City Council Meeting November 3, 2008

0:00:17welcome to tonight's meeting the November 3rd 2008 uh city council meeting like to ask uh council member more to lead us in the pledge please certainly please join us to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible

0:00:42with liberty and justice for all thank you all for coming uh like the record to reflect that all members of the city council are here tonight and we have a council and staff community Communications staff yeah I have one announce one uh item the last three years the St City Hall has closed

0:01:12uh during the week from Christmas through New Year's and we just wanted to bring it to your attention and make sure essentially that it was okay with the city council um the way the holiday falls this year there are eight business days between Christmas Eve and uh

0:01:30the day after New Year's and five of those we would be closed anyway so the in one sense the staff has gotten used to it and in other sense as most people know that's when all the schools are closed and everyone puts in for vacation time um uh business at City Hall is way

0:01:47is way off during that period there's also obviously cost savings if the building is closed as well as keeping people off the road and uh additionally for us with Staffing invariably if we're open we are going to have to deny vacations and keepy people key people

0:02:03here um to cover we don't believe it's been any problem in the past but because um essentially we would be closing 3 days that we wouldn't otherwise be closed I wanted to make sure that the council was comfortable with it um all of the staff that works in City Hall

0:02:19would be required to take three days vacation time which also helps us in away because that's three days of vacation times everyone that works here that we would get off our books because uh vacation time is something once you get it you get paid it uh you get paid

0:02:33out upon separation so we would also be get somewhat of a liability off so there's a number of different reasons to do it but I just wanted to make sure there were no that you were okay essentially okay with it uh and then if so we would announce it we'd get it

0:02:47right up on our website and signs and making sure the public knew that that we would be closed that week and again we've done it the last few years this one just happens to be one day longer than we've ever done before so that's that's it can I just ask uh what

0:02:59employees are staying on the job during this time uh police fire and Recreation has a scale down staff uh if for keeping the pool essentially keeping the pool open and I think the senior center is still open most some of those days and uh on the planning end did we have any

0:03:19complaints from people who had applications out not that I'm aware of will we will we try to do and I think we've been successful in the past is particularly building and and to some degree planning have tried to clear essentially clear whatever backlog there is before the holidays in case anyone's

0:03:34in the pipeline so um maybe they work a little more to try to just get get through it and make sure anyone who has any expectations for permit approvals knows that we either get it done in advance or it'll be the week later and if there's for some reasons people need

0:03:49to go faster we we try to expedite them okay and again um this is all voluntary time off or voluntary nobody's being forced to take time off during this time voluntary time off um in the past if someone did not want to take the time or didn't have the time they've been

0:04:07reassigned and they work at either at the community center or public safety building great okay does anybody want to agendize this okay looks like uh this Council uh doesn't need to further discuss it thank you thanks any other uh reports from St or comments for staff

0:04:33councel um yes I have when I attended an abag meeting which I'm not clear but may uh fall under the ab 1234 requirement for reporting out so just to be on the safe side I I'll do it now instead of at the end of the meeting and uh I attended the fall General Assembly which was held

0:04:52at the Oakland Marriott um on October 24th and um it was an all day um event and um one of the more interesting well the topic was water and land use and one of the more interesting things that I learned about uh was just how important the Delta is not just to those people

0:05:13who live in the Delta but those of us who live in this particular area and um even though our water originates from the sieras uh it has to travel through the delta in order to get here so um if the if the um the um if the Delta falls apart if the uh levies give away and all

0:05:38of that that will impact our water supply not just uh that of uh the intermediaries and and um so we really do have a stake in what does happen in uh the Delta and I found it very interesting and I hadn't really realized the extent to which that was true so we talked about that we also

0:06:00talked about we had a um speaker Daryl Steinberg who's the um Senate President Pro elect of the state senate who uh sponsored Senate Bill 375 I think it is um the followup to AB 32 on uh climate protection and um so that was an interesting speaker but primarily we did

0:06:24focus on um water issues um and um what might happen in the CL in the excuse me in the case of global warming and the various changes that would go on there um and it it sounds like we really do need to be concerned about it as we work through things in the future so that was

