Special Redevelopment Agency and Regular City Council Meeting December 15, 2008

0:00:04city council chambers and let you know that the rules for our proceedings are included in the agenda which is the blue paper and I would also ask if you wish to speak tonight to fell out a speaker slip and hand it to the city clerk and any papers that you would like for us to

0:00:21um have please hand to the clerk I want to take this time now to ask you to silence anything that beeps especially the cell phone so that other folks in the audience will be able to hear our discussion tonight and I ask that all participants in this meeting conduct themselves with courtesy and

0:00:38respect for City staff our residents and um visitors in our community and with that I'll convene the regular city council meeting of December 15th and ask um council member Greg Lyman to lead us in the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America the

0:01:01repic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all um are there any staff Communications sorry thank you mayor council Jerry Bradshaw your Public Works director I just want to follow uh with a report that I published last

0:01:32week about the tree planting in Canyon Trail Park uh just to give you an opportunity to to uh ask any other questions you might have and also to fill in any people who might be viewing from home but we are planning to go ahead with our tree planting program in Canyon Trail Park beginning this fall uh

0:01:50we had hesitated for a while because of the current drought conditions and the restrictions placed on us by East Bay mud of using fresh water for for various types of irrigation but we solve that by uh working up a scheme where we can actually use recycled water which we

0:02:06have to truck in from the sewer plant in Richmond and we can park the water truck that we have and let it flow gravity feed down through a system that we are U have put in place in the upper half of canyon trail park to water the trees that we're going to plant this fall so

0:02:22with that system tested uh we went ahead and ordered the trees and I don't know if they're in they were going to come in this week so I don't know if they're here yet probably probably not but we'll begin planting as soon as they come in and we can get that organized um this will be the first half

0:02:38of a 2-year uh grant program we're planting 90 trees this fall and we'll plant another 90 next year if all goes well and we'll have to extend the irrigation system to the lower half next year once you know if we're going to use the same gravity feed then we'll have to

0:02:53wait and see how the water s uh situation goes I just want to let you know we will be moving ahead with the replanting of of all the trees that we've lost over the years in Canyon Trail Park great thank you also I'd like add to ask agency chair the Redevelopment agency chair

0:03:11Bill Jones to report out from our Clos session earlier this evening sure the agency met um this evening under government code section 54956.9 and that's uh real property negotiation and we uh Council has directed staff to proceed in particular direction and uh we'll be reporting out

0:03:33in the future on this issue thank you are there any other Council Communications yes I just have uh wanted to mention a very nice article that was in the West County Times um last few days um about uh it's entitled Elso residents have a ticket to ride and it talked about elero um being

0:03:58the 54 fourth in the nation and first in the East Bay in percentage of residents using public transit to work um even beating out cities like Berkeley um and I um the article goes on and talks about um some comments that Jennifer um Carmen made about it uh being attributable to such things as um

0:04:24the availability of public transit in our city um our Transit first policy in our general plan which I I remember working on with Sandy back in um and when that was implemented and um so it's really pretty exciting it um according to the article 20.5% of uh residents use transit to get

0:04:49to work in our city and I think the average um I don't know if nationally or in our county is uh significantly less than 10% % so this is a really high number uh in San Francisco it's 32.2% uh and that's a city that is immensely rich in transit um so we're doing really

0:05:12well um in terms of quickest commute um Berkeley came in first at uh 25.3 minutes to get to work but Elso came in uh let's see number five at um 30.8 uh minutes so we're doing really well there too and I I think it is a tributal you know to the the very rich Transit that

0:05:37we have here on S PBO Avenue and also we have two B stations which for a community our size is um quite a lot so anyway very nice article yes Mr Lyman thank you um I just wanted to make sure that uh our residents know about the West Contra Costa Unified School District meeting there's a

0:05:59meeting scheduled for Thursday this this week 6:30 to 7:30 at Leonia dein Middle School um and in this they will be uh publicly Distributing the two proposals for possible closures so just want to make sure our residents were aware of that yeah I just want to follow up on

0:06:17that that there was a meeting uh last Wednesday to discuss two important issues at the school board and one was the um Port Castro School uh rebuild and the second one was the district-wide school consolidation and school closure process and as Mr Lyman indicated there will be an

0:06:37important meeting next Thursday December 18th will where two scenarios will be presented and also part of the decision was made um last week was to create a committee for the uh districtwide School consolidation and closure and as a large committee um with a prescribed

0:06:58composition and part of that is that the mayor elero has to appoint two people to sit in that committee we have had inquiries already from folks who were at the meeting and I want to invite everyone in the community who's interested in possibly representing elero to submit a letter to the city

0:07:16clerk Cheryl Morris of a letter of interest and um this is all happening on a very fast track kind of schedule so we're going to ask for those letters to be received by next Monday and uh we'll be able to consider them in time for our January 5th meeting to make those

0:07:34appointments the first meeting of the committee begins January 8th and there are six scheduled meetings at different locations for each of the high school districts the meeting that will be held for representing the elero high school district will be on January 20th but it

0:07:52will be held at the portal of jym so I'll just run through briefly the different dates that this committee is going going to meet at in the year 2009 um the person who volunteers or is appointed to this committee will not have to attend all the meetings only one

0:08:08of them but they may attend more than one and they will be on January 8th 12th 13th 14th 15th and the 20th in Els Sero so please if you're interested in serving on that important board Um send a letter of intent to the city clerk okay are there any other counselor

0:08:29staff Communications before we move on the next item on the agenda is oral Communications from the public um we have four speakers um remarks are limited to 3 minutes per person please state your name and city of residence for the record comments regarding non-agenda items um will be

0:08:51heard first and I wanted to for those of you that are new I want to call your attention to our speaker timer up front um when your time when you begin your time you have 3 minutes the light will turn green when you have 1 minute left the light will turn yellow and the light

0:09:07will turn red when your time is concluded so with that the first speaker is Al Miller Al Miller ELO uh last Saturday morning on the 13th of December I had the privilege and the opportunity to take part in one of the annual events that truly shows the magic of elero and that involved the moving of

0:09:34the sunders shot holiday display figures from their storage containers in the recycling center up to the rather scuddy uh PG right away about where moer and SE view intersect uh I was very pleased and enjoyed the presence of a large uh segment of our firefighters uh represent ation from the

0:10:00police department were there helping and in the period a short period of a couple hours on a very sunny and warm Saturday morning before the storm came in uh the magic of the thers shotty holiday display kind of just grew up out of the ground and the weeds and it's there uh

0:10:20it will be there on display from 5:00 p.m. to 10 p.m. every night between now and including uh Friday December 6 anyone that would like us to uh help us restore the magic to the shipping containers can show up Saturday morning December 27th and we'll just kind of

0:10:39reverse the project I don't know everybody that was there helping but I do know that there were four people that over the years uh continue to provide the leadership and the uh guidance and the encouragement uh that keep it going and that's Jane and Rich bkey and May

0:10:59and Rich uh Ritz uh there were and Gordon white uh you know the retired landscaper that uh does most of the hard work it seems uh it's truly a remarkable thing to see and I encourage everybody to come out and see the Incarnation and bring their friends and especially the young ones

0:11:22thank you thank you next speaker Peter laal uh Peter obalo uh we had a rather cryptic comment about the close session meeting from the Redevelopment shair uh so the citizens May should know that the negotiations involve the so-call Mayfair site several acres of land right by Del

0:11:49and that's what I wish to talk about residents who entrust their savings to a mattress rather than a financial institution can at least use the funds as as soon as they decide that any of the any part of the economy gets going now when our Redevelopment agency buys

0:12:07land at more than $4 million an acre as it did with the tradeway site uh the site will be land banked for years and years and years today or maybe yesterday we heard a report that the United States expects to have 8 million vacant homes and that it will take more

0:12:27than 4 years just to sell these off these off so no housing construction no commercial construction no offices uh financed privately at least no massive such construction for years to come now obviously staff wants to do it because they need to keep their jobs going on and on and I understand that

0:12:58every everybody does but why does our Council accept the excuse that money Redevelopment money not spent will be taken over by the state surely the state could put the money to good use like schools in Elo uh surely we can trust sa Sacramento that's desperate for $40 billion to put

0:13:23it to good use first rather than waste it now if we don't if we want to really wanted to use the money in ouro we have unreinforced Nation Reb buildings everybody expects them to fall down in the next earthquake you want it on your conscience if somebody gets hurt we have

0:13:42the Aging Senior Center we have the library and I remember just a few years back uh our new again mayor saying you will get a library no way not if we don't pay for it now um the state will surely try oops I'm not responsible okay anything I did our emergency uh generator works

0:14:18though okay I'm more than half done in case the the time is up the the state will try to take any Redevelopment money for sure but wouldn't it be St smarter for staff to say say there's nothing good we can do in this town we don't have to wait to be laid off we will quit and use the money

0:14:41in Alero for schools that probably could be done they'd be here to thousands and thousands of elero elans desperate for the schools not to close and they get glowing references they'd be written up in the newspaper surely they'd have first dibs on any good job that comes

0:14:59comes along now uh if they did that uh far as I know four people in Redevelopment maybe someone in development they use uh their salaries are half a million a year they spend a million a year on on on Consulting you know that's good money that could be good put to good use by essential things

0:15:23that have to happen uh in elero now I saw the website that they're going to comment on and uh that's if that's all they can report on about their achievements over the last you know sever years other than the movie theater all I can say is uh our grandchildren tend to have their own website by the

0:15:49time they reach 12 years so I don't see it as a big achievement so uh but maybe I'll stick around and hear what they have to say uh so my comment is is first things first thank you very much thank you next speaker Kim B okay good evening glad to be here I was invited to and attended your first uh

0:16:19council meeting here when it opened and building is outstanding very very nice the thing I think I like about it most is the fact that we believe in free speech so much now that we've got a light system so that everybody whether they're speaking in favor of something or

0:16:40against it will get the same time in times past people who say something that you like wherever you happen to be they happen to speak longer than than the uh the opposition this will solve that problem I think uh but that's not the reason I'm here after after the first

0:16:56meeting I went to I went to one more and then I didn't go to it and November the 17th I watched it on television and I'm here to uh comment on um city manager uh report his report on the budget was outstanding I thought the the way he presented it and the way it was uh

0:17:16informed to the public uh was just great and Scott you did a did a great down thank you uh that was one of the things that that I was going to say that I I didn't really care about and your light goes out when you don't care for something right um but I'm hearing every I have

0:17:35bad ears oh another thing that when Scott uh called my my mind to it then there are a lot of people who don't like to speak before the microphones and they know you can hear them but there are more people watching on television than are in this room and they can't hear you

0:17:49at all when you walk away from this thing so do the same thing that Scotch just did Scott your report was wonderful loved it uh I think you're a little optimistic is all and I think the reason for your optimism were the two new Council people cuz I think if you had to hit them as

0:18:11hard as they should have been hit they would have got up and walked away I congratulate them I congratulate all three of for running for the council and sitting on the council but um we're going to be short of money going to be short a lot of money and I know all of you up there agree with the

0:18:28San Pabo Avenue Improvement plan I don't know what it is is it just uh Improvement of the landscape or Improvement of the commercial area as well if it's landscape you're doing a great job I have only one uh comment for you at Carlos and the center divide uh and the um pedestrian strip the tree is

0:18:56planted too close to that pedestrian shrip that's a terrible uh pedestrian Crossway in the first place I think the police were out there a couple weeks ago and in a couple years when that tree grows you won't be able to see people walking on on that pedestrian strip if

0:19:12you're coming from from the north end of town but other than that everything is fine the other half of the San Papo plan is not doing so well you can go up and down sanue and see no new businesses except for the LA at at the north end of town but a lot of businesses going out

0:19:31of business leaving mitubishi Target uh tradeway whatever they're all going out and real estate sales are um taxes on that this this coming year are going to be way down sales tax we know are go down we're having less businesses who sell less items we're going to have a

0:19:53whale of a time um I think that you the policy members should instruct your employee to instruct his staff and their employees the development manager and um put in place a plan to retain our existing businesses and also to attract new business I think that should be the

0:20:18number one priority um the final thing that that I well not final but Scott reported that the Redevelopment agency was short to cat cash that the city the state wanted some money from us so they had to send us some first and go back and then I guess the the day after that

0:20:36I read that are L is 13 14 months delinquent on do $140,000 I cannot comment on that because I have asked the city for the financial statements and I've been told that they are not prepared yet so I'll um I'll do that when that comes um that the theater proponents as well as

0:21:01the opponents should be aware of what's going on and open transparent government is one better than one that is is not open it's not going to be an easy task but it be done uh if you really uh are working on it hard thank you thank you last speaker rich bkey mayor Sandy members of the city council

