's what we did at the council's direction we have been working on these plans to rebuild the recycling center to reflect the current program however the cost

0:58:08estimate to support this program in a new recycling center came back at about $7.5 million which was 7 to 10 times higher than originally anticipated by by staff and the recycling Services Task Force about five actually prior to 5 years ago when we first began studying

0:58:27this program um this amount assumes that the design would support this Center and including processing curbside recycling at the center more than 50% of the cost is infrastructure for that on-site processing and if you look at the map generally and I don't have a pointer but

0:58:48the um traffic flow that would go around to allow the trucks to come in and dump would require a a cement pad that also required pile driving down I think 40 to 60 feet um so again the bulk of it was for the processing and the infrastructure Foundation that needed to

0:59:08be done it's also based um as you know the recycling center on a former Quarry so that's all landfill um so it was incredibly expensive and it would require fee increases in excess of 25% which is 15% more than we had planned and in the 10-year plan which you approved in our

0:59:28um 20089 fiscal year budget so we went back to the drawing board we decided that in order to reduce the cost of the new recycling center we would need to reassess the entire recycling program how can we reduce costs at the center which would require us to maybe continue maybe not continue

0:59:48doing operations the same way we have been for the past however many years and to Aid in this assessment we also retain the services of R3 Consulting Group and we um wanted to make sure that we kept with the recycling Services Task Force goal of keeping rates low achieving

1:00:05maximum diversion and continuing to provide convenient recycling services to the residents so what we have before you and G is going to go into more technical details the analysis yielded three components which considered us looking at the processing recycling at the

1:00:20recycling center collecting recyclables from residents how we do that whether we do it in bins or carts and whether we sort or unsort those recyclables so I'm going to turn it over to G thank you I'd also like to note that representative from R3 Consulting Group is here this

1:00:39evening so if you have specifics about some of the reporting we got from them uh as we studied this um they can certainly help to answer those questions and I'd like to also encourage questions as I go along in this I know this is a little detailed um and I hope that the

1:00:54staff report helped to answer some of your questions you might have and so I'm going to try not to go into all of that detail for you now um but since the recycling curbside recycling service began in elero materials have been brought back to the 751 Schmid Lane site

1:01:12at the time that made a lot of sense there wasn't a lot of other processing options here in the city and so that was an not only a good environmental choice but a good economic choice to process that material locally however it as Karen mentioned that's at least half the

1:01:31cost of that site and now it seems in 2008 we we're not limited to that option there are a number of other local um within 20 mi of here options for us to be able to have that same service done to process and separate out our recyclables and get them to where ultimately they can be reused and

1:01:53remanufactured um so again that's an important point we we don't have to do it that way we do have some options and furthermore the cost of the recycling center aside from what I've been able to look at in terms of our budget and our 10-year plan for the the recycling services that the

1:02:15savings we might see from moving our operation or excuse me moving the curbside processing offsite in terms of Maintenance and Equipment cost and staff time um injuries would approximately equal what we currently get in terms of the value added to those materials by doing

1:02:35some on-site processing and so essentially what we have by moving it offsite is somewhat approximate to a a zero net cost and based upon the estimates I've been able to take a look at next side so that's the first question first question is you know do we continue to process those materials

1:02:53the curbside materials only on site or do we do we move them off site as as I was starting to look at that question I realized there was a couple of couple of other things that needed to happen if we were if we were to move um to take our curbside materials directly to an

1:03:09off-site processing center we would need to be able to do something a little bit different with the way we collect our curbside materials now and specifically that would be to to gain some efficiencies you can see in these photos here right now the the recycling system

1:03:23that we provide is very labor intensive each of our drivers and operators are picking up um roughly 500 or more households a day Each of which in theory have about two of these bins although a large number of them have several more or boxes full of boxes and paper bags

1:03:41full of paper and a number of items spread along the curb and so they're they're lifting at least a thousand bins a day uh all day dumping them you see almost shoulder height into the uh the trough line Ong the side of the truck that's that metal image that you see

1:03:56there and it is it takes time and it takes a toll on them and they have to to rest accordingly but it just from the labor standpoint it just takes longer to do it this way Additionally the trucks themselves because of the type of system have a limited amount of material that

1:04:18they can hold they're not able to provide compaction now these are the older trucks the new ones are coming soon um additional movs that is and essentially in order to be able to to take a load of recyclable materials directly to a processor that's you know roughly 20 mi away we need to be able to

1:04:36do one load a day in order to make it so that we can save um save the time that we need on the route to be able to drive there and back and forth uh and to dump the material away from elero um and carts the option of going to carts is one of the ways in which I

1:04:55believe uh as I've looked at this over the last six months that we would really be able to to gain some efficiency to be able to save some time for the laborers to be able to uh decrease some of the costs uh that we see um for maintenance of the vehicles uh maintenance of the

1:05:13bins and um one of the other important considerations is if we go into construction of this new recycling center that there's a period during which it's not going to be accessible and if we have an interim drop off site it's going to be limited in terms of the space available and consequentially the

1:05:34scope of materials that we'll be able to accept at an interim recycling center will also be limited during that time it would be a really good idea to provide more curbside to the residents so that they can continue to have the high level of recycling services that they've come to

1:05:50expect in elero and in a cart-based system that's possible we can collect more in a cart-based system than we currently can now um simply because of the the inefficiencies of the the B type of bins and the amount of Labor that goes into moving those smaller bins that we

1:06:07currently have so that was the second question that I had was if we're not if we're not processing on site how are we going to be able to get that material to the new site that we select and for me it looked like carts was one of those answers being able to provide that to

