Special Concurrent City Council and Redevelopment Agency Meeting March 2, 2009

0:00:45to order the concurrent city council and Redevelopment agency meeting for the city of Elso for March 2nd 2009 and ask for the roll call please council member Chang here council member Lyman here council member Jones here mayor proen Aon here and mayor Potter here and i' please uh join council

0:01:07member Lyman and leading Us in the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all well now take up item two Council and staff Communications and first we'll

0:01:34have a report out from our closed session of the Redevelopment agency meeting yes like the uh as chair of the uh Redevelopment agency report out that on February 14th the count the uh agency met in closed section pursuant to code section 5495 6.8 concerning the property at 6500

0:01:58Stockton Avenue uh uh the agency gave agency staff uh direction to proceed in that and uh when uh when uh we have an issue to report out we will thank you thank you and I'd like to report out from our special session earlier this evening where we interviewed many talented and

0:02:22willing volunteers for our boards and commissions we have made a number of decisions on appointments and they are as follow to the financial Advisory Board we thank and reappoint Rich Bary and Brad cfel and in and we will make a new appointment of Sean Jackson who's generously also

0:02:44served on our human relations commission earlier and then um appointing Lance cing to the financial Advisory Board we we'd also like to appoint Seth Kaplan to the Park and Recreation Commission Bill Colman to the Planning Commission Sam Krueger to the Environmental Quality

0:03:08[Applause] commission and Glenn wood to the design review board and that concludes our appointments for tonight although I would like to announce that we will continue to have interviews and make appointments for other boards and commissions are there any other

0:03:28Communications from Council Mr Lyman I've got three quick reports uh mayor um of activities that I attended recently uh May uh February 5th I attended the league of California City's dinner U will Travis gave a presentation on global warming and the effects it'll

0:03:48have on uh facilities within the bay on February 11th I attended uh the Richmond Elks Lodge dinner where they um awarded one of our officers sergeant benini and on February 19th uh attended a presentation on parking of all things uh presented by the associate of Bay Area

0:04:08uh governments thank you Miss Chang um I just wanted to report that I went to uh read Across America today I read uh where things are from near to far about uh career being an urban planner which I am in my day job um we got to go back to Castro Elementary School which I

0:04:26realized it hasn't hadn't been for 20 years that I we've gone back um and um also just that I um went to the Els High um Grand Opening celebration and everybody was here and it was great uh place to just take a step back and look at all the wonderful work that's been

0:04:47done for our community um through the school board and um and that's it great yeah yeah I just wanted to comment on the elero high opening uh it's very good but what what really Point came across is we have a a First Rate facility $10 million and it's well spent um the C the the school not only

0:05:14has the facilities now to uh serve all their students in in a very adequate uh manner uh in my opinion uh it's set up for the next 40 50 years to to stay that way so I think it's a very uh nice set that has been added to the community thank you I also attended uh the uh read

0:05:37Across America program today and I also went to Castro school and went into several different classes and I read um um Green Eggs and Ham which is one of my favorites in that genre and I went into a fifth and a second grade class and um they have some um great uh classes at

0:06:01Castro and I um also attended the mayor's conference um where uh uh global warming and climate protection was discussed and that's that's it for that now before we go to staff Communications I just want to Echo what other council members have said about the wonderful celebration at elero high

0:06:22school this weekend and I saw many of you there and it was a treat to be entertained by the students in the fields of drama poetry dance and music and also to celebrate the facilities there um are there any staff Communications and I know we have an update on the recycling program which

0:06:43I've heard many positive things about as we launch that into the community and folks are getting the direct benefit of their new larger gray recycling bins thank you and I'm excited to report out on that uh so good evening honorable mayor council members my name is G

0:06:58Schultz I'm an environmental analyst with the Environmental Services Division and as of last week we began collection of recyclables in the new gray recycling carts from 99% of the city there's still a a few folks that were either missed or skipped accidentally during the initial

0:07:15roll out and we're still getting to them though I think we probably have probably a dozen or two left to get um and anecdotally speaking tonage seemed to be up last week I don't have any hard data to be able to show that but I do have a nice anecdote from a driver today

0:07:31regarding um a Miss pickup that we sent her back out to pick up from last Friday she came back she said she picked up the Miss pickup and she said we've never been there before it's a person who had never recycled and they never even looked at the house for the last couple

0:07:46of years because they never set out any materials so it was nice to hear that and I think that's more and more what we're going to see across the city as folks recycling more recycling when they weren't before and reports from we had staff driving along with all of the

0:08:00folks doing the deliveries during that week and people would come out and clap and smile and wave and really thank us for delivering these containers um that said not everybody was pleased with the containers there were a few folks out there that preferred to remain on older

0:08:15containers for you know either disability reasons or other legitimate reasons probably about 50 and all that we've been able to accommodate and make everybody happy um we have had an increase in the number of special pickups um we call them they're for folks that for either for being elderly

0:08:31or disabled can't bring their containers out to the curb on their own um so we have had about 50 more of those added during the course of the last couple of weeks um we only had 75 previously so that's a pretty significant increase and they're all happy about that service um

0:08:46but it's overwhelmingly positive people are really excited people call us if they've missed their cart they want us to get it out to them soon because they're jealous of their neighbors having theirs already um so it's it's I'm very happy very proud to announce

0:09:00that the program is near completion in terms of roll out uh some of the hard work is yet to be begun uh we've got more material in the trucks and more material that we're moving around um and more education to do there's still some things that we need to iron out for

0:09:14folks in terms of how they set the carts out and how um what materials go into the carts um but we're very pleased and very excited um so I want to say thank you again for your support of the new program and if you have any questions I'd be happy to take them as part of the Roll the roll out

0:09:32um one of the reasons why we uh went to the bins was that it cut out a trip back to the to the recycling center redistribution redistribution of the goods and then out out they went um have we started the new routine which is Direct Delivery from Street to the correct we have very much and that time

0:09:57has actually been needed as we're out doing extra deliveries of bins and containers and helping people with new services but we started that in fact in advance of getting the new carts in so we got used to that aspect of the program since we already had the new

0:10:10trucks at that time so we have started doing that and are we indeed doing fewer trips because of the the new truck certainly fewer trips to the center part of what we have to work out at this point is some redistribution of the number of pickups on our routes we have

0:10:26enough capacity at this point in our trucks but some route days are heavier than others and some days need more trips than others but we're we're working on the evening out process for that but certainly um certainly fewer miles traveled throughout the city great

0:10:40thank you yeah any other questions thank you so much for the presentation and we're very excited about these advancements in our recycling program thank you thank you very much any other staff comments okay hearing we're going to move on to oral Communications from the

0:11:01public and I understand that there are a number of speakers who have signed up for the general comment period and then a number of you who are interested in speaking to the Redevelopment Agency close session item that we're going to be hearing at the end of the business

0:11:16here tonight later this evening um dealing with Downey Street Productions better known as the Sero theater so you have the opportunity to make those comments at this time or you have the choice of waiting till the um beginning of that closed session so city clerk is

0:11:32now going to introduce the rules on making comments under item three oral Communications from the public yes we have a number of speakers this evening and for those of you that are new and haven't seen our speaker Timing System we have three lights up at the top um

0:11:48you're allotted three minutes per speaker when you begin speaking the light will turn green when you have one minute left the light will turn yellow up here and when your time is concluded the the light will turn red and with that our first speaker is Dave Weinstein hi I'm Dave Weinstein and I'm

0:12:10the um chairman of the friends of the Sero theater and I I just uh wanted to say that I like to thank the council and the city for working closely with the operators of that theater because it is such an amenity to the city and I know it must be kind of difficult at times um

0:12:26other members of course of the friends are are here I think for the same reason you know just uh yesterday in my role as a member of the Environmental Quality committee I was at the theater where we and the League of Women Voters put on a free showing a community day of a movie

0:12:41called thirst about water issues and the place it was sold out when G came to see the movie he couldn't get in and after the movie there was a long there were long uh discussions about public policy and it was really great to see that right here in El Sero there's no place

0:12:58else I don't think that could have accommodated this sort of event in such a wonderful way to see the changes that have happened in that part of town which is becoming I think a kind of Arts District I mean we we've always had the um comic book store but now we have 33

0:13:12revolutions that has jazz music and records and it's a cafe the shutter is still there we have iin violins we have a couple other places that I'm forgetting about too eclectics gallery and the theater I think has really helped put that spot on the map is an important amenity to the city and it's

0:13:29one that I think is worth a fair amount of effort to keep here in town thank you very much thank you and hi um many of you know me and for those who don't I'm an Leman of [address removed] this is the first time I've been here since the new city hall so congratulations it's beautiful um and I

0:13:55am here to speak about the theater but before I do that I could couldn't help but notice there are a few other agenda items um tomorrow I'm actually working on a women of the year um for history month for the city of San Francisco we have 12 nominees and so I was really

0:14:09excited to see Monica cotz here um getting her award I think she's terrific what a great nomination and I'm excited to see that Elsa rles doing that I also see that you're applying for some funds for the American Recovery uh reinvestment act um and I just did an

0:14:24analysis of the same act for funding for nonprofits um and I would be happy to share that analysis um because I know there's a lot of nonprofits here in Elo um having said all that um I'll speak to um many of you know that I poured my heart and soul into ensuring

0:14:43that the Sero theater opened so it Grieves me greatly to be here today knowing that it's not doing as well as we had hoped um the opening was a little bit like launching a child out um into the world and you know you hope that you don't have to ever come back and do a whole

0:15:02lot of uh reparenting um but it looks like we might have to do some um and the friends have always had a hands off to the business aspects of the theater um and we continue to have a hands off that's never been our role our role has always been as a community support um

0:15:20but looking at that role and looking at what the Sero theater has done and is doing I think that there's a lot of the accomplishments that we had hoped have been met um first of all if you go to the theater and anyone I know who goes to the theater and they always tell me

0:15:35because they know I was working so hard they love it um the sense of community is there you see people you know you see people having a good time it's a great opportunity for the city the city of elero and the citizens of elero something else we had really hoped

0:15:52um is that it would put the there there in elero well there's no doubt that it has put the there there in Els too it's all over your website and it's all over anything anyone thinks of when they think of el Sero and that's one of the things we'd hoped if there was any doubt

0:16:07about that if you go to Google and put Sero theater in there you'll get 160,000 hits if you go to Yahoo you'll get almost three million hits if you go to Yelp um and look at the reviews there's 183 reviews and the scores are 4.5 the highest being five so those are pretty

0:16:29astounding numbers um and so the putting the there there and the hope that we had um that this would be sort of a uh Economic Development um enticement has definitely happened you can certainly see what's happening right there on the street um with the record stores and the

0:16:46theater um next door and um in case you didn't see it the New York Times had an article and I'd be happy to give this to you um about the everyone's flocking to the movies um during this recession so maybe things will turn around I'm happy to donate my copy and there's something else the um

0:17:07young people who are going there that have never been to elero before we won't see this tomorrow but once this recession ends those young people are going to want to buy houses and they've been introduced to elero in a way that maybe would never have happened before

0:17:22so I really think there'll be some long-term benefits and we have to really think longterm about all the things that we had hoped would come from this and we think are still coming so great thank you for your comments next Mary Schmid hi my name is Mary schmida and

0:17:42I'm a parent of two Castro Elementary School students by the way I was also there today I read a walket in my pocket um I understand fully why the city council supported building a middle school on our site um it is a positive move move just as with elero High um for

0:18:01the city of elero I question however the impact this decision is going to have on the elementary school students of elero in particular Elementary School students from Castro all of the other Elso schools are impacted Madera is slated to take 14 of our students and we've been

0:18:20told that they are not sure they have enough room for them Fairmont students are already importables due to overcrowding yet 95 of our students are slated to go there where are they going to put them Kensington and Harding are not taking any of our students though both of those

0:18:39schools benefit from the closure of Castro I am an elero resident I'm also a homeowner and my family has lost our neighborhood school I urge you to please come to the school board meeting on Wednesday and ask the board to take special care in the placement of our

0:18:57students now that the site for the middle school is secure it feels to us as if the placement of Castro students is an afterthought and as a member of this community I fully expect my children to attend elero schools and not ones that are so full of portable that there's no

0:19:15room for the kids a recess we're asking the school board to give all Castro students transfer priority to other schools in the district um any school school if there's room and that they be given priority over all other transfers please show your support for our students and recognize the immense

0:19:40sacrifice that we have been asked to make your voice will make a difference at the meeting on Wednesday night and I look forward to seeing you there thank you thank you clarification Mr Jones yes uh this Council that I'm aware of has not taken a position on on cast

0:19:59that's correct official okay thank you okay next speaker Diane brener good evening I'm Diane brener I live at [address removed] in elero um I drive up and down moer Lane almost every day and for the last couple of years I've noticed that an herbicide has been applied to the hillsides on the

0:20:22sides of the road um it seems to be pg& land that they're doing this to um whatever they're using is really effective it's kind of breathtaking to see how desolate the dirt looks where they've been spraying it so I have a couple of concerns about this one is I

0:20:39wonder if the city of elero knows what they're using and knows just how toxic it is uh second I believe this is a slide area this Hillside portala Middle School is just below there um and it seems to me it would be better to have plants of any sort growing in the dirt rather than

0:21:00just blank dirt up there if it's a slide area and third the soil is actually moving and taking over the sidewalk in some of those areas it's like half half covering the sidewalk and if somebody who likes to walk I really mind every time a sidewalk gets blocked like that

0:21:18um so I just wanted to raise those questions thank you for the opportunity thank you petal good evening it's great that there are so many people out here uh haven't seen it lately I put in two speaker slips one is to one dealing with the minutes correction and another one with the

0:21:43movie theater so first to the minute correction uh it's I'm talking about the February 2nd minutes uh before you approve them the brief statement lobal expressed concerns about the expenditures of funds for acquisition of the May Fair Prof property is not adequate and should be expanded what I

0:22:03said at this and at many previous occasions is that the site has a pivotal role in resolving problems with traffic and especially bus circulation and access to Bath it should be developed only in connection with a thorough analysis of these concerns using it for

0:22:19housing or mixed use would be flagrantly anti- Transit the s's acquisition only makes sense in connection with a plant swap with B for an adjoining site of equal size and value such a less noisy and traffic-wise less obstructive site could then be used for housing leaving the San

0:22:39Pablo Avenue Cutting Corner to be developed for proper Transit oriented use when B bus agentes C and City are ready to do so now what I fear is that El Cerito is planning to develop the Mayfair site for housing uh with the help of federal stimulus money now that

0:22:58would be a gross travesty and misuse of funds for instance the proposed interim parking lot agreement which you have on your agenda and I won't speak to that it doesn't even mention that staff is trying to reach a some sort of arrangement with bot so I request that this statement be included

0:23:17with these minutes or the future minutes and I brought each of you a copy now I have a separate item should I talk now or still under oral Communications it's to do with the theater yes you can speak now I would just request the clerk um reset the time okay thank you thank you anyone aware of

0:23:38the concept of opportunity costs aware that money spent on a project however good is that the money is then not available available for a possibly substantially more needed project for instance a library uh now these people know that the theater was an expensive silly Mis

0:23:58guided decision though I totally understand that there are people who love the movie theater and they have every right to let their feelings known be known now staff and Council are embarrassed and try to divulge as little as they hope to get away with you know so little about what's

0:24:16really happening with the theat of finances and so on what their problem is now this secrecy runs against what President Obama has proclaimed that his goal namely to be as open and as possible now it may well be true that reducing or indefinitely indefinitely postponing the least payments would be

0:24:37accepted by most elans as a sensible decision you have the theater so we have to make the best of it but only if you let the public in on the deliberations and give us all the financial and operational facts other than what is uh legally protected is confidential now anything

0:24:56else that you try to sweep under the rug we just faster and make the city less credible and make the decision more controversial there just as many people who feel that the $7 million at the the cost was misspent now so far what I found out was the $20,000 was the was the bill from the

0:25:19auditing firm the attorneys I haven't been told what uh the agency's attorney spent on this but mainly we should have all the other facts the financial facts that's being fed to you that can be made public and operational facts and so on and uh uh if you if you make this public

0:25:40this information then we we can sort of accept the decision a sensible one but otherwise you're just causing trouble for everybody thank you thank you Mr Jones i' like to clarify that for anybody else this Council or the uh agency has as always said we will release the information when it is

0:26:01complete and uh when it is available the information isn't complete yet and we will be uh releasing that information at at its due course including bringing it back to Council in an open meeting to make a final determination on it thank you thank you is there another speaker

0:26:21our last speaker during General comment is Robert Brower my name is Robert Brower I live in El sabron here are my property tax bills for property I control and I'm responsible for in elero last year for the first property tax I paid $22,500 in property tax on properties in El serito this month I'll

0:26:59pay another $22,500 for a total of $45,000 I will pay for property I'm responsible for in Els Sero I believe these payments give me the right to add my two cents I am very upset beyond beyond anger about the school board's decision to put the temporary campus for

0:27:20Porta at Els Sero high school without an environmental document an environmental document whether it's a negative declaration with mitigation or an environmental report whatever it is addresses three things first what are the environmental consequences of a project second is there a way to

0:27:40mitigate those third is there an alternative and in this case it was clear that that site putting the school there has adverse consequences two they probably can't be mitigated in any reasonable way and there was a great alternative the lower pad and although I'm mad about the decision I'm really

0:28:01mad about what happened at the facility subcommittee meeting two weeks ago where Mr Savage of the District staff proposed that the District staff work with the city staff to create an after the fact environmental document is my view the city should not Co collaborate conspire