0:21:33I'm rich Barky live on deire in elero I'm here representing the Elso Historical Society tonight um item 5c is uh on the consent calendar so I'll just say that I'd be available if anybody has any questions um beyond that I want to thank the staff for having met with the board

0:21:54of the uh uh members of of the board of the uh Historical Society the staff was very accommodating and helpful and and approachable and and uh didn't take us very long to reach uh agreements on what should be done in the uh shotti Memorial historical room um I also want to congratulate the

0:22:18members of the council who won in the last election and to offer uh on behalf of the Historical Society our willingness to meet with you to answer questions most of us are retired so we're available most of the time so if you have any questions or any problems please let us

0:22:35know thank you I want to thank everyone for speaking today and um to Echo Al Miller's comments and thank the S Optimus of el Sero for putting up the holiday uh display again this year um we had an unusual situation with the power fluctuations during the public comment

0:22:53period And I just want to say that um I appreciate that we have the new Timing System and the colors of the lights and I am going to be lenient for a few more meetings as we get used to it but I'm going to trust all the speakers to pay attention to those colors and to try to

0:23:10wrap up at approximately the time that the red light comes so that we can be Equitable in the three minute rule so thank you and with that um we'll move on to our first presentation tonight on econom the E Economic Development website and um staff Dwayne Dalman will

0:23:28be presenting good evening mayor and members of the city council my name is Dwayne dman economic development project manager I'm excited to be here tonight to present the launch of our New Economic Development website the website is primarily designed as an economic development tool

0:23:57for us to outreach to new businesses or developers looking at elero a second use for the site is to um inform our businesses and existing residents about Economic Development activities and events that are happening the website was designed by a company called Ed Suite uh we chose Ed

0:24:15Suite because they just specialize in Economic Development websites for cities and municipalities uh they understand the needs and develop and demands of Economic Development uh and we're excited about the features that our new site has to offer that are fundamentally

0:24:29different than what our current site has and I'll highlight these features as I go through my presentation tonight uh in addition in the environment in which we operate with our neighboring communities this new website allows LS to further stand out in our efforts to attract new businesses in

0:24:44development uh we anticipate that the site's going to go live tomorrow uh it can be found in two ways it will have its own address and can be found at Discover elo.com in addition you can also find it by going to the city website and then clicking on the existing Economic Development link uh so

0:25:02tonight I'm going to walk you through the various sections of the website starting on our homepage that you see here uh the first thing I want to point out on the website uh on the homepage is this animated picture section uh these pictures and messages are designed to draw readers into the

0:25:19basic message of discover elero and all that is happening here uh this directly corresponds to our printed marketing piece that we put together uh as well as our our website address I also want to point out that as we move through the different sections of the website uh you'll see that the um

0:25:40the city of elero logo is also animated so that's kind of a deep feature there uh now the rest of the homepage that I'll go through is is designed to convey specific messages about Elso and economic development first section here why locate your business in elero

0:25:58uh is really an overview of all the reasons why you would locate your business in our community uh each section here links to another section on the website so if a user only goes to one section of our website this one is a summary of everything that the site talks

0:26:16about set your sites on elero gets into the specific advantages of what we have to offer for locating your business in our community uh it highlights our proactive Redevelopment AG partnership it illustrates the the many projects that are planned or already happening on s paabo Avenue including

0:26:34the improvements that the city's making and it also highlights uh the the many m music businesses that are located here in Els Sero the we're investing in elero section uh really highlights and points out that the city is taking the lead in the investment in elero so it points out

0:26:57our our our new city hall project that we've completed it talks about the improvements along that San paabo Avenue from our public works department um and it also says that you know based on the city's lead of of what we're investing in our community we're also seeing

0:27:11investment from the private development Community for projects that are already planned uh are already in place like Village at Town Center and other ones that are being planned the uh starting an elrio business uh is a link to a brochure that our department put together that kind of

0:27:32walks people through New Perspective businesses into how they start out uh a business here in elero uh with the various departments and all the resources that are available in the community the uh ideal Bay Area location um this section really highlights uh the

0:27:54geographic advantages that elero has in the Bay Area uh we get into our Central Bay Area location we talk about our accessibility um on Interstate 80 with Bart and AC Transit um we talk about the you know our location has a range of housing opportunities for our residents um as

0:28:12well as with our proximity UC Berkeley we highlight the education attainment that our community has uh the homepage also has a section here downloads it's where people can can pull up um Mater about Els serito um for instance we have our demographic profile traffic counts uh we talk about the s

0:28:34pable Avenue streetcape um we have updates and project timelines uh so this is a page where where people can get more information about what's going on in the community um as well as the section here news and events um it just allows us to communicate important

0:28:49projects that are going on um news and events that are important to the business Community as well as our residents um here we have information about the S Pao Avenue specific plan so I also want to go into besides the the uh homepage actually let me back up here um one of the things I that that

0:29:11is uh uh we have the ability to do with this homepage is when I talked about the the uh ideal Bay Area location we also have an interactive map feature so if you're not familiar with elero uh you can see here that people can see where we're located in the state we also can

0:29:28go into you know where El is located within our region as well as from a local perspective you can zoom in and see our city uh you can see where where railroads are located uh you can see our Transit we have two bar stations as well as some basic Community assets where we

0:29:45highlight our Civic Center we have the location of the uho Plaza shopping center the Sho theater and then down at the uh North End of town our Del Norte shopping area so I've gone over the main kind of sections of our homepage uh up above you'll see we have different

0:30:04tabs uh the if you click on the about us tab it just gives an overview of The Economic Development Division kind of what our mission is and and some of the activities that we perform it also gives contact information for the division staff and allows people for them to to

0:30:22contact us with any questions or concerns that they have the community profile tab is just designed to give a little bit more specific information about our community so the sections that we currently have we have a section on major employers you can see who the top 20 employers of are

0:30:40in Els Sero we have a section here on our uh Elementary on our education system so we talk we highlight the the public schools the private schools they're are located in Els Sero and then uh each each section has you can uh email the principal we have the location you can pull up on

0:30:59a map as well as the link to all the different school websites under the Community profile we also have a demographic section uh that covers the the basics uh that a business would look for as far as that our demographic profile and that links to uh a demographic piece a two page that we

0:31:20put together it's shown here and then you can see on the on the website here we have a section here on utilities so when a business comes in they can they can have uh the contact information find out which kind of utilities that they deal with here in elero as well as a uh

0:31:43is is kind of reinforcing our transportation benefits uh that we located we have two bar stations Interstate 80 uh B AC Transit we talk about our our proximity to the Oakland San Francisco airports uh and people can also pull up traffic counts uh which is something that retailers look

0:32:04for another section that we have is uh links and this just a just a a a page that's designed to give people quick reference where they can they can log on to this page and and and uh go to different city departments they can pull up community links as well as resources

0:32:21that are available from a from a from a regional state uh and federal level Economic Development programs uh just gives a little more insight into the the activities and programs that we have in our Economic Development Division we highlight our uh shop Els Sero marketing

0:32:38campaign in that website we talk about uh business workshops in events that we put on uh activities like our business recognition Awards and people can see who our current award recipients are in the past ones uh we we highlight our video surveillance Loan program and

0:32:56people can pull up appli ation and find out loan terms and things like that uh another section which which I want to highlight which I think is uh is something that uh uh is a is a nice feature for us is the property section and here um we can we can list properties that are available so if

0:33:13someone someone wants to find out um you know building that's available for lease or for sale or if they're looking for land to buy here in Elo they can click on this section we keep this up to date based on um information that we get from Property Owners as well as listings from

0:33:28the different brokers in the community so here you have a listing and and someone can click on um say Bank of the West Plaza and you can find that you know they have 667 ft as one of their spaces at $2 a square foot uh gives a little a description about the location

0:33:48um we have links then you can link to to um the broker their kind of profile sheet that they put together it shows here here and then we also have links uh that that show um where each of these locations is located on the map uh the last thing I want to point out is that that shows here is in this

0:34:14um back at our homepage uh the proposal Lo login that that you see here um that's a feature that allows us to when we get inquiries from a from a developer or a potential business that wants to locate in the city uh this allows us to customize the information we can if if

0:34:31someone says they want to um uh show us information on on two sites or two acres that are available in the city and and could we send them some basic demographic information or traffic counts then through this feature we can customize any part of of this website

0:34:47and we put that together and we send them an email that says you know you have a custom proposal from the city of Els Sero and then they can log on and get all that information that we sent so it's a nice way for us to interact with with potential customers and developers

0:35:00and and provide them information that's specify to what they're looking for exactly so that's kind of an overview of our web page uh we're excited about the information that's here we're excited about this new page um and we're ready to launch this tomorrow so I open up now

0:35:18for any uh questions or comments that you have any questions I have a question about how your I guess the process for updating the content or just getting ideas from the public about you know maybe featured businesses or just um yeah what what would that be and

0:35:38what what is that proposed to be for this website okay uh so so we can update website's very easy for us to add information um so we can go in and and add to whatever section I mean the main sections are Set uh but if if if the public wants to know more or we can put

0:35:57in the we can have more information in the community profile we can put information in the news and events um we have a contact us section here under the tab so if someone wants information or or wants to add information to the website they can click on that and

0:36:12contact us and it has has a narrative box that they could say you we'd like to see more information on this or whatever they're looking for so it's a very it's a it's a a site that's very easy for us to add to and and and build on um were businesses from Elso included in

0:36:29the development process I assume um you mean as far as asking them what they were looking for in in the site um not in this particular when we met with businesses when we did our Economic Development strategy um we we received input from them as far as how we could promote the business community

0:36:50and this is one of the things that came out of that um quick question is there a way to track traffic on this website and who's coming to it and just or just the volumes and what people are most interested kind of an analytical kind of counting feature yes so we can go on we

0:37:12can log on through the the server that's going to be hosting this and we can see how many hits we have we can see who's going to what section and and what you know what errors are getting the most traffic are there any comments from the public Peter Lal petero uh it's a neat

0:37:37website but I saw uh like the question an asked I saw things like that 10 years ago from bjo where you could really get any site you could get beautiful Maps you could get the traffic that goes by and so on and it was all set up with the geographic information system uh I know quite a lot about

0:38:00websites so it's certainly a good website but I've seen better uh it bothers me you know uh as this as the report of at this time from a whole department uh saying is when uh a dog in doubt scratches well what does the department The Economic Development Department do when they

0:38:24don't know what else to do they they develop a website uh what I would like to know for instance is in the year 2008 which is coming now to an end how many businesses came to elero which ones and how many left that would be very very telling information uh something else and uh

0:38:45Rosemary mentioned it I think at the last meeting the target has been empty over half a year we were told years ago that if this site which took a huge amount of public investment is dark for I think more than half a year that it will revert back to the development

0:39:02agency I don't know exactly what the Agreements are next early next month uh Richmond is meeting in about putting Clause at the point Isabel which is a horrible idea you know right there next to Costco is a terrible traffic along Central Avenue how come you know is

0:39:19anybody talking to calls they they just paid uh you know they just bought Cherry pick movant is anybody talking to them about if we can get Target for free giving them Target so we can have a Movin in town right next to uh right next to Del not you know these are

0:39:34concrete things and uh these are serious issues and it's good to have this website better than not have it but this is not what's going to make the deal thank you thank you I I see another person would like to speak yeah can you fill out a slip after you're done speaking

0:39:55please Ken burn again uh nice presentation but it's not going to do it I suggest rather than that go to the plaza go to some of the parent corporations find out which one of those are are in nervous shape now and go face to face to them to their CEO and tell that person why they should

0:40:21stay in elrio or relocate to a different area that the plaza but in today's times it's going to take more than asking somebody to look at a television so thank you thank you I just want to thank staff for the presentation and um we all know that increasingly people are using web-based

0:40:46services and information for everyday um Gathering of information and also for investment and I think this is a very useful site and recognize that it's not the only effort that's underway on the part of Economic Development and the Redevelopment agency and I'm confident that we will be in um

0:41:05future meetings coming up soon discussing some of the other uh bigger projects in um Economic Development opportunities and struggles in the city are there any other comments from the council yeah I'd just like to say that the economic development committee also was part of uh developing this and

0:41:25and providing input so I thought they did a good job on that yes okay okay well with that um I appreciate the presentation and we'll move on to item 4 b a presentation on the police department traffic safety unit summary by Sergeant Steven bonini I see police chief is here to