1:06:22Residents which a third question if we're going to use carts oh excuse me getting ahead of myself we still got a little bit on carts so I summarized in terms of being able to get our materials to a new processing center carts seemed like they were going to work out well

1:06:37turns out there's a lot of other benefits to use utilizing carts um I mentioned some of the the injury costs workers compensation costs for the recycling operators are reasonably high as a percentage of the city um and utilizing carts where you don't have to lift 1,000 bins a day but rather push

1:06:57them to the side of the truck where an automated arm can actually do the lifting for you is safer for them nor it's also safer for all the residents that are bringing those bins out to the curb themselves so that's one of the important benefits of utilizing carts um

1:07:12you can see a few others lifted here and I've kind of called out a couple of my own um one item that R3 identified in the reports is this keeps the items and the materials the paper specifically a lot cleaner during the winter months right now there's no lid on our pins and

1:07:26they get soaked every rainy season and that is something that seriously degrades the quality of that paper another item that I think is really important and of concern in elero is theft prevention um carts have a lid they're larger harder to get access to um currently the smaller bins disappear

1:07:44with the recyclables in them and I think that's less likely to happen with a larger cart and day to day we get more and more residents who are calling and asking if they can get a cart um moving from a city elsewhere in the Bay Area that's had carts previously and as you

1:08:01can see over 90% of the the other cities here in Contra Casta County and Alama County are utilizing a card-based system bottom line carts are more convenient to people and number of studies show that the more convenient recycling is the more people are going to utilize it the more diversion you

1:08:21have from landfill and essentially the more effective the recycling program is going to be so that was point two again third point I was looking at as I was mulling this over again over the last few months is if we're going to go carts we also have another choice we can

1:08:40continue to do a sorted recycling system like we utilize now or we can move to an unsorted recycling collection system carts can accommodate both of those goals and there's different um costs and benefits to each you can see in 2003 when the task force the recycling task

1:08:58force did its report there was a number of pretty important problems with unsorted collection um contamination um the environmental impact of unsorted recyclables as compared to sorted recyclables um and you can see a couple of other listed there and those were important reasons

1:09:17um and they were valid reasons I believe that the recycling services task force made the appropriate choice at the time today however there's a number of different conditions and in order to achieve the same purpose and the same goal of the task force I think that we

1:09:33come up with a different answer because of these new conditions uh and you can see a number of them listed there I think among some of the most important in my mind is that in this post Inconvenient Truth era where in in elero we have an an expectation to do more with with regards to the

1:09:54environment and reduce our overall uh greenhouse gas emissions footprint we we may need to ask residents to do a number of other things such as energy Audits and water Audits and figure out how to take public transportation or bike or walk and we need to make all of those

1:10:10things more convenient for our residents if we're going to be able to have them do the the largest number of those things and so making the recycling system more convenient and be able to recycle more in it most likely we'll be able to do an over all greater benefit

1:10:25um to greenhouse gas emissions within the city um so and though the task force previously in 2003 decided not to move that direction I think that in 2008 it's a very U very worthy choice for elero and to summarize these I see these three options coming as a package I see that

1:10:51processing offsite moving moving from a bin system to a cart-based collection system and moving from a sorted collection system to an unsorted collection system really work well together uh for elero specifically and I think that by doing so we'll be able to achieve the 10-year plan that we post uh

1:11:14passed through the council as a part of this fiscal Year's budget um we'll be able to provide better services to Els Sero residents um in terms of our recycling work will emit be responsible for emitting fewer greenhouse gases on the whole and this is a step for us in

1:11:32terms of moving towards higher diversion within the city uh and even towards the potential for a future of zero waste um by collecting more at the curb will free up more space and more availability to collect a larger range of hardto recycle materials at the recycling center once

1:11:49it's reconstructed uh and that's a really important consideration I'd like to pass it to Karen for the next steps we hope to ask you to take thank you gu and I did want to note that um last week gu and I made a presentation to the Environmental Quality committee on this topic and we

1:12:09received what we thought was pretty positive feedback and in fact it was very valuable and it assisted Us in present in this presentation so I did want to note and thank them for their feedback um the next steps um we would ask that the council would provide direction to staff um on these three

1:12:26topics and if the recommendations here are approved we would pursue amending the design which means that we would go to the architect and ask them to redraw the um the site plan based on not processing at the recycling center and we would then also bring you a resolution to authorize purchase of the

1:12:46carts and then we would immediately begin implementation of a new curbside recycling unsorted program and so and there's our awesome staff I just want to make sure everyone at home sees how cool they are and if you have any questions of us we are here we also have

1:13:04um uh our three Consulting Group representatives are here as well thank you thank you we have some questions so I I just have a brief question to start out with um you know one of the difference between the the little bins and and the carts will be the ility of

1:13:23people to push something that's bigger and we have issue that issue now with both the blue carts and even with the recycling bins that some people simply aren't capable of bringing those out to the to the curb will our program also provide some way of assisting people who

1:13:39can't bring it out to the curb themselves definitely we currently have that service for residents who for whatever reason are unable to move their bins to the curb so that's something we can we currently provide and will continue to provide in the future also want to note that's not an additional

1:13:55cost to whichever resident does decide to take advantage of that service and so that is definitely something we can provide and would be able to provide in the future and then I think one of your um points was that 93% of is it the Bay Area that was just Contra Costa and Al

1:14:12cont um isn't all of West County except for us doing the single bin unsorted correct and the the only reason I raised that is cuz I represent ELO on the um West contracosta Waste Authority and um in our discussions about recycling one Elso is always called out cu we in fact