0:28:21or cooperate in any way with creating an environmental document after the fact because the failure to have one in the first place is an envir a direct uh violation of the environmental law that says You must have the document first and I want to make sure that that's that

0:28:39my two senses HT on that thank you very much thank you Mr Prower and I want to add that we share your concerns and um testified at the last school board meeting and plan to present further ideas Wednesday at the next school board meeting and just to clarify there's no

0:28:56collaboration on any California Environmental Quality act with the school board the school board clearly is the lead Agency for the project and um we're very concerned as you know because these uh school facilities are located within the city limits any other comments

0:29:25okay thank you all for your comments we are now moving on to presentations item four and the first presentation is um one in which I am very proud to make today and that is a proclamation recognizing Monica Courts for her significant contributions to the community and um I know that Debbie and

0:29:46Monica and Madison are here tonight and I would like to take this opportunity to read the proclamation I know that other council members have um comments to make um I don't know your preference why don't we read the proclamation because there's so many people here tonight and

0:30:05um I always learn something new about community members when we lay it all out in a proclamation and I hope that you all will too so I'm very proud to present Monica kts with the city council Proclamation recognizing Monica ktz as woman of the year whereas Monica courts

0:30:23has a long and active history as a dedicated member of the Elser community and focuses her attention on new trends in Recreation and Community programming and servicing pushes for funding for facility and park Improvement and works hard to meet the needs and desires of so

0:30:41many people as possible and whereas Miss courts has consistently increased the amount of services and programs offered to ELO residents and surrounding communities and whereas following the death of a beloved Recreation member Monica established the David Hunter

0:30:57Memorial Scholarship fund and created annual events such as the Dynamo golf scramble and the holiday pancake breakfast to support the scholarship fund that has awarded over 100,000 in scholarships since its Inception and whereas on her own time Monica helped Galvanize Community

0:31:17Support into a Grassroots Campaign which provided for the complete renovation of the elero swim center and the establishment of the canyon trail Art Center and whereas working with the West Contra Costa Unified School District Miss cour has overseen the tripling of

0:31:33the Department's Afterschool programs by using state and federal grants to deliver high quality and safe care for families who would otherwise not be able to afford these services and whereas Miss courts Works tirelessly on behalf of underrepresented groups advocating for quality of life

0:31:53and rights for children and seniors and whereas Miss courts has been an active supporter and a role model for non-traditional families and welcomes all the members of our diverse Community into City programs emphasizing inclusion and acceptance in all aspects of

0:32:10community life now therefore the city council of the city of elero does hereby Proclaim that it recognizes these very significant contributions of Monica courts to the elero community and congratulate her on select as elser's 2009 woman of the year and particularly to recognize that on

0:32:34March 27th 2009 women's History Month Celebration at contracosta [Applause] College [Applause] thank IE and my coworkers that are here tonight I try to desensitize myself you know emotional so um but if it wasn't for my coworkers and the rest of the staff hereone of

0:33:35possible so thank you for the honor I really appreciate it and it's been a great 24 years and I look forward to [Applause] reti well I I want to take a brief moment to um add to the wonderful uh words of the Proclamation I was on the park and rec commission for five years

0:34:04chair for two um and worked very closely with Monica during that time and this is a very deserving award very hardworking woman who has really uh put Els Sero in the Forefront of her mind much of her day um and and I want to during that term during The Last 5 Years um the park

0:34:24and recck commission has taken over control of the 4th of July event and I can tell you that that is something that the community is incredibly proud of and and really uh we deserve a lot of our thanks to Monica for bringing that program to to a very high class uh program so thank you very

0:34:42much I'd like to I'd like to Echo the uh comments uh that council member Lyman made um I can remember in years past we had what I would call a good a fine program but under Monica we have a fantastic Superior number one program and I think it's all due to the leadership that

0:35:05Monica has shown in her job and in the way that she has um enabled the employees who work under her to develop their skills and their confidence and I would like to thank you Monica for making Els Sero a place we all want to live thank you thank you uh I followed Monica since the earliest

0:35:31part of her career um in in the recreation field and uh sometimes from afar sometimes from from fairly close but I I really couldn't believe the luck elero had when uh Monica was hired on as the Director and and one of the things that I don't think a lot of people U

0:35:49maybe have thought about is Monica to this day is a student of the field of the recreation field and community service field she's always learning she's always bringing new ideas what what's great about having U experience is that you can hear an idea you can see

0:36:05if it applies to what you're doing and you know how to apply it and it makes things a lot easier and uh flexibility is is uh really an OP uh opportunistic uh virtue when it comes to that um and this is at a time in her career where a lot of people are looking to Monica to learn from her and yet

0:36:28she's still a student to this day of the field thank you very much congratulations Monica thank you for all your wonderful work and I'm surprised you haven't been women of the Year sooner um I grew up um with Monica from kinder Camp through counselor and training my first job through many

0:36:51summers at the day camps and without the services that you provide many Working Families um would just be struggling through the summer I never got to go to a way camp but summer camp was awesome and wonderful and really built um a great love for the community so

0:37:11thank you Monica I just want you to know that you've made a huge difference and one thing that I always notice about you is that even though you hear the praise I know that on a regular basis you also hear the complaints and I've never once heard you speak to anybody in a way that

0:37:29was not professional and kind and you've never been negative and I think that's a very um admirable quality in a public servant so I want to thank you for that and then I want to say um can you just make that pool of water a little warmer on these cold [Music] days and we're really looking forward to

0:37:50celebrating with you at Contra Costa College on March 27th thank you congratulations okay we're now ready to move on to the second presentation which is item 4B National Association of town watch National Night Out award for 2008 good evening mayor Potter Council U

0:38:22my name is Randy kalish I'm the chair of the crime prevention Committee in Els Doro and it's uh my pleasure this evening to present to you the National Association of town watch 2008 award for National Night Out I would like to thank everyone in the committee for all their

0:38:39hard work in the elero police department and the elero fire department the city staff and council members who all participated um I would also like to take this opportunity to uh introduce Molly Hazen who is our vice chair and she will actually present the award to

0:38:55the council thank you thank you thank you Randy and thank you Randy for your excellent leadership for our committee um the past year good evening tonight uh the crime prevention committee would like to present the national nightout 2008 award for recognizing outstanding participation in

0:39:15America's night out against Crime to the council and mayor Potter we are delighted to uh know of all the participation around the city and everybody in D is really uh if we had awards for everybody we give out Awards to everybody so we're delighted to present this to you tonight thank you

0:39:36thank you very much that's one thing about this we have to figure out how to smoothly take hand knobs well I want to take a moment to thank the crime prevention committee and Randy and Molly and all the volunteers out there that have made national nightout such a success in our community

0:40:35and this is the fifth year that we've received this award um for National Night Out and remind folks that it occurs on the first Tuesday of August each summer and it's really a great way to strengthen our communities and I'm sure that um other members of the council would like to make comment on

0:40:51this very successful program thank you mayor thank you um I want to thank the crime prevention committee and and the chair and vice chair uh Randy Kish and Molly Hazen I I'm the new liais on to this committee and we've met twice now this year and I'm just beginning to

0:41:08understand the amount of work that it takes to to be successful on a national nightout program and understand how hard our Volunteers in the committee uh the whole committee is is putting forward and I want to thank them um all the the committee members for their

0:41:24participation so thank you I would like to Echo uh what um council member Lyman said and add that I think it's one of the things that really helps beyond all of the things that we know that it does that it's intended to do it does something more than that it also

0:41:43helps to create a sense of community and neighborhood um I know in my own neighborhood I remember hearing uh people meet each other and talking about it uh that have been living next door to each other for many years but yet didn't really know each other at all and this

0:42:01event brought them together so I would especially like to thank um Molly and Randy and the other members of the committee for the outstanding job they do in making this a community thank you thank you uh Echo those comments about National and night out but also

0:42:22put in a word that uh this committee does a lot more than National Night Out it it uh handles uh crime prevention it takes on uh personally going into neighborhoods and even uh individual houses to advise on safety issues it helps with the disaster preparedness so

0:42:42this uh committee is a hardworking committee uh and it's there every 4th of July to to put on a lot of uh uh good quality programs so thank you very much and just want to Echo and also thank the crime prevention committee for making this a successful you know safe

0:43:04and Community Building event thank you again for the um award and for your dedicated service we'll now move on to presentation 4C from the elero police department on the bike Patrol program Madam mayor distinguished council members this evening you'll have an opportunity to view a presentation on

0:43:33the Department's bicycle Patrol program it's fitting that this presentation was prepared by Sergeant Shawn Maples and Corporal Jeff albrand they are without a doubt the driving force be behind turning Chief Kirkland's Vision into a tangible reality in our bicycle Patrol

0:43:49program their hard work is a collateral Duty that's in in addition to their work as patrol officer officers and supervisors I don't think anyone in the department could have anticipated how effective this program would be how well it would be accepted by the community

0:44:05and how well it would fit into our overall Patrol plan it has become an indispensable part of that plan as we try to provide quality services to our community so without delay Sergeant Maples and Corporal albrand okay thank sir good evening Madam mayor council members

0:44:32Mr Hannon first of all I'd like to congratulate Monica been think of a more deserving person in the 22 years that I've been here you've always been a go-to person and always get the job done and appreciate all the help you guys provided the police department also like

0:44:46to congratulate the crime prevention committee on their award for National Night Out it's always an honor to be recognized for their hard work and effort um like the commander said um we're here to present a basic overview of the bike Patrol program um the El police department has Corporal Jeff

0:45:02albrandt is one of the co-instructors in the class um it's going to be a quick overview the conclusion I would really love to hear any input comments or feedback that you would have from any of your involvement with the bike Patrol unit um a lot of people think bike

0:45:17Patrol is something new to the city of Els Sero when in fact we've actually had a bike Patrol unit for uh 11 years now it was something that was started with a small law enforcement uh Grant from Target to buy our first couple of bicycles and it's just grown from there

0:45:34um Corporal W brand and I are two of the founding members of the bike Patrol unit and uh if it were not for the vision um that Chief Kirkland had with this unit and the ability that he's given both of us to grow into what it is today it wouldn't exist Chief Kirkland has a

0:45:51strong cycling background he understand the benefits uh both Health uh and Welfare of individuals that are involved in cycling and when you couple that with the benefits that it brings to a community an enforcement effort uh it's invaluable uh one of the stated goal

0:46:09basically of the police department is the same for the bike Patrol team is to bring the citizens the community together to prevent and solve Community Law Enforcement issues one of the things that is most beneficial about the uh bike officers is their approachability

0:46:22with the citizens uh an officer can sit on an intersection a patrol car all day long and won't have anybody come up and interact with them or talk to them you put that same officer on a bicycle and he'll have a line five people deep wanting to talk to them interact with

0:46:36them not only about Community issues but just day-to-day operations and uh Community involvement in general some of the things that we utilize uh to make the bike unit work is uh the bike's ability to either be out and be highly visible and uh patrolling the the Plaza the schools the parks um

0:46:58interacting with the public and the community uh the bike makes it really easy for the officers to get in and about different areas that often times officers won't uh Patrol or get out of because they'd have to leave their car um one of the things that we do is um

0:47:16we'll take specific complaints regarding traffic or crime issues we'll direct the patrol officers into those areas and they can be very effective we've seen some great reduction in activity in different areas of town when we have bike officers in the area The aloney

0:47:29Greenway gets a lot of bike Patrol use uh P tro and the a has seen some significant reductions in problems in those areas um every time I go out and ride I make an effort to go in and actually talk to the community uh talk to the business owners and get feedback

0:47:44from them what they're seeing from the bike officers and it's always very positive comments and compliments about the reduction in problems and concerns that they have when the bike officers are out um the parks are another area that we can get in and about and Patrol a lot better

0:48:00on the bikes um there's just no way to get into a lot of the parks in the cars but you get on the bike and it's amazing the different back alleys and Less Traveled routes that you can uh you can find um and then lastly to be available to do school presentations Community presentations

0:48:19and uh talk about what's going on in the community the citizens love the bikes they love to see the bike officers and uh it's a it's a great opportunity really appreciate the opportunity to be here tonight um I actually have another engagement on uh March 17th with the

0:48:33East Bay Bike Coalition in which I'll be going before one of their board meetings and uh talking to them about what we do they're very excited about our program what we refer to as our recipe for success in the bike Patrol unit is uh we like to be well-rounded in our

0:48:48efforts um equal parts education enforcement interaction with the public crime prevention and apprehension we're not just going out and directing uh a very one-sided um approach we're trying to meld all of these different uh things together for a really positive

0:49:07successful uh program to date uh it's been really uh just a quality program all the way around and that's largely in part due to the officers that are involved in the program just as a quick summary for the statistics for 2008 um officers were out riding the bike for

0:49:23about, 1500 hours and as youve heard in presentations by the time um you take an up an officer's hours on the street um and break it down to the amount of time he's actually patrolling it's around 1100 hours well here you can see we've had one officer almost a Year's worth of

0:49:40hours on the street actually out on a bicycle um that's hundreds of M miles of patrol around the entire city um during that time they issued almost 500 citations and made 55 arrests for everything from robbery auto theft burglary um the most serious offenses you can think of as well as fugitives

0:50:00wanted for outstanding warrants um one officer that really stands out in the program is Officer Chris pie he alone uh has been out riding for 400 hours of 2018 issued almost 200 citations and made 20 of those 55 arrests while out on the bicycle patrolling so he's a oneman

0:50:19show and uh his performance is just above and beyond we saw some significant results from our program we decided it was time to take it to the next Lev um in 2007 uh through meetings with the chief we decided that it was time to really Step Up create an in-house bicycle training course um

0:50:42which amounted to the uh administrative Sergeant Del Campa making arrangements for me to attend a 40-hour post certified uh bicycle instructor course in San Bernardino put on by the Sheriff's Department uh I returned from that course with a really a huge uh interest in developing

0:51:03our program taking it to the next level and having a training program that Rivals those all out throughout the state and the country um upon completing the curriculum and the outlines Sergeant Dela Campa submitted the program to post police officer standards and training

0:51:17and got the class certified so officers can get Advanced uh officer credit for attending this class two classes were held in April of 2008 um to just a huge success and interest uh throughout the department the chief's goal in the department is to have all the officers trained to be bike

0:51:37certified officers some agencies have a selection process and have a very small contingent of officers where the ELR Police Department takes it from a completely different angle we want to have as many officers as we possibly can available to ride bikes um being that

0:51:51for safety reasons and for quality of the education in the class it became very evident that we needed to add an additional instructor um Corporal Jeff albrandt stood out Head and Shoulders Above the Rest he's probably the most accomplished uh cyclist uh in law

0:52:05enforcement today in the state I'd put him up against any other police cyclist out there with his abilities and uh just equally uh impressive or his abilities as an instructor quickly after he retained his uh certification we put on two more classes um and with the additional uh

0:52:23instructor we were able to double size of the class which gave us the ability to open the class up to outside agencies so we're able to invite agencies uh from around the Bay Area every time that Sergeant Del Campa opens the class up for an offering she's just overwhelmed

0:52:39with requests for seats in the class um as of this date we've had 31 students that have completed the training uh the ELO Police Department currently has 30 uh certified bike Patrol officers uh also when I obtained the certification for the 24-hour class I also obtain certification for a 4-Hour

0:52:58update class that'll take place once a year the officers will go to an update class to keep their skills [Music] fresh often times people the first thing they want to know is they want to talk about our bikes they want to see what it is that we ride um my bike is out in the

0:53:14lobby um our first purchase of bikes were [ __ ] Police Package mountain bikes the bikes are equipped with the red lights siren everything that would make them legal for condu Pursuits or arrests or apprehending people um since then we've added a selection of track police

0:53:31uh package mountain bikes and recently we purchased a specialized mountain bike that can be utilized for Special Operations undercover it's not a marked police bike so we can uh go out and Patrol in plain cloes and uh call in marked units for for arrest and kind of

0:53:46another set of eyes out there for us like I said the class we had set up is a post class all the officers at the police department are post certified uh meaning they've attended a certified training course for basic bike Patrol which is a 24-hour class the instructors

0:54:02attend a 40-hour certified course some of the things that the officers will come out of the class with um that uh our Necessities to go out and do the job effectively is uh throughout the course they'll conduct equipment and maintenance inspections learn to properly Mount and dismount on bicycle

0:54:21some of you may think well there no you get off the bike but when it comes to arresting people people and contacting suspects there's a little more to it um we teach and have them demonstrate proper gearing techniques uh the foundation for the class is learning to

0:54:33ride in slow tight confined spaces um as you'll find in the plaza uh farmers markets the Fourth of July celebration parades things like that um they learn the impressive feat of riding up and downstairs um perform apprehension techniques and we have a series of

0:54:50scenarios that each officer go through during the course to perfect his abilities then on the final day we spend a lot of time actually riding in actual traffic conditions we ride in all different areas of elero Albany Richmond Berkeley uh taking advantage of all the urban

0:55:07obstacles out there that uh we can get our hands on like I said one of the most important things is the uh Foundation that the officers Come Away with for uh riding and my belief is that's contained a lot in your slow speed skills and your ability control the bike a lot of people

0:55:24get on a bike right in a straight line but there's a little more to it when you start adding technique and some difficulty to it said the final day of the class the officers go on a pretty impressive ride upwards of uh some classes are 20 miles and depending on the officer's abilities

0:55:40and skill level gone up to about 30 mil on the final day we graduated four classes to date you see as they go through the classes they start out small and manageable and then over time grow to an impressive number of officers so far officers from outside agencies that have attended the training