0:41:48give an introduction thank you good evening Madame mayor and members of the council my name is Scot Kirkland Police Chief I'm here tonight in an exciting way I'm here tonight with commanders Gary prey Michael rigan and also in the audience tonight is Sergeant Sean Maples

0:42:06and Sergeant Paul Keith who's in charge of Investigations right now we are hopeful in this upcoming year that we are going to make a series of presentations to the council to allow you to see some of the exciting programs that are going on within the community tonight we're highlighting traffic and

0:42:23Steven bonini is here and we are all here to answer any questions that you might have Stephen thank you Chief good evening to you all and as a chief said I'm assigned as a traffic Sergeant for the police department and uh I've kind of prepared a a brief summary for our

0:42:42our year so far and one of the things that I want to stress is it's not so much about traffic enforcement it's more about traffic safety for the motoring and pedestrian public and that's our big concern each day that we go out there so with each with each day we try to make

0:42:57it a little safer for the people through ELO and here's are some of the ways that we do that this year we sent two traffic officers to commercial enforcement school which is a rigorous 80-hour School sponsored by the California high Patrol upon successful completion of

0:43:15that school these officers can now inspect and weigh the commercial vehicles that run through the city typically those commercial vehicles are much long much larger and weigh much more than your average car so there's a lot of safety risks and factors to take into consideration with those

0:43:32vehicles uh in order to get more of our officers trained in this area our Police Department held a uh post approved training class for officers throughout the state of California for commercial enforcement it was well attended agencies from a far away as Riverside in Southern California

0:43:51attended because the school is difficult to get into and and a very specialized training we purchase commercial scales in order to weigh those vehicles and some of the vehicles you may have seen yourself with the rocks that are gravel that's piled up over the bed of the

0:44:08truck when you see that rolling down the street they're pretty sure they're uh 5 6 7 tons overweight sometimes but the scales we can weit at and make sure that they offload the vehicle so it can be operating and the braking system can function properly we're also involved

0:44:24with uh child safety seat education we sent officer M who's one of our traffic officers to commercial enforcement school and a child safety seat school so now he can inspect child safety seats on a regular basis by appointment for residents of Els Sero and we've sent them out to checkpoints

0:44:42uh two were held here in our city one during May during the click click or ticket enforcement period and one during October in the Orchard Supply lot opica also has gone out to other local agencies such as as the Peno Police Department St Pao police department and

0:44:59assisted those cities and those agencies with their child safety seats we are a member organization of the uh contracosta County car seat Coalition which is organized through John Mir hospital and they gather all the child safety seat technicians in kraasa county and then they split the

0:45:17region and they request police departments fire departments to go out in the Eastern condas County Western condas County and do these child safety seat checkpoints we have additional events scheduled for 2009 specifically for child safety seat education and enforcement what we found with child

0:45:37safety seats is about 85 to 88% of the seats are installed in properly so parents that are expecting a child or have a child show up these checkpoints and we'll pretty sure that 8 out of 10 are going to be installed improperly along with our child safety seat were involved in our driving Under

0:45:58the Influence we held two sobriety checkpoints this year in the city of elsera one was on Richmond Street and one was on S Pablo Avenue one on S Pablo Avenue was part of their avoid the 25 which is a contracosta County Wide participation by all agencies that specifically addresses drunk driving

0:46:19during holiday period such as Labor Day Christmas Thanksgiving Super Bowl Sunday is another one that they that they address July 4th so during those periods of time throughout the county the avoid the 25 as mobilizing and out there specifically for DUI drivers we had a mge Against Drunk

0:46:41Driving presentation at Harding Elementary School and this was unique in a very short period of time our school resource officer Ed ofala was able to get this coordinated with the high school whose leadership kids came over and helped out Harding and we able to

0:46:56get a coordinator with Harding and it didn't specifically address drunk driving but it gave the kids the options uh for bullying what would happen if somebody's offered them alcohol offered them drugs and it was a neat presentation for the kids and in 2010 the El real police

0:47:14department will be the host Agency for avoid the 25 campaign it's one of those things that is we're very much involved in and we take DUI enforcement very very seriously part of the reason that we aggressively enforce driving on influence laws is more people are hurt

0:47:31each year than people driving under the influence of alcohol as a police department W on a 4-year increase in DUI DWIs through November 19th of this year we had made the police department made 154 impair driving arrests so if you compare that with the years of 2004 and up through 2007 Ron Pace to

0:47:54have about the same amount of of du in 2008 as in 2007 the problem with that is one duest is too many with all the education and all the uh public information that's out there you think people would get themselves a designated driver or call a cap so as of today we

0:48:13have made a 174 du IRS so unfortunately there is still a large problem with people coming through the city of elero that are driving on the influence of alcohol one of the other things that we're proud of is our speed enforcement we conduct speed enforcement activities

0:48:31throughout uh the city some of the locations that we choose for these enforcement activities are citizen requests I track those citizen requests so I know who has uh asked for a traffic officer or the radar trailer what location what they describe as the problem for the location and then we'll

0:48:51go out and address that and see what kind of impact we can have the problem speed is the FAS you go you don't have as much time to perceive and react to something so that child that comes out from behind a car the vehicle that stops in front of you the slower you're moving

0:49:05the more time you'll have to proceed react and get your vehicle stopped so in conjunction with the speed enforcement we're also on a 4-year decrease for vehicle collisions in the city of elero so that's important both an injury and property damage only uh in working with public works and

0:49:22evet Ortiz we were able to to obtain a safe routes to school grant for lighted in crosswalk pavers for locations that we found uh problematic throughout the city based on collision information The Pedestrian areas around the BART stations the uh crosswalk for Madera

0:49:40School up on Arlington and a couple of other locations we found a higher volume of collisions vehicle pedestrian vehicle bicycle that could use these light AC crosswalks and has here a three-year reduction in collisions but on the data itself will probably be lower this year

0:49:58than we were last year so I'm proud that uh our department the men and women of the police department do an excellent job in reducing collisions and we had a started a pedestrian safety campaign and this was based on citizen requests and it started in the area of Central and Liberty and

0:50:18the crosswalk that's there it's a large crosswalk a lot of cars are coming and going from the bar path and they request that we go out there and do some sort of enforcement so we began that there with a officer in plane clo that was crossing the crosswalk and then we moved that

0:50:33based on other other citizen requests to the bar stations we had requests for uh Central in the bar station Fairmont in the bar station and we had several requests along Hill Street at the B station and what we found is we did a month-long enforcement campaign and the

0:50:51vehicles finally started yielding the pedestrians in the beginning it was we had a lot of close calls even while we were sitting there and pedestrians in the crosswalk they're very vulnerable to the vehicles that pass so at the end of the enforcement campaign there we

0:51:05received a lot of thanks from the citizens that use that crosswalk on a regular basis and we received a lot more cooperation from the motors in area we contacted local news media to get them on board to let every all the citizens know what was taking place why it was taking place and KTVU Channel 2

0:51:23kin came out for us it a good job and then we got k&v on board for our Spanish speaking citizens as well so they were also informed all the information that we have at the police department for child safety seats pedestrian enforcement and DUI is also published in

0:51:41Spanish for those residents and k&v was was great they came out and did everything that we asked them to do and more and they're able to get it out to the Spanish speaking population which was a huge help as I stated our printed material is in Spanish as well we also began a

0:51:59bicycle uh enforcement campaign as well what we were finding with the bicyclist is they were failing to stop the stop signs at the crosswalks on the bar path and colliding with cars found a lot of bicyclists operating bicycles without helmets and without the general safety

0:52:13requirements that are needed so through our increase enforcement and our increase in uh bicycle Patrol officers we're able to address that as well we also had a big problem with Jil walking along St Pao Avenue and this is one of those things where when we meet with

0:52:31public works I meet with public works on a monthly basis and I try to address the traffic safety concerns throughout the city one of those concerns is s Pao Avenue between cutting and Hill Street with the bar station Clos and the way it's designed it allows for a lot of

0:52:46people to cross mid block without using the crosswalks so what we found are when there is a collision the pedestrians hurt really really bad or it slows down traffic and causes the vehicles Collide because they're stopping from passengers in the middle of the roadway we went out

0:53:01and addressed the jail walking concerns there along eore Boulevard Ando Avenue and we try to educate the people the citizens who use that particular area and then uh go forth with an enforcement campaign hopefully we've made an impact the area between eore and St Pablo

0:53:19Avenue right along eastshore we saw a lot more compliance and people using the crosswalk when it's foggy it's really hard to see the pedestrians so that's our main concern and the officers on the bicycles you know if you haven't already you'll often see them along the bar path as

0:53:34well and they're addressing all the bicycle related safety concerns that any bicycles might have including helmets reflectors stop sign Etc it is a goal of our Police Department to have all the officers here uh get bicycle qualified they can ride a bike at any time and go out and really

0:53:52get involved with the community that bicycle program was headed up by uh Sergeant Maples and he's done an excellent job with all the officers we had another instructor sent to school Corporal Jeff albrand so he'll probably seeing a lot more outside agencies in town for the bicycle training

0:54:09class and then in 2008 we had new legislation take place that was a cellular of telephone laot that became active July 1st of 2008 following a six-month long heavy heavy informational campaign that began and yes we still find people on a daily basis using their

0:54:26cell phones the unique thing about this is the uh cell phone needs to be completely handsfree you can't hold it in one hand and talk on it you can't text into it any use of that cell phone itself without being handsfree is a violation and every day we see it every day we

0:54:45issue citations for it in our school presentations this year we did the Mothers Against Drunk Driving was a 360° school assembly that was at Harding addressed school age drinking bullying safe habits we did a Red Ribbon Week at St John school that involved our investigations division traffic officers

0:55:08and our school resource officers we're also up at Madera career day and we did a Castro presentation for the kindergarten class our public information education we've gone uh further than we had in previous years trying to get our position out to the citizens and

0:55:31residents of elero we wanted them to know what was coming before it was there we wanted them to know why we developed a stronger working relationship with local print and television media we also had uh it's kind of a fun segment that usually comes out the people Behaving

0:55:45Badly segments that are on channel 4 by Stanley Roberts he came out for our commercial enforcement and our divided highway in one particular area after the divided highway he called the uh world's priciest cup of coffee they're turning left into pets initially you think well

0:56:03that's not that big a deal but the light is green for Carlson Boulevard to turn right and go south on St Pao Avenue and these people are making a left turn into the driveway so we end up with that situation where collisions are narrowly missed we've had a few collisions and it

0:56:17it's a traffic nightmare there so one of the ways to go about that was to address it through the people Behaving Badly segment then he came out and did a follow-up including interview with our chief of police and there was a reduction in that particular violation

0:56:29for a short period of time and we had a we have a much stronger working relationship with public works and that's thanks a lot to IET Ortiz she's done an excellent job in coordinating the meetings being our liaison with calr and expressing some of our concerns through calr which I know

0:56:50some of you have worked with calr and it's an extremely difficult agency sometimes to get your point point across and get them to understand where you're coming from so she's done an excellent job there and we're we're working on things and hopefully we'll have

0:57:02improvements along areas in the near future Suzanne yla she did an excellent job in designing our web page for specific traffic and Link that provides information for traffic surveys radar trailer requests excuse me and from that web page we have had an increase in radar

0:57:21trailer requests it's gone out far more often than it has in the previous couple years years and with that information we're able to uh get a traffic flow how many cars are going by a particular location what the fastest speed was with the slowest speed the average speed and

0:57:36most importantly it gives us that 85th percentile which is what we're judged the speed limit by in our training of officers we had a post certified motorcycle update where officers from the penol police department Richmond our motorcycle officers came and received instruction

0:57:53from our uh certified motorcycle instructor that's Corporal Dave Harton and he's done an excellent job everybody that's gone to the motor school has been taught by Dave Dave hasn't had any any problems at all that motor school is difficult but Dave gives you all the

0:58:07skills before you get there so you can be successful which is important we had a our post approved commercial ey for the road guy commercial training that was in conjunction with the California Highway Patrol and we attended draget street racing seminar rided by elro PD and the

0:58:23office of traffic safety that's important because there's a lot of modified Vehicles out there that are not only modified with performance enhancements but those performance parts are also in violation of the smog laws for the state of California so they take these parts off they're emitting all

0:58:40this smoke and gases and stuff in the environment so all the cataly converters and everything that are designed to prevent that these people are removing without this specific training is pretty hard to tell and we continually have uh new officers and toxil lier training for DUI

0:58:58classes Etc uh there's going to be there were two post approved bicycle courses offered by the police department and as I stated those it's a goal to get everybody on a on a bicycle or bicycle qualified so we can ride and then for 2007 we were a first place winner for our category of the law