1:14:32do our own recycling but also we we are the only ones who have the two bin um sorted process in West County at the moment great yes jenet yes I have a a couple of questions um following up on um the fact that we um have a process for um um people who are unable to

1:14:55handle moving things out to the curb from their backyard I was wondering if you could describe what that is currently and what you think it might be the the process it's essentially uh if if residents have a need they call us and we set them up with a backyard service um which could be also the front

1:15:18yard or the side yard or the walkway or any place that they designate we take a report from on the phone or in person about where those containers will be located and we put written instructions in the route sheets that the drivers take out each and every day as to

1:15:33whether that is and the drivers are also select supposed to make sure that they write down whether or not they picked it up so that we have confirmation that it's actually happened okay secondly if a person has too much uh recyclable material to fit in the bin uh would they

1:15:50still be able to do what they're able to do now we just put it in boxes or tie up the cardboard or whatever protocol you develop yeah that would certainly be the case though I do want to note that under a a cart-based system as compared to the current amount of volume that's

1:16:07allocated to each resident it's 2 18 gallon bins currently totaling 36 gallons the new carts that we would propose and would bring to a future council meeting would be a 64 gallon cart so immediately you're getting essentially a double and the amount of space you would have to recycle if

1:16:26people still have more space above and beyond that I certainly think we can accommodate an extra bag or a box off to the side of the or however many they need you know I don't want to say put uh your your entire attics worth that on the curb it's better to bring that

1:16:40directly to the sensor but if there's an additional the issue is that that right now you can put out as much as you have but this actually I I would just hope that this would not limit the ability to put out what we're now putting out via having to put it in the one we we want

1:16:57to we want to get more recyclables out of uh out of the trash and more of it into the recycling trucks we want to as much as we can and then I have several other questions um uh I'm a little concerned and I'm just s in my own yard that it would be possible to move a bin this size through

1:17:18into my backyard do you have a yard way spin now what's a yard regular one yeah the green waist the green was yes the exact same size it's the same size okay then it would work other than I'm not sure where we would put it in the you know there's already two and now there

1:17:33would be three so if if let's say um I don't literally do not have room um are there any rules or would there be any some developed about storing it out front permanently that's an excellent question that I don't have an answer to okay so maybe the um the that would just suggest

1:17:54figuring out what a good way to deal with that might be because I could see that there would be some people that would have that issue especially people who live in the hills for whom moving um carts down a hill is um not particularly easy um thank you and then

1:18:13um I'm I'm also a little bit confused and and I just want to ask this way so will you be taking at the recycling center everything you currently take correct okay that's what I wasn't quite sure on okay and the hope for this is that we'd be able to provide more and

1:18:28more currently the the recycling drop off center as it exists and as it's designed in the current design does not expand significantly the range and type of materials that can be collected at the center part of the intention here is to be able to recycle a much wider okay

1:18:48it was in saying that that I got confused because I was wondering what was going to happen with the ability to put the materials that we can currently take such as bottles and cans and um magazines and so I just wanted to make verify whether or not that would still

1:19:01be allowed and the answer is yes it will be yes it would be okay then um the next question I had is um I was wondering about um this is my last question actually the um impact that um you know we um exchange properties with st sanitary and I and also we we are now

1:19:22including um the Corp yard as part of this process I'm the way I'm remembering it we didn't have that in our original plans correct we did or we didn't we did okay I was just wondering what the impact of the change of exchanging the property with Steve sanitary had on the

1:19:44cost me take it this this is including that so this cost estimate is coming from that if anything from what I can tell in the discussions that we we've had it actually frees up that end to be able the the whole end of Schmid Lane that now becomes city property it

1:19:59creates more flexibility which should make it more cost effective but this cost estimate is including what we we've currently seen including the property switch so it's making it cheaper it has more ability to make it cheaper but this this cost is with that change

1:20:17essentially there's no impact we wanted to make sure that stge we were not in their way and they could go on their own schedule but essentially it's stay steg is staying on that side of Schmid and the recycling center is staying on the opposite side of Schmid and then around

1:20:30the back where our Corp yard will now be so we'll be the recycling center will be a little further away from stge but there's no what I was actually really wondering is when you look at that original cost estimate in 03 and you look at the cost now I was wondering how

1:20:45much of it was due if any I don't or did it reduce maybe did it reduce it or did it increase it by um doing that change I I don't believe it had any impact on it at all because we were always planning for stge to be either be where it was or be up front and it just wouldn't impact

1:21:04the recycling center was always sort of in its current neighborhood okay thank you however we will we will ask the architect to look at the entire site plan now that um the way it was configured had to do if you look at this uh little map the way it was configured

1:21:22had to do with making sure that the traffic flow for the drop off where you see the organic garden and visitor parking and all of the drop off on the left side and the trucks coming around the back away from customers to the right side there and and up we're going

1:21:37to ask them to completely relook at that if we don't have that truck traffic coming in perhaps there's another way to configure it so that the entire site even going all all along the back of Schmid Lane could be more efficient and maybe even more cost efficient so we

1:21:52will look at that thank you question J um yeah I just had a couple questions so I think right now we probably have each truck do two or three routes and they do like 300 pickups so it's a th000 a day or something like that it's um we haven't done a recent clicker count of stops but previously it

1:22:14was around 5 to 600 stops po per residential route per day and we have two routes a day so around 1,200 or so and there's two people on a truck now correct and would that change would this potentially change some staffing issues um with the carts it could potentially

1:22:33reduce the need for some of our helpers that we currently use uhuh and we would go daily to the drop off site which would be a 40m roundtrip or somewhere in that vicinity where are those places um there's a couple in Oakland there's Richmond there's Moren and a couple of others okay now when