0:56:05have been Danville Albany San Ramone Hercules edmont and the City of Richmond these agencies of all voice and interest in sending additional officers to our class and hopefully we can invite other agencies uh to attend as soon as we have room in the class it's uh really

0:56:23satisfying to have agencies calling you and one seats in your class and uh I guess good news travels fast um I was really impressed with the work that Sergeant benini did on his presentation and his uh traffic coin that he created um very very nice presentation and a very nice coin so not

0:56:46to be outdone um after I saw that I went to the Chief and I really asked him if I could create one for the bike unit so I could have some type of token of appreciation for job well done for officers and something to give officers upon graduation from the class so I recently

0:57:01uh took receipt of uh the coins that I designed in the design process for the coin I met with uh Molly Hazen from the crime prevention committee and I told her what my ideas were and she just off the top of her head quickly came up with the cycling for safety phrase and it

0:57:18just stuck and I really liked it and that's the uh phrase that I go with on the coin and I really thank Molly for helping out with the coin uh in closing i' just like to thank the council uh the chief and everybody that's involved with the program additionally to that uh suzan AA and

0:57:38Melanie men have been very instrumental in helping me with the program and uh additional events that I'm working on with the crime prevention committee on uh May 16th we'll be having a bike safety day hosted uh here in elero in the DMV lot and there'll be a lot more

0:57:54information on that to follow in the near future with specifics [Music] um in closing I have a short video of some of the officers and while that plays I'd like to give each of you one of the coins that I had designed thank you for your time tonight thank you thank you

0:58:32thanks that RO with your husband that was very nice wow he's from another city yeah he's from another agency issues with a gent shirt too Al BR and I would like to feeli any questions comments or input that you would have for us miss Chang um I just I'm surprised I didn't

0:59:07realize that the the programs been around for 11 years but I'm super thrilled to see you guys um you know promoting it and spreading the word I think you know as more and more people I I I think in the recession more and more people are biking more so I think having

0:59:25you guys out there to make people feel safe especially along the Loney Greenway is you know not only good for crime prevention but you know climate change and people's pocketbooks and you know they're getting out and being healthy and um you know they're they're at you

0:59:41know the fact that they they're getting to know you all too I think is and feeling comfortable with you that's that's great to hear that people really I mean that in and of itself to build those relationships I think are a Cornerstone of um a good community policing strategy so thank you very

0:59:59much thank you I I've been to uh well part maybe 15 20 minutes of of uh one of your classes that you gave and it's uh one thing that strikes you when you go into the class one here's these officers very serious about a bike about two wheels with with pedals and second of

1:00:19all it's just not about learning how to ride a bike like you said in a straight line uh but what impressed me the most was um how you're using it as a technique and a tool uh to actually fight crime and I know um the some of the antidotes will point out that uh you

1:00:37the bikes sometimes beat the squad cars to a to a situation which really surprises everybody when when somebody comes up the one statistic that was missing though and I I don't know how you capture it but if you can you should put it up uh not only the amount of uh

1:00:54citations and arrests you make but the number of people that you talk to along the way that stop and want to talk with you and and and you're able to show them that uh you're not only a uh a person with police Authority but also a person that cares about them and uh enjoys

1:01:12talking to people so thank you very much for that you i' I've got a question that you can answer yes sir what's the weight of a fully equipped bicycle 40 yeah 38 to 40 lbs we have a bag on the back that has some first aid equipment ticket book and other supplies and by

1:01:31the time you add that and all the gear that we wear you should have seen the three three or four faces behind you all went wow so I mean that is impressive and so I I that's wanted to make sure that the audience knew really how uh much the equipment weighs so when they're seeing

1:01:47those poor people try to go up those four steps they understand how difficult that is um is that with or without the coin in your pocket um and and the other thing I wanted uh is behind bars behind the handlebars or putting people behind the bars of the jail thank you very much thank you sir

1:02:10so I just wanted to acknowledge your support for biking and also um how pleased we are to have the police bike Patrol and I want to acknowledge the efforts of a number of Alo officers including Sergeant Maples and Lance kapo to collaborate with the Elso High School

1:02:27Mountain Bike team so they have been using the skills they've learned in law enforcement and to bring it into the lives and into a sport um with kids that teach them also respect for authority and I understand that a number of you are out riding this is the season I

1:02:42invite all the officers who ride the bikes to join um time permitting and I also want to thank you for the beautiful coin um don't tell Chief Kirkland but when I got the traffic safety one that was a little controversial home and so now I have the one with the bicycle and

1:02:57that will even level the plane field with my husband who is um also assistant coach on that team so thank you offic Kabuto is doing a fabulous job as the SRO at the high school as well as his involvement with the mountain bike Team he tries to ride after school every

1:03:12Wednesday with the team matter of fact this last Wednesday after work I went with the team and we split him into groups and and had a really nice ride and it's the program is just phenomenal great I have a quick question um I know this that we I don't know if it was the

1:03:27city or if it was in collaboration with the East Bay Bike Coalition we're offering citizen biking classes and are you guys involved with that and you know are you trained to train citizens who want to you know cuz just bik commuting is also a skill that you know takes time

1:03:43to learn and you know just ride safely and I'm wondering if that's one of the one of the directions I'd like to take the program and that's what my meeting on the 17th is going to be with the East Bay Bike Co is to Foster relationship ship between the Coalition and the

1:03:55police department I've already come to agreement with them we we actually have those bike safety training Flyers with each of the bike officers and we're asking them when they come in contact with cyclist to pass those flyers out with all the dates for that fre safety

1:04:09class we are working with the Coalition yes great and and I just wonder as cyclist now on the greenway I mean do you feel like there's any particular you know issues that have come up or just patterns and and things that could be improved and in terms of infrastructure

1:04:28we work a lot with the cyclists um both education and enforcement it's there are concerns for Traffic Safety on the aloney greenway sometimes people don't think they need to stop for stop sign we've had some some collisions because of that so we do a lot of Education with

1:04:42the importance of safe cycling when we're on the greenway um other issues um not really I mean the cyclists are all really uh good people and open to talking to the officers um okay thanks I want to thank you for your presentation and thank all the officers again who participate in the program

1:05:03thank you very much okay we now consider um item five the consent calendar uh first I'd like to ask if there's any interested in amendments to item 5 A1 um if not we'll uh I'm sorry the minutes were there any was there an interest in removing the minutes from the consent calendar yes I

1:05:32would like to remove the minutes uh item a 5A and I also would like to pull item item 5D D is in dog 5D D the American oh wait a minute no 5c excuse me excuse me 5c okay um is there a motion for the remainder of the consent calendar I move move that we adopt items um 5B and 5D I'll second

1:06:00it's been moved and seconded all in favor I opposed motion carries unanimously um we'll now take up item 5A the minutes from February 2nd yes I uh on the special meeting uh closed session for the Redevelopment agency under seven uh there's an item possible report out of closed session we

1:06:25actually did close report out and we gave direction to staff um so I hope that's recorded thank you I'm sorry where is that do you have adequate Direction I I believe so on item actually item 11 on A1 oh yes and then so what um the report out is was reiterated this

1:07:14evening correct okay okay um I oh any other changes I'd like to ask about the wording in item 7B uh it was moved and seconded U however there might have been a a typo it did not carry unanimously under [Music] action yes I have that thank you is it is it I know we had Peter Lal

1:07:59speak tonight about his portion we did give us a written uh document is there cause to fold that into these minutes I propose that we amend um the minutes in item 7A under speakers to read Peter lual El Sero Express concerned about traffic and circulation at the site and

1:08:20with the expenditure of uut funds for Transit oriented development at this site are any any other requested [Applause] changes move adoption of item 5 a the minutes um as corrected second it's been moved and seconded all in favor I I opposed that motion carries unanimously on item

1:09:085A item 5 c as a resolution of the city council of the city of El Sero commit police Commander Gary prie for his service to the city of elero and for his continued success upon his retirement for from City service do you have any other um comments just wanted to uh formally thank uh Commander

1:09:32privie for all his work and I I thought it uh uh commanded a little bit more attention and uh a consent item so I wanted to make sure that we noted that in the record yes I do want to um also honor his many years of service and just provide a little information that is

1:09:50contained in the resolution um Gary e PR police commander of the elrio police department served this community with pride and upon the occasion of his retirement is deserving of recognition and the highest con condemnations and um he was born in Richmond in 1955 he graduated from

1:10:10deanza high school and received a bachelor's degree from San Jose State University in 1977 um he retired on December 30th of 2008 and the city council of Elser Reed also um would like to recognize his long career with the elrio police department 27 years and we now resolve um that it

1:10:35takes a great pride and pleasure in drawing special public attention to Commander Gary e prie for his record of services and concern for the protection of life and property in the local community and extend him our sincerest best wishes for continued success in all

1:10:51his future endeavors so are there any other comments or a motion um I'll I'll just i' just like to say that I uh concur with your comments and um I appreciate the many fine years of service that he uh gave to the city and I would move uh res the resolution uh commending uh police

1:11:16police Commander Gary prie on his retirement and um which is item 5c second all in favor I motion carries unanimously we have no public hearings tonight um so we'll move on to item seven policy matters and a joint city council Redevelopment agency item which is the midyear budget

1:11:44review thank you mayor members of the council uh I'm here to not only give an update on the current state of the budget for the city as well as uh request certain adjustments to the fiscal year current fiscal year uh 2008 2009 budget uh I put together a short presentation to walk you through the

1:12:08agenda package and we were here I was here in November doing a sort of preemptive update something we hadn't done before on the budget in light of all the things going on in the region the world the state uh and everything and uh I don't want to reiterate all that but I think it's fair to say things

1:12:27have sort of continued on the unfortunate path they were they were on back in November uh what I'll do tonight is describe what we've done as staff and recommendations to maintain a balance balanced budget for this current fiscal year um hold on one I took them off quick

1:13:07one I'm sorry I don't know why it's not working yeah you can no okay well let me keep let me just keep going um certainly since November um the economy has continued to worsen unemployment has continued to Rise um and consumer spending has continue to decrease uh which does certainly affect

1:13:42the city uh the stock market has continued to decline and uh unfortunately I checked it today and looking back at the last report we did um in October I'm sorry you can cover your ears if you don't want to hear this but on October 1st the market was at 11,500 November 1st it was at 9325 and

1:14:05as hard as it is to believe today the market closed at 6763 which is where it was in 1997 uh home prices are down uh even in elero although the positive side of that is home prices continue to be strong relative to the region and relative to what the current assessed values are uh

1:14:30in the city so when homes do flip in elero there is an increase to property tax um generally uh access to Capital which is something we've talked about with many items um remains difficult uh for cities and we'll talk a little bit about that on other items and uh many cities as I'm

1:14:50sure everyone is reading and we have a stack of Articles we could share have already begun staff and service reductions furlows and have started to use reserves there we go um what I started with was uh the bad news and I was going to say now the good news but we'll just go with the less bad

1:15:10news um in theory the state has passed a budget with minimal impact to the city uh that's a lot of what the state is doing is contingent on a number of ballot initiatives but at least uh for the time being we're not particularly hurt by the state actions the as the

1:15:26city not the school district not other players who affect elero um as I mentioned home sale values are still well above assessed values and our reserves even after the adjustments we proposed today remain around 15% of the general fund 5% above the council's goal of

1:15:4510% in the current state budget there are no additional State takeaways on the Redevelopment agency um as you may recall uh the agency took away about $370,000 in this current fiscal year although that is undergoing a legal challenge by the California Redevelopment Association and that suit

1:16:04is underway uh there's no further Cuts identified uh for next fiscal year program revenues generally remain really strong and that's particularly the recreation department um we anticipate their revenues to be significantly higher they're offsetting expenses to go

1:16:21with those additional programs but there continues to be very strong demand in all of our programs um even uh as far out as um the Summer where we've set up the opportunity for people to enroll very early and it's going really well the that's one area where it doesn't

1:16:38seem like the economy is hitting us uh fortunately the federal stimulus package may help with some of our capital projects you uh see that on or you approve that on one of the items on the consent calendar but we think there is opportunities to help with streets

1:16:55Energy Efficiency in many of our buildings hopefully and possibly even Public Safety on the positive side um the San Pablo Avenue project um improvements to the community center our street overlay program are all moving forward as planned as well as a number of small

1:17:14projects particularly traffic related a lot of which is Grant funded you'll be seeing uh shortly and and through the coming fiscal year and what uh I guess is most important um nothing in what we're recommending uh will impact our current level of service this is a little bit different

1:17:34chart than what I showed uh in November there what the colors are meant to do is highlight our uh sort of our feel on our revenues um anything in green or uh we're we're generally comfortable with uh The Greener the better uh we said in November that sales tax was a big big

1:17:55concern it remains as you'll see the our biggest concern um the other Revenue category moved from yellow to Orange and it sounds like we're going to the airport but um and I'll talk more specifics um where in other revenues we've seen the change and what's been so

1:18:13unusual is the change has happened much quicker than we've ever seen before in really the second quarter of this fiscal year we've really started to notice um changes in activity particularly in building and planning uh and I'll talk a little bit more of that uh but overall

1:18:30the majority of our revenues are relatively strong that's not to say we're we're not hurt by what's going on in the economy in terms of our specific Revenue adjustments um I'll try not to hit well maybe I will try to hit on all of these because they're all interrelated clearly the biggest is

1:18:48sales tax that's very obviously very significant adjustment um I think it's for probably three different factors our sales tax in last fiscal year came in lower than we thought it would that impacted our projection for this fiscal year and then the additional volume in certain stores

1:19:07and store closures have hurt us further when you compound those three um we decided to go and make us make that big an adjustment to reset our our base for next fiscal year business business license is directly irritated directly related to private sector activity so

1:19:25it's not surprising to see that down um County transfer tax uh again is tied to property obviously Property Transfers and as we've talked about the volume is down uh as you'll see State reimbursements and State fees and really any fee that flows through a higher

1:19:44level of government is causing us some level of heartburn either because we're somewhat concerned about whether the money is going to arrive the timing of the money part partial payments everyone seems to be trying to um cover their own holes on the backs of others and since we are at sort of

1:20:01the bottom of the um Revenue collection food chain we're a little bit at at their mercy so it's been a real struggle to try to gauge uh our revenues this year s sp90 reimbursements are um in theory we're we're allowed or law requires the state to reimburse the cities for regulate laws and regulations

1:20:22that they pass that cause us increased costs however under certain fiscal conditions they cannot make those payments and we think we're pretty safe that those aren't going to come this year um the vehicle license fees which have been an issue for the past number

1:20:37of years obviously with the decline in Auto Sales the decline and license fees are off um we I talked last meeting the community center uh we've talked we're suggesting that we hold off on the new um heating and air conditioning system for the time being and we think there

1:20:53may be opportunities in with the community center in terms of the stimulus package for an entire look at the Energy Efficiency of the building there's also a transfer um Public Works particularly did a reevaluation of all of the projects over the last few years

1:21:07and we determined that there was um a sign what I would describe as a significant balance of about $180,000 that we could move back into in all likelihood the maintenance division to do ongoing repairs and operations and those are what that essentially amounts to is more of our projects came in under

1:21:24budget than over and there's a surplus in our Capital program which we think we could we want to keep it in the maintenance Division and keep it on Capital related things but it'll free up uh general fund money that would either be going to do the same thing or um

1:21:37subsidize a Landscape and Lighting Services Program fees are slightly down um OES reimbursement as you may recall early in this fiscal year the fire department was incredibly active around the state and the way we are uh charged the state when we do U Mutual Aid calls

1:21:55throughout the state um we're entitled to re full reimbursement plus our cost of our overhead and payroll and all of that and because we went so much we had a real material Surplus this year um the two specific ones Planning and Building volume is down a bit but in

1:22:14talking to um The Building Division extensively and the planning Division and they're they folks here from both the nature of the projects that people are taking on uh again this last quarter particularly are much smaller than what they've done in the past those

1:22:31significant Renovations and remodels are sort of dropping off to let's just do the electrical or let's just do much smaller pieces so the size of the permits have dropped off and again um we we sort of raised this concern in November but the falloff really happened

1:22:47in October November December and so we've decided to model very conservative conservatively and used this sort of the low months to project uh rather than a typical average um Recreation is expecting uh got an additional Grant and facility rentals are up so when you net

1:23:03all of the ins and outs um we're proposing an overall general fund reduction in of 9 32,000 in Revenue the corresponding adjustment although it is actually our hope that we do better than this on expenses as we typically do uh is also 900 32,000 as we've been reporting as we

1:23:25reported out the majority uh 2third of those savings are related to salaries and salary savings um wherever we've been able we've uh kept positions open we' uh we filled none of the positions that were approved by Council for this fiscal year in the first quarter um

1:23:42we've been very selective about filling positions we've had a few retirements where we haven't filled those positions um we while I would say that I wouldn't say that we have a hiring free on because I think what we try to do is evaluate every position and um really go

1:24:00through how necessary it is at this time and we have filled certain positions this year but we really are evaluating uh all positions the S the salary savings I believe cut across every Department uh from police fire Recreation Administration uh Public Works uh throughout but we've again

1:24:21we've been able to maintain our of services and we were we were on it early enough in this fiscal year to make those adjustments and hold back uh this transfer to CIP was the transfer for the HVAC system at the community center which would be reversed back to the

1:24:37general fund uh we talked at the last meeting about the bond market and particularly the insurance Market we had always anticipated that we would use a Shorty Bond for City Hall's Debt Service this first year we' replace our debt service Reserve fund with a bond um no

1:24:54one could have anticipated even 6 months ago that the bond insurers would go upside down also uh and now there's no ability for them to write these kind of policies so that's money that um neither us or our finance advisers ever saw um these were considered sort of the the