0:59:17enforcement Challenge and this award is judged by a panel of Citizen traffic experts Chiefs of police police and other law enforcement professionals who take a look at your program that you've submitted on a a year wide type of basis and they look for certain things media

0:59:34outreach enforcement actions the results of your enforcement actions are important and they don't want to what they're looking for is a reduction in collisions uh some of the things that make your city safer for The Pedestrian and vehicular public and that's what we

0:59:50are striving for in 2006 we were a second place finisher we also Al finished six in the national competition so there's an improvement I'm looking for next year to do much better in that national competition and one of our uh the things I'm proud of this year was the municipal

1:00:08motorcycle officer Association our motor officers our Traffic Unit and our instructor Corporal David Hartung were featured in this magazine it's called the siren so they were able to get us copies of that and they highlight what we were doing in the city of elero kind

1:00:22of how the uh Traffic Unit motor program got started and then what we're looking to in the future then as part of our departmental recognition often times in law enforcement we do a lot of good work and the the guys at the department hey great job and we know you know your your peers

1:00:39are telling you you did a good job but one of the things that I was interested in were having the ability to recognize officers for their Traffic Safety efforts and one of the ways the the Chief came up with was to purchase a challenge coins as a reward for our

1:00:52officers and other individuals in their Traffic Safety efforts so through uh the company they designed the challenge coin for us which you see in in front of you the uh front side of the coin is a side with the wheel and wings and the three EAS of traffic safety on there education

1:01:11enforcement and Engineering if you take one of those three away it's not quite going to be the traffic safety program that you hoped it was so through the Enforcement Education engineering we hope for better things come 2009 and Beyond and like to thank you guys we expect a

1:01:29lot from our officers I expect a lot from our traffic officers and hopefully in the coming year we'll do uh many more things that will enhance the safety of our citizens thank you guys very much as part of our uh presentation for you I also have some challenge coins for

1:01:45you guys because without the health assistance and the guidance that you guys have provided we wouldn't be able to have the traffic program as we have it now so it expanded to uh four officers this year we went for one sergeant and one other motor officer and then two additional officers are in the

1:02:04Traffic Unit so we've done quite a bit and I just like to say thanks to all of you thanks these are cool thank you so I want to thank you um very much Sergeant benini for that really great presentation and also for these beautiful beautiful coins and um I want to thank you and all the police officers

1:02:49who are out 24/7 taking care of this community and protecting public health and safety especially dealing sometimes with what do you call them people behaving badly and I am very excited about the Synergy that you talked about with our public works department and want to

1:03:06encourage continue to encourage that and to encourage other um Partnerships with the different departments so thank you so much and I think some of the other council members have comments yeah um Sergeant I had a quick question uh the the raised crosswalks at Harding then

1:03:27also up further up on on Fairmont I know they've been in a short period of time but do you have any comment on if that's working on two levels slowing traffic down and the the uh increased visibility of people within the crosswalks I think it increase the uh visibility in the

1:03:45crosswalks uh as far as if it's metering speed at all the only one I I can really comment to because the radar trailer has been out there so is the one that's on Richmond Street near Lincoln mhm and we still get the occasional vehicle that's in excess of the posted speed limit

1:04:02there but overall it has reduced the speed limit to where you see it more around 25 mph which it should be for that particular area and the pedestrians great thank you yes um I got a question as you as the bicycle patrollers worked the greenway um how many of their stops were for helmet law

1:04:27infractions and how um my understanding is that that we have a unique helmet law here in elero and I was just curious how many people knew about that that law I don't know how many people knew about it I know the bicycles officers are out there and that's a portion of it

1:04:46you know we only have one head one brain so it's important to protect that and that's part of the enforcement action is the education often times we contact somebody and we'll have continual contacts for the same exact violation which eventually results in a citation I

1:05:02think they're doing more of the uh contacting people and explaining to them why helmet's important why the reflectors are important why the light is important so you can see in front of you and why the reflector is important so people behind you can see first issuing the citations for it I think

1:05:18that comes after an education and enforcement activity to the point where we've seen you before we've told you a couple times and let's try and really bring this message home and help protect yourself thank you that that reinforces actually my comment which is that I'm

1:05:33delighted to see this focusing on the like the crosswalk uh enforcement program the Mothers Against Drunk Driving training in the schools um it's really important for us to be proactive and I really like the emphasis on uh education and prevention and not enforcement so I hope that you'll keep

1:05:52that up thanks Miss Fon yes I'd like to uh thank you also for um bringing to us this program and describing it and um showing us just how far our uh traffic program has come I remember a day when we were talking about wanting to have a program and having uh traffic officers

1:06:13and it was a very high priority in our community I heard a lot about it from residents who were concerned about that issue and what I like especially that I'm seeing today is um the depth of the training program uh it isn't just in one particular subject area in traffic but a

1:06:34whole variety of them and I think overall what it does is to give us a very robust department and I want to thank you for um your work in that area and for the Department thank you you're welcome and you're right it does give more officers a large base of training

1:06:51and it helps with everybody I also want to thank the traffic safety unit for all its great work because um and especially with the coin having the three Ease on there I think that's you know there's a common misperception in our community or you know when people

1:07:06get ticketed they're obviously unhappy and they really focus on the enforcement part but seeing that you have this you know complete portfolio of approach is is really key and um and just given that you know what we want to see s Pavo Avenue become and you know really want

1:07:22to get people to feel safe and act safely around these these areas um I think we're we're definitely equipped with a good Force to to make that happen thank you thank you very much so the next item on the agenda is adoption of the consent calendar so for those of you following along I want to

1:07:47draw your attention to item 5B and the council members we have a revised draft resolution tion um a revision was made and the now therefore be it resolve clause and I'm going to read that into the record uh before we consider approval so this again is item 5B deferred compensation Loan program the

1:08:09draft resolution now reads now therefore be it resolved that the city council of the city of elero hereby adopts a resolution which amends the city's section 457 Deferred Compensation Plan administered by MC MC to allow loans consistent with Internal Revenue Service

1:08:34regulations with that do we have a motion to approve the consent calendar move adoption of the consent calendar items 5 a through uh 5e is there a second a second all in favor I opposed a motion carries unanimously uh our next item will be a public hearing item

1:09:02sixa on the Integrated Waste Management fee increases and um we will hear testimony regarding the proposed Integrated Waste Management fee increases and consider adopting a resolution to adjust those fees effective January 1st 2009 first the Council will um request a

1:09:26presentation from staff and following that there'll be some discussion and time for testimony from the public so if you have not already submitted a speaker slip but would like to speak please submit that to the city clerk and um after everyone's had a chance to speak

1:09:43we will take action on the item so Karen pinkos assistant city manager will be giving the staff presentation thank thank you your honor as you said I'm Karen pinkis assistant city manager um I oversee the Environmental Services Division also in the audience tonight is Melanie Mintz

1:10:02our newly appointed environmental services division manager and gu Schultz our environmental analyst and I do want to take a moment to give special recognition to G um for all of his hard work on the 10-year financial plan which has resulted in the staff report before

1:10:15you this evening thanks guard um just an overview of what we'll be doing tonight the city council establishes the iwm fees for the services including the operation of the recycling center the curbside recycling program and other environmental programs run through the Environmental Services

1:10:34Division these fees as you know are collected as part of the garbage bill and transfers to the iwm fund um after the staff report tonight and any public comment uh the city council will be asked to adopt a resolution and if you agree to adjust the iwm fee um we previously discussed the

1:10:53volatility of the recyclable market and as a result I have a short video to show that I think um does a good job describing the issue as we see it today so this is through ABC7 and aired on December broadcasting goes digital if you use an analog TV set using an

1:11:21antenna you'll have a decision to make there are other ways to get ready but Comcast makes it easy get ready with basic cable from Comcast an easy way to get digital TV it's a good reminder however that we will be going digital as of February you might think the one thing

1:11:52that is Recession Proof is garbage but no the ripple effect of the economic slowdown is now reaching right into your recycling bin in tonight's assignment 7 report you'll see how a worldwide downturn in the market for used paper metal and plastic is creating a tough

1:12:08situation for Bay Area [Music] recyclers day after day trucks dump their loads at recycling facilities all over the Bay Area the material is sorted then sold to be made into other products but in the last few months the demand for recycled items has dropped dramatically Steve Moore runs Pacific

1:12:28Rim recycling in Denisha these are tin can bail so Ferris metal can Soup cans juice cans that kind of can and uh 3 months ago it was selling for $280 a ton and today it sells for zero I can't find a buyer and when buyers are available the prices are often too low for

1:12:44recyclers to make a profit the amount of change in our Revenue stream is dramatic and the impact is layoffs wage Cuts uh and and possible foreclosures of facilities but take a look at what's happened in the recycled paper Market according to the brown sheet that's a

1:13:00newsletter that tracks recycling prices last August West Coast recyclers could sell a load of mixed paper for $10 to $135 a ton now it's going for as little as10 to $25 a ton the market for recyclables is it's down in the dumps I hate to pun intended Paul morison of the

1:13:20central contracosta Solid Waste Authority may be joking but he says the situation is extremely serious this is a nationwide problem and indeed this is a worldwide problem the bottom line is California is doing a great job collecting recycling but not such a great job using the

1:13:39material most of our recycling get shipped to China and other Asian countries they use that recycled material to make products which are then shipped back to the United States to be sold but with the world economy in a tail spin those products are not selling as fast so manufacturing is slowing down

1:13:57and therefore there's not as much need for recycled materials Bay Area officials are quick to point out this does not mean you should stop recycling that's necessary indeed the state requires us to divert 50% of our materials from the landfills and so we want to continue to do that the

1:14:15Environmental Group Californians against waste says the current market crisis is a wakeup call to find recycling Alternatives closer to home we need to do more to develop markets for the recyclable material here in California increase manufacturing capacity increase

1:14:31utilization of this material so that we're not dependent on those foreign markets one more note if the low prices in the recycling Market continue more than just a few months it is likely that we'll see an increase in the recycling fees included on most Bay Area garbage

1:14:48bills so be prepared for that wow what a dramatic drop PR you and on we go um as a result of the tumultuous economy staff is taking a really hard look at the I IW fund's 10-year financial plan currently the plan projects 25% of the Reven of all of our revenues dependent upon materials

1:15:13and since the market is tanked we've learned the hard way that this Revenue source is at risk certainly for the foreseeable future so tonight staff is proposing instead to changed the iwm model to rely Less on materials revenue and instead rely more on rate Revenue

1:15:29which we believe is more stable staff is proposing an increase of 4.5% over what had been originally planned for fiscal year 200920 this is an increase of 88 cents per month for most rate payers in elero 80% of elero rate payers has matter effect this will sustain operations and

1:15:49allow us to go forward with our new programs as planned which I will go over in a minute we do believe that the market will come back and when that happens we will review revenues to be able to react and hopefully offset the need for any future rate increases or at

1:16:03least keep any future rate increases as low as possible and we are proposing to go forward with the new curbside recycling program that we had proposed in October of this year including larger carts the no sort system and the redesigned recycling center for these types of

1:16:23operations we believe that this is critical part of the sustainable model because it's more efficient and it's more cost effective the ability to collect more with the larger carts is an increased opportunity to add Revenue once the markets come back it's more important for us to recycle more than

1:16:41ever this way we can try to have an incentive to recycle more and keep rates low and of course the efficiency of this system will once it's in place will allow staff to concentrate on all the environmental tasks that we are tasked with besides Recycling and the

1:16:57Environmental Services Division and of course that's in line with uh City council's Mission of environmental leadership and so that concludes my staff report and I am here and G and Melanie are also here should you have any questions are there any questions from

1:17:13the council yes where's oh there she um we indicated that staff is ident that the market will bounce back what what do you base that on we're not confident but we're expecting it to come back and in the draft 10-year plan that we um included as an attachment to this staff report

1:17:37we're very conservative as to what those projections are we're very hopeful that it'll come back just like the rest of the economy we're hopeful will turn around um but over the next um fiscal year and the following fiscal year we' pretty much reduced it to nothing

1:17:53nothing and you know again we're hopeful it'll come back and if that happens then we'll be prepared to react if it doesn't then we're looking at a constant um underwriting of the program by uh the residents of elero is that correct and we believe that that's the more stable sustainable model for

1:18:13this fund yes okay so the increase was uh 88 cents proposed at 88 cents a year this year your projection Pro projecting out the same amount throughout the years or does it go up does it go down I didn't read in the report what I know you have the 10-year plan but it doesn't give um what

1:18:37you're projecting for rates rate increases on that okay this would I'll speak to this as he prepared the tenure plan this would be is if uh the community had to underwrite the program year after year ultimately they underwrite 75% of it now for the foreseeable years if no Revenue