1:22:57you're unsorted we'll have maybe $150,000 less revenue from unsorted from what we currently collect I guess it's a little bit more than that less that didn't make sense uh it's it's more than $150,000 reduction in material value do you think that would be made up

1:23:18that that higher volume correct that difference would be made up in volume is what you just say a portion of the difference will be made up in volume we try to be conservative with our volume increase estimates but between the additional volume we get and reductions

1:23:34in maintenance costs equipment costs and staffing needs um we'd be able to offset those costs and the only size cart available would be the 64 that is my initial thinking on that um part of the problem is if we provide a number of different sizes of carts we end up needing a larger inventory on the

1:24:00whole cuz it's hard to predict exactly who would require what all of West County uh that's not an ELO has a standard 64g cart and that is pretty common throughout the entire region to have that standard size and um I know you talk Karen mentioned that there'll be more

1:24:21information coming to us regarding whether these would be leased purchased whatever could be a half a million dollars or more to purchase these is this the place to discuss this now or do you want to talk about that at another time you're well we would what we would do is

1:24:40we would do that research this is a cost estimate and we would bring that back to you for the actual um purchase or at leaste purchase or financing whatever we we look at that would come out to be the most cost effective and so when you take Co mingled things to these other drop

1:24:57off out offsite areas they have to go through all the regulatory Boards of air and water resources and the state toxic substances and all that stuff correct uh they're essentially um industrial facilities and so they're registered for all of that and we would also take that

1:25:15into consideration okay well I have to admit to you that I push my cans down my my my boxes down the driveway and about every 6 months the Bottom's out so I have to get them replaced cuz I can't lift them on the other hand I think that although we want to encourage

1:25:35recycling to maximum capacity for all of our residents I'm already thinking I can downsize my garbage now but I I don't know that we'd want to encourage people to leave lots of stuff on their curbs so that now our workers are again picking things up you know what I'm saying

1:25:54it I I think we have to look at that closely I I don't want to discourage people from recycling 64 is really huge and I think it'd be hard to believe unless people miss a week or you know something like that happens um I don't know that we'd want I could address that um sometimes there

1:26:13are medical needs that cause the need for lots of boxes that's that's what I was specifically thinking about and just thinking if if that happens a lot maybe people need more than 164 because it's the worker issue I think the worker comp thing is huge in this I mean it's one of the first things

1:26:32I looked at in councel and I said to Scott where is it really coming from and uh you know frankly it was your department I'm sorry but I know it's gotten better we not all right that's all I had thank you thank you well I think we're very fortunate in Elso to have the recycling

1:26:48program that we have and the um enthusiastic par participation in it both at the curbside and at the recycling center so um I'm glad that we're looking again at it and trying to make improvements um we recently approved some new positions and changes in the Personnel

1:27:08Staffing for the recycling program and I'm really interested in knowing a little bit more about the helpers that you referred to if those are employees and um when this comes to us again if we could have more detail on on how you imagine the Staffing would would

1:27:27end up being under the new program and how it would be phased in so that we can make those adjustments smoothly correct I can answer at least one part of your question now which is the the helpers that we have are are not employees um current they are contracted temps

1:27:46okay I have a couple questions here it's my understanding that this went uh proposal went before the Environmental Quality commission correct and I mean committee excuse me and what was some of their comments right or maybe I can ask council member uh aelson well actually you could also ask

1:28:06one of the members of the committee who's here if you well we can do it any way you want but okay sorry I was just trying to I I think they had a lot of questions about um as I remember the um you know the um whether or not the the I was uh the liais on to the the

1:28:25committee in 03 and we went and viewed the uh West County Integrated Waste Management Facility if I said that correctly and uh if I remember correctly I know I was and I think other people were appalled at what we saw there we saw grocery carts we saw plastic phones

1:28:44we saw all kinds of liquid oozing out of um what should have had no liquid uh in the recycling and so it just seemed like a very um uh unpure operation from that point of view and it really probably had more than anything to do with the fact that um the wrong kind of material was

1:29:06getting in at the pickup Point um and so we didn't I think want it to go um you know we didn't see that as being a good way to do things and um so I think some of the questions that we saw at the Environmental Quality committee uh recently were asking that same question and I think we got some

1:29:29better answers that were in fact due to the change um in what everyone else is doing you know there weren't so many Alternatives uh in 03 for taking our materials too too as as as G alluded but now there are some Alternatives so that really it changes the U the price of

1:29:50things and makes it more financially viable and I think the Environmental Quality committee expressed that they uh understood that and uh saw that as a good thing because ultimately uh what I heard them saying was that the the idea is to do the maximum amount of recycling

1:30:09and this would help us further that goal okay so we can then you we can state that the environment equality committee uh committee is is actually approving this this plan they didn't officially approve it but they did by consensus by consensus to it yes okay thank you

1:30:29um maybe you're going to address this when we it comes back to the council and I didn't see it in the staff report so I'm sorry if I missed it but the selection of the options you say we have many options within 20 miles I'd be interested in seeing in the final report

1:30:44exactly how we're going to use those options if we're going to sign long-term agreements or we're just going to play it play the market and whatever gives us the best we go to you know so I'd be interested in that uh also I'd like to see uh what we project as a savings in

1:31:03workers comp my guess is going into this we probably won't see too much of an adjustment the first or the second year but uh actually longer term we'll probably see good difference but I I could be wrong there um third is the cost of the carts does that include the public information

1:31:24program that's going to go along with it the it does not um however we devote a lot of energy already to public information it would simply be utilizing those same resources the Outreach budget the mailing budget and the staff that we have to continue doing so um I don't see