1:25:09safest instruments in the world and they've gone upside down um the transfer to lad uh again is an offset of the general fund subsidy and our ability to move money um from funds uh in this case it's gas tax where um there's some overlapping um uh eligibilities for for

1:25:29the two funds what we try to do every fiscal year is look at the general fund look at our restricted funds and see where we may have more ability to utilize funds so what you're seeing is we are placing a little more emphasis on the restricted funds uh in order to help

1:25:45out the general fund the next item is you're aware over the past couple years we've used um um lease to own purchas lease to own purchases I guess is the right way to say it for our larger equipment recycling trucks and fire trucks what that's done is reduced the

1:26:05need to lay out all that cash as we've been building up our vehicle and Equipment replacement fund so we have what we would describe as a more than adequate Reserve in that fund so it's freed up the fund so what we're proposing is having the internal service fund pay the equipment charges that the

1:26:23general fund would typically pay this fiscal year and then we'll re-evaluate whether it makes sense to do that uh ongoing additionally our Auditors because it the truck is will be owned by the city it's more appropriate to capitalize it as though we own it and pay for it out of the restricted fund uh

1:26:39anyway and then there was actually per um non-personnel there were decreases throughout the budget but it netted to a positive after you take out all of the um all of the salary savings because we had a few illnesses and injuries in a certain Department that we had to

1:26:57backfill with Professional Services with with uh contractors to get inspections done U uh in the building division so it it washed on one side but it netted out on a posi uh as a positive increase on the next page I just thought I would compare and uh uh what what I

1:27:18described as sort of best and worst and then I found myself struggling for what what if that was the worst what's this um I was overruled I went on the first draft with worstest but uh I lost so we'll say current um again this is the what we what we are seeing and what we

1:27:37are recommending is about $200,000 worse than what we thought it would be in our worst case only a few months ago um where as I've talked about where we propos to make up that difference is largely the special funds um the capital fund and the gas tax fund uh to make up

1:27:56those differences this fiscal year and uh again that's a onetime opportunity uh as you can see uh when you look at the cuts and expenses that $250,000 in the middle column the bottom one you really have to combine with the 250,000 on top to compare that 500 with the 611 I mean

1:28:14that's really um as we've talked about repeatedly we're about 80% of the general fund is people so when we look at you know at reductions that's where that's where it comes from and again I think we've been uh fortunate and smart that we got on this early uh and we're

1:28:34able to able to uh keep positions open and make these adjustments um early in the year I won't reread the entire thing on City Investments but it comes up a whole bunch um we are in a very conservative mode right now um we are making very very what the challenge it poses are

1:28:54while our investments are incredibly safe the return we're getting is awful so uh we've been looking at trying to look at with our financial advisors weighing whether there's other opportunities to get a little bit better return on our investment uh but uh All Things Considered we much we would much

1:29:13rather be risk averse than try to make a little extra money and that's where we are right now uh but we're we're comfortable where our investments are and we're getting our sort of 1 to 3% return and that's probably as good as we could hope for right now in terms of next steps uh all

1:29:30departments are reviewing their operations for potential restructuring or consolidation of positions that doesn't mean we are proposing or anticipate any layoffs um next fiscal year uh and I'm relatively comfortable saying that at this point we're really looking at uh open positions and whether

1:29:49we could do without and whether there's a way we could restruct structure uh to make it work uh and look for some uh Personnel savings going forward uh we're looking at all levels of City staff to for suggestions on uh cost savings uh improved productivity uh we're taking

1:30:07much harder look at all purchasing that we're doing and whether it's necessary whether there's other ways we can do it whether we can put things off uh I've talked a lot about the hiring and we are well into next fiscal Year's budget already uh in terms of our numbers so um with that

1:30:25I'd be happy to take any questions the finance directors here as well as people from all the Departments if there are more more details we could give you um we have a resolution uh asking uh for these reductions as you can see we've laid it out in the resolution a little

1:30:41bit differently just so we have clear Direction on the adjustments to all of the funds that need to happen to make uh these general fund changes um so again with that we' be happy to take uh any questions or comments thank you for the presentation and um I'm sure there's a number of

1:31:02questions here maybe we'll start with I always go first on my left um I I will say that um the nice part about this is that we're not tapping into our reserves to uh affect this balancing of the VES versus expenditures uh I am a little concerned that we are in some Essence starting

1:31:27down a slippery slope as we start taking from our vehicle fund but I understand the logic behind um using that those funds uh for almost a 5% reduction in Revenue to the general fund uh this year um I I think this is a a good attempt at at remaining budget neutral on the year so I I have no other

1:31:57questions I I guess the um the one question I have is looking a bit to the Future and what we weren't weren't talking about here and um these a lot of these um adjustments are ones that we can make um once but we can't um repeat so uh if we make these adjustments and

1:32:19if uh the downwards spiral continues what did you see as the next round of um cuts sure have you thought about that we've started to think about that and we've certainly started modeling the particularly the general fund and all of our funds going forward um a few things I mean I would certainly

1:32:39agree we want to stay away from the one-time revenues um just uh maybe to address council member lyman's point about the vehicle fund we would not have suggested the adjustment from the vehicle fund if we didn't believe the fund was over over over financed so but

1:32:54having said that that opportunity is going to get less and less each year um what I I think a few things that we're looking at is um this year we had what I would consider unusually high increases to labor um related to new agreements related bringing certain bargaining groups to median and so when

1:33:15you look at the trends of increased expenses over the last sort of 5 eight years um I think we took gone more expenses this year than we have in the past for those reasons when we look forward partly because of the economy we all of our Agreements are we're under

1:33:33contract with all of our employees we're looking at Cost of Living adjustments um that are in the 2 to 3% range we're looking at our pension benefits being flat to down um so when you when you sort of model the pieces we already know and look at our revenues that our

1:33:51sound which remember on that pie is largely green and you make these adjustments at least early on we believe we can keep our reserves and double figures and meet all of our obligations it's um I guess I'm not ready to say about specifically where we go from here

1:34:09because it's it's our initial hope that uh we'll be able to continue doing what we're doing so um okay we're trying to come back as early as we can but um at least at this point we're not anticipating significant changes to operations next fiscal year okay so um I

1:34:30went to a a program not in the last month I would say on uh the economic outlook for the for the Bay Area and um one of the things that I brought back from that is it's not really thought that things are going to get any better for the rest of this calendar year but

1:34:51at the end of of that period of time things might start to get better now of course that's all predicting and who knows that that will really happen either but if that does happen that would say that we have some more um belt tightening to go and I think I'm what

1:35:06I'm hearing you say is that you think you might take it out of the excess of our reserves over our stated policy of 10% is that what I'm hearing you say no no um I mean we're not prepared to say we're going to need reserves but when when we do some worst case modeling

1:35:25um our reserves stay above 10% um where we're bringing down I mean we are our anticipation is starting next fiscal year with less positions than this fiscal year um so there are savings there when you look at um our normal increase in fees increase in um taxes even property taxes and you consider

1:35:46this big sales tax adjustment in this year it's almost like a company taking a a big onetime write down so we're writing down and then we're looking going from that base we think sales tax will do okay once we make that adjustment and activity as most people see in the plaza and the south end of

1:36:04town is particularly strong still um where we've really been hurt is obviously on the auto sector on the North End both Honda and Mitsubishi sales no matter how we look at it um when Accord sales are down we're that's where we're going to see it I mean there's nothing El read Plaza could do

1:36:21to make up for Less Honda sold um it's just it's just the way it works and and we are we are sort of top heavy in Els Sero that way um so that's why we want to bring sales tax down as far as we want to bring it down to reset the base so it's our hope we don't have to do

1:36:38these onetime things again so I hope that answers the question thank you I I just want to take a step back and um remind everyone that what we're considering right now is midyear budget adjustments to 2008 and 2009 budget and that in April or May uh staff will come

1:36:56forward with a budget for 2009 2010 which needs to be approved by the end of June so right now we're just looking at making some adjustments because a lot has changed since we approved the 2008 2009 budget last summer so um any other questions Mr Jones yes um on the chart that you showed sb90

1:37:19reimbursement State fees have we heard we haven't heard directly from the state on that or have we do you know my my recol I'll ask Mary our finance director my recollection is it wasn't included in the state budget but at this point I think payments have been deferred has been deferred deferred yes

1:37:42meaning we're not going to get it well this year or it will be postponed but I wouldn't hold my breath or be able to give a constant date it's going to be probably at least two years um okay thank you um let's see here on the OES reimbursements are we assured we're getting all those back yes

1:38:03that the state's not going to pull it and tell us thanks for our contribution they are they are paying all all on all of our invoices so far great IUS or cash um okay I think you you touched on something that I uh the delay in hiring um when we go to look at it in the next

1:38:30budget year uh we'll determine whether we're not going to fill those at all or use part-time versus permanent or that's all up for discussion next next budget okay the shity bond um it was one of of our safest tools that we used and therefore we were assuring the public that we're safe

1:38:58going what are we doing now do we have any indication that that shy Bond will loose will loosen we are assum we are assuming it's not it I mean that it's I mean it's possible that I could change but we would rather be rather just be safe and assume it's not going to happen

1:39:15it's possible but it's just not looking good fair enough um we've used uh we replaced our watering system on nearly three miles of s Pablo Avenue uh 2 and a half let's say um have we had any reading on uh the savings that that equates to right now I'm s of looking I'm looking for help on that one

1:39:42Jerry Drew this Short Straw I guess we haven't had a chance to do a thorough analysis of that we're still basing our predictions on on just the calculations up front they have been um in the establishment period up through a lot of the fiscal year so far we're we're still actually in the the 360-day

1:40:05maintenance period so that may be going a little a little heavier than normal but even with that the indication we've seen is we're not um going past what we have in past year so we believe that once we get out of the establishment period we'll be able to save even more

1:40:19okay well I have you on that subject I understand that our rain reader is working and they don't go on when it rains correct we are just now finally able to verify that uh we have actually manually turned them off the last two weeks to be able to check some other

1:40:35calibration we want to do on the irrigation system so I'd have to get back to you on whether or not we can watch and see if that's actually working great but we haven't had any rain up until just the last several weeks so right yeah good although there's plenty

1:40:49of it tonight uh yes yeah thank you very much Miss Chang um I just had a quick question about the gas tax and what currently is the rest of the gas or how what is the total amount in that and what does it go to um since you're standing I defer to the public works director on the

1:41:16specifics the gas tax has several parts to it the most recent uh contributions just in the last several years is through Proposition 42 our share of that has been right uh approximately $100,000 a year as we started to see that flow in about 3 years ago we put that towards

1:41:39the paving projects strictly um we have not um supplemented the uh daily operations with that this move right now is changing ing that this year to move that 100,000 into our daily operations rather than our annual Paving program uh other than that I think we have on the order of $300 to $400,000 of

1:42:02other gas tax comes in that's been the historic Trend and I may be off on that number but it's in that ballpark that still goes to the daily operations that our streets Crews um doing their normal work thank you thank you one more question we finish yeah um I had one other question

1:42:23um that I don't I don't see the answer to here but I it's a really obvious question uh which has to do with the um absent sales tax for um or major a tax for local streets and Roads and potholes and uh what is the impact of um the reduction in sales tax on that program

1:42:46sure again I could defer to um Jerry for more specific ific but as you recall when one of the things that we really felt strongly about was when we put the measure together was being very conservative on our coverage in the event sales tax went down significantly

1:43:03so while the receipts are below somewhat below what we projected we're nowhere near having any concerns about making our bond payments on on the first side related um secondly because we are ahead both ahead of schedule and Below budget expenses and have the bond proceeds in the bank um if

1:43:24we're a little off on collecting sales tax in the first or second year we don't have the ability to spend it all anyway so it may affect us somewhere down the road I don't know Jerry if there's anything you want to add to that but um there's no immediate impact we've just

1:43:40done a a a um um we've taken another look at the analysis for the measure a program if you recall in the first four years it was going to be about $16 million uh available to spend with with the few grants we had the measure a and then the other sources uh costs have come down

1:43:58quite a bit we've also been able to take advantage of some new emerging Technologies we think will save us some on the actual reconstruction bill that we had um forecast so the costs are going to come in quite a bit lower in this four-year period uh even more so I think than the

1:44:15revenues will be down if we took a dire forecast on the sales tax revenues uh I think we're still going to be able to accomplish our construction goals in these first four years within that budget so that's the good news on that side thank you follow up follow up on

1:44:33that could you remind us though uh uh city manager hit on something when we put the bond together we did have a a a cushion and quite a bit what could you remind us what that cushion is yes the our projected annual revenue at that point was 1.2 million The Debt Service

1:44:54is about 750,000 so there was a cushion of some 450,000 um to cover to cover that okay so we're well within that at this point yeah I think our projections like worst case scenario at this point is $250 to $300,000 off I I don't think we're going to be quite that low at least not at

1:45:13this point okay thank you okay I just wanted to thank all the staff um many of you are here tonight and particularly Mary Dodge and Scott Hannon for putting together this very thoughtful adjustment to our budget during these difficult and unpredictable times so I appreciate the

1:45:31presentation and the effort and I also want to remind um the council and others that at our annual goal setting meeting that we held on February 14th we discussed the possibility of leading up to um consideration of the 200920 budget of discussing the use of our reserves if necessary so that is a

1:45:53future discussion that we sorry go ahead that we may need to make and do you have one one speaker yes I was going to ask for um public comment on this item Peter lobal uh I'm Peter Lal uh I certainly heard Scott hen mentioned today's stock market collapse and my chanet speaking about the down

1:46:26with SP spiral and spiral and Greg was concerned so the concern is here and and Sandy mentioned that you'll be obviously meeting again soon on the next budget but uh uh all in all I feel that the proposed budget adjustments reflect mainly the last quarter's revenues uh they don't really reflect

1:46:51the ever Outlook now uh the city manager may rightly be concerned about uh not wanting to panic the troops but everyone is aware of the D forecasts and now is the time to consider even more drastic cuts and I so obviously that's what you and staff is paid for is to

1:47:19make the very hard Cho choices dip into reserves uh furlows layoffs I don't know what but um I I I do think that there should be some discussion of that and I I expect another meeting on this the way the econom is going and I plan to be there and say you should have acted sooner it would have

1:47:45been prudent to sort of set the stage but you're not doing obviously not inclined to do that that today now the governor ordered a fiscal fiscal and water cutbacks but what I see is this council is like you're aware of the situation but you're like a deer caught in the

1:48:03headlines of an oncoming train and uh I I think uh you you should be sort of ready to talk about the cuts that are will possibly be needed today but you don't want to so you'll deal with it in a few months now I have two comments uh the report sort of mentioned the

1:48:25landscape and light lighting act like the the bad bad outof Town land owners didn't give us this tax and therefore we have to contribute to it the fact is that yes there are fiscal conservatives who feel that any money given to the the public agency is likely to be wasted and

1:48:42are totally opposed to that and then there are people like me and my wife and I proudly Proclaim I'm a Social Democrat from Europe social ism is not a bad word in in Europe uh we we're very concerned that that uh not that the money wasn't needed but that the money

1:48:59was wasted so I I sort of object to to comments like that and somewhat related i' like if I I can have just two sentences of response to Bill Jones He said you will find you will hear about what in due course what happened with with the Sero theater well it's been I

1:49:17think a year and a half since they stopped paying st stop paying on their lease and I think a year and a half is way way too long to to let the public know and public knows no idea what the problem is the public only knows that they haven't paid their lease the public this public knows

1:49:36that they have mechanics leans and so on that the this public knows that they're very nice the fishes are very nice people who also have to feed their family but we we'd like to know what the situation is there goes 120,000 a year plus now cost of collecting thank

1:49:53you okay we have heard comment on the midyear budget adjustments and um are we ready for a motion or discussion discussion please okay go ahead okay um yes at our goal setting we did talk about talking about a strategy going forward or at least formally um confirming or

1:50:17setting uh the management course of of of going forward and actually in the first page of the discussion on the agenda Bill we kind of get to that um the city has to live within its means and uh do not over staff we're only using restricted uh funds now for capital

1:50:39projects uh we're delaying some capital projects I.E the uh heating and air conditioning uh upgrade at the community center are relying on contracted help rather than full-time for specific uses and uh we're pursuing new purchasing Alternatives you need to speak closer

1:51:01into I'm sorry speak closer into the mic oh okay so um when we talk about a strategy or we talk about a continued way of trying uh to manage through this downturn uh these have been things that we've talked about these are things that we've informally expected out of staff

1:51:21to do I think they've done a good job they've jump we've jumped on Things Early we've been monitoring this thing for well over a year on a monthly basis so we did get an early start on some of it and there will be quite possibly um at our 200920 budget they're they're

1:51:43quite possibly will be things that we have to consider that are uh worse than what we see here maybe not but we don't know that yet um but I think it would be good to confirm that this is the direction we want to go uh there may be another Direction I don't know but I I think staff deserves

1:52:04the council either backing or Direction uh as we move forward they're preparing the 200920 budget right now one of the earliest starts that we've had on this and uh it would be nice to discuss it now so their work of 5 months isn't wasted if we decide to change direction

1:52:29in in June so am I understanding you correctly that um that to include a statement in this draft resolution that includes the direction and measures and mitigation that are identified in the staff report would satisfy that um request for direction and then reinforce course the

1:52:50numbers that are presented in the resolution uh I I think we could do yes that would be good it would be nice so to specifically state it because what I did what I just read I took out of actually things the city has been doing and I think we could somehow turn it around a

