Special Concurrent City Council and Redevelopment Agency Meeting March 16, 2009

0:00:00uh Council and Redevelopment agency meeting for March 16th 2009 we met earlier in close session all city council members are present and I would like to ask um council member changen lead us in the pledge I pledge Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the

0:00:23Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty J and I'd like to ask Bill Jones Redevelopment agency chair to report out on the closed session yes we had uh closed session to discuss three items that are listed on the agenda on item one which is uh

0:00:51negotiation with Target Corporation and item three which is negotiating West Conor Costa Unified School District in both of those cases es we gave direction to uh to staff and councel to carry forth in those uh in those issues item two which is Downey Street Productions

0:01:15uh we will be continuing our discussion and Clos session after this meeting therefore um there was no direction at this time to be to re be to report out I would like to say though uh in a published letter that was sent to Downey Street Productions back in January um

0:01:35they did meet the deadlines for uh the reports that we requested so I can report that out thank you thank you are there any um staff Communications any Communications from the council wanted to um let the community know that uh we're working working on Earth Day which will be held on April

0:02:02the 25th and one of the things that we're going to be doing this year is um offering um the ability of blocks to have a u block tree planting uh project and so if anybody's interested they should um contact the community center I believe the not Community Center excuse

0:02:26me the Environmental Services Division I believe the number is 21543 51 um no 54 I believe 54 or 5 or 5 z um and for more information and um what the project would look like is uh there would be a minimum number of tree plantings required somewhere around eight or 10 per block and uh the

0:02:56participants in the block would sign up and uh guarantee to take take care of the trees in front of their property for 2 years and um the um we we have some grant funding to pay for this and um we look forward to there being various projects so if you're interested contact

0:03:16UM environmental services for more information again that's 215 435 Z zero okay thank you great great no okay I do have just one um positive announcement and that is that when the city hall opened and the council chambers began being used we had a a temporary seal for the city of elero and

0:03:44now today we have the permanent one which is just beautiful carved in wood and I just wanted to thank everybody for the installation and draw your attention to so you can enjoy it tonight if there are no other there's one more comment okay um on Saturday uh wind Rush School uh hosted a

0:04:07neighborhood meeting uh with the crime prevention Council or commission and did a very good uh it was a very good meeting the one thing I would like to tell you though we uh had the opportunity to take a tour of the new uh facility that they had built and if you

0:04:26get a chance if you're uh invited or if somehow you get a way of doing that you should if you're into sustainability it's a gold lead project gold is the high the highest level there's not too many of them around especially uh here in Els Sero and they did a fantastic job

0:04:46when it comes to to that sort of thing so um all in all it was a very nice uh event for the neighborhood also the youth baseball uh opened their I think it's their 48 e8th season in elero and that was well attended uh there's thousands of players youth that played

0:05:07baseball before them and hopefully there'll be thousands of them after this so it was a good event good to see spring starting thank you thank you m Chang okay no other announcements we'll move on to oral Communications from the public um tonight for those of you that

0:05:29are new we have a new speaker system up here on the presentation table we have 3 minutes to speak when your time Begins the light will turn green when the light turns yellow you'll know that you have one minute to conclude and when the light turns red you'll know that your

0:05:46time is is over so with that our first speaker is Al Miller good evening mayor and council members Al Miller [address removed] I'm here to speak of another spring event Bill uh I don't know how long Mr Gil patet or pachette has been working on his uh Wildflower Masterpiece at the

0:06:11North End of alone Greenway uh right where Baer Creek Park starts but uh it is now in glorious color and uh everyone should take advantage of the time uh next sunny day go out there and take a look at at it it's just an incredibly beautifully PL beautiful place uh he's got little paths

0:06:35off of The Greenway that give a little uh Serenity spots uh it's just a beautiful place and although I don't know him personally I wanted to point out the beauty of his work and to thank him uh so Gil patchet thank you for making that part of elero such a beautiful

0:06:53place thank you Peter laal I'm Peter Lal and Mr patchet by the way can be seen every weekend working there I recommend having a look at it uh again today we had a a very insubstantial comment on your close session on the Sero theater it seems to me that you either don't really know what to do or

0:07:18you're split and you're uh the sad fact is that uh I think whatever you're going to do is a little bit too little too late two years ago and mechanics lean was filed against the theater with a 24% annual interest penalty there are other leans surely the city as the owner of the property not

0:07:40the operator must have known this the amount owed on these things uh surely surpass by now what is owed on the non-payment of the lease uh to the city uh now there is there there was no mention of any of this or possible counterarguments there's a mechanic SC that could go to court and so on uh