1:19:07ever comes back in the 10-year plan there will be for a couple of years increases not quite to the degree we see today but increases of a significant amount 10 to 15% for a couple of years ultimately though after that what you see in the longer term forecasting years

1:19:25approximately 3 or 4 through 10 and Beyond is a a leveling out and it levels out very substantially um essentially coming down to where you see very modest CPI like increases from year to year does that help answer your question well it does but I understand if we're going

1:19:43to be underwriting if if the revenues don't come back and we're going to be underwriting it year after year I don't see where after a period of time the rates will will actually go down year after year the the a rate of increase excuse me the rate of increase would go

1:19:58down year after year but for the first couple of years this rate increase that's proposed does not fully account for the underwriting based on the loss of materials Revenue it's a portion of it it's what we believed could be sustained this year but it is not the

1:20:13full solution there would without any materials Revenue over the course of the next couple of years other probably 1 2 three increases like this might be necessary it's hard to predict that though without knowing what the materials Revenue Market is going to do okay

1:20:33um I did not see how much revenue increase will the 88 cents per uh person per month um how much does that generate it's essentially a 15% increase over what it is currently yeah how much that is approximately I believe $150 $175,000 for the year okay and that will offset 25% of the

1:21:07revenue that we receive now it is a step in that direction thank you you're welcome um I'll now open the public hearing to hear comments from the public are there any speakers slips no speakers I need a motion to close the public hearing I move that we close the

1:21:29public hearing second all in favor I I motion carries unanimously okay is there any further discussion of the item I just want to um make sure that I'm clear that uh what I've heard staff say is that is that we will be uh increasing the rate again potentially next year depending on what material

1:21:53markets do um to continue a a the subsidy of um of this so I just want to make sure that that is the the proper understanding is that we'll be looking at a greater than CPI raise again next year um unless the material recovery Market restores itself yes that's correct thank

1:22:17you um excuse me oh go ahead I'm sorry I I had one further question um which has to do with the material itself um I'm wondering if you have any um thoughts about whether or not in fact there will be a market for the materials and what will happen if there is no

1:22:45Market what will Happ material yeah that's an excellent question and the entire state is looking at this this right now and the the Integrated Waste Management board I'm sure is very concerned about this issue and they've been surveying cities to find out just what the effects are going to be to

1:23:02cities um they still have their commitment to 50% diversion um and in fact they're pondering increasing that rate for the state um so I believe that as the materials Market recovers there will be one most likely from the Statewide level as you saw in the news clip focus on local markets for some of

1:23:25those materials which that have been being pushed for for years and just have had various difficulties um and most likely we'll see other International markets expand as well so the markets should come back um and I know that on a Statewide level that's a very important

1:23:43priority and if they don't if they don't um that's a really excellent question uh I think it'll be I it's going to be hard for me to comment on that I don't know that we have much of an understanding of what would happen in that situation um I know that most one thing that likely would

1:24:03happen and is probably happening concurrently anyway now is it focused on waste reduction not simply diversion from the landfill um that's something that we've been participating in as a city and in fact the council passed a you know California product Stewardship

1:24:16Council resolution last year uh as well as contributed money to those efforts which focus on that very item waste reduction from our waste stream and if if those markets don't recover for recyclable material I believe you actually see a a greater focus on the waste reduction elements working

1:24:33directly with manufacturers and businesses to make sure that we don't have that waste in the first place thank you if I could add to that um if you go back to sort of recyc curbside recycling really kicked in and not necessarily when elero started but when most of the

1:24:49country started sort of in the late uh mid to late 880s early 90s something very similar happened and unfortunately Recycling and this probably true for other things has a long history of putting the cart before the horse I mean people go and figure out what is it you

1:25:06want them to put out at the curb and they go and put it all out and then they go oh I guess we got to do something with it so at that time when all the curbside programs began there were no real markets established the price went to zero to go further in terms of what

1:25:23happened um there has been a time where municipalities would have to pay to get rid of material now hopefully that won't happen um because the recycling uh the International Recycling uh Marketplace has evolved so much over time and there are people still want the material but because the

1:25:42glut of material and because as staff mentioned the demand is down it's simple supply and demand uh curve but I think it's really important that we keep in mind that it costs us nearly $100 a ton to or more to get rid of a ton of garbage um as long as getting rid of or

1:26:02processing recycling is less than what it cost to get rid of our garbage it's still much more cost effective to recycle from a pure dollar and cense argument putting aside the it's better you know for the environment obviousy to recycle um so there is a history where this is

1:26:20happened and in every case like most things the market markets do bounce back and um you know it's impossible particularly in this economy I think to predict much of anything too far out um because there's so many unusual things happening the other point I I would just

1:26:35make as you discuss this um as you know I have a history of this in in this prior to coming here the model that we're proposing to move towards is probably the most common method I mean from an accounting perspective what we're doing is switching essentially from an an AAR

1:26:56position to a cash position because we've had a a fund balance historically when we're setting rates we look and go we think we're going to bring in this much revenue and either we have brought it in or we had enough money to cover it with the new programs as well as the

1:27:14recycling center as well as the draw down of our reserves that we've talked about in the future we think it's more prudent to go to the more common model which is a cash model mod is you develop your rate model your rates based on your expenses your rates needed to cover

1:27:28cover those expenses then you look at the cash you have in the bank and decide how much of that cash in the bank you want to apply to the rat similar to what the Waste Management Authority does um with theirs so in the first year you see this additional uh hit the other thing and

1:27:45I'm doing this for memor so I Look to Karen or G my recollection as we decided to go and redo the recycling Center and we modeled for it there were going to be rate increases higher than CPI in the first couple years so we planned for that we knew in order to raise the cash

1:28:03necessary to do these new things then it would come back down and level off the rates that we're suggesting today include about a 75% reduction in the recycling margin so I hope that helps in clarifying that you need to think about the recycling crash is increment on top

1:28:23of rates already proposed not a 15% rate increase because of this it's only about a 4 and a half% addon four and a half five five and then down to normal so sort of rate smoothed it away and then once it's down we're assuming we get no money ENT not no money but a quarter of

1:28:41what we were getting and it should be enough to keep us flat so I'm sorry hopefully that helps thank you any other comments yeah um it is hard to to predict what's going on day after day I I I I don't have a feeling obviously and I'm not a novice I'm not an expert in

1:29:09recycling but I do have some history our family has some history in the uh recycled oil way back and the same thing happened first of all people were picking up the oil and paying us and then laws Chang use changed and pretty soon they were coming by just picking it

1:29:24up um and then after a while they were charging us for it so I I hope it it does Rebound of course we're we're a little more advanced and I think uh uh Janet uh this may be a good topic for the Environmental Quality committee to look into to focus in on and stay um and

1:29:45I would suggest that they stay close to the green businesses that are popping up and uh because it it's in my opinion uh I would expect that the strategies and the plans and the way we look at recycling in the future is going to change at least in our community I

1:30:02think this is the start of some some level of continued um uh uh underwriting of the program at a higher level than than we have before I I also think we should prepare the the community for that on the other hand I think um we're increasing at for 80% of our residents a total of

1:30:27$10.56 a year 88 cents a month uh $10.56 uh $10.56 c a year and I think that's uh I I think that's an acceptable rate uh for this year um I just had a question since it was before my time the resolution that g mentioned about the prevent you know reducing the amount consumed to begin

1:30:54with and I'm just curious if I could just hear about what that entails if that's a growing program or because I think it's this a really interesting part of the equation that you know we we're not reducing overall and looking preventatively that's it thank you I'm

1:31:13glad you asked the followup um so it's the California product Stewardship Council and if you look online I believe it's cpc.org might be.com and this has been really essentially it's a young organization probably no more than a year and a half old at this point and I personally

1:31:32haven't been very involved in it um but what I do know is that um previous staffer with us in the city um put forth a resolution to the council to support the the product Stewardship Council and its missions which are essentially this uh that the recycling I guess Trinity which is

1:31:55Reduce Reuse and recycle uh as Scott said was we kind of as a as a state when the diversion laws were essentially first put into place is we you know lawmakers everyone looked at it and said well you know it's hard to measure a reduction it's hard to be able to show

1:32:12how we're reducing waste at home it's hard to measure in in quantify reducing or reusing waste but with the recycling element it was easy to weigh the trucks and figure out oh yes we are actually making a significant difference um in reducing the amount that people are just

1:32:27trashing from their homes so that was kind of the policy direction that was taken for a long time now a lot of that impetus was put on the local governments to manage that problem and deal with that problem and what members of the California product steart Camp Council

1:32:41are saying is you know what this is also a problem that needs to involve the manufacturers we cannot get to a waste reduction goal um to actually reduce the amount of waste going going to landfill further and to ACH achieve higher diversion without effectively working

1:32:57with the producers and the manufacturers to reduce the the packaging the excess material that we all receive in homes and part of what they site they have an excellent video on their website essentially demonstrates that during the same period in time which we've gone

1:33:11from you know low diversion rates in the state of California when AB 939 the Statewide law that requires 50% diversion was put into place over that time we've we've increased diversion lot but the amount of trash still put into landfills has still also either stayed

1:33:27the same or increased so we're each of us we may be recycling more but we're also generating more waste on the whole so more of it's going to recycling but we still just have more that we're dealing with and that's what they're essentially set up to help deal with and

1:33:39they've had some great successes this year thanks okay is there a motion move to uh pass resolution of the of the city council the city of elero fixing and setting rates for the Integrated Waste Management fee as proposed by staff uh in the staff report second all in favor I I opposed motion

1:34:20carries unanimous ly we'll now move on to item 6B Eastbay Sanitary Service solid waste collection and container rental rate adjustment for 2009 um we'll follow similar procedure as we did for the last public hearing whereby staff will give a presentation there'll be a public

1:34:42hearing and opportunity for public comment and then the council will uh discuss the item and consider adoption this a staff report thank you um once again my name is G Schultz I'm an environmental analyst with the city's Environmental Services Division and I'm just briefly

1:35:04going to go over um what the resolution entails um for the rate increase for eace sanitaries collection and rental rates um essentially this the methodology that is described and employed in uh it's described the agenda bill and it's employed in calculating what the

1:35:24increase is for eace sanitaries rates it's the same one that's been used for the last 2 years and um it worked very well during that time some of the adjustment factors that are considered are union labor wages um diesel fuel expenses other operating expenses consistent with CPI and an offset for

1:35:45the change in the integrated resource recovery facility rate which affects the city's franchise feed now the the new proposed rates from East based sanitary are a 1.4% increase to the collection and container comp uh components of the rate um with another additional slight increase depending

1:36:05upon the size for the offset and the change for the irf the integrated resource recovery um facility we rate and those rates are for a 20g cart proposed 20 my maximum collection rate is $1 for 35 gallon cart it's $18.34 for a 40-gallon cart it's $214 for 45 gallon it's

1:36:34$22.95 for a 64 gallon the largest size for residents is a $36.66 $36.66 and for the commercial bulk refu a one yard bin goes for the rate of $21.69 and a 2 yard rate is $43 38 and then there's a corresponding rental rate for each of those the one yard and 2 yard there's a $

1:37:002641 container rental rate for the one yard container and a $394 rate for the 2 yard container now these the two smallest container sizes the a 20 gallon and the 35 gallon are about 90% of residents in Els serito so we use uh fortunately little trash and the um of all of the

1:37:26rates that folks see on their bills we just heard about the IDM fee there's these collection rates that we're asking you to hold a public hearing on and then there's also the disposal rate which is set independently um through the West County Integrated Waste Management

1:37:40Authority and I see we have uh Chris Leon here tonight from The Authority he's the executive director um so if you have a question about that rate you may be able to ask him but that was something that the Council previously voted on and directed The liaz on to

1:37:54that board uh to make a vote um so this essentially concludes my presentation regarding the rates we also have Mark uh Mark foni the president for EBAs sanitary company here if you'd like to ask any questions of him are there any clarifying questions from staff yeah we are voting on though

1:38:14this resolution is just for garbage and green waste collection rates correct collection and rental rates collect just just that compon not everything else that's exactly right thank you okay at this time I'd like to open the public hearing um are there any speakers no

1:38:32speakers is there a motion to close the hearing so moved second all in favor I I um motion carries unanimously we'll bring it back for discussion with the council I just wanted to point out um the rate was set by a predetermined formula and we're raising it for 20 Gall

1:38:58cart we're raising at 19 cents a month which makes it $228 annual so I think um it points out one couple things one is the rate increase is very low on an annual basis and second of all it appears that the formula that um we agreed to a couple years ago uh seems to be working for us and sets a