1:53:10little bit to say this is the direction we want to make sure we continue to go or or we are going I like the way that it's phrased in the staff report because it is specific to the situation at hand but it doesn't lock us into continuing these strategies should other situations

1:53:28evolve through the future so I'm just putting out there's a suggestion we could include a statement in the resolution to incorporate the existing direction to confirm staff that we're in concurrence with the statements made in the staff report but um mayor I I I will reiterate my

1:53:49concerns from from before about taking um funds in some ways taking it from a a albeit a over funded um vehicle fund but it is a one-time opportunity it is it is a slippery slope that um that that we begin to to go down as we if we continue to try and use one-time funding sources

1:54:12um so although I I definitely commend staff for their proactive uh actions as reflected in the bullet that you're uh acknowledging that you and and council member Jones have acknowledged I would like to make sure that we're not um overly relying on one-time transfers

1:54:34from fixed funds and that we are exploring other options as well so I I do I I guess I'd like to Echo council member Jones's thoughts that we do need to provide staff some guidance that their next months of of budget setting is not with the wrong direction so in my review of that um portion of

1:54:57the direction is on page six my reading is that um the general fund backfill is only intended for this fiscal year so a new analysis will be performed for the next fiscal year MH so um does that address your concern if we can fold that um the idea of not relying on

1:55:18onetime transfers into the into this proposed amendment of The Resolution that'd be great okay that' be yeah I I took that that this strategy was for the midye this this year the Auditors by the way our Auditors have suggested this action so you know we're being backed up by um

1:55:40people that are supposed to regulate and that's why I'm I'm supportive of this one time occurrence for this mid year I think it's appropriate it's just as a policy cor I don't want to set it as a policy sure so say I was going to say I have a I have um concern um

1:55:57because the state of our economy is such that we it's hard to predict what's going to happen next and so I I think we need to maintain flexibility to be able to react to those changes as they occur I think this budget um proposal that the adjustments does a good job of um

1:56:22addressing the changes that just occurred that will uh take us through the remainder of our fiscal year and I think that's what what our job at the our immediate job is to do as we look into the next fiscal year I think that we all realize that we need to be very

1:56:40prudent about any expenditures and very conservative about estimating any revenues um and I think that our staff is um already has that message and um we'll just have to wait and see what happens but if you there would be no way to predict where we are now looking

1:57:00backwards there's just no way to predict so we just have to I think maintain flexibility and be you know very conservative in our thinking about um our revenues and about our expenditures and I think our staff has done a an outstanding job of doing that and I see

1:57:18that when I talk to other members of staff not just um uh people in the city manager's office but but line staff when I've been at meetings where they're doing and we just had the parks and wck commission presentation on the budget and I'm seeing the same thing there so I

1:57:34think it permeates the whole uh City and I appreciate the work that staff throughout the whole city has put into this process so I think we're I think we're all on the same page there that we all want to um you know use our limited funds as wisely as we can and so that uh we're not going

1:57:55to be in a position like the state is right now where they're having to make extremely drastic cuts um may I suggest a possible wording for consideration by the council um in the resolution following the therefore be it resolved and the listing of numbers that we add the

1:58:18statement um because it says the city of elsar hereby authorizes the following budget revisions which are listed to add and the fiscal year 2008 and 2009 cost savings strategies as described in the March 2nd 2009 staff report did do did you did I'm wondering if if I understood correctly what you

1:58:44said you said authorizing the following budget revisions and then what what was the next word well after the numbers are read and the fiscal year 2008 2009 cost saving strategies as described in the March 2nd 2009 staff report including all seven pages or not just the bullets on on the first page no

1:59:08the whole staff report maybe it would be easier to say it in the reverse order it gets would be fine little bit lost I think said that way unless it's set in a separate sentence do you want to set it up as a whereas under the last weas and then you go now therefore and it goes into the

1:59:27numbers is that well I think it's a part of our Direction okay so it can be its own independent therefore is that correct I will ask for any input staff can provide to clarify I was going to suggest that uh that um you do put it basically before the the colon and the list of numbers

1:59:49and it wouldn't matter whether or not you say the council authorizes the following budget revisions and the strategies outlined etc etc or if you said the council hereby um directs following the strategies outlined in the staff report and authorizes the following budget revisions so basically

2:00:05put those two together before the colon okay I like the latter do we want do we want to add the staff report as as an exhibit to the resolution because the resolution is a permanent record and the staff report has a limited life if if we're making reference to it I I would think that we

2:00:23would need to append it it would certainly make for a more complete document I mean I'm imagining at this point our record keeping is such that the staff report will remain with the resolution forever but um but just in case uh might as well incorporate it as an exhibit to the

2:00:38resolution okay Mr Jones are you prepared to make a suggestion on wording suggestion on the amendment um now therefore be resolved that City Council of the city of velero hereby uh direct staff was it direct staff to follow the 200920 cost sating strategies mentioned

2:01:03in the mid-year budget review and authorizes there Etc if that was a motion I'll second it before you second it I wanted to make clarifications which years did you say 2008 2009 okay thank you is there an exhibit a the uh staff report itself yeah we we did certain there that uh

2:01:27after the the reference to the staff report attached as exhibit a and Incorporated here in by reference thank you okay that is a complete motion is there a second I I did that Miss Aon seconded all those in favor I opposed so the midyear budget uh revisions are

2:01:46approved unanimously and we thank you all for your participation the next policy matter it is item 7B Parks project priority using the measured ww funding [Music] haveour out yours for city council members and others who might have a copy there is going to be a short slide presentation

2:02:17under public comment so that is this handout it's not coming live give it a second here think so the power coming live bear with me for just a moment thank you madam mayor and councel I'm Jerry Bradshaw your Public Works director and this is regarding the uh measure ww

2:03:33funding um could you lower the lights there um CHL thanks major ww was a um a measure on the November ballot which was approved by voters in both Alam and Contra Costa counties and uh the measure contained a bond issue totaling $500 million 34s of that would go to East Bay

2:04:05Regional Parks District projects and 1/4th of that would go to local agency projects cities counties and uh some Special Districts out of that elero share is a little over $1 million as we foresaw this um this grant funding coming we started a process to develop

2:04:28candidate projects that we could apply those funds to um and I'd like to make some corrections in the agenda Bill actually messed up on two dates um the December 4th me council meeting was actually on December 15th in the second paragraph of the the body of the report and in the

2:04:48third paragra gra the park and wreck commission met on December 3rd not December 5th apologize for that at the park and rec Commission on that date we um brought forward a draft list of projects and asked for input from the park and rec commission and uh we did get some some good input but our

2:05:09primary message at that point was to um do some Outreach and get some public input on the whole process in December we uh developed an interest mailer and sent out a card to all their addresses in town to alert people that there would be a a um survey a questionnaire coming out on this issue

2:05:28in January that survey was distributed widely um on the internet as well as uh you can get people were able to get hard copies at various locations around City buildings on January 21st we we culminated that process with an open house up at the community center which

2:05:46was attended by by many people and on January 28th the park and W commission met one more time and at that meeting they established a project priority recommendations that we're now presenting to you the council here um this is the survey form this is the hard copy form there's another um

2:06:08computer version attached to your agenda bill it's ver basically the same information it listed Seven uh 15 specific projects or programs and then asked for people to give it uh a level of support high medium or low or no opinion we also had a place in both the

2:06:28online and the hard copy surveys to get other comments suggestions um anything else they want to contribute to the process of those 15 projects um the this is the results the top project and that may be a little bit hard to read I apologize for that um is acquire lands

2:06:51for future Park improvements uh that was by far the most popular uh project on there uh as you can see it had well over 50% um high priority as well as some um medium priority the other projects are listed in in order of priority and you can see down the list the Sero Park ball field

2:07:15Rehabilitation additional safety lighting at Creekside Park and so on I won't necessarily read through all those at this point and I'd be happy to answer questions on specific projects later on I hadn't planned on going through each project at this um in this presentation

2:07:30but I have information and slides if we want to go into any of those specific ones this um this chart is showing in your agenda bill as well so this is the results of the survey what was also interesting is reading all the comments on the um several hundred surveys that came in and

2:07:50there was common themes that kept showing up on a lot of those um and I've ranked the higher the higher U frequency comments Landscaping uh was mentioned many times now that came in various forms so it wasn't none of these emerged as a new project to really consider these were

2:08:07just comments that were somewhat scattered but had common themes so Landscaping Lighting in parks and other areas Public Gardens uh fac ities for walking jogging or biking swings was a very specific thing that showed up uh nine separate times which kind of surprised me as

2:08:27something that specific and the others that you see on the list on down but once again none of these emerged as as a cohesive uh specific project that um really warranted showing up on the list as they were somewhat scattered this is um a list of factors to consider on the various projects I

2:08:48presented this to the Council on December 15th but four primary categories of things to consider is obviously the initial cost what it'll cost to build a project this year next year whenever we build it we also have to consider the life cycle cost some of these projects

2:09:05would be building new facilities that would require additional operating and maintenance cost to to care for those as we go forward however some projects would rehabilitate existing facilities might actually reduce our ongoing operating cost C some would actually

2:09:20have um opportunities for revenues to come in that could actually make us money or maybe at least offsetting the maintenance costs so life cycle cost is something to consider the timing uh some projects um aren't going to be ready right away one of the requirements for

2:09:37this grant funding is that we have the uh environmental status determined before we apply and um some of those projects aren't quite ready we would have have to do some study and go through a uh a um SQL process that would vary from from just some minor studies

2:09:55to possibly some major studies and some um uh public hearings um and other considerations such as safety or other specific things each project that was on the list kind of had its own personality and would bring things proor con to the process this is a list of the projects

2:10:17I've separated them into four separate categories safety and one project emerged as strictly a Safety project although it would have other benefits which is a additional lighting at Creekside Park uh the second category is replacement or Rehabilitation of existing facilities

2:10:35and as you can see there's four projects there from the Sero Ballfield Rehabilitation down to General Parkway uh pathway rehab rehabilitation and then there's a long list of new amenities or new facilities from a skateboard park that could range anywhere from 100,000 up to

2:10:56500,000 uh right on down to a tennis backboard which would be on the order of $155,000 and the fourth category was just other and in among the list of projects we we have um in front of you is acquire land for future parks that doesn't really fit into those other

2:11:14categories so neatly um the cost on that is really hard to say I've listed that as $1 million plus it it depends on a lot of things how big the parcel is where it is and so forth so without having done any specific research on that that's just a placeholder number of

2:11:32$1 million I talked a little bit earlier about the Readiness of the projects the list on the left in green are projects that we feel could go forward with this year's application uh window um and a bit of a shorter list are projects that would need more studies such as land acquisition uh

2:11:53additional Lighting in Creekside Park uh the dog park along the aloney greenway skateboard park miniature golf um facility uh and the Huber Park improvements would all need to have some more work done on before we could apply for those they would probably not be ready this

2:12:13year the park and wck commission as I stated earlier came up with a priority recommendation they did not go through all 15 projects and give them priority they started with their top priorities and they got down to U five positions on on a priority list at that point they

2:12:30were well past the amount of money available so they didn't work any further the top priority was safety lighting at Creekside Park the next priority would be the combination of the Sero Vista projects which is the ball field Rehabilitation replacement of the playground fac facility and any pathway

2:12:50Rehabilitation that would be necessary to go along with those no improvements third priority was a Central Park playground replacement and they added to that a skate spot which is a much smaller version of a skateboard park Huber Park improvements was number four and the

2:13:09fifth one was access stairs at tasahara Park um Park Rec commission felt that these uh several um several areas of focus and felt it was a well balanced um approach to it obviously Safety First was something we heard at the commission meeting that was a fairly uh good

2:13:29consensus on that uh the SEO Vista Park items um are located at a centrally central location uh there's multi-uses going on the field there's a high volum use they felt like that was a good place to invest money into and then we have some geographical parody with some of

2:13:47the other other facilities out there Central Park Huber Park and tasahara in the agenda Bill I've laid out five different options there's obviously many more options for the council to consider as far as Direction briefly they are uh this the simplest one would be to ratify

2:14:07the park and wre commission recommendation that's being forwarded here uh next one will be to take that recommendation and modify it in in um some way uh the council could certainly consider additional projects that aren't even on the list yet and one the the highest rank project

2:14:26in the survey did not make the the park and rec Commission list but that was land acquisition that could certainly be considered that could be considered on its own because we could certainly use the entire $1 million towards acquiring land or we could try and split that up

2:14:40and combine it with some other capital projects at this point and of course the fifth option is to take no action at this time there is no penalty for for not applying for project this year this is a 20-year program we have 20 years to apply for the projects build them and

2:14:56spend the money um the amount we're that is allocated to us does not grow over time so as inflation eats away at the cost of projects if if we have inflation again in the near future we would obviously be penalized a little bit at that point but uh there certainly is no

2:15:13penalty of taking no action at this time um with that that concludes my presentation I'll be happy to answer any questions or go through any specific projects that you might have questions on thank you for the presentation um I know we have a number of speakers from

2:15:29the public so if there are direct questions about the process or the staff report why don't we ask him now and then we'll hear from the public I've got I think two just two questions the in the recommendations the second item down is combined work at Ser Vista Park um is

2:15:45that the 425,000 or is the 42 25,000 just the field and and so what's the value I guess what's the value of item two in the recommendations is it a combination of more than 425,000 yes it would be it would be 425 for the ball field it would be 150 for the playground

2:16:05Rehabilitation and some portion of the $50,000 for pathway rehab are you able to 600,000 are you able to provide the amounts for the other items at this point well in your in your agenda bill and I actually do have um oh they're all listed all the projects listed on on that slide I have

2:16:26up now but they they are listed yes so the for example number one is 150,000 yes okay you have any questions no um I was wondering if there's um any data just to to help us see how use of these different facilities are distributed across the city um just because I'm I'm really interested in how

2:16:57we allocate the funding to to benefit the most people and um and I'm just wondering if that was considered in the park and rec commission decision we don't really have any hard data for the use of these types of facilities particularly facilities that don't exist yet it's hard to know really

2:17:18what a what some of these would be a miniature goall for a skate park uh a third tennis court we probably could apply you know protract out what what we do have uh but we don't have any really hard data to to start with uh another problem with that would be if we did

2:17:35have data it it's still apples and oranges for how many kids visit a playground versus how many tennis players use the tennis courts versus how many leagues go onto Sero Vista Park so it would be difficult even if we had hard data to really stack these up against one another and and try and put

2:17:53a priority as far as Demand on the system and then one step further would be even if Sero Vista Park has the most visitors is it meeting the needs of those visitors more than the playground at Central that may only have one/ tenth of visitors but it would double the

2:18:12visits if you if you did it so there would it would be a um process fraud if you went to the numbers I think you'd have to go outside the numbers pretty fast and and go right into the qualitative aspects we just started with that the best we could okay thanks I have a quick

2:18:31question does this application have to be all the money all at one time or can it be broken into different it can be broken up any way we want they they had considered a minimum size whether that was a $50,000 project or $10,000 project and I think they concluded that there

2:18:50was no real minimum size that that they really cared about the way the Eastbay Parks district is structuring this they've set it up for all the agencies to apply once a year during the months of February in in March by March 31st they cut off the application that way

2:19:07they know how much money is in the queue for the following year or so then they know how to structure their bond sales because they will issue bonds every year or so to cover those obligations um beyond that they they really don't I don't think have a concern about the size of project that

2:19:26we would apply for or or really the pace because there's there's scads of agencies at the end of each year they'll just stack up how much they need and figure out how to how to raise the money okay thank you um we have speakers from the public first speaker is Tom panis who

2:19:44has a presentation I saw it I'd like to start by thanking at the microphone please I personally have two disabled children 25 years old and their entire life they've been uh participating in Park and Recreation programs and Monica's approach has always been not

2:20:13what problems do they cause but uh how can we make make them more effective members of our Comm Community this um my name is Tom panis I live at [address removed] El Sero uh good evening mayor Potter members of the council and City staff I know that you normally associate me with the Historical Society

2:20:35but I'm here just speaking as a private citizen tonight um and about measure ww uh as you know we have a million dollars for Parks uh I'd like to suggest the council consider what we can do now that people 100 years from now will appreciate uh we used to have a lot more

2:20:53open space in our town than we do now uh and I think that might be might be something for us to consider uh as director Bradshaw said in that wonderful survey that he and Suzanne era and the others put together in a very short amount of time 203 of the 392 survey respondents wanted to do

2:21:10land acquisition that's their number one choice twice as high as the next thing down uh I'm here to talk about a specific land acquisition although I'm not wedded to this one but I think we need to be thinking seriously about land acquisition Metta Park a muria rock uh

2:21:26near cutting in Arlington it's actually on the contracosta county list of historic resources and it's currently an unprotected State uh it's been a landmark for a long long time here we see it in a picture of St John's Church here we see it at Schmid Lane and San Pablo even prominent

2:21:44from down by the Plaza Art Station Lexington and Central uh older Maps show little more than 525 ft High stands out a little bit from the ridg line uh there was quaring up there so the Rocks no longer as prominent used as it used to be plus of course a lot of trees have grown up

2:22:01since then so we don't see it the way we used to uh but it's down at least 25 ft if not more uh but the really unique thing about Mur rock is what you can see from mura Rock I don't know of any other place around here uh where you can see uh Mount St Lena snowa Mountain

2:22:18Pell Mountain Mount Tam Brooks Island the bridge Angel Island Treasure Island San Francisco San Bruno Mountain Bay jber Buena you know you can see it all from there it's a wonderful spot and i' just like to say that 1964 the pennies for Park program uh million2 of which