0:06:47it thank you anybody else okay I have few things here uh first of all the uh Council met in session to interview for a candidate for the West Conor Costa County Unified School District citizens Bond oversight committee and we've had an opening on that committee for a while and Mr Paul

0:07:12uh Gilbert Snider has been appointed by the city council to serve in that capacity as representing this uh city of elero so we like congratulate Mr Snider on that uh Second of all we have a plaque here from the California legislative assembly through Lonnie Hancock's office

0:07:35uh congratulating the city on the uh City Hall elero City Hall so just wanted to show that people and we'll put it with the rest of our plaques here good and finally um as a as a kind of a preview to our mid year budget uh review that will happen in February uh staff will be

0:08:00presenting a uh update on the finances of the city and how and the uh effects of the federal government and state government action uh has on the city of elero it'll also give us an opportunity to have a benchmark uh before our mid uh you know midterm uh budget review so

0:08:22that'll be uh next next meeting okay anybody else um next agenda item please next agenda item is oral Communications from the public this place on the agenda is reserved for comments and inquiries from the public regarding matters on the agenda and matters which do not

0:08:43otherwise appear on the agenda all persons persons wishing to speak should will sign up with the city clerk remarks are limited 3 minutes per person please state your name and city of residence for the record and we have three speakers this evening the first is Rose Mary

0:09:04lual good evening everybody it's very nice to be in this nice shiny building um I'm here tonight to talk about trees which is on my slip I'm just about finished my eight years of serving on the park and wreck commission and about eight years ago According to some

0:09:23of the newspapers I have um the city council Nito agreed to Urban Forest planning and specifically agreed to the replacement of trees at Canyon Trail Park some of you may remember the 47 trees that had the big red axis on this is 8 years ago at that time the council agreed to go

0:09:44ahead and remove them in a timely fashion and replace them well we've had lots of talk and some budgets and so far not a single tree in 8 years has been replaced at Canyon Trail park now at the last Park and wreck Commission on October 22nd and Janet was there the uh

0:10:06commission by a 5 to1 vote strongly approved that's a quote strongly approved that the uh City go ahead with implementing the policy of basically Urban Forest plan implementing the policy of replacing each dead tree in our parks with one with two and Bruce said maybe four trees the there is now

0:10:29budget to do that there's $220,000 to do it and we have now rain so we know we've got rain it's a good time to be uh planting Bruce said that he could get the stock within a few days and he could assemble a uh crew to plant the trees in a few days and so I said at the

0:10:49commission and I'm saying now I really hope that you Council go ahead and make sure that the policy that you have agreed to and that previous council members have agreed to make sure that this actually goes into action I don't think you even need to agendize it there

0:11:06is the money there is a knowhow there is 8 years of agreeing to do this and six trees have being cut down in Canyon Trail Park this year particularly in the last month six weeks month okay they're lying there dead excluding pitch can of fungus which should be removed excluding

0:11:27beetles weigh to be dragged off and and replanted so I urge you as strongly as I can make 208 the year when some trees are replanted at Canyon Trail Park one more thing um there was quite a bit of work eight years ago about the problem of the pitch caner p uh disease

0:11:50and just want to remind you that what we found out then through a lot of work from those hundreds of people came to meetings that the Beatles and the fungus work in sync the fungus is in the Beatles you have to have the Beatles to spread the fungus but the the Beatles

0:12:06need the fungus and all the forestry people who talked to us then and you can get them stuff online strongly urge that when you have trees taken down either deliberately or by accident that if there is a question of pitch canker which we do have in our parks and all

0:12:24around us that these trees should be removed as soon as possible after they're cut because otherwise the stumps and the branches lying on the ground are sources of spread of the disease so I would urge that in addition to endorsing putting into action the par and wck

0:12:42commission's plan strongly advise plan to get going on planting some trees that you also make sure that the park and wreck and Public Works does remove the dead trees that are there right now because to put in new trees at a time when you've got dead trees that are