1:39:24fair rate I was a little bit confused about the last number but to the annual rate the annual rate is increased by $228 a year the annual rate 19 cents a month okay thank you for that clarification any other comments a motion make a motion um I move that um we um uh passed resolution um accepting the

1:40:00maximum allowable rates for the collection of garbage and green waste effective January the 1st 2009 as described in um in the um agenda Bill and as um uh covered by um G schz and the resolution is there a second a second all in favor favor I I motion carries unanimously

1:40:29and we um are ready to move on to item seven policy matters 7A East Bay Regional Park District measure www Bond extension Grant funds presentation from Jerry bradaa thank you madam mayor and councel Jer J Bradshaw Public Works director the most recent election in

1:40:57November among all the measures that were passed by the voters was uh one passed by Alam and contracosta County voters which was the regional open space Wildlife Shoreline and Parks Bond measure otherwise known as measure ww this uh measure amounts to a $500 million bond by the East Bay Region

1:41:21Parks District uh 3/4 of which will be uh retained by them for uh re further Regional Park acquisition and for capital projects within their own system the other one quarter of that 500 million or 125 million was designated to go to cities special park districts and uh County

1:41:45service areas to support and enhance their Park and Recreation services tonight before you is a master agreement which is Ain to enrollment into the grant program um it just sets the general conditions under which the city can um obtain the money that would come to them through this program and

1:42:12will allow us to apply for specific projects Downstream um the amount that comes to the city that 125 million for San Bruno which instantly is based on a populationbased allocation is just a little over $1 million we have 10 years to apply for using this project this money uh and the

1:42:36annual application process is during the months of February and March each year for the next 10 years and that means that the first application period is coming up in March but first what we need to do the first step in this process is to um enter into a master agreement with

1:42:53the district the second process which is not before you tonight but I'll go over that briefly is actually the selection of the projects that the city wishes to apply for it's a it's a pretty um um liberal use of funds U for anything we want to put that towards in our Park and

1:43:12Recreation program from acquisition of land ourselves to um enhancing existing facilities or dealing with other park or Recreation program uh issues that we'd like to we don't have a list of projects to present to you tonight but we do have a process that we've started to go

1:43:30through in order to develop that on December 3rd staff put together or presented a draft list of projects that we had started with to the Park Recreation Commission um we did not give the the commission was not prepared to make a final recommendation at that meeting but they uh instead asked us to

1:43:51come back for their January meeting for a second discussion on the projects and at that point hopefully come up with a recommendation that we could then take to councel in the meantime they asked the staff engage in a public outreach program of some sort so we could get um

1:44:07input from the public the users of our Park and Recreation programs to see what was important to them to help prioritize the list so the staff is busy putting this program together we believe in about a week we'll be launching uh modest public outreach program which

1:44:23will include um information postcard a uh announcing that we have a survey available they can fill out uh forms and let us know what their preferences are they'll get to see a draft list of projects that we've come up with and suggest ones of their own uh we have

1:44:39we're scheduling a town meeting for January 21st uh for anybody to come in and add input at that point and that that's one week before the next Park and Recreation Commission on January 28th uh which we will present what we found out and what else we've learned in the

1:44:56meantime uh since the last park and rec commission uh we hope to come away from the park Commission in January with a recommendation to council which we hope to present to the council here in the middle of February we believe that gives us adequate time to them prepare any

1:45:10applications that we wish to put in in this first annual application cycle uh by the end of March so that's the process that we're starting to develop and and the basic background on the program the agenda Bill lists some various parameters some of our thinking

1:45:27on how projects could be categorized um nothing firm there again it's it's still in the beginning stages to formulate a priority list on this program um but before you tonight primarily is the master agreement with the four elements that are listed in the action requested part of your agenda

1:45:46bill with that I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have on the program for the master agreement any questions no okay um your the overall ww was focused on acquisition and there's a very large component that the East Bay Park District has for acquisition um the

1:46:08staff agenda item did not necessarily highlight acquisition as a as a potential alternative for use of these funds there are some undeveloped privately owned properties in elsera that maybe good candidates for uh consideration you're just curious um what staff's current position or

1:46:26thinking is on that and if that's going to be included in some of the options that are considered going forward uh we certainly could we have not considered acquisition at this time because that's often times a very expensive process to go through uh while a million dollars does look pretty big

1:46:44when when we compare to what we do spend on some of our Parks it really is not that big of a number um but we can certainly put that into the mix and and um look a little further so we could come back with a little more of a uh report on that aspect and and then the other thing that

1:47:02I wanted to note and and Sort of hope that others will echo my sentiments um there is a provision that up to 25% of each Grant can be used for non-construction costs the example is um design uh but there are certainly lots of um that could be considered non- construction cost I I would love to see

1:47:26these funds be used for implementation of some of the projects that I've um known about in park and wreck for The Last 5 Years and um have a little as little as possible go towards um say staff costs or other types of uh non- construction cost so I'm hoping that

1:47:46that's we can put the put the money to where the kids in and people can use it so thank you I have a clarifying question on the process so there is uh an annual application period for a certain amount of money that is for a total over how many years and then what's the criter they must

1:48:11will inform us of the criteria for selecting but at what point do they ensure that each Community receives over the period of the bond the amount of money alloc ated each city has an application amount for us it's it's the $ 1,65 th000 amount that's available for

1:48:30us all we have to do is to um put an application in for projects that they deem are qualifying and and then they will approve the project we build it they reimburse us for the cost that we applied for and we can do that anytime in the next 10 years we can do it all

1:48:47this year we could spread it out and at that until we use it all up and that's that's really just that simple if a city were to not manage to spend all that money it would revert back to the parks District to go into the big kitty okay um Miss Chang has a question um I guess

1:49:06uh my question was more just about the the in terms of your um survey process if you're going to consider using online surveys um just to get more distribution and you know it's much easier to forward and I know it to complement the paper I guess is what what I was wondering if

1:49:26that was in the mix or yes yeah we definitely will be doing that so we'll have basically uh one survey but it'll be in a couple formats one will be online and for the people who don't aren't online we can certain we certainly have the paper surveys which will be the exact same survey and in

1:49:44terms of online it's actually a it's not that you're downloading a PDF and then and and then entering it electronically it's all something that's like a web based form essentially this will be a web based we'll probably use Survey Monkey which is a pretty accessible and

1:49:59easy to use format okay thanks Mr Jones yeah getting back to uh what the mayor had asked about the process I take it the the sole the major reason for application is simply to certify that the project Falls within the bond requirements and since uh the East Bay

1:50:20Regional is the sponsoring Agency on that they're responsible for the expenditure so they have to make sure that every project Falls within the bond limitations that's really the reason why we apply is that that's correct it has to meet their criteria and the voters

1:50:37voted on it on their behalf um and there's several steps in the process the guidelines which are several pages long talk about how you initiate how you get approved um how you submit for you know uh reimburse ment and how they come and check the project uh at various times

1:50:55and certify that it gets done it is delivered it's a usable project uh right on out to financial audits at the end okay and however with all that if our project Falls within the criteria East Bay Regional can't come and say we don't like the project right they have to

1:51:14disqualify it because it doesn't meet the the criteria of the bond issue not it the like or dis like of say the regional park or somebody in the regional park right that's absolutely right it's not really a discretionary action on their part it's just approving

1:51:29whether or not it meets the basic criteria great thank you um yes I just wanted to mention it as was mentioned before that this was covered at The Parks and Rec commission meeting and I I think one of the things that I heard most strongly was that they're interested um not in either they

1:51:48or we just sort of coming up with the list but putting it out to the public and um making sure that the public had an opportunity to express what it is that they would really like um we had a lengthy discussion on that very topic of doing it so I think it sounds like

1:52:05that's going to be what's happening and um that completely in line with what the parks and rec commission was hoping would happen Okay are there any speakers for this item no speakers okay okay I move uh the council adopt a resolution approving uh staff to apply

1:52:27for local Grant funds from the East Bay Regional Park District under measure ww Park Bond extension second okay it's been moved in second all in favor I I opposed uh the motion carries and I just want to add I know that we're embarking on a public process to solicit ideas I think it while it's

1:52:47very important to maintain an improve the uh Park and recreational facilities in elero I think it's also very important that we address connecting and access to the other um recreational facilities and especially East Bay Regional Park District lands and in that

1:53:05Spirit um I would appreciate if we could add to the list anything that elero can do to connect to the Bay Trail and I know that the um abag has a master plan to do that and we and it would evolve um more than one jurisdiction but if we might be able to bring something to

1:53:22completion of that project I think that would be very important for um safety and Recreation in our city uh if I could respond um we actually had some conversations with uh staff at the regional parks about coordinating um any projects we may want to do with projects that are on their

1:53:43list for their 3/4 of this pot of money uh to help with that connectivity they actually have a project to help connect the alone and Greenway to the Bay trails unfortunately it's targeted a little further south than us but we are still talking to them about that very issues

1:53:58so we'll keep you posted and see where that can go great thank you I I just had a question in in the resolution I just want to verify that in fact it was intended to cover the four points that are mentioned in the agenda which that's a good question it does okay City attorney are you okay okay

1:54:19with the way that that uh single motion was presented and approved cuz we could do it over no the motion was to adopt the resolution so since the resolution encompasses the four things that were requested by staff then it should be adquate okay good job I so that can I make a quick comment I'm

1:54:40sorry um so Sandy you bring up a really excellent point that i' had been thinking about and you know given our limited land acquisition abilities and just you know know the the idea of connecting to the Bay Trail and um and up in the hills is Transit a potential you know um I guess category

1:55:00of project that could be looked into and or or just put out in the table um all right great thanks thanks thank you um so we'll now move on to item 7B residential recycling cart purchases oh and we have one coming in Show and Tell uh oh we did choose between black

1:55:34that's an impressive cart thank you um once again I'm G Schultz environmental analyst with the Environmental Services Division and and it's my pleasure tonight to present to you regarding this agenda item and specifically to ask you to adopt the resolution authorizing the city manager

1:55:59to enter into a contract with toor Incorporated for the purchase of for of 10,000 of these 64 gallon recycling carts via lease purchase agreement with first Municipal lease incorporation two months ago um the Environmental Services Division came to the city council to seek Direction on

1:56:18the future of ELO's curbside recycling programs and the recycling center itself one of the the key items that the council directed staff to pursue was the purchase of large recycling collection carts for residential use in Alero now the company that we um we've

1:56:39been previously working with a company todor incorporated uh to provide carts for commercial recycling collection over the years so we think approximately 7 00 or so carts throughout business customers and apartment complexes in elero and those carts were purchased a

1:56:57little bit at a time as needed to replace older versions um these carts have been you in regular use for years and staff has been pleased with their performance uh as they've been um you know enduring the weather and the elements and use out in the field and Toad is consistently provided

1:57:14competitive pricing at a lower cost than quoted by other companies um additionally we've toor has a unique contract um between it and just a [Applause] moment between toor and the City of Tucson Arizona which is through this organization the national intergovermental intergovernmental

1:57:38purchasing Alliance and this this contract makes it possible for elero to legally benefit from the competitive pricing that the City of Tucson acquired ired and the way that this contract is structured essentially um ensures that there is competitive bidding I know that

1:57:56for the totor contract they did review three formal competitive bids and that we've had um the city attorney's office uh look at the the the Nipa National intergovernmental purchasing agreement um contract but essentially this allows us to benefit from really competitive

1:58:15pricing that other cities throughout California have been able to do since the city is already using these types of carts the totor carts um since we're happy with them since we can get them cheaply um staff is recommending purchasing the carts for our residential

1:58:29use from toor we have with us tonight Mike gorick who's a sales representative from toor who at the close of my presentation can answer any questions you might have um we also have as you see a prototype cart uh for the um residential use um which we'll describe

1:58:48a little bit but this is a 64g cart and it's a standard size for recycling carts it's the same size as the green waist bins you have at home um it's twice the capacity approximately of the current bin system that we utilize you can see them in comparison here um we have the

1:59:04two stacked together but it it provides a lot more volume for residents it's a convenient access to recycling uh the benefit of a lid helps for a number of reasons weather protection on days like these where typically the materials the paper the cardboard get drenched um

1:59:19which makes them a much lower value and and lower recyclability on the market um it also provides more of a theft deterence it's harder to take one of these than it is our smaller bins which are disappearing and walking off all the time and the material inside is also

1:59:35going to be protected from theft you know can't prevent it completely but it is harder to take the material from these bins than it is from the smaller ones A major benefit um aside from those listed is the the benefit of The increased worker and Resident health and