2:22:38275,000 went to buying Parks included Park land including some of the land we have in our wonderful Hillside park now and I think maybe we should think about doing that again in 20 9 um this is a great time to buy land economically uh we're not going to see an opportunity

2:22:53like this make it worse but it's not probably going to get much better for for buying land uh we certainly need to be smart about how we do that somebody wants to sell us land and say they get to use it for 30 years I think that's great I think we need to be looking for

2:23:05the long term here and what can we do for people I'd like to thank the council follow up thank you follow maretta Rock what what is the significance it it has no intrinsic significance except that it made it onto the list um right walki muri no one even knows if the guy existed I was just

2:23:25curious I I go by it every day I know but it's a it's a unique spot thank you other speakers and Bill I'm Ann bill and I live on Ganges and um my heart sank when I went to the park and rec meeting on January 28th because my husband and I were two of the people who filled out the questionnaire

2:23:54and are in favor of acquiring open space particularly since measure ww is an open space and Wildlife measure um and yet uh the parks and R commission didn't discuss open space at all instead it spent all the money and then some on very worth projects but they don't certainly don't

2:24:20have the value that the last speaker spoke of um the land the large watchat which unfortunately is in private hands that is southeast of Ganges um is the last open space Corridor and it's also a spot that even though it's now in private hands is still used by hikers

2:24:45sturdy hikers with sticks dogs goats all manner of um animals who live on that in or near that property it's it's a lovely lovely piece of land and now seems like a perfect time considering how down the economy is to talk to the developer who probably isn't doing very well at the moment and uh

2:25:11Dicker with him as to price so I really really hope you will not be in such a hurry to spend a million dollars here and there and everywhere you have 10 years or 20 maybe I'd love to see you give it give give it some thought and maybe even another year instead of thinking golly we have to do

2:25:34something by March 31st or at least if you feel impelled to move that quickly consider the ramifications of holding that last piece of open space if there's any way at all to work it out and I have a feeling there may be that possibly a land developer might be ready to deal right

2:25:55about now thank you thank you thank you Harvey whittenberg my name is Harvey Wittenberg I live at [address removed] in El dito uh first I'd like to uh uh I guess commend Monica for her award I go back to collecting garbage with Monica at an early July 4th uh event and from there to the Park and

2:26:31Recreation Commission along with Greg and an and and subsequent Christmas parties where I somewhat come Incognito but uh uh Monica has been a great addition to the community and the park and wreck efforts in this community um having said that uh I I want to offer

2:26:51a different perspective uh and repeat pretty much or or join in with what the previous speakers have mentioned uh the name of the measure is for open spaces and Shoreline uh we had an overwhelming almost 80% uh response in favor of acquiring open space uh they don't make it anymore

2:27:13so what you got you should get it and hold it keep it and preserve it just like we did many years ago uh acquiring open space in the city of elrio for parks and not to let this opportunity pass uh to uh acquire additional open space for Parks uh let's look at this project in a

2:27:34long-term uh uh perspective not the short term for the here and now but we all have children we'll have grandchildren we want to have parks and more space for people to enjoy our our community and uh the open space initiative is one that the people uh were asked to vote on uh they were asked

2:27:55about it the Park and Recreation people uh went out to the community and said what do you want and the community said we want open spaces and he said that with a great enthusiasm by percentages and by responses and I feel that it's incumbent Upon Our Representatives our committees

2:28:16our commissions our city council to represent the people in this community that's the idea of our government it's a representative government you asked us what we want you represent us we told you what you want what we want open space do what we have asked you to do

2:28:33you are representing us you have heard us speak act on our behalf as our elected officials and representatives other than that thank you very much for your attention thank you Peter Lal I'm Peter Lal these are all very worthy projects it won't be an easy decision I hope you'll take your time uh

2:29:03the park and rec commission made a actually a very sensible recommendation spreading the money typical sort of committee recommendations spreading it geographically and interest wise and so on to various good so it's not a bad by no means is it a bad recommendations uh I actually like the

2:29:24idea of muret rock but I'd like to comment on on the on what Javi just said uh that part of the hillside just above ganis and below Arlington is an area that I and rosemary used to go every week to into for weeks and only now and then did we run into another hike and

2:29:47the reason we went there is we had deer hounds and that's where the deer were and that's where the coyotes were and that's where the dogs interacted with nature It's a Wonderful area except for the except for the ticks and it would be a wonderful extension of what is the

2:30:05hillside Park north north of ptero and then there's the area where there was the water system just above GES anyway I can see a wonderful thing but acquiring it and maintaining it is lots more than a million dollars I think it needs to be part of a longrange plan I think the

2:30:23Ganges people the Arlington people might might be ready to put in some money and uh Mr vital is probably who wanted to develop the area is probably hurting uh purely from the point of view of social conscience in park acquisition if you're going to acquire vital land

2:30:40you should think of the Alberts Nest Nursery on San Pablo Avenue what we what elero doesn't have is a nice existing park with wonderful trees right there on San Pablo Avenue a smaller smaller side so please uh take your time uh I am certainly in in favor of somehow uh get getting the echo people

2:31:05and the hillside par going it it it it would be wonderful I I'm I'm just don't think this is the right time and I I'm sort of a bit concerned that this is very the benefit of the people who live above and below it so they can sit on their decks and look down I I really would like to make sure

2:31:25that the area is for developed for hikers and you know for the whole whole Community though I can of course understand that if I was a neighbor I'd want I'd want it to be a natural area thank you thank you Kevin Brown hello uh my name is Kevin Brown I'm actually from Oakland

2:31:46but I'm representing the elero skateboard Community uh many of the elero skateboarders I've met throughout the past 14 years of skateboard in the Bay Area often at the Berkeley Park um there was tremendous support among the community for the the skate like the skate spot as showed on the survey it

2:32:07was right about at the 50% Mark out of all the projects so there's a lot of good support enough that the park and rec commission recommended uh a small skate spot actually be included at the same time as the playground replacement so you kind of do the new playground and at the same time you can

2:32:28put in a small skate area which could be done for $100,000 um in terms of usage to get an idea of how much skateboard parks are used if you go to the Berkeley skateboard park at 2:00 on a Saturday or Sunday even if it's cold as long as it's not raining it will be so crowded that I

2:32:49often just go well you know I'm going to have to go somewhere else cuz it's too crowded and we'll go you know and skate my friends indoor ramp or wherever cuz it's it's just packed uh skateboarding is the fastest growing sport in the 2006 census the there was 13 million

2:33:06skateboarders in the United States the numbers are growing um you know every day basically and um in elero there's opportunities for every sport basically you know basketball baseball soccer but the skateboarders they don't have anything all of the ledges all have

2:33:25skate stoppers on them um so there's nowhere for them to practice their passion and I'm here speaking because I know this is needed here and myself growing up there was nowhere for me to skate and I know what it's like and we would go around the city and wax up

2:33:43Ledges and skate in front of businesses because we had nowhere else to go so having a safe area for skateboarders to go I think could reduce destruction of city property in terms of waxing Ledges and using the handrails and stairs and whatnot and um the number the injuries

2:34:01that skateboarders receive are almost always from riding around in the streets and when skateboarders unfortunately die it's always from getting hit by cars if they can just be in one safe spot then um I I really think everyone the Community will all the youth will be you

2:34:19know accounted for and be like hey you know we're taking care of you too and you know you can practice your passion as well and um it really can be inexpensive I've been involved in skate park design and advocacy and and such since 2003 so I'd be very happy to to

2:34:37help out in terms of all the research I already have all that information so um I just really think it would be great for uh youth to develop a sense of camaraderie among you know where they can congregate and you know do what they love somewhere they can go after school

2:34:53and do something safe instead of getting into you know whatever being bored and causing crime or sitting around and playing skateboard video games because they don't have somewhere to do it which has become really popular so I do appreciate your time very much thank you

2:35:10thank you follow up please thank you for uh coming and giving us our your perspective Ive on the skateboards uh I had one question though increasingly the question comes up with skateboards what do we do with bikes who want to chair that um and I know you're coming from

2:35:28the skateboard point of view I don't know if you have a Viewpoint from the bike users I do yeah um well to address that basically bikers can only use large skate parks due to the size of you know bikes actually need a lot of space and big ramps and such um what I'm proposing and uh what I I

2:35:49spoke U with Monica quz about was this small skate spot of being mostly Urban elements that kind of replicate what skateboarders what we search out in the environment like great Ledges and just small sets of stairs and everything very small and safe I'm talking you know

2:36:05nothing bigger than this High mhm and when it's when it's this small it's it's more like the bikers wouldn't have anything to do there so it wouldn't be much of an issue okay so you're envisioning that um this facility couldn't accommodate bikes so if we were going to accommodate bikes we'd have to

2:36:23do another facility um probably in which case yeah or to do them both at once it would probably be it would have to be a little bit bigger have to be a bigger Park which would be a bit more money um what I have in mind is kind of like what's called a skate plaza so actually

2:36:40it's not it's not like a bunch of bowls it doesn't look like empty swimming pools it looks like a natural Plaza that you'd find in a business district somewhere people could go wow this is pretty you know it's like nice Ledges and stairs nice place to eat your lunch

2:36:55so um it wouldn't be an isore at all there's ways um to for them designed it can even incorporate um some landscape too so they'd be very attractive areas but be ideal for skateboarders okay thank you very much yeah welcome quick follow just a quick follow on is if you

2:37:14could just speak to the gender kind of balance of kids out there right now gender yeah yeah well it's very much so a male sport there's there's probably probably about 3 to 4% of skateboarders are are female but that is increasing as well but the demographics are really

2:37:32amazing like the the the different races you'll see I mean you uh once again the Berkeley Park you you can go there and you will you will find every different skin color there you know you'll see you know it's not just One race anymore it's truly crossed all racial boundaries and

2:37:50it brings everyone together and you get that sense of camaraderie from all the races and so that's really a nice thing too for the intermingling and yes there are girls that skate but it's just more of a guy thing you know some sports are but um there it is on the it is on the

2:38:08increase it is thanks yeah thank you speakers Chris Connor Thank you uh good evening I'm Chris Connor I live at [address removed] in El Sero and I just wanted to uh speak in favor of the land acquisition uh prospects for use of the money um I won't go over some of the

2:38:37things that the other speakers have said there have been a number of people have spoken I just make a couple of points one there clearly is a lot of support for this um project of sets of projects both in terms of the survey in terms of the basis for WW in the first place even

2:38:54tonight we've heard three separate possible land Acquisitions that have been proposed and it seems that what parks and wreck in deciding not to go forward with this option is not so much that on the merits they've decided that it's not valuable but they've decided

2:39:10it's a complicated thing it needs further study it's not something we can do right now the problem problem is is we have a certain amount of money and if we spend money now we won't have the money later if something comes up and we also have a period of 10 to 20 years in

2:39:28order to use this money and it seems a shame to feel that we have to make a decision now that is against what is necessarily what the largest number of people want simply in order to go forward with the project at this time I realize we're not in any position at

2:39:43this point to say we should go forward with this project or that project in land land acquisition but I do think we should consider further study of it see what's out there see what opportunities are you know just as one point the number that was put up here is a million

2:39:59plus for land acquisition that number was admitted is a placeholder number we don't know how much something will cost until we study it we don't know what land is it issue we don't know if there are possibilities of working with land trust in going forward to do joint

2:40:14funding of things and therefore it seems to me that we should take it our deep breath do further study then decide how we want to spend the money thank you very much thank you no other speakers okay um I would like to bring it back to the council but first I want to remind everyone that

2:40:34measure wws passed by the voters provided for 75% of the money to fund Regional Park acquiring of regional parks and capital projects on the part of East Bay Regional Park District and that there was 25% left in the funding for measure ww and as described in the staff report

2:40:54that that money would go to cities and counties and Special Districts to serve areas of their parks and their recreational services so I just want to keep that perspective because that was how measure ww was um laid out and I also um want the council to consider the

2:41:14recommendations of the um Park and Recreation Commission the results of the survey studies and the options that were laid out by staff so is there someone who would like to go first sure I can go first this one I'm prepared for um I first I want to start by uh saying how

2:41:32much I appreciate the park and wreck commission's hard work on this topic I know this is not a simple one um and there and staff's Outreach to the public and more importantly The public's participation in resp responding to the survey so I I want to start my comments

2:41:48with understanding that this is a complicated proc complicated issue and and everyone's worked hard on it um that said I'm I'm let me just start with saying that the I've been working for the last seven years on a park in Berkeley it's the Gilman Sports fields and at Park would

2:42:10not be there if the land hadn't been acquired at some point from a private entity so new parks require a certain investment in future in a look a forward-looking future um so that we have those those opportunities whether they're for public space in hiking or Sports fields we need to be looking at

2:42:31those opportunities ww is a large cash infusion that gives us an opportunity to really look at Capital Improvements and acquisition and as I I'll go back to one agenda item before this um um you know the the staff report for our midyear budget adjustment uh second bullet

2:42:50revenues have become more Diversified and the use of restricted funds for capital projects rather than General funds has provided overall stability and we're talking there about things like the paving fund um there are ways that we can uh get dedicated funds for

2:43:06landscape lighting assessment district and for things that are like rehab rehab of existing Parks so use this onetime op opportunity uh once in a in almost a lifetime if we look at the uh slide that's in front of us 1964 was the last time a a large Park measure went forward

2:43:27we Ed this once in A- lifetime opportunity for the the maintenance and Rehabilitation of existing Parks I I think that's shortsighted and not looking at the opportunities that we need to be looking at um so I I as much as I appreciate all the hard work that has gone on since

2:43:45December 1st um I I feel that we do need to potentially not commit all of the money this year to to these projects that have lower thresholds um specifically in public space and looking at some of the public space that's privately owned in Els Sero there we can look at straight out fee

2:44:05acquisition conservation easements and access easements so we don't necessarily have to buy the entire parcel that that's been discussed we can buy p of the parcel um and set portions that are are of greater value to the environment aside and provide access to them uh

2:44:23through access easements and then if there is development potential uh the higher valued land that has development potential is not is uh not competing with that um finally the park and rec commission did uh present four categories safety replacement new amenities and acquisition

2:44:46and I wholeheartedly support the safety improvements um having been down to that portion of the um parks there was a um a homicide down there and so that increasing the safety along Creek Side is something that is something that I can see using this type of funds for um with regards to Serita

2:45:10Vista um there is that wasn't a homicide right something it was it was in a different place um with regards to Ser Vista I certainly can understand the need for the upgrade there um however using more than 50% of the fund for Ser Vista um I would like to to explore how that could

2:45:31be potentially scaled back um that said I I am would like to see some capital projects go forward so we can take advantage of this money in the in the current fiscal year um and would like to U propose potentially some of the projects at Serita Vista U go forward

2:45:48but not all finally I did start out by talking about the um Gilman Sports fields and did notice that in the survey although it was discussed um in the agenda package that went out for the park and wreck agenda on December 3rd December 3rd um there was no mention of

2:46:10uh the city's um participation in the joint Powers agreement group uh for the Gilman Street fields and so I would like to uh consider that having participated in that group for quite some time I do know that that Park is struggling for funds like all other parks and there is

2:46:31potential for matching funds from other cities as well as Eastbay Regional Park District uh so that that money would leverage other money and so I would like to uh consider u a 25 reserving $225,000 in this this measure ww funds for the uh joint Powers agreement participation at

2:46:50Gilman Sports Fields thank you thank you comments um I guess when I voted for this measure I was looking at the word open space um that was the first word in the measure and I remembered actually back when um several of us I guess there's only two of us left that were on the Planning

2:47:14Commission when we uh did the general plan that we currently operate under but um I remember thinking about um how do we keep the open space that we have in elero and I believe we said that there would be five a minimum 5% open space in the city and um what I realize uh is that it's very

2:47:39difficult to maintain the open space because once it's gone it's gone and there's no going there's not an easy way to go back it's just like on the schools when they um give up a School site to regain a School site is is next to impossible to build a new school in a um

2:48:00built environment like we live in so I think that the open space is extremely valuable um as open space and I to me the that was reflected in the vote that went on to pass this measure and that was reflected in the survey that went on um such as it was and so I feel really

2:48:26strongly that that's an should be an important element of how we spend this money and um I'm thinking that it would be better to spend a little more time and develop some alternatives for what that might be uh or how much we could get for what what amount of money um if we use this

2:48:48or if we used even like half of the money or um you know I don't I'm not really it I feel like that part of it isn't flushed out which I don't think it could be in such a short amount of time but I would like to see it um fleshed out because I think that's something that we

2:49:07can't easily um get any other way a lot of these other things I think are really important and really good ide ideas but um I think that over time we'll be able to do them we'll get you know grants that we can get that we'll do this but it's pretty rare that we would get a

2:49:27grant that I'm aware of at least that would do open space and when I um look at some of the open space that we still have um I really appreciate the value that it provides to our community and especially as um we look to the Future where we're going to have to provide more housing um

2:49:50and I see that being provided more um down in the flat lands and um therefore we need to maintain this open space so I guess I'm uh would like to um look more at the open space before making any uh decisions I am a little concerned about the um Safety project and and that isn't

2:50:14huge amount I think that's and um50 $150,000 so I could see going ahead and uh doing that because it is a Safety project um and um and it's scored very well and then what I would like to do is to do a little study of what open space acquisition might look like how much it might cost um how

2:50:43possible it would be to do it um and what would be the there would be actually several Alternatives we could look at even there and that's a that's my inclination right now okay thank you we need a motion to extend the meeting I move to extend the meeting by um 20

2:50:59we have two other issues after okay that's fine thank you okay it's been moved to extend the meeting to 11: and seconded second all in favor I I okay um if you completed yes I'm finished um I just I it turns out I have a question