0:12:57excluding bad stuff would really be pool planning and not part of the urban Forest planning so with respect and urging which I've done many times I'm going to ask you one more time you got the money you got the stuff please get going and make sure that trees stop

0:13:13being planted this next couple of months while we've got the rain thank you very much and different item I would like to say excuse me your time I'm sorry sorry I I really urge that you listen to Rend Bailey I know about grip it's a great program thank you right been agenda size

0:13:30thank you appreciate it next speaker Peter Lal last time I sort of commented that actually people standing here in front of you should know how much time they have left Rosary didn't have this I promise to leave it here before we start you sorry I wanted to introduce

0:13:55our new speaker Timing System if you look up here on the presentation table you'll see that there are three um discs oh there's a green thing yeah the when the green goes on that give you the time your time goes on and when you have 1 minute left there'll be a yellow spot

0:14:11and it'll turn red when your time is also be nice to see what's being shown thank you so you don't need this I'll keep it at home andbody can use it on me thank you very much appreciate okay now uh what I want to talk about you have a Conant calendar item extending funding

0:14:28request uh a request for over $100,000 for 14 bicycle lockers at Del not in addition to the four lockers that are just outside here and now that's around that comes to around $6,000 to safely Park one bicycle now it's certainly an improvement over the more than $10,000

0:14:48to park a safely one bike at the plaza but it's still way too much I I've researched it and looked around and there's firms in California that offer the comparable electronic bicycle lockers for $500 oh I'm sorry for $1,500 to park safely one one bike and install

0:15:08it now now I uh talked this over with Melanie and it seems that B has gone Soul Source on this request and is holding on to a lot of money uh for what they call lighting but could be overhead now uh obviously it's in everybody's citizens interest and the city's

0:15:29interest that we have as much as many bicycle lockers made available as possible now you should certainly approve the request but I think staff should be encouraged to try for say 50 lockers from this funding request and keep an eye on itemized bar costs and report to you and the public and I think

0:15:48you should have a public meeting before this is finalized uh for instance some of us uh would be very keen on on having a chance to keep our luggage in the locker when we come on B from the airport so that we can get our cars and so on you know let's say if we got cars

0:16:06are parked two blocks away and so on or uh I also looked at the offers of very similar lockers they look just like this except they have a solar panel and they can be us for $400 more they can be used to recharge an an electric bicycle helping people to Electric I mean a

0:16:24battery powered bicycle so there's other issues involved so certainly go for the money but make sure that it's the request doesn't say we're happy with 14 14 more lockers we should get many more than that thank you very much thank you next speaker please Greg Lyman waiting for my green

0:16:50light mayor Jones C council members my name is Greg Lyman I am a resident [address removed] I'm here tonight to request you to encourage staff to move forward with the planting at Canyon Trail Park the city has planned planting at Canyon Trail Park of 180 trees at our request

0:17:11and and consistent with the urban Forest plan but this year they postponed it because of the drought they said that uh that planting 180 trees would exceed the water budget for that park for Kenya Trail I encouraged staff to reduce the number of plantings for this year and to

0:17:32move forward I don't know if they have they did not come forward to the last park and rec commission to report if they were responding to this comment but I hope you will join me in encouraging staff to plant trees this year at Canyon Trail Park appropriate to the drought

0:17:51conditions as best we can so thank you good night thank you any other uh speakers anybody else would like to speak okay next agenda item please next agenda item is adoption of of the consent calendar including minutes for approval a resolution confirming the wall of fame subcommittee

0:18:12recommendations claims against the city an extension of the June 2007 bicycle Transportation account Grant funds 2009 integrated resource recovery recovery facility rate options and strengthen the assembly Bill 32 scoping plan okay move adoption of the consent calendar second moov and seconded to

0:18:34adopt the uh consent calendar for tonight all those in favor I oppos motion carries next uh next agenda item please next agenda item is policy matters matters presentation by the Greater Richmond Interfaith program and consideration of grip's request for funding tonight's presentation will be