1:59:51safety rather than having to lift these bins um you can push them benefiting um backs knees elbows all of the above um and so it should help to see improve worker health and safety and it's safer for the residents as well we're recommending the purchase of 10,000 of

2:00:09these carts in order to ensure that all eligible Integrated Waste Management fee payers are able to receive their carts at the Inception of the program um according to D I got from Mark foni at EBAs sanitary they're slightly fewer than this number of eligible rap pairs

2:00:24which would comprise single family homes as well as some of the smaller you know duplexes and forp plexes um that are treated slightly differently but we want them to benefit from this program as well uh you can see we have a gray cart and this color was chosen for specific

2:00:41reason one is that the other common colors for recycling carts throughout other cities are gray and blue which are currently the colors of our garbage and yard was spin um we use gray carts for our commercial collections currently we recently acquired and have started Distributing

2:00:55larger uh dumpster style bins for commercial customers that are also gray and so this matches the current program there is an added benefit to that is that gray carts can actually be made with a higher percentage of recycled content as I understand it um mostly

2:01:09having to do with the varying colors of recycled material that can go away to them it's harder to make a standard uh a standard color um the purch price for these carts um which is $537,500 not only includes the manufacturing the sales tax and the free to elero but also includes assembly

2:01:31these don't come like this in order to benefit from their nest Nest ability they come with the lids off and the wheels off so the purage price includes assembly at the recycling center and door to-door distribution um to all of el Cero's eligible rirs along with the

2:01:47door too distribution or rather I should say curb to curb it would basically happen on a normal route day you'd put out your bins in the morning we'd empty them you'd get your cart um at the same time literature would be placed into the lid uh to be able to educate residents

2:02:03um about the new programs but that's not the only education we do of course we would u mail out printed material in advance of the program um there's the Flyers that would be on the carts and then um for uh council members aon's questions earlier we actually have a

2:02:17pretty neat thing to show which is that the themselves will serve as a an educational Outreach tool specifically you can see that there's actual pictures of the materials on the bins um printed out and then a description of those materials underneath um this is a fairly new

2:02:36feature that toor is providing and we've already we're working on our specific design to match this lid but this is not painted on this is directly imprinted into the plastic which makes it durable and very clear and evident to to all users regardless of what language they

2:02:52speak what materials are expected to be put into this pin thank you if I might say you're very welcome um so one thing I want to note about these and specifically that you know the pictures and everything um the intent here is to collect more to collect more material um to increase the range of

2:03:13recyclables that we can collect at the curb including hard plastics of all types bag plastic film even bits of scrap metal um though it's true you won't be able to fit the kitchen sink into these bins uh and a few other items around the house really this will help

2:03:28to increase the the amount of material people are able to to recycle at their curbside so the the total purchase price comes out to just less than $54 per cart um and it's i' actually like to make a correction to what's in the agenda bill um I stated in there that there's a the

2:03:46initial fund balance for a year was somewhere on the the order of 600,000 um what I should have stated was that the available fund balance is about $276,000 which is not enough to cover this purchase um because of that staff is recommending a lease purchase like

2:04:01the ones Council has previously approved for new fire truck and for the two new recycling trucks the lease purchase uh proposal that we had comes at a low Finance cost the financing is less than $3,000 a relatively low interest rate which is 4 85% low for now I say

2:04:20relatively as in overtime uh we've had much uh we've had we've had better rates via this same process in the past but given the current markets this is the best rate we're able to get um and over time this would uh yield a total of about $100,000 in interest over the

2:04:35seven-year life of the lease now there's there were some questions about the you know the benefits of financing versus paying more in cash immediately one point is that through financing we're able to keep ourselves from overextending as we have um a number of new programs and new projects the the

2:04:50new recycling center a lot of things that we are considering and wanting to take on and to to leave our fund balance at a very low point would not provide us much um opportunity or protection in future years annually speaking the finance payments comes out to just less than

2:05:08$80,000 per year which is over8 years um we actually get one extra additional payment over the 7-year lease um and this would start this February and the iwm fund would need to cover that amount this February and that's not currently covered in the approved budget for this

2:05:25year we're asking to appropriate that amount for the lease payment this year and for future budget cycles and the cision 10-year plan we would include of course this this annual Debt Service over time um one benefit is that this can be paid early without penalty um so

2:05:42if for instance as we discussed with the recyclables Market if we have a a banner year next year if everything recovers completely we could pay this off earlier and save that interest and and move along and that concludes my element of the presentation um again I'm happy to

2:05:58answer all of your questions and I know that Mike orick could answer your questions as well so thank you thank you um yes um is that cart the same dimensions I know it's the same volume but is it the same dimensions as our green card it's a different manufacturer

2:06:17so the dimension are not exactly the same but you'll find that they're what I'm wondering about actually is um the um amount uh the displacement I don't even know how to say this right the floor space yeah that that's the word I'm looking for if it's more or less because I know the green carts now

2:06:42already um create problems blocking sidewalks um and um I I know for example I have trouble getting by and I often have to go like a blocker when I encounter that I can have to go for example a block out of my way in the street um and I'm just want that's why I'm wondering yeah that's a

2:07:06great question so one it's approximately the same size of floor space it might be slightly higher slightly lower but overall it's going to be roughly equivalent with regards to the the coverage of the sidewalks and where these been are placed as a result of moving to this system we're going to

2:07:22have an excellent opportunity to re-educate all of our residents not just the folks that are putting out recyclables but whether they're putting out their garbage bin and the yard B bin we want to talk we want to to educate them all at once about where these bin

2:07:34should be and U Mark foni and I have already discussed this a bit and this is the next step is to to craft this Outreach but one thing we can certainly do is to make sure that they are uh informed and aware that placement in the sidewalk isn't appropriate we want them

2:07:48to place it elsewhere either in the right of way or you know where appropriate right next to a driveway um on the just on the curb um but they should not be um placed there and I think that is something we can address in the Outreach how about in the street um they can be placed in the gutter in

2:08:04some instances um so that would be actually at street level not at Curb level but there's some streets that are so tight that that would be difficult to do I can think of streets um for example Ashbury um mix to the community center on on the one side that you can even get

2:08:22through on this there all there is is a relatively narrow sidewalk and if somebody puts one of those containers out there um I can't for example get by um and and all that is left is this is the street is the only alternative would be the street so I guess the question

2:08:40would be what should they do and then the other issue is uh when they they're put into the um when they're collect when the collection is done making sure that the um people doing the collection don't put the uh containers in a bad place correct and that's that's one we

2:09:00we we do have to come back to from time to time um my preference for what would be for them to be in the curb because we can benefit from the automated aspects of the vehicle more appropriately when they are in the in excuse me like in the gutter on the street um we can access

2:09:14them more efficiently that way um I know that there's some places where that's POS just not possible but they shouldn't be on the sidewalk and I think that's something we can definitely make sure we put into the educational Outreach um and it's it's definitely something we're

2:09:28always wanting to make sure that our drivers know about and I'm sure that um Mark wants his drivers to know about it that shouldn't be drop blocking the right of way in the sidewalk thank you we can revisit it Mr Lyman what's the weight of this container that's a great question Mark

2:09:45or Mike about 22 pound and how does that compare to our green waste bins cuz the reason I'm asking and I'll go ahead and make my statement is that there are many residents that live in ASO that um would not be able to wield uh a even a quarter filled um version of this up and down their

2:10:05driveway so that the um size of this although from your perspective is useful for all of our elderly single you know occupancy homes they don't come close to using the capacity of this and this is actually going to be a deterrent for them to recycle because they won't be

2:10:23able to get the recycling bin to the curb so I guess I'm wondering why we aren't offering it two sizes I know we have two sizes I know there lots of different sizes in in garbage but why we aren't offering a smaller version um so that people who want just don't they reduce

2:10:44more than recycle um have options and um that people who can't wield this this large or this weighty bin around have options as well I'll answer the first part first so for the residents you describe we we do have a program in place and for people that even if they can't move this container

2:11:05it's also going to be difficult to lift and move the smaller containers that are full and we have a number of residents who subscribe to an elderly in or disabled service that we provide free of charge to them to do that they just need to call us and we can get them set up on

2:11:20that and so of course the the folks who currently have that will be continued along that um so they would they wouldn't have to move it down the driveway and we can provide that to them and I'm hoping that that addresses that specific problem the um with regards to

2:11:36the size it becomes complicated and difficult to determine just how many of what size to get and that is something where you start offering sizes in varying areas you need to procure more more bins it's more of a capital outlay you have to finance more um all of West

2:11:53County as I understand it is on a 64 gallon bin um many other places just have a standard size and that was the model based on the fact that we can provide this this assisted pickup service seem to be the best and most affordable way to go thank you I did not know about the

2:12:09assisted pickup service and maybe that's something that with a greater distribution of that knowledge that this won't be an issue yeah and that's something we you know we we would also hope to incorporate in the the new Outreach piece comments yeah I um what's the life of the

2:12:30cart Mike it's it's a it's a 10year uncrated warranty it covers the cart for 10 years Wheels Lids whatever no pration we've had very meal problems here in elito I'm not saying the Cs w won't break but if they break we'll fix it within that 10 per okay so you're

2:12:53guaranteed for 10 years but have you had them last longer than 10 years we've had car out conquer for about 18 years okay thanks um I understand the national buying agreement um toor you said totor uh supplies for commercial in El cero who supplies for the residential right now residential bin

2:13:22side we T I don't know what who the initial purchaser was I think it's I think it's Bush systems and it's again for these smaller totes um and they only make things like the tote they don't make something like the cart as I understand it okay so they don't make

2:13:36the okay is there any other company that's on either the national program buying program or the California Bine program that offers the cart that we're looking at I'm not not familiar with the California buying program through the national intergovernmental purchasing

2:13:54Alliance toor was the only one listed is the only one that is that has a national buying program yes on on through the the service that we were able to find they're the only they're the I I I find that hard to believe they're the only company that has a national buying

2:14:15program oh for the so the for the bidding that the City of Tucson did um there was a there was two other companies that bid along with toor yeah that's so yeah sorry I didn't understand your question completely those other companies did they also have qualify for

2:14:32the buying did they have a they weren't selected for I know but did they have a buying did they qualify for the for a buying program I I believe that being selected was the qualification for the that specific for the City of Tucson okay correct so you all right so you

2:14:50don't know for the State of California also has a a uh buying program for vast number of uh so we don't know um if those those companies that would qualify for u a buying program State of California we don't know how to answer that one okay and if I could just jump in in

2:15:15the vast majority of cities in California the P because we're we're one of the only cities that provide Municipal recycling collection so I don't know for certain whether it's on the Cass the state buying list but I would say that probably 90 plus perc of the people

2:15:33of the organizations that buy carts are private companies so they there's not a lot of public buying okay in terms of carts my understanding there was more Municipal collection in Southern California so there's probably more I mean toor could probably speak to that

2:15:46better but in Northern California there's almost there's almost none okay so we so we're hooked on to the uh city of Tucson's buying program correct and I also know that the city of Berkeley has purchased some through this method and Mike can you comment on any other yeah

2:16:02the uh the city I'm I'm Mike gorlic I'm a regional sales manager with toor to ask your question Mr Jones this was a competitively bid program with the City of Tucson and uh like Mr is it Hanan most in Northern California it's it's predominantly private haulers and

2:16:30there is no bid obviously there are other cities in California City of Madera city of Mantia City of Roseville next door in Berkeley that purchase off this National IPA contract and it it's a good deal it's a good good deal for you it's a good deal for me it's a good deal for G we have a

2:16:51proven product here and and around the state we're a national company we're in all states uh we just did conquer earlier this year city of conquer put out a bunch of these 64 gallon for single stream recycling very similar program to yours does that answer your question

2:17:12well it answers yes it answers my question as far as your qualifications all right we have the responsibility we're going to be spending over $600,000 I want to make sure that we're getting the best price and it was competitively bid absolutely I have no qu problem with their quality U so thank

2:17:29you you're welcome um okay let's see here I guess that's that's it thank you very much thank you um I just had a clarifying question about what happens with the old bins and yeah I don't know if it got it might have missed it but that's a great question so there's there's a couple

2:17:51options um one option is if you'd like to keep them you should there's going to be a number of new options for recycling at the recycling center and those receptacles would do just fine to collect those items in and then bring them down to the center at some point if

2:18:05residents do not want to keep theirs they would just leave them out on the curb well would still be out on the curb when we come by to do the deliveries and if they want to leave them out um they can do so and we would be able to by and that that does bring up the the issue of