2:51:18I'm wondering if someone can tell me if we collected any data when we did the survey on the age of the people responding no no we didn't get very sophisticated on this um it concerns me a little bit because I know in my household if something's mailed to me my kids don't fill it out and I think that

2:51:38part of um Recreation of course is Youth and we've heard tonight um I believe a compelling need for a facility that would serve a certain segment of the population that may not have responded to the survey so I appreciate that the survey is a very important component of

2:51:57how we'll make public policy decisions but it doesn't represent everybody in the community and we have an obligation to do some of that balancing ourselves um having said that it sounds like um there's some support for item one the safety lighting at Creekside Park and a

2:52:17desire to look more closely at land acquisition and I just want to put a reminder as a person who's involved in water quality and Resource Management that no land acquisition comes without a cost of Maintenance and so that I would want to be very mindful even though it's

2:52:34easy to look out on the hill and say oh that's open space the certain amount of level of effort of being a good land Steward and that implies ongoing cost to take care of that land in an appropriate way so um I'm going to go ahead we can continue the comment comments but um

2:52:51possibly looking for a combination of items uh that were recommended by the Park and Recreation Commission and then elements from item four okay uh my comments on this um appreciate Park and Recreations commission uh look at this I think they attempted to uh list the categories um

2:53:14very construction uh constructively uh looking at safety looking at a balance of geographical area and dollars spent um as you know they did end up with a list that was over $3 million so um they even found it hard to stay within the uh the million doll budget that that we

2:53:38had uh we would like to acknowledge the survey and the open space as uh being scoring the number one uh I do have to hope though agree with uh people who have stated that the bond issue itself is uh ww is actually an extension of an earlier um earlier program that we

2:54:02all used all cities used uh past I believe it was in the 70s I don't have the exact uh year and at that time the funds were used very similar cities used it uh for whatever they felt was their needs in uh Recreation and park facilities and East Bay Regional expanded um their acquisition um it's

2:54:26the main reason in fact it's the only reason why East Bay Regional Park expanded uh greatly in the uh 80s and '90s so but it is the same program so it just is not land acquisition uh in fact I would like to see uh I'll get into that in uh my suggestions in a minute but I wouldn't

2:54:49mind seeing East Bay Regional chipping in some of that uh $375 million if we do have to uh buy some land around here to uh to them to pitch into to the uh our our open space here I would like to propose that uh we do not set the priority list for the head whole 10 years uh when I was

2:55:13reading the report that's the first thing that jumped out to me is we don't have to submit I would like to go Year bye and revisit well revisit each year uh using the Park and Recreation uh commission's list and the survey as a basis for how we look at projects as

2:55:32they come up uh the the report says in several places that uh some of the projects on their list even the recommended list list uh we couldn't do in 2009 so even if we wanted to do it you know make a list and spend all the money in one year we we couldn't do that

2:55:54so I'm using that recommendation uh for what I'm getting ready to to do here um the uh I agree with council member Lyman that uh The Joint Powers Authority which were a member of a five City a five City authority to develop um uh projects jointly within the Bay Area

2:56:17the first one being the Gilman Street is a project that um probably would have been on the list had it been known that all of a sudden we needed funding where we thought maybe we were covered um there's a state uh bill that we might be able to get funds we thought it was a

2:56:36pretty sure thing now it's it now at iffy um so I think uh council member lyman's uh use use of the word put on uh hold $25,000 for possible use uh on that project would be a good one it doesn't mean that we will be using it if we use these other funds like we've had in the

2:56:58past um and my rationale is this um we're part of that jpa we have not spent a lot of money on it to be quite honest compared to the the 5 million it was used to to see what's out there now our contributions have been uh under 50 uh $50,000 to this point um we cannot build facilities we

2:57:24do not have the funding I don't think we could go out to the residents and ask them to put let's say uh Synthetic Turf on on the play area at Sero Vista at $3 million would be roughly the cost to that uh I don't know that that's a good use I don't know if we could raise it so

2:57:43what we're getting uh by being part of this joint Powers uh Authority is for a relatively inexpensive investment our kids are getting to the use of a of a $5 million facility and we can't do that in elero and when I say our kids it's not just kids it's adults it's there are

2:58:05elero residents male female they're using that different sports so I I think it would be a good consideration and would be a good 2009 consideration cuz we're ready to go on that um I would suggest this that uh for 2009 we look at the Sero Vista play playground and the and the jpa as two

2:58:30projects that we could do right away I suggest that we study oh by the way the report did say that there was additional study needed on some of these and this is what I suggested in this next year we study the Creekside project that's a Safety project it's also a gateway to a lot of

2:58:50open space uh on Albany and then it's a Gateway down to uh the edge of the bay uh that that area really needs it uh it would help out on surveillance at night with that light project I think it's a good one to study and get ready I think we should uh also study and get ready

2:59:10the Huber Park I I think that it's one of it's the park uh one of the parks that have not had any attention uh however we're not ready to go in 2009 with it uh that needs uh to go forward and and to take a look at that uh I suggest that we do the survey work uh

2:59:33necessary for the property uh land acquisition the the report indicated that we should do a survey on what what uh open space is available uh in town within our boundaries and quite possibly uh we can get without too big of an expense roughly how much we're talking

2:59:54for uh of value for each of those um and then finally the Central Park if we're going to do that if we're going to do anything at Central Park whatever it is skateboard rehab uh play area that is a shared park with the city of uh Richmond I would suggest we take the next year to

3:00:14talk to Richmond and see what they're willing to do also Park um I've had a lot of experience with skateboard parks uh early on and when they first uh broke out as a phenomenon and they are there I think it it was well said that this is not a fad that if we're going to fund

3:00:33tennis baseball uh whatever you've got to take a look at uh skateboards it's here to stay um saying that I've always thought that a skateboard park for the size of city of elero Albany Emeryville that that size city that it really should be a joint effort with another with another city

3:00:56skateboard parks do not just serve our population it it it it is actually a regional uh recreational area so I would suggest that we take a look at if we're going to take a look at Central in that case with the city of Richmond to see what it is uh I personally have a

3:01:18bias saying that elero has put in more money than our than our uh than Richmond that could be right it could be wrong but um I would like anyway I would like to get with Richmond our friends over there and see if we can't joint uh develop that uh coming back to land acquisition

3:01:38I'm looking it isn't up on the we're still looking at the 1964 with all the kids saying yes on ELO parks and I was 14 at the time and I I kind of remember that not a whole lot but I remember it and it may take another uh uh that was on the on the ballot and it may take that sort of

3:01:57effort to get the type of money we need if we're serious about open space uh it's I don't know how much that land is up on uh above Ganges uh but I've heard the rumor mill it's between three and 5 thou uh 3 and 5 million which is a lot of money certainly $1 million doesn't

3:02:16come close to uh even securing a promise on that one and I don't know if there's a if necessarily there's a there's a rush to to buy that um and there may be there may be time to put together on the ballot to see if the elero residents really do want to fund open

3:02:37space and so I think they do and I would be very happy to join the group here um in trying to get that bond issue going and and to be a supporter of it uh but that's what I think we we should also take a look in uh look at and I'd asked the residents to take a look in it's

3:02:56going to take in my opinion it's going to take residents to actually spearhead that and the council tried to spearhead uh lighting and Landscaping and it didn't go too well it's going to have to take in my opinion um residents uh the a grass Roots movement to get that type of

3:03:15bond issue pass that's my uh recommendations um so I wanted to thank all the speakers coming tonight to speak on the the various land acquisition skateboard park and um and yeah so land acquisition primarily and I guess I would have to agree that I think we should slow down a little bit and

3:03:42take some time to see what alternatives out there are actually feasible um for acquisition so number one agreeing to slow down um and number two agreeing that there are you know the the rehabilitation pieces of of the the budget should kind of take a backseat to the

3:04:06more um Capital Improvement opportunities that we have and um and I guess I would just want to throw out there um I I'm interested in why the aloney greenway dog park was was skipped over I think that's something that you know is wildely popular at Point Isabelle people

3:04:27who don't have dogs go there just to hang out with people with dogs and um and and um and I feel like something like that meets multiple goals which I wanted to also introduce the idea of you know we we Creekside has both safety and public open space access function I

3:04:47think um something like the dog park you know not only serves all ages all abilities and you know people who don't have dog allergies I guess but um um but it it creates activity on the Loney Greenway and that has a kind of a trickle down I feel like benefit of

3:05:07encouraging people to be on the greenway with people out there just there's just a you know kind of a a Snowball Effect I believe and um adding more Eyes On The Greenway I think is is a really um important thing that we have an opportunity to do and it doesn't cost

3:05:24very much so um and and I guess um you know my other big concern is just distribution of resources from an equity perspective and uh the the trust for public land recently released a website called Park score.org and it looks at census tracks based on income and what uh people have

3:05:50access to given their income whether they're below me below um average or above average income and so I think um that's really important to me because you know we have you know great views in some areas and you know certain people living in the flats only get a certain

3:06:10amount of view so you know looking at what feasibly people are going to actually visit um throughout the the city and access um is important and as well as looking at I think another goal to to throw in the mix is um as Janet mentioned this the the development that we want to see

3:06:29happen on San Pablo Avenue and having good quality parks in the flats near San Pablo um from public squares to plazas or um you know just looking at those opportunities are are Al really important so um that's yeah that's it so I want to take a moment to try to summarize um it

3:06:52sounds like there's a d desire to slow down and possibly not to allocate all of this money this evening I heard a number of speakers in support of the addressing the safety issues by providing lighting at Creekside Park and then a call for maybe taking some time to study the

3:07:11possibility of acquiring land in the possibility of entering into some Partnerships for um parks that might serve more than one Community also focusing the money on capital projects or on land um with that I'll just add my concern about adding Parks when we currently aren't able with

3:07:30our current budget to maintain all of our parks in the manner which we would like to and that we're not looking at um in the next couple years a large influx of Revenue the only thing I wanted to add was I have a concern about the um Gilman Fields because the Gilman fields

3:07:47are located um at East Shore Park and I believe it's the East Bay Regional Park District's responsibility to use the other 75% of these funds to make that uh property a success it's not in elero Els Sero specifically has been given the 1.2 million to invest here in our community

3:08:05and I certainly support the idea of working together with the jpa members including state parks and East Bay Regional Park to uh continue to develop that property so in the interest of time since we have another of items still um to take up tonight I'm wondering if there's any

3:08:26interest in moving forward with the top priority safety lighting at Creekside Park and then directing staff um in accordance with our other input to find to bring back more information for future allocations yeah I just I would like to clarify one thing on the jpa

3:08:43um the money would be used for match the the uh Theory not the theory the method that we would like to use all members all member cities of the jpa are been asked to put some money forward and then we will uh go to the East Bay Regional Park to ask for a match or more that's

3:09:04already been done and they haven't said no so um it is a possibility that we would be uh teaming up with theast Bay Regional Park for the rest of that money well given that information Mr Hannah do we have that in our budget the 25 yes see I'm concerned about allocating

3:09:25it now without understanding the um contributions from the other member agencies and it doesn't mean we couldn't allocate it next year there's still going to be a need yeah but we need it this year to complete complete the project and if we wait a year it's going

3:09:41to be delayed a year mayor par I think what we're saying is the $25,000 would be a project that we would go and use ww money for so it wouldn't need to come out of this year's budget we would apply for that 25,000 and when was it requested it's been requested before ww

3:10:01passed okay and so what is the status of the other member agencies they're all similarly going to use their ww money so we'll have to wait and see if they do we don't what we're saying is we don't have have to spend it what we're asking for is that the money be um asked as a ww

3:10:20project okay so then there would be a match provided by East Bay Regional Park District they've been asked for that and they haven't said no they're entertaining the idea any which is very way which is very favorable the concern I'm starting to have about this Gilman feels is

3:10:46um how much is this going to cost us on an ongoing basis is it is there going to be this continual request for money no user user fees forever or user fees are paying for the uh daily operation of the facility what is this $25,000 for it's for additional Fields actually it's to

3:11:06build softball fields and and a baseball field so softball primarily for for ma for female for girls and and baseball for for males boys so $25,000 to in building a field is not is just small change so where is the majority of the money coming from City of Berkeley City of Richmond since

3:11:33it's ww money it would be a portioned by population and so we're a small population compared to those two municipalities then all the cities will join their money together and go to East Bal Park District for a better than one to one match since there is 75 25 split

3:11:49on WW so the intent is to have ww money uh through these five jurisdictions six if you count East Bay Regional Park District and that would be the end of the request for money for the Gilman fields for Capital Improvements yes what do you mean for well what what about for

3:12:05anything else supposed to be operating on the fees that it collects from the users of the field correct I would like to um ask the city manager if he has a preference for funding um the Gilman Sports Fields through the general fund when it comes forward or through the WW

3:12:21monies no I mean I don't think we have a I mean it's one pocket or the other I mean there's all there's a finite amount of vote so it's really up to you I don't know that there's necessarily A prence at least not for me I don't know else I don't no I don't think there's a

3:12:43preference one way or the other there a motion is there a deadline for when the joint jpa needs to know there's a deadline for WW correct yeah wouldn't we wouldn't have this opportunity for another year we'd have to wait till February of 2010 when they ask again for

3:13:07projects I have a question for staff that we did talk about studying Central Park the skate spot um Huber Park Creekside uh and property and those four items um you know are not necessarily shovel ready in 2009 so there there is some planning that would have to go

3:13:28through this and I do believe if I I can't remember the percentage but planning costs are something that would be can be something that can be asked for from ww those for studying Central Park a skate spot there and and potentially the park improvements that we would do with uh City of Richmond

3:13:46studying Huber studying Creekside safety improvements and studying the property Acquisitions they need some request so is I'm assuming that you would need a request for money out of WW4 2000 for the for the 2009 calendar year um let let me see if I understand what you're asking you mean to do the

3:14:09the the study work on these various projects to put together a request for this year request for next year no to put a request together for 2010 some work has to be done this year yeah i' I'd have to check with the WW staff to see how liberally they're interpreting the planning money uh it's

3:14:33been my understanding going forward that the plan the the 25% that's available for um the Costa a project that's available for planning and and design is based on a project that has a finite scope and and it's not just general planning I hadn't considered that it

3:14:52would be part of the study that we would do where we would do polling of the neighbors uh or or the other work we might need to do the squa mitigated D deck or whatever document we would do again the environmental work this is more on environmental planning and they

3:15:08require that all the environmental work be done prior to any kind of application I could investigate further on how liberally they are interpreting planning okay I just want to make a point that I don't support using a lot of this money for our planning purposes I would like

3:15:23to see that this money go directly into parks in open space so and rather than getting into detail I think at this hour we're looking for a motion and I think that I had heard support for the lighting project and there mixed support for the Gilman Fields so um I don't know if anyone wants to I guess

3:15:46I in order for us to do some of the things that are in item four how would we fund item four in item four under discussion considered land acquisition page five um this option would require considerable staff work for such items as cataloging available land developing

3:16:04concepts for future how do we have to say oh we want half a million dollars for land acquisition and that's how we get that effort funded it would have to be an application for a specific parcel of land we'd have to State how we would use it in the park system it's not required

3:16:22at this point that you have a deliverable park at the end of this grant but just that it has potential and it would have to be a permanent acquisition of the land either permanent easement or permanent fee title on the land it would be model much after their own land acquisition processes that they

3:16:40follow but have to be fairly specific is it correct that the work leading up to getting us there is our direction to our staff to spend some time developing um information for us to make an informed decision it's not something we're going to get reimbursed through measure ww so I guess we're

3:16:59giving direction tonight both about what we would like to fund this year and how we would like to direct staff to investigate other options for next year if I could uh add one clarification to the the Creekside Park at this point we're not confident that we can uh make

3:17:18a sequ determination uh based on the conceptual scope we have I currently have that on the list of projects that would need some more study we do have a very uh active I almost said interactive well that too a neighborhood down there lighting is certainly on one of their

3:17:34concerns uh we definitely I think would warrant some um some Community effort down there uh as possible we could we could go to that process and maybe make a determination prior to March 31st and get an application in but I just want to alert you that that might not quite

3:17:52happen by March 31st once we go from here is there no lighting there now correct there while there are street lights at the end of the streets the park itself has some lighting the pathway has some lighting but the long stretch between atoms that skinny stretch between atoms and the body of

3:18:09the park is not lit and the lighting is such that there's just a lot of dark spots so U it would it would take a little bit of lighting design which could be incorporated after we submit for the project but it's just the impacts of the neighborhood of additional lighting so forth that we

3:18:23want to clarify with the neighborhood can I uh make a comment when I I suggested that we studied uh some of these things I was looking for some just some basic study like how much is it going to cost um the resid I'd be interested though in in the residents comments but I'm looking and

3:18:47and what would take for squa I don't know that we um the same with the land survey I don't know that we have a lot of money to go into it except to do a survey of what property is available and maybe get a ballpark figure how much that cost and then when it comes up for next year we we can be

3:19:06in line to see if we want to go forward with it or not that's the type of thing I was looking for for Central Park is just contacting Richmond and saying we have these ideas you interested in exploring it further that's what I was looking for as far as further study um I I want to ask a question

3:19:24about the um the land acquisition um we have no so I understand no East Bay Regional Parks facilities in our city correct okay so for all the money that has been spent on that we didn't get any in our city uh ever okay can but he just said no so we we abut a huge portion of the park uh but it's not

3:19:53within our city not within our cityon um the um I I must say I feel a little bit like all of the money went to Eastern contracosta County and areas like that because that's where I always hear about it being um the only thing I ever hear much about in this area is point Isabel which also