0:18:56by Arthur J H hat executive director great we can have the presentation now thank you Reverend thank you uh mayor Jones member of the council for allowing us to make the presentation uh also want to thank um city manager and the mayor for meeting with us uh month or so

0:19:17ago what we've been trying to do it grip most of you are fam familiar with grip so I don't have to really go through a lot of it but we are an in faith agency uh the great Rec Faith program we celebrating our 42nd year um but the big thing is that we basically put together

0:19:38a One-Stop Service delivery Center for homes individuals and families when we completed the new Super Center family housing and Support Services Center in 2006 so what we've been doing since then we were able to change our evolving um emergency winter family shelter to where

0:19:56we have um able to shelter families year round we have a 75 bed facility for uh Sheltering homeless families and um it's it's not just a shelter but we have a large amount of support services so the families come there uh they they get our money management we help them to get

0:20:19some type of income and then we start working with them to get jobs all the kids are provide a transportation to go to school and the adults we work with wherever they are through our case management um so they they're into a jobs or they're getting some type of

0:20:35training or they're uh working on some of their problems rather be mental health or alcohol drugs or whatever we take meet them where they are and move them along last year in 2007 we're able to accommodate 63 families 23 individuals most mostly children and but the good

0:20:56part that other 60s three families were able to place 33 in Department housing so our real goal is to get people to be self-sufficiency um but my purpose here is on the funding issue um last year some of you probably recall it was in the paper and everything around

0:21:17September we were like run out of money to maintain the um Family Shelter it's been difficult trying to get the funding this year we had a budget of about $350,000 for the family housing Alan but we had to reduce that um because it's just um really challenging uh we haven't been able to

0:21:40get any major agencies to want to commit to homeless families of with the long haul so last year what we did we started meeting with the uh various West County cities at the West County Mayors and supervisors associations and for the first time this year year we just about

0:21:59every with after um assuming that ELO joins in it'll be the first time that we whether we've got all the West County cities to participate in some type of contribution to the program um our method is that we don't think that it's um possible or feasible for any

0:22:24City to carry on them a major burden but if everybody works with us together we can make this happen the big burden has always been on our congregations and we were able to do that really good during the emergency evolving shelters because they actually house the uh families and

0:22:40fed them and everything but when we move into the new facility it's kind of like when you have a u taking care of some children home and they have a daycare center the rules change and so we have a lot of um different ways that we have to operate we uh food has to be prepared

0:22:57either in the kitchen because it's a licensed kitchen facility or it has to be brought in and so it makes it much more difficult uh we're we're operating 24/7 now instead of 20 months out of the year and we maintain everything on site so besides the homeless families that we

0:23:19serve we're still providing a Noonday meals every day to homeless individuals and families last year we fed 53,000 lunches this year we've already fed over 48,000 as you might imagine with the economy things are getting worse instead of better the good part about is that we

0:23:39still have a sufficient amount of volunteers from our congregations um well the people call people call it volunteers as part of the churches and various different religious organizations Ministries and so we have about 3,000 that work with our meals program and about another 15 and 2,000

0:23:58that are working with the family shelter and other aspects so besides the meals besides the shelter we're also able to provide um showers and um telephone services emails um mail service and just variety of of of referral and counseling opportunities for homeless individuals

0:24:20so it really is a One-Stop service center for home individuals and families in West County and um it's just I think that it's great that we're able to maintain it here and it's um the cooperation that we've been getting not only from our congregations but local

0:24:36government and some of our um other agencies has been terrific some of you may uh know that last month in October we had the largest um Harmony walk 10 home homelessness and hunger that we ever had over 300 people participated so far we've um raised over $60,000 we've

0:24:58never raed that much before so things are really going good and so we're just hoping that uh you know that if El can continue to support with the rest of the St in this area then we'll be able to maintain our program and to provide this essential service that our people need

0:25:16and just a couple things in terms of um uh elsita Pacific um we're able to show um Scott and and uh Amir when we met that with the homeless count that was conducted in January of this year um out of the 600 and I think 11 homeless individuals that we counted in