2:18:19I need to make sure that we coordinate that correctly so that people want to keep them they get them inside right away um and they would be recycled and or distributed for reuse thanks thank you do we have any um speakers from the public no speakers oh I see one in the

2:18:38audience no speaker slips we're going to recycle the speaker slips Ken bur Elso I I have a question on this it says $540,000 is a cost not to exceed $100,000 in the interest 100,000 of 540 is a little over 18% and yet I I thought I heard something around 4% on this side we

2:19:06heard that the uh util the uh basket is supposed to last 10 years so we've got $640,000 including the interest advertised by 10 years it's going to cost you $64,000 a year to keep this uh basket good or bad I have no idea but I just add that's the question thank

2:19:28you I think G can clarify that it was in the staff report regarding the term of the loan so it's a it's a 4 let me look at my thing 85 85 thank you 4.85% annual interest rate over a seven-year term so the $100,000 is the if we are if we go to the full seven-year term and if we don't make any

2:19:54early payments that's the total cumulative interest that would occur over that time okay thank you thank you okay is there any more discussion on this item ready for a motion I move adoption of a resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into a contract with toor Incorporated

2:20:16for the purchase of 10,064 galon recycling carts via lease purchase agreement with First Mutual leasing Corporation the purchase cost of the cards shall not exceed $540,000 and the interest shall not exceed $100,000 second all in favor I I opposed motion carries thank you than you I would like

2:20:49uh if I could address something uh when we took this item up before uh we were asking at least I remember asking for an analysis of cost savings um in the report it also indicates in in general terms that we should be um because this will actually start a a new recycling program that

2:21:13should uh we should be make be able to have Savings in certain areas and in talking with staff I understand uh the current situation it's real hard to to actually come up with some savings or areas it's hard to start making statements and public about how much money we'll be

2:21:35spending or we'll be saving because uh it the area has been volatile or the the economy has been volatile the last couple months so I understand that but I I don't want us to lose track that I still would like an analysis of savings because part of the reason why uh this

2:21:54was sold is that it the savings will offset the carts for instance with with this system going uh we we should be able to reduce the design of the new recycling center substantially that in itself and that's the only reason I I didn't bring it up during the the

2:22:11discussion because if that holds true that would offset the cost of the carts however I would like in our uh midyear budget to have that analysis for not only the savings of the recycling center but also it was stated that uh other um uh equipment Services maintenance of waste hauling maybe a

2:22:36slight increase in fuel cost that's understood that's pretty hard to uh to look at and a significant reduction in unsort bles and that sort of thing if we could have an analysis and not necessarily looking at down to the penny but would like to have a range that we

2:22:56feel will be serving and therefore offset the cost of these cards I I think we could certainly do that I don't think we could do it for midyear budget I mean we won't have a lot of the variables we just won't know we won't have the recycling center back to the city

2:23:10council by that point the carts won't even be here and I think during when we're putting together the budget for next school year we will we should be able to do it but so well maybe what we could do is have um a special item at the appropriate time to come as um an

2:23:26information item to explain where we are and I think in January we're going to be talking a little bit more about the procedures for the council and agendize and requests for when and how things are going to be discussed so this might be one of those things to put um on that

2:23:46discussion we'll also be having a priority setting meeting coming up in the spring okay but one question I understand but how did we come up with a 10-year budget if we were having a hard time figuring out these savings and costs I we made we made assumptions on industry standards and

2:24:06savings we would anticipate but it's not based on actual the carts are on the street it takes this long to cycle a cart it takes this long to drive the truck straight to mark Market it takes we got this much more weight so we're spending we're making this much more money I mean we could we

2:24:22could do it in the abstract but I I would like that rather do it you know we' certainly prefer to see I'll say this now I'm not going to hold you to it until we have it's not you necessarily worried about but I would like at least a ballpark or an area that we're looking

2:24:38at that's possible offsets appreciate it MH okay thank you we'll move on then to item seven C which is the city council a on reorganization and assignments and um first I just wanted to remind folks that we have a number of vacancies on our boards and commissions and we have been

2:25:01putting together a calendar to conduct interviews to consider applicants and we also have the question of reappointing um board and Commissioners whose terms have expired in January and it's created a um a backup for us because all the terms expire in not all the terms but of

2:25:20the people whose term expires they expire all in January at the same time and so I wanted to suggest that for reappointments to people who have been sitting already on the commission with the recommendation of the city council member leison that we automatically

2:25:37reinstate them in their term and that any one of us can request that somebody be brought in for an interview and I think that that's going to um make it much more efficient for for us to get through the backlog and to staff all of our boards and commissions so that we

2:25:51will have a qu and be in a position to continue to conduct our meetings in January and February so if there are any comments on that we can hear those or I can just go ahead with the new um 2009 Council leaz on assignments um I do have a a related question to what you were saying so

2:26:13you're you're saying if I understand correctly that the liaz on to each of the boards and commissions will um let notify you whether or not um they think that the uh current person whose term is expiring needs to come in for an interview or whether they should just

2:26:34continue if they're interested in doing so of course that's what you're saying on first of all right I I would ask that um the council members send an email stating the names of the people that are um being considered for reappointment and include a recommendation to

2:26:54reappoint okay this is based on the information that we already received I guess excuse me mayor Potter I just like this was agendized for um Council of the aison organiz reorganization assignments and not for commission board and commission appointments and from a brown

2:27:12act perspective it might be better um It's Perfectly reasonable for you to raise the IDE a but for the council to move forward with it um it might be better for it be on a future agenda to actually make a decision about um making those appointments I realize that runs

2:27:24up against the actual deadline to to make those reappointments but um since it's a change in procedure for how to how to fill those um board and commission um seats it would be appropriate for it to be agendized I'm okay with if we agendize it in um January 5th it's not actually so much of

2:27:43a change but going back to the way that we had done it um prior and is consistent with our ordinance but I will say that we have enough people to interview on January 5th that are new applicants that we could take this up again to consider the reappointments and

2:27:58um I would just urge that we do this as quickly as possible in order that we can move those forward and with that I will um ask for your patience as I read through the new city council Aon assignments um and I'll start with Greg Lyman and I appreciate everyone's cooperation

2:28:19and agreement to serve in this capacity Greg will be the council a on to the tree committee the crime prevention committee the financial Advisory Board the Tom Bates Regional Sports field jpa alternate and the West County Integrated Waste Management Authority alternate council member Chang will

2:28:40serve on the design review board as lays on also the S Pablo Avenue specific plan committee the economic development board and the West contra cost of Transportation advisory committee alternate council member Jones will be lays on to the Planning Commission the

2:28:59San Paulo Avenue area specific plan committee the Tom Bates Regional Sports field jpa temporary permits committee underground utilities committee West County Integrated Waste Management Authority delegate West County Regional Library board alternate and disaster preparedness Council

2:29:20alternate mayor protim ablon will continue to be an excellent on to the committee on Aging Park and Recreation Commission the Environmental Quality committee the association of Bay Area government's General Assembly delegate the league of California City's East Bay

2:29:39division delegate the West Contra Costa Transportation advisory committee delegate the Contra Costa mayor's conference alternate the West County Mayors and supervisors Association alternate and the P pension board alternate and I will be serving um for the Contra Costa County mayor's

2:29:58conference the West County mayor's supervisors Association rant arts and culture commission and the human relations commission East Bay Delta housing and financial agency pension board temporary permits committee underground utility committee disaster prepar ESS Council West County Regional

2:30:19Library b board delegate League of California cities East Bay division alternate Association of Bay Area government General Assembly alternate and West County Unified School District citizen bonds oversight committee alternate to our newly appointed Paul Gilbert Snider so if you have any

2:30:40questions or would like to speak with your Council on those are the assignments and now I we be asking for the council assignment Leon reports which is item eight on the agenda and I think that we'll start a system of just starting on this end and going through

2:30:57at the end of each of our meetings so Mr Lyman no reports Miss Aon well um several of my reports have been covered in the staff presentations so the parks and wreck commission um was um I think our main discussion item was the one that was covered tonight about um major ww and also the

2:31:20Canyon Trails trees so I just want to add one thing that the um commission appeared very pleased with the creative solution that staff developed uh to find a way in a year when there was um very little water to be had and really uh none for the purpose of planning new

2:31:40trees that they found a way to provide the trees with water without using uh new water so I just mentioned that and then moving on um the um Environmental Quality committee met and um came up with their um priorities which I'm looking for the list here um just a second um so they they

2:32:09developed some priorities for the year um and um one was to create a recognition program for outstanding residents and businesses this of is all of course in the area of Environmental Quality uh to increase incentives for energy and water audits for homes and businesses um excuse me forget that last

2:32:31one I I was reading the wrong line increase incentives for solar panel installations for homes and businesses and to incentivize local businesses to provide recyclable takeout containers um so those are their three priorities um that they would like to work on uh for

2:32:52the upcoming year and they spent a lot of time and um I think did a real thorough job of coming to that conclusion um then um the um I also um on in the league of California cities I was uh if you may remember I mentioned earlier that I was chosen to be the vice

2:33:14chair of the community services policy committee and so in that capacity I was invited to attend What's called the league leaders um meeting and at that meeting the league at a state level um picks some strategic goals for the year so the Strategic goals that were chosen

2:33:36are uh to protect funding for Vital Community Services to promote economic stimulus and infrastructure investment to support support sustainable communities and to promote reform of State governance budget and fiscal systems so that those will be the overriding uh League uh goals for the

2:34:00year and I could if you like uh hand this over to Cheryl and then she can put it in our next packet great and um let's see so then um the other um meeting that I attended I was kind of busy this month uh was uh wict Tac and um I just wanted to mention something

2:34:28that was that is of concern to me on the uh the budget that was uh discussed um the um the money that you wi teac has had thise um policy of retaining funds which we know is a reserve uh from year to year and then if some study comes up that they want to do or something else

2:34:53then they consider whether or not to use some of the reserves for that purpose um what was done in um this meeting was to uh actually allocate most of that Reserve already for some specific purposes and that will mean that there's little flexibility so that if any of

2:35:14these desirable studies or whatever come up beyond the scope of their current budget there will be no money to do those unless they come back um to the cities and request more money so I'm just sort of putting you on notice to that effect um and I I voted no on this

2:35:36but I was the only person who did vote no um because I thought it was not fiscally prudent so anyway so that's that's it thank you yes I had uh two things one the sports Advisory Board the jpa the better known as the Gilman Sports fields or the Tom Bates Sports field um currently the

2:36:01um the group and the executive board is going through to try to make plans and raise money to finish out the project um it's started it looks nice everybody sees it as they go down the uh the free way there but um we still need to develop the softball fields and the

2:36:20baseball fields um that are there so to that end uh we have been petitioning the Eastbay Regional Park District uh for uh possibility of future funding and uh we'll keep you appr prized of that we we do have an advantage um on our city Greg councilman Lyman um is also the

2:36:42representative of on that group for the Youth um groups the Youth Sports so we do have uh Elso represented uh fairly well on that board uh second of all I'd like to thank uh the staff for uh Staffing the West County Mayors and and supervisors Association meetings each

2:37:03month Els Sero uh term we rotate every six months there's a new city within West County that hosts it um we just finished our six-month stint and appreciate it we spent times up at Myer Vista and down down here the rest of the time so i' like to thank uh yeah I know

2:37:24yeah I was getting to Cheryl yeah Cheryl did a great job on on that and uh keeping the agenda straight and the people uh hosted properly so thank you very much andd like to thank uh mayor Potter for stepping in at the very last minute to actually chair one of those

2:37:41sessions so thank you very much you're welcome and no reports for me I just have a brief report that the arts and culture commission met last week and um further discuss the criteria and the topics for the gallery space and the process for recruiting artists and

2:37:59rotating out the show on the second floor of the city hall space and in addition I wanted to make a special announcement about the human relations commission we um have several vacancies there on that commission and are actively recruiting for residents who are interested in working on that

2:38:18commission who's responsible for bringing us the Martin Luther King Parade annually and also the diversity form in the fall so um all the boards and commissions are listed on the website and the application for um being considered for this position is also available on the web and the contact is

2:38:36the city clerk Cheryl Morris so thanks again May on your arts and culture report the dates for the coming Year's um walks known yet when you're going to do the art strolls those are go ahead Karen can answer that but sorry the Stockton Avenue stroll is actually not a sponsored event by the

2:39:06arts and culture commission although we do certainly promote it I am told that those will be beginning again in the spring and we're going to work with the Art Association and with those St and I have a new business is to promote it um not only on our website but throughout

2:39:18the building and hand out flyers and participate it's a great event thank you so on behalf of the city council I wish you a very happy holidays and good health in the new year and with that we adjourn our meeting