1:31:43that there would be a dramatically increased cost for doing that so these current uh cost of the current carts is roughly between $40 and $50 a piece maybe 40 and 47 or something long yeah exactly and that fluctuates a bit with the price of oil um and uh it that also

1:32:01includes assembly and delivery directly to the resident oh that includes delivery to each resident correct oh okay good if and uh finally um I'd like to see uh analysis of the uh offset cost between what we're saving in operations and the increased fuel costs to go to these uh options on a every day

1:32:31so I appreciate that I will say this um I was leaz on to the design review board when this came up and I know they were if if I understood them correctly um they were concerned about traffic flow and circulation and and not so much that the the design couldn't handle it uh but

1:32:55it's the space in which they were in and so I think this this looks like it has the potential to answer a lot of those types of questions so thank you okay any other questions I had one further question how are we planning on financing the acquisition of the half a million

1:33:16dollars is a lot of money I was just wondering how we were going to fining that at this point we aren't sure we're going to look at purchase options leasing purchasing um and bring that to you with the final uh request to go ahead and purchase so there's a there's

1:33:30a few options that are on the table my my concern is whether or not it would have an impact on the rate payer the the the the projections that we've included in the attachment you got um that it would be our projections for what the rate increases would be as per the

1:33:46current 10-year plan include the cost of procuring and financing the carts so there would be no additional charge then for not beyond what you see in attachment one uh I'm not looking at attachment one right now essentially as the the current 10-year plan that was

1:34:02approved in the budget uh allots for a 5% increase every fiscal year except for fiscal year 29 or excuse me 200920 um where there is a 10% increase which is to to get increased fees to help support the cost of the facility so the the current 10-year plan reflects

1:34:24that and the 10-year plan that is a draft at this ver Point uh would include um including the cost of the new carts including financing of the new recycling center would still remain at that 10% level for that year and the 5% level for every other year thank you I would just

1:34:43add on that point I think the simplest way to say is that our hope and maybe even expectation at this point is that the reduced cost of the center essentially pay for the cards okay well thank you appreciate it we have uh Public public comment Dave Weinstein hi uh I'm I'm a member of the

1:35:12Environmental Quality committee but I'm not here really to speak on behalf of the committee because we we heard a presentation from G and Karen but really the committee didn't take any real sub uh substantial action on it we listened and it sounded very good but the

1:35:25committee is just in the process of figuring out what our priority uh tasks are going to be and we hadn't really you know in any depth studied the the issue so we wer weren't really prepared to um do anything uh about it um I'm I'm here more to speak as individual and I was on

1:35:41both the uh recy the recycling task force and an earlier group called The Integrated Waste Management and so we um helped uh formulate a lot of the policies that are now in place in the city both in regards to um keeping the recycling center open because for a while there was talk of um essentially

1:35:58privatizing that place and also we helped decide um to have a source separation where you separate you know the bottles from the um the paper and so the uh current plan would really change a lot of what uh our our committee had uh recommended however I would like to

1:36:12say that in in in my view I think that the current plan sounds very good I think that if the um recycling task force was meeting now with the changing conditions you know it sounds like probably a plan that we would go with I have to admit that what Janet was saying

1:36:27about you know the idea of like stopping Source separation of taking bottles and and paper and mixing them all together it really doesn't um appeal to me very much because um as as she was saying when you go to one of these uh recycling plants even though they're run very well

1:36:44and you see what's supposed to be mixed paper and there's a shopping cart mixed in with the mixed paper and you know it is true that when you uh mix uh Goods together that at the end more of the stuff you know they they they really can't separate out as cleanly as

1:36:58possible and so you you you you do lose some at at the um at the end of the uh process but I do think that what we would gain by by doing this would would um more than than make up for that I also think that um the plans to increase the number of things that can be

1:37:14recycled including perhaps even styrofoam you know hard plastics all this would be really good um the city of Els been a Pioneer in recycling for uh more than 30 years and and I think that we we still are I don't know how many jurisdictions now even recycle hard

1:37:30plastics of all kinds I think Elser is one of the very few and I I have a sense that this plan um if it's done properly and with proper education can really uh succeed and help keep um Elso a real leader in in recycling thank you very much next speaker please Al

1:37:50Miller I think I don't need to tell you that this is one of the issues that no matter what you do you're not going to satisfy everyone but I think it's important that you focus on some of the uh concerns in the issue and try and address them in a way that most of the people in the city

1:38:10will be able to understand and know why you're making your decision or what questions to ask if they don't agree with it I don't have the solution but like everything that you do keeping us your constituents and the residents advised and informed so we know what's going on

1:38:32and why it's going on and this particular issue I think is more important than others I think the city in recent years has made great strides in keeping us informed but I think you need a full court press uh on this issue as you consider the change about it I was pleased pleas to hear that the

1:38:53recommendation of the staff in includes a continued drop off site uh one of the main reasons for that is that this is the the ReUse capability of our recycling center with the books and the magazines and a Goodwill truck if there's any way that can be expanded uh maybe with other thrift shops taking

1:39:14special things that people can bring uh when they're not selling them at our CommunityWide yard sale would be a good thing to do I saw a reference to a net reduction in carbon emissions but I'm not knowledgeable enough to know if a carbon footprint and a carbon emission are equal but as you

1:39:35make your dollar analysis consistent with the new direction of the city and interest with our uh environmental committee I think he should have a carbon balance or a carbon emission balance in there too because one of the things I'm coming to believe is that our