0:25:38West County there were 117 from Els Sero um so we we know that the homeless is Shar throughout our certainly not only the county but certainly in West country Costa County to uh according to the homeless County the County's homeless program let's say about 47% of the county Hans are in West

0:26:01County but the good part about them is that we're able to handle them and we want to not just be a recipient of funding but we want to be a partner in and handling homeless individual and families so you know you'll have you know that you can refer them to us we

0:26:18can take care of them if we can't get them into U housing in our facility we can refer them to other agencies we can uh do the case management for them and we can provide meals and we can provide showers and other type of services so that's so we are we're the uh Interfaith

0:26:34program and and we basically are the primary U provider for homeless individuals and families in this area great could you hold on for a second see if we have any questions uh before we go to public comment I I didn't have a question but I had uh just a comment um this issue came up last

0:26:54year I think West County Mayors a couple of times and you may have someone may have even addressed us at the Waste Authority board and last year the West County Mayors had talked about getting together um before the end of last year for all the the cities to contribute to

0:27:11grip and I think Richmond made a significant contribution last year and they also talked about the fact that um one of the other large homeless shelters had closed last year and so there was a greater burden on grip and so it behooved all the cities to contrib rute

0:27:28to this resource to make sure we didn't lose it because it needs to happen in West County I'm not sure what happened to that effort but this discussion has been going on amongst the West County Mayors for at least um over a year over a year it came back it came back about 6

0:27:44months ago I think uh any other questions uh right now no other than the fact that as you said I'm sure that with the economy and unemployment changing um in the past 6 to 8 months I'm sure we're going to see a lot more need and uh West County and I'm sure you're already

0:28:05seeing some changes with that so I think it's good that you're here now thank you yes really has been interesting and it's easy to count the uh the meals because that's where we have the most of our traffic but like we were under 5,000 up until May and then it's been almost 6,000 every month it's

0:28:25just it's U incredible and although we think it's great that we can provide the service obviously we never would be better off if we didn't have that type of a need in our community but it does exist if I remember uh correctly when we met you indicated that grip actually has

0:28:43it been in the last two to three years has doubled the amount of um beds that you offer at at grip yes correct we had a 30 bit uh Revol facility that was just doing the winter and currently we have a 75 B 24/7 and so you did this on on your own resources correct well not my own

0:29:05resource no not we were successful in getting um a major Grant from the state for me the it was a $3.5 million 3 3,800 3 $ 3, 850,000 development including the equipment and uh we were able to get a million dollars from this state um the county came through with a million point2 Richmond

0:29:31came through with a million and then we has had donations and everything from everybody but the operation that was to develop the site correct the operations you have to uh raise funds through various means every year and we've been relying a lot on um foundations

0:29:48especially the San Francisco Foundation Margaret leer really been good to us and um again our um donations are are well and then we also so work uh we when I say that we uh we serve as physical agents physical agents uhy for several agencies that don't have uh your own

0:30:095013c including the County's homeless program so we pull in a over $200,000 through that operation good and finally just add you have so many different uh denominations of religion behind you it's almost non- denominational correct I mean you yeah we do we have the Muslim the Jew the

0:30:31Sheik the Mormons um of course Christians and all and and and in our in this community we have uh six of the 41 congregations are also three churches including St John the Baptist which is the biggest one in our group great okay anything else okay thank you we'll have public

0:30:52comment now thank you any speakers on this no there's no formal but if somebody would like to get up and speak that's fine I'm Rosemary lobal and my church is St John the Baptist just around the corner down here every single Sunday there's a collection to do something for grip and many many people

0:31:13respond uh cooking food bringing food helping out with the meals that's just my my church I do I've known it for 15 years grip is a wonderful not wasteful truly doing what they're saying to organization and you know if you pass the hat right now I make a contribution

0:31:31it's really worthwhile and I hope our city is able to do that I was sorry that during um the the big hurricanes in Florida we weren't we didn't have an effort like this for the community to donate and so we don't have a hurricane but we've got homelessness and I'd be

0:31:46happy as a taxpayer if we kicked in $110,000 and I hope you feel that you can do that or more thank you thank you well we can start discussion on this I uh I I brought it um I put it on the agenda because in part because of what uh council member Mo had indicated