3:20:18isn't in our city although it's nearby so I'm wondering if we uh came up with a project if we might be able to get some of the the park district money part of you know that 75% into our city that we could then use on uh acquisition for example I understand that desire and we need um another

3:20:42motion to extend this meeting I move that we extend this meeting by 20 minutes okay a second all in favor I'm going to suggest that we either entertain a motion or we continue this item to our next meeting okay I move I move that we do two things one is uh for 2009 application that we consider

3:21:06Sero Vista Park play area and the $225,000 for the the uh joint Powers Authority second um I would like to direct staff or direct the city particularly staff to give basic study to Creekside uh Park project as outlined in the report um Huber Park survey of possible

3:21:35uh property for land acquisition as well as uh SQL requirements or what would be need needed in the way of Seca uh procedures and studies and ask that uh we approach the city of of Richmond about Central Park and possible plans that have been outlined in the uh report and

3:21:59recommendations by uh Park and Recreation Commission okay just to clarify your recommending the play area at Sero Vista because it's on the ready for this year list and project is not that's correct okay is there a second I will second any discussion I'm concerned that by doing

3:22:22that we're sort of precluding other things from happening because we're sort of forcing the money to follow those projects um oh I no I'm just asking for study that the U report the report said that we needed additional study on those project if we're do those projects we're

3:22:43not going to do those projects I I think they need additional stud um we don't need to study every project that was on the the list that was sent out on the survey um because we can't possibly do it with the amount of money that we have so it seems to me we have to first

3:23:00before we uh do additional study say that you know x y and z are potentially the projects that we might want to do um and then then go to into that study phase I'm concerned because what I thought I heard you say some of those projects aren't even don't even score

3:23:19well um like Park did not score well however it's in the park and rec commission's recommendation it sounds like there's two parts of the motion there's the recommendation on the allocations of partions of the funding and then this direction on study it only I go back to my original

3:23:43thing we we don't spend all the money right now we don't uh say what we're going to spend right now we only take care of 2009 and then we come back and revisit the issue each year using the Park and Recreation Commission list and the survey as our basis for future uh

3:24:01for for for the basis to go forward so and I I can't Mr Lyman has a comment yes so the application for this year would be for $175,000 150 for the central uh Ser Vista playground structure 25,000 for the jpa all other money would remain unallocated there would be no other

3:24:24application no other funds would be applied for in this year and what we are what the rest of your motion council member Jones is essentially preparation for a 2010 application uh well I don't know possible application depending on the study I'm really interested in the land

3:24:42acquisition because there's got to be more there there is more land out there and I think we need a surve you know a survey on that we've had a motion in a second all in favor I I I opposed I or no no okay the motion carries 3 to2 to approve $175,000 to include um restoration of

3:25:11the play equipment at Sero Vista Park and $225,000 towards the Gilman field as a match to East Bay Regional Park District funds with direction for continued uh consideration of the projects listed in the staff report and mentioned in the motion for uh next year's

3:25:30application and that was a 3 to2 vote any questions thank you well I don't have a question but I I guess I have a comment and that is that if we if we um sort of P it away in small projects we'll never get a big one okay well we and and that is a concern that I

3:25:53have and I would I just like to be on the record okay with that concern um because this is a an opportunity to do something um but we have been we've already voted and we need to move on okay but if I would and I would would if I could because I actually think this is

3:26:08a really important issue um um that um it does point to maybe we could look at the possibility at U maybe not in the next two months but in the not too distant future at the interest in um a um some sort of a bond measure that the residents might be interested in supporting that um would um help

3:26:36acquire open space permanently for our city or it's used for other things that's well noted now we are going to move on to a part of the agenda that is the Redevelopment agency uh pre policy matter item C and I'll turn it over to agency member J thank you okay we have a staff report on uh

3:27:04agenda item 7c good evening agency chair Jones and members of the Redevelopment agency board I'm going to recover my voice here um my name is Hildy M I'm the housing project manager for the city of Els Sero and tonight um I'm here to request um a $1.5 million loan to borrow against the

3:27:34housing fund and a loan commitment of $3.5 million for the uh resources for Community Development and Hatland Center project on porola Drive um I realize it's not a great time to be borrowing money and making those requests um uh but staff's tried to prepare a very prudent package and we'll we'll

3:27:59talk through that tonight um before I get into the agenda Bill I just wanted to uh make sure that uh council members know that tonight we also have have um the project sponsors um staff from rcd Lisa mama and Robert Stevenson and opa LaVine uh as well as Patty Williams and

3:28:21Patty mate from the Hatland center for the blind uh as well as the project architect Rick Williams and Men Chucky from uh Van Meter Williams and Pollock so if there's any um questions that you have for them they are here tonight um as you know the the proposed Hatland Center uh Housing Development is

3:28:44a mixed use project that's sponsored by resources for Community Development rcd a nonprofit and the Hatland center for the blind um a nonprofit residential rehab center that's currently in San Pablo current currently located in the city of s Pablo the proposed development

3:29:01includes 57 units of housing for very low and low-income households including 10 apartments for participants in the Hatland Center uh program and uh the development would also include uh office space classrooms and Conference space for the Howen Center staff's uh come before the board

3:29:21uh twice now with this project once in September for the uh predevelopment loan uh which was also a a process of selecting this project and then again in January to give you an update on the project um while staff has been investigating um funding options uh in

3:29:42this time the clock continues to run for the project the developers continue to expend time and money on site acquisition project design and entitlements in order to make the project competitive as possible for upcoming funding applications the most immediate funding deadline is the April

3:30:001st 2009 application deadline for State uh prop 1C infill infrastructure funds and to score as highly as possible for that application the developers hoping to have secured the city's funding commitment for the project completed acquisition of the two properties uh in question submitted a

3:30:21complete planning approval application to planning department and to have made significant proc uh progress on the squa environmental review this all prior to April 1st um uh and just to clarify again the project is subject to planning entitlement process to the planning

3:30:40entitlement process and and to secr review however by approving alone uh the agency is not approving those entitlements at this time that is a separate process so tonight uh staff is recommending acceptance of a loan from the local initiative support Corporation

3:30:59to the agency's low and wered income housing fund and approval of RC's request for 3.5 million permanent loan to fund the affordable housing portion of the project obviously there are financial implications to this um as presented in the September 15th uh 15th agenda Bill

3:31:20the agency has assumed from the beginning that it would need to issue new debt from the housing Fund in order to fully fund the 3 and A5 million dollar loan since January we've continued to investigate lending options and this is of course in the context that Scott

3:31:36mentioned earlier this evening which is that access to Capital has been uh increasingly difficult difficult for public agencies um at this time what staff has identified as two potential um lenders or loan options the first is uh a loan from the local initiative support

3:31:55Corporation um and I'll just give you just a brief um introduction as to who they are they're they're nonprofit Community Development intermediary they work Nationwide they're very active in the Bay Area as Bridge uh short-term lenders to to affordable housing uh

3:32:12Developers for projects such as this so they actually have a history with rcd um lending to them on other projects and they're uh considering lending to them on this project which is how they got involved with us they don't typically lend to public agencies um but

3:32:27they do if if there's a need so um they're willing to step in in this case um uh the terms that Lis is proposing is that we could borrow up to 1 and a half million at an interest rate of 7 and 1/4% um plus issuance costs uh of approximately $225,000 plus legal costs the revenues from the housing fund

3:32:53would be pledged to repay the loan and our budget projections estimate that we could repay it within six years this is without having to issue a bond to take that out that we could repay it uh from our annual tax increment revenues um we've talked with s other lenders including Mechanics Bank um who

3:33:14were ultimately not interested um and we've also discussed this discussed this with the agency's financial advisor and feel that these terms are competitive given the current market and sort of the the i p exploded uh the limit of um just very limited lending options at this

3:33:31point in time the second alternative is potentially a loan from the pooled investment portion of the city's general fund to the housing fund and staff is looking into this option um we think it potentially offers uh very good terms both to the housing fund and potentially

3:33:52um to the general fund um and so we think that proposal merits consideration but and we're hoping to bring that item to the financial Advisory Board uh as soon as possible at their next meeting um in terms of um the proposed uh loan to rcd um I want to step back a little bit and

3:34:16just say talk a little bit about the the budget projections that staff has been doing that underpin a lot of these assumptions um since last year's since we started working on the 0809 budget a year ago we've been you know seeing the slowdown in the housing market and

3:34:37adjusting our budget projections accordingly um so I think we've tried to be very conservative in terms of um our estimated tax increment revenues as we go forward so um I'm happy to discuss that more but just so you know that that's what underpins our assumptions

3:34:59about being able to repay a loan of this size at this time um in terms of the loan that um rcd and the Hatland Center are requesting um the $3.5 million is for acquisition predevelopment and construction related to the proposed uh related to the housing portion of the

3:35:18proposed development and the $100,000 existing loan would be wrapped into that so the total would be 3 and A5 million in addition the local initiative support Corporation is proposing to lend 500,000 to rcd as a short-term predevelopment loan and that would be repaid at the

3:35:36start of construction so that loan would be secured against the properties we're proposing to buy our loan would also be secured against that same property Lisk would be in first position we would be in second position um up until the start of construction when when other lenders

3:35:54would come in as well um so in terms of risk if the project did not move forward into construction um the agency would have the option to um call a loan with rcd and force repayment um or or uh which would probably involve forcing the sale of the property um or if the agency wanted to

3:36:16take title to the property what they would need to do would be able to take out Lisk who would be that lender in first position they would essentially need to be able to repay that $500,000 to uh list so that the agency could step in in the event that the project did not move

3:36:33forward um while there are disadvantages to having to being in second position as opposed to to being in first position I feel it's uh also an advantage to have um a lender and an underwriter like Lisk participating in the project is that's another entity that's underwriting it

3:36:51and offering technical assistance and essentially another person that's holding their feet to the fire um in terms of the structuring of the $3.5 million loan to rcd we would propose that it be structured as residual receipts which means that if there are sufficient project revenues

3:37:10then the developer would make annual repayments on the loan um this is consistent with how we've provided assistance to projects in the past which have been either in the form of Grants land grants or cash grants or in residual receipt loans um and we're proposing that this

3:37:27$3.5 million loan commitment be contingent on the successful borrowing of funds either from Lisk or from the general fund if that's an option that that merits investigation um uh and as I mentioned we've tried to find um the most prudent and um conservative way of of doing this and

3:37:48also you know keeping the project um viable and and and hopefully uh able to move car move forward so thank you thank you any questions of Staff we have one public thank you we have one public speaker and uh we have to keep an eye oh I guess who's Mr Brower speaking thank

3:38:23you um I wanted to uh tell you fourth 5:00 April 1st that is the infill infrastructure round to Grant application cut off is they don't have their appli if you don't act they don't have their application in they're out of that land in addition your action is required to make this project score high

3:38:51enough in the infill infrastructure grant program so that it will go forward in that program so essentially tonight's theight the second thing is as I understand it you have a legal obligation to do low cost housing under the Redevelopment tax increment plan and as far as I

3:39:15understand this project it adequately fulfills that requirement for you which brings me to the third point which makes this a winwin winwin situation you get your lowcost housing taken care of the sale proceeds that come to me as the owner of 6495 Corda go into the asano trust

3:39:39account today I talked to um Mechanics Bank and contracosta college and we have the whole mechanism set up where that million plus dollars rolls over from the trust account into the scholarship fund into the analment fund at contra cost college so the hatling center has an opportunity

3:40:01to find a place to stay contra cost of college students get uh a million dollar in the endowment fund I have no administrative fee this college has no administrative fee Mechanics Bank has no administrative fee the entire administrative fee for the whole transaction is

3:40:20zero and the fourth thing I want to mention is what I talked about last time and I have been thinking about this more and more I was having apple pie at fat hours and while I was there I was thinking wouldn't it be nice if someday I could go to the Hatland Center take

3:40:35out a Tandon bicycle I'll ride the front put a blind suit on the back and we'll go down the Gateway ride a Fairmont and have apple and then go back and this is the only project that has that intangible and it's like they say on that an- on TV you can't put a price on this so I'm

3:40:57begging you please vote favorable on this loan thank you thank you before we proceed need a uh motion to extend I I'll make a motion to extend this meeting to 11:30 but I want to remind everyone that we have a very important closed session meeting on the theater

3:41:13and we need adequate time to consider that before we're exhausted so my motion is to it's my final offer to extend this meeting till 11:30 second move in second to extend all those in favor I oppos motion carries also given that we heard a very comprehensive staff report

3:41:34on January 5th and heard from any of the members of the public that are here tonight I'm ready to make a motion on on this item second wait a minute I'm sorry but we're talking about $3.5 million here um I have a qu a quick question yeah to the staff um there is a

3:41:53discussion about this loan from the pooled investment portion of the city that you would potentially take to the Fab and I'm assuming that that has favorable terms because all the interest comes back into the city in some fashion as opposed to going to list lissy or

3:42:07whatever you call them um is it possible you said there's two actions for us to take tonight one is the $1.5 million loan from blissy and one is the $3.5 million loan to Hatland Center or rcd um Can those be independent decisions yes they can um you can also I don't know if this is

3:42:32what you're considering but you can accept the Lisk colone and approve if if this is what what you're considering approve the r the loan to rcd and still consider the general fund loan at a later date um assuming that the Fab um reviews it and and recommends it to you

3:42:52thank you that that a question I had any other questions here discussion I move that we adopt the resolution of the Redevelopment agency which one authorizes staff to obtain and accept a loan from the local initiative support Corporation for up to 1.5 million to be repaid by

3:43:13the tax increment revenues deposited in the low and moderate income housing fund and two makes findings and authorizes a permanent Loan in the amount of 3.5 million from the housing fund for the Heartland center for the Blind and family housing development proposed by

3:43:29resources for Community Development and the Heartland center for the Blind and three approve an amendment to the fiscal year 2008 2009 budget and the necessary appropriation ations for $3.5 million from the housing fund of the Redevelopment agency of the city of

3:43:46elero for the permanent loan second it's been moved and seconded on the on the motion discussion I've one I still have to ask this question the loan is 7.25% is that uh can we pay that off early without penalty yes we can and in fact Lisk would love it if we can pay it down but

3:44:14there there's no prepayment for for early uh no penalty of early prepayment okay and when's this uh loan take effect when are we transferring the money we would try to execute the loan as soon as possible so that um rcd could complete their land acquisition hopefully prior

3:44:29to April 1st if that's possible Lisk is meeting March 10th um to consider their approval okay and I would just ask staff I don't know it has to be part of your motion ask staff to come back as soon as possible on that alternative option uh I've heard some interest I'm interested

3:44:46in it I don't know if anybody else is but I'd much rather loan money back to ourselves than give somebody else 7.5 on top of 1.5 I mean 7.25% on top of 1.5 million right and and we were waiting for the members to the to the financial Advisory Board to be appointed so we'll

3:45:05schedule a meeting as soon as possible okay thank you any other discussion on the motion all those in favor I I opposed motion carries five nothing see the chair can I ask if we have any public comment on item D no comments submitted thank you I'd like to move approval of a Redevelopment agency

3:45:29resolution authorizing execution of agreement permitting temporary continued use of the property being acquired by the agency at 11600 s Pao Avenue by the current parking lot operator second discussion I'm I I'm a little confused on this and one part of the report says that we' be guaranteed what

3:45:5624,000 a year and then in another part it says we're getting 1,500 a month which by my calculation is 18,000 so I'd like to know what what's the correct amount before we pass this hi laor Travino Redevelopment manager I apologize the number is um $1,500 a month and that does work out to $188,000

3:46:17that was a typo on my part okay how was that determined that the $1,500 yeah a month um was that the prior it's less than the prior amount that he was paying um to Mr Valente but um uh we we have an obligation to him as a um business is being dislocated to provide

3:46:40him some relocation benefits in lie of that we negotiated to give him a lower rent rate so that he could um receive adequate compensation until he's forced to leave the property so um we did reduce it somewhat how much was uh he was paying $3,000 so this is worth 1,500 a month to

3:46:59us is there any U minimum uh amount of time we have to to give this there's no minimum time no what's the is it 60 days we can give 30 days noce 30 days notice okay um discussion yeah I know I seconded it but so what I'm hearing which I assumed that there was a rent reduction associated

3:47:22with relocation fees but what was the payout what's the period over which those relocation fees basically get neutralized is it 10 months cuz you had talk about the BART lease coming in for the retrofit so obviously those those redel the relocation fees were calculated based on

3:47:41something well the cost of relocate we we have not calculated the cost of relocating him partly because it's a very complicated thing to do how do you relocate a parking lot operation so rather than go through that rather complicated exercise we thought that this was a better alternative and it was

3:47:57something that he was willing to do okay any further discussion oh excuse me no this is mine any further discussion it's been moved and seconded I know okay on the motion all those in favor I I I oppos motion carries okay according to the main clock we have five minutes for um councila on

3:48:24reports can we do this in five minutes I'll do I'll do my best I'm last Mr lyman's first okay uh crime prevention committee we um heard much of it uh there is a discussion about background checks uh for members that they would like to bring forward at some point to

3:48:40discuss their Charter the the ordinance that forms them uh and I will say again the main portion of the meeting was about bicycle safety Day May 16th noon to 4 in the um DMV parking lot thank you Miss Aon yes I just wanted to um report on the Environmental Quality committee

3:49:02um and just say that it was one of the co-sponsors of the event yesterday thirst at and um um that as was mentioned before it was sold out and so it looks like a very successful model for for doing um movies and for um presenting Concepts and