1:39:51society's coming into where we can no longer measure everything we do like the cost of our food by dollars we have to include other things but another reason why it's really important to be aware of what we the public think is that because from the days when Greg Cook and his friends

1:40:10formed and created the ecology until now one of the most dedicated portions of our community is sened around the recycling center and it would be a crying shame to lose it so we depend on you not to lose it thank you thank you next speaker please there's no more

1:40:32speakers anybody else would like to speak before we close public comment okay thank you we'll bring it back here for final discussion um we've been asked to provide Direction on three uh three issues that were uh outlined in the staff report have any final discussion and

1:40:55could we hear from one more person we have a consultant here and I'm just I'm just wondering if you have anything to add to you know what you've heard in terms of the questions the council has asked about what's been presented to us and I and I asked this open-ended

1:41:11question because I actually have met you before um when you worked um did work for the Waste Authority board and so I'm just thinking you might have some things to help the council Along on its decision making well good good evening council members I'm William Shon

1:41:26principal with R3 Consulting Group um we fully support everything we've heard from uh from both the citizens and and staff I think single stream recycling has come a long way in The Last 5 Years um it definitely is a trend nationally um and in Northern California as it was

1:41:44reported it it is the uh most common system um that is in use today and is contining to become more common the spw May and San Mato County which has a system similar to yours a two a two crate system is switching to a fully automated single stream system which is

1:42:02what's being suggested for the city that's 100,000 additional accounts so um the the processing capabilities have increased substantially in The Last 5 Years as well the uh the facilities that are out there um many of them that uh that are potential options for the city

1:42:19are are newer um newer facilities um the the equipment is um has improved substantially in terms of the ability to separate the materials and address some of the issues that had been um significant in the past in terms of contamination contamination is typically more with single stream

1:42:39programs but with good education uh that can be minimized and and and very manageable and coupled with the processing capabilities while contamination still can be higher than a source separated system it is it is no longer um a fatal flaw and and far from that and I think the industry continues

1:42:59to make strides so I I wouldn't look at that as as any real issue in terms of uh um a concern long term in terms of the viability or effectiveness of a single stream program thank you okay thank you all right any final comments um so I'm go ahead I'll just um so I think

1:43:24we're being asked to um uh support staff on or give direction on three issues it would look to me like we're just giving direction not any uh specific motion and I know I just to state that I'm certainly in favor of the three things that are being requested which are one

1:43:42to to Cease the on-site processing at the recycling center so so that means processing not uh acceptance of materials um and um so the the curb what to me that would mean is that the materials collected to the curb side would not go to the recycling center at all they

1:44:00would go directly to the off-site processing center and I'm supportive of that um number two we would as a city provide uh recycling carts with lids and wheels the same size as our green race material bins are or carts are now to all um res all it says all all customers of um are in are um our rate

1:44:28of our waste collection system and then uh the the last thing that we would do is to change the collection system from being the two Bend system to a single cart system where everybody would put in paper products and um bottles um would it be plastic bags too even stuff like

1:44:49that uh that would [Music] that would depend upon the processor but I would certainly hope we could choose a processor that would accept and would it include those the plastic um containers you get at Trader Joe's the intent would be to have all hard and film Plastics

1:45:07included you would not have to look at a number or even really think about it as long as you knew it was plastic so I can't imagine a uh resident who wouldn't be um happy with the ability to put all of that stuff in there uh and not worry about it um and uh uh clean up some room in their

1:45:25garage or wherever it is they're storing all those different containers now um so that's that's that's what I personally would support okay Janet is outline support for the three items is there anybody here who doesn't want to support any one of the three no I just have some

1:45:42comments okay pardon I have some comments oh good okay uh Council manager Mo okay um I I do support this as a direction for ELO and one of the reasons or one of the primary reasons I do is that I think the recycling center has been a great asset for elero and we have

1:46:00over the years continued to dra to to do try to do more and more with our recycling program but that innovation has primarily happened in the drop off in the activities at the center itself and our ability to go beyond where we are now depends on not processing what I

1:46:19call the easy stuff at our recycling center when there's so much other stuff that we could be helping the residents um divert from from the landfills and so I think for elero to stay ahead of the game and actually frankly at this point to catch up with the rest of the region

1:46:36requires that we go into this sort of an operation with our curbside recycling so that we can start to be even more Innovative and way ahead of the game in our running of the recycling center and the services that we provide for for um for our residents so I think this is a

1:46:53really excellent place to go and a necessary place to go for us and since we are in fact redoing the recycling center I'm I'm actually very pleased that we've taken the time to sort of relook at this um in a more comprehensive way both in terms of what it's going to cost us and I think what

1:47:13the center should look like and what we're capable of handling and what our potential for handling in the future so I think this is a very exciting time for Al on a very exciting thing to see coming before the council I just had a couple of comments to make that I think this is a pretty

1:47:29create creative solution to a big financial problem that we have with rebuilding our recycling center and I'm hoping that some way we can find $3.5 billion dollar more solution um so that we can redo our Center you know it's no secret that it's it's really always been

1:47:46one of the most popular and visible things in elero and so um you know we're really looking forward to um having the opportunity to make the changes and part of that involves the stge swap um I'm hoping that maybe when we start looking at more design for the this new

1:48:04recycling center that we can also probably consider doing some adding some recycled material into that building too to maybe bring down the cost and put some old bottles and street signs and and make it uniquely elero as so many things here are um and I think this was

1:48:22this is really a good solution and I think for me it's been a big concern about our workers comp and this is a really good solution I think like Laticia said it's good for us too because we're we we're going to change a process that the rest of the industry is is