0:32:06earlier that um grip had made a presentation uh and it sounds like they made one when council member Moore was mayor uh to West County and it's right every other uh City on the West County uh conference has committed money towards this and I thought thought uh this would be a great time it's November

0:32:31it's cold and particularly this year uh no matter what their people's stations and life is their resources it's shaping up to be a very long winter probably one of the longest winter we've had in a while as we try to get through a lot of these problems and going from 5,000 to

0:32:486,000 a month in the last two months is quite an increase but I think it it indicates uh where we are personally I think that uh we'll get through this but we need to get through it by coming together and supporting each other and this is one of the efforts 117 people

0:33:06from Els Sero have been served uh by this uh organization and facility uh there's not very many in the county uh this one serves West County the county has uh contributed so I think it would be money well spent for our community to uh to begin the pro process of of

0:33:29donating yeah yes I just wanted to say the first time I can uh remember coming across this organization was when my youngest daughter was in Scout I think it was my youngest daughter anyway was in Girl Scouts and they actually what I remember about the organization is that they were involved

0:33:47in the project of providing shelter at the local uh churches um and they involved the Girl Scouts among others and and helping provide um both meals and activities and it was a it was a really great experience I was very impressed I know at the time um with the work that

0:34:09grip was doing um and that they were also involving not only just getting the job done but using it as a what I consider to be a teaching exercise um for the students who were involved in that project and um that's actually been quite a while ago and um I know that

0:34:26they have a Stellar reputation uh for the work that they do and um so I feel I'm ready to support this application um I I certainly support this request I think that more than a year ago part of the discussion though was not just a one-time um funding but that the cities

0:34:47get together and discuss whether we should be doing this every year um cuz there are going to be sort of vagaries in the um foundation and other activities that are going on but that the cities commit to making um a contribution on an annual basis as as the West County cities together so

0:35:07that's not on the um on our agenda tonight but in encouraging that we go forward with this I think the council well West County mayor should take that up and the individual cities should as well sure uh elero is hosting West County these days and setting the agenda

0:35:23so uh we'll take it up before the before uh the years hopefully before our turn is up anyway okay I just want have a question for a city manager about um the likely source of the funding from the budget and um just a little background on how you see it fitting in and how we could plan if

0:35:51we are intending to make this an annual expenditure uh for our next uh round of budget considerations um since we didn't budget for it it would just come out of our unrestricted fund balance um which currently is in the mid $3 million range uh in terms of the future and know it's really at the

0:36:13council's direction through the budget process if you wanted it added you we would just presumably in the probably the council's budget add the you know add a line item uh each each budget year is sort of an ongoing um item for discussion I yeah I I personally think

0:36:34it would be good to uh review it every year because uh you know our money is getting Tighter and Tighter uh also it doesn't mean that we shouldn't pull away from from the uh support by any means but it would be good just to review this and other just like we do every other

0:36:51expenditure but it would be good to see which way the the West County uh cities would like to go on this I was going to say I also don't like the idea of putting it anything in the council's budget that isn't related to the council itself um it I I think it makes it look

0:37:08as though the council were um itself spending a lot of money on Council activities which is not what this is I would prefer to see it have its um own category if it were to exist but um I think that's actually a discussion that we will with have it at budget time yeah

0:37:29so um I I would leave it to that except just with a comment that I would not like to see things because I can remember previously that a number of things kept creeping in there and you could never really tell how the money was being used very well it you know you'd see these numbers and in fact it

0:37:45wasn't at all Council expenses it was some project that we had voted for but then we vote for all projects so I wouldn't see a reason to put it there so okay well you know I I support this um proposal and I just want to make sure that we're mindful of it as we move

0:38:03forward and as mayor Jones indicated we are have increasing you know pressures on the resources that we do have um the other thing I want to mention is that I'm sure there's opportunities for all of us in the community to contribute to this effort whether it be with volunteer

0:38:19labor or providing food or blankets um as we move into this season of great need so just want to put that out there thank you um my comments are that I support this expenditure also and I think it's important that we and Elso pay our fair share um like the other

0:38:37cities in the county are apparently already doing um and also I'd like to um have it be considered on an annual basis in the budget but I think it should come before us to be reviewed and I also think that we should have a presentation um year to year from grip great

0:38:58they're I think they're more than willing to uh to meet on a yearly basis it looks like thank you do we need a motion yes do we have a motion then I would be happy to make a motion that we approve a $10,000 ex um request for funding support by grip a second it's been moved and seconded on

0:39:21the motion to uh contribute $10,000 uh for support of grip all those in favor I I opposed motion carries thank you very much next agenda item please uh next agenda is Council assignments and leaz on reports any leaz J um yes first of all I'd like to report that I uh received a

0:39:45letter from the president of the league of California cities announcing that I had been appointed Vice chair of the community services policy committee which is the Statewide polic policy committee dealing with um community service which range every every place from things like

0:40:04recreational services to um prison issues um and seems like everything in between so um I was quite honored to receive that appointment um and um in addition to that um we had a meeting at um oops let's see here get my stuff out um uh at wict Tac and um from that group

0:40:35I was um sent to rail volution last week which is a Conference held in San Francisco one of the things that um happened there was that we had various mobile tours as they were called one of the tours was of s Pablo Avenue so I led part of that uh tour the part that was

0:40:54in Elo and we went from um uh sort of place to place in a AC Transit bus of course and um the I would like to thank personally the city staff that helped prepare the materials and did a lot of the work to uh make that tour happen and I think that people were really um uh

0:41:17appreciative of the materials we probably had I don't know about somewhere 30 somewhere between 30 40 people maybe I don't know uh on the tour and um the main theme of the conference was climate protection um and smart growth um it's always smart growth but this year the

0:41:38emphasis was also on climate protection um and um then um at um CCTA which I represent um whac there we also had a presentation on what are called um hot lanes and a hot Lane is something that they're working on developing in this region whereby they would take an HOV lane

0:42:07which is the uh High occupancy Lane and um when there was excess capacity in that lane they would um in they would continue to use it as a hot Lane excuse me as a HOV lane but they would also allow it to be used as a hot Lane whereby somebody who um paid for the

0:42:27privilege but was a single occupant in a car was allowed to use that lane uh for a fee and then the money collected um after the expenses associated with the project um after the fees were collected the excess revenues would be used to promote um some worthy project such as

0:42:49Transit uh in the corridor and um there are some pilot projects um in the um greater Bay Area none of them are in um West County but um so there's there's one going from Alama County over into um Santa Clara County and um and then there's another one over the I think it's called the

0:43:14Altimont pass if I remember my name right and um so this is sort of the um um Hot Topic you might say right now there are a lot of um people who are opposed to that because they figure they played for the HOV lanes once why should they pay for the them again with a new

0:43:33name uh and lose the capacity and there are other people who think it's a way to um ex you know get more money for transportation so there's there's kind of a debate going on right now about that topic but um we had a presentation on it at CCTA once again and um we'll

0:43:53see what happens great any other okay the only other thing that uh coming up is uh city of San Pablo is hosting this month's kind across the mayor's conference and it's also I think it's going to be a celebration as uh for Joe Gomes a longtime council member who has said he

0:44:17will not be running or did not run and therefore his 36-year career as a council member is coming to a a retirement so um it'll be nice to uh send send off Joe right that night and he's also having U waste integrated uh management is also having a dinner in his honor yes um Joe Gomes has sat on

0:44:41the west contracosta Waste Authority board I think for the entire time he's been an elected official maybe since the board has been in the authority the jpa has been in existence so um this week on Wednesday we'll be having a Waste Authority board meeting and after the

0:44:58board me board meeting there is a hosted dinner celebrating Joe's contribution to the authority great so thank you very much appreciate everybody uh uh in attendance tonight all I can say is uh whatever your persuasion please vote tomorrow it's going to be an exciting

0:45:18day thank you very much meetings adjourn