1:48:37changing and and that's a good thing yeah I just wanted to say I support the three new directions and particularly combining it all in one big bin that makes it easy even for high schoolers to help recycle um and I look forward to seeing the program in more detail as you bring It Forward refining

1:48:58to the council and we move ahead so thanks um one more com comment about the educational piece of this um one I think it will be simpler to get people to understand that they can put everything in one and instead of trying to educate both our existing residents and our new

1:49:14residents about separating and what you can and what you you can't also because the rest of West county is already having this process and the Waste Authority board is already um deeply engaged in continuing to Ed educate the public about what goes into Recycling

1:49:30and getting more into Recycling and less into their trash I think we'll be able to piggy back on existing educational campaigns within West County and that will also save us some money so I don't see the educational campaign piece of it as a big budget item or necessarily a

1:49:46big time item beyond what we're already doing and I think we're going to get a lot of help in working with um the Waste Authority since we won't be doing something different from the other cities you know I was thinking something else that GAR said when he was talking

1:49:59about taking the plastic bags and that is you know our residents and this goes into the education piece that Leticia just mentioned is our residents already are used to separating things out and if we and if that that kind of difference exists in some of these centers you know

1:50:14to to find one that uh probably is a little more discriminating and and you you know what I'm saying so we don't get the ooze and the shopping carts and things like that because our residents probably aren't going to be doing a lot of that anyway because they've been well

1:50:26educated up until now U the other uh thing I would comment on that's um occasionally a problem I not in my house now when I have guests and that is they don't know which bin to put things in so if the uh bins that we acquire can be clearly marked that they are the recycling bins maybe not just on

1:50:49one side but on because you never know which direction it's going to be pointing relative to the direction it's going to be approached from by um a visitor say that it would help to you know to put things in the for people to put things in the right container um you

1:51:05know if they're well marked um including in in U Future in the future the garbage container um I think that would be helpful okay I just add a couple comments uh I think all of have expressed we're looking forward to that report uh comprehensive report uh I think this is one of the bigger uh

1:51:28projects that we have this is a a huge um a huge project in this sense we're changing uh service for the better and joining the rest of the recycling world in in in the uh cart collection but we are also uh designing a new facility for half the cost and I think the two of

1:51:52those put together and I'm I'm assuming or at least I'm hoping that some of the savings offset some of the increases that we need for this um that this will take us well in Into the Future the other thing and it came up a couple times with our speakers is that um our

1:52:09recycling center acts as a as a community meeting point social point and uh look forward to keeping that environment intact thank you so I guess uh you have your direction thank you very much okay um we have uh Council assignments and lay on reports um this goes right into what I

1:52:38need to talk about which is uh sort of waste um I am Elso representative on the um the Waste Authority the West County Integrated Waste Management Authority and there are a couple of issues that um I should bring up I guess in addition to representing Al stre I'm also the

1:52:57current I think Vice chair and I sit on a green waste subcommittee that the Waste Authority recently um created and one of the reasons for the waste the subcommittee is because there were some issues of green waste um from West County not that was going to the landfill instead of to um being diverted

1:53:19for Reuse Recycling so there's some green race issues that the region is struggling with because of Permitting issues at the landfill and and the transfer station um in that process one of the messages that it's come through that I have neglected to share with the

1:53:34council and the community is that in West County of the the green waste being collected El ceritos is always the least contaminated so one of the issues that it's been coming coming forward is that um because of Permitting issues the green waste going to the transfer

1:53:50station has to be particularly UNC uncontaminated and so there were some concerns that different parts of the roots going to the transfer station have had particularly poor quality of green waste and therefore is required a great deal of processing and the Waste

1:54:07Authority is going to be working with the transfer station operators and landfill operations and they're probably going to come up in collection costs who needs to pay for this additional processing and we're still working through that but the message I wanted to

1:54:21share is that our residents are doing a fine job in using their green waste carts and getting only green waste in there and not a high level of contamination that was point the one thing I wanted to share the second thing I wanted to share is this is budget season for the Waste Authority and um in

1:54:38terms of our waste cost the cities deal with the collection cost of garbage recycling Etc the um their sort of landfill costs Etc but a a part of our garbage rates um is is the waste Authority's role as the jpa in organizing having a landfill transfer station and various other um pieces of

1:55:01the process and although it's not a a big piece it is a piece of the of the cost and so right now the Waste Authority is going through its budget process and in that process there are two proposals on the table for elrio and elrio gets called out because the rest

1:55:17of West County recy Rec Les its waste at the the West County Recycling Center When Calls it the Earth um but we do our recycling ourselves so our price with with respect to the jpa um all but collection rate portion of the our waste or Garbage rates is a little different

1:55:36for elero we have a proposal um for the 2009 rates that ranges between 52 cents and 67 cents per month for the residential 30 gallon can um the Waste Authority will be taking this up at the November meeting and so what I'd like is for the information from the Waste

1:56:00Authority to be shared with the rest of the council and to get direction from the council at our next meeting about um which of the um options on the table from the Waste Authority staff do we want to go forward with for else to read up great could we have that on the next

1:56:16uh meeting thank you that's it thank you any other reports I have one I have one too um I just wanted to report out that Fab met on um October 14th and uh Mary Dodge our finance um manager gave um some reading assignments of different disaster preparedness um Financial plans that

1:56:42were gathered through other from other cities um no decision was made this was a reading assignment was rather in-depth of large packets of material to read so they'll be looking at that in the next meeting and also um just a a very brief review of Revenue assumptions and um

1:57:02what we may or may not expect from 200 um 8 2009 budget um changes not only the uncertainty with the state but also changes potential changes in our sales tax and gas tax um no firm numbers were presented it was just a a little bit of an overview of what Mary thought might

1:57:21be coming towards us nothing specific and no action taken Pro I just wanted to acknowledge the arts and culture commission and staff ladies on Karen pinkas for organizing the um art opening at City Hall that was held last Friday night it was very successful and pleasant event

1:57:42and I also wanted to invite residents and any interested people to stop by City Hall to visit and to view historic photos of elero as well as a collection of landscape paintings and I was hopeful that Karen could remind us the next meeting of the arts and culture commission will be I

1:58:01believe October 22nd no not till the third Wednesday in November okay and then could you also let us know the um location that the meeting will be held in our beautiful new city hall yes it'll be held in the hillside room which is just adjacent to our beautiful new Gallery space

1:58:19and the date is November 19th okay at 7 o' thank you Janet okay um I uh as you may remember I'm your representative to the East Bay division of the league of California cities we had a meeting last week and uh we heard from pg& about um their uh Energy Efficiency

1:58:47programs and um um they have a number of programs to work with both businesses um local governments and residents to uh improve Energy Efficiency and um so they have some they talked about a program called climate smart that enables people to reduce their um uh

1:59:11carbon footprint by balancing out the uh greenhouse gas emissions associated with their energy use they have uh incentive programs for retail customers um who have things like solar panels and um one of the things that I thought was kind of interesting is they have a program dealing with local

1:59:30government which um they the person who represented them thought that elrio was perhaps working on uh I somebody here is able to address that um but um there was a question they weren't quite sure actually the person who was there but could maybe you could address

1:59:54yeah so there's a a few programs we've been involved with uh from that are funded by PG but one of the the very current ones is that through the association of Bay Area government's energy Watch program which is funded by pg& we've been able to initiate uh an

2:00:13Energy Efficiency lighting installation in two elero facilities the Community Center and the public safety building both of those are actually occurring right now um we had a number of the installations happen last week and because of some materials that were not

2:00:29quite done correctly uh they're going to be back again next week or later this week and next week to finish it up uh and you should see a council weekly report on that um within the next week and a half okay great no wonder they didn't quite know it was in process when

2:00:42they were speaking um thank you um and um the uh ELO committee on Aging met also last week and um there's a program going on there that we're hoping to set up um some periodic meetings um where we'll have uh a speaker instead of their usual meeting format it'll maybe be every other

2:01:09meeting we'll have a speaker on a topic that's of general interest and they've come up with a list of topics that they would like to perhaps have a speaker on one of the things that seems to come up at that committee frequently as a topic is the cost of housing they're very

2:01:25concerned about the high cost of housing and um the lack of affordable housing in the area what what they consider to be truly affordable housing um as opposed to U affordable housing according to the um some index um which um for example they uh looked at U Village at Town

2:01:48Center and and what affordable housing meant there uh in the category that was where it was that it was designated it meant $100 a month off the rent and uh some of the rents there were like about 1,500 a month so that meant instead of 1,500 it was $1,400 a month which for um

2:02:07seniors on fixed income really doesn't do anything so that's an an issue that they have a lot of concern about and keep talking about so they're very interested I think in the uh new housing element that we'll be working on and um we'll you know we'll see what happens with with that but they plan on

2:02:28having a speaker on that and and perhaps is their first speaker in this series and um abag will uh be meeting um this week I think it's this week next week thank you uhhuh uh on my end things here uh con Costa mayor conference A continuing issue that seems to be

2:02:51getting bigger and bigger at at each meeting is the water issues surrounding the Delta and supplying Southern California um our Associates in in the East County uh around the Delta are very concerned that uh there will be a water problem should these uh the Water

2:03:11projects go through and uh they're very conscious in watching that and there's a um there's actually a lot of interest over there and a lot of people Gathering uh information and uh formal presentations on this uh so at some point it's going to come before uh this

2:03:31board to to take a look at it and see if we want to support or not uh whatever action is going to be recommended so you might want to keep an eye out for that and we do have uh at least one member of the council who probably could fill us in even even more so we look forward to

2:03:49that uh also there's continuing watch on the state budget uh one of the things that came out of the meeting uh is the possible Grassroots movement on looking at changing to 2/3 requirement at the state level and there's a lot of interest on that uh on that issue at at the mayor's

2:04:11conference so be interesting to see if indeed a Grassroots issued uh movement does come up to turn that around and finally uh as Janet mentioned earlier went to the league of California City State conference and among other things uh attended a an update report on

2:04:33Redevelopment and the first of all uh the California Redevelopment Association is convinced that um the takeaway that the state did this this year uh will be a threeyear process not not a onee that that they're planning on now 3 years of taking away money from Redevelopment they are also uh seriously

2:05:00their Association is seriously considering suing the city over the issue the state and um the city or the state uh excuse me the state suing the state over the issue we won't hear about that probably till after the first of the year if they're going to go forward with that

2:05:17but right now uh they're they're not too happy about the whole deal they they think that the governor uh riged on a promise not to touch Redevelopment and uh so they're pursuing their they're looking at that from a legal standpoint anything else well good if not uh tonight we're

2:05:41going to adjourn our meeting in memory of uh Richmond police officer Brad m who succumbed to injuries sustained while responding to backup another officer at the scene of the assault of an assault what was interesting this has been the only the night this happened it

2:06:01was the only night it rained in in what the last 5 months and I think it can from uh the reports I read the rain contributed to this accident so it was pretty unfortunate in in many from many different angles officer Moody has served with the Richmond Police Department for seven years he survived

2:06:21by his wife and two young children and with that if we could have a moment of silence before we adjourn thank you this meeting is adjourned