0:08:06anyway there's no mention of any of this of any substantial substantive discussion in the any of the 229 pages that Ken burnt got by public records request it sort of disappeared got very all all he got information was we're going to meet we're going to meet we're going to meet now over a year ago

0:08:29when it be became clear that the theater is floundering financially and that does not mean that there aren't people happy to watch movies there over a year ago the agency could have done something to protect our $7 million investment the city claims it was just 5 and a half I

0:08:47claim It's s anyway at 7 million it's $700 per El Cerito H household uh I think by now it could be too too late to save the theater at any reasonable cost it's up to you guys uh uh but this is doing a disservice not to just to those who felt that the money should have gone

0:09:11elsewhere to some other worthy course but also to the Friends of the theater the friends of the theater claim the theater brought nightlife to our city now that's an understatement thanks to this project elans are screwed night and day now last week count Lyman and our

0:09:30mayor supported my request for the minutes to sort of sensibly and briefly uh um refer to my the point I make and the one I like this and I'm like Shadow to note uh Mr lobal said the theater could have been saved at a reasonable cost if staff and agency had acted

0:09:52expeditiously now it may be too late I'd like that and not just Mr lobal commented thank you very much thank you no other speakers during General comment okay um then we'll move on to the presentations for this evening our first presentation for tonight is regarding a proclamation for the

0:10:12American Red Cross and is there a presentation before the presentation I would like the council to take action on the proclamation so um I'm just going to read for the benefit of everyone to um understand a little the hist and the good work of the American Red Cross and

0:10:32the City of elser's proclamation whereas the American Red Cross bar area chapter was founded in 1898 and whereas the Red Cross a leading voluntary agency charted and authorized by Congress to act in time of need providing compassionate assistance to people afflicted by

0:10:49personal local or natural disaster and where as the Red Cross volunteers respond to approximately 500 local emergencies this year providing food clothing shelter and mental health support and whereas people have counted on the Red Cross for the information and skills they need to be safe at home work

0:11:08at school and play last year the American Red Cross Bay Area trained over 10,000 people and life-saving CPR first aid and water safety and whereas through the prepare Bay Area initiative and Community preparedness program almost 358,000 individuals reive training and

0:11:29whereas the Red Cross deploys with the United States military to provide emergency communications counseling financial assistance and carrying presence to over 1,500 military families and whereas the Red Cross Blood Service supports 31 Bay area hospitals providing

0:11:47them with more than 134,000 units of red blood cells platelets and plasma to patients in need now therefore be it resolved the city council the city of elero does hereby Proclaim March 2009 as American Red Cross month in the city of elero and encourages all residents to be cognizant

0:12:09of the compassion courage character and civic duty that is inherent in the Red Cross mission to prevent and relieve human suffering so I'd like to make that motion can we have a vote second all in favor oh I'm sorry all in favor I Okay so we're now ready to make

0:12:29our presentation or to hear first from you and then to present I would just like to thank the mayor and the city council for recognizing the Red Cross and the wonderful work that they do in the community so um thanks for your acknowledgement and thank you so much

0:12:45for all your work and for everyone who's involved in the organization and for those of you who are able to donate blood great work thank you thank you okay the next item we have is a pres presentation from the contracosta county Civic grand jur jury civil sorry

0:13:32honorable mayor and members of the city council uh my name is Richard Olsen and I'm a member of the 2008 2009 civil grand jury contracosta County I'd like to give you a short overview of the grand jury system and the duties of being a member of the jury the grand

0:13:51jury goes back to the 16th century in the United States where they handled criminal matters in the colonies only only two states today have civil grand juries they are California and Nevada Europe abolished the grand jury system many years ago and often people confuse our Federal grand jury system

0:14:12with the Civil grand jury some of the mandates we have or duties directed by the state or County include examining city and county governments Special Districts and anyone receiving County money or tax dollars we are also Direct Ed to inspect Correctional Facilities on a yearly

0:14:32basis to see that they are up to federal and state standards we investigate allegations of any County Employees or elected officials these investigations can originate from citizen complaints newspaper articles not all complaints are investigated they are selected on

0:14:53Merit and content on rare occasions we may act as a criminal grand jury but this may only be about one once a year the organization in March each year applications are taken from anyone interested in serving on next year's grand jury in April a team of Superior

0:15:14Court judges selects applicants for interviews from those 30 are selected and they go into a drawing where 19 are chosen the grand jury has sworn in in the last week of June and serves for one year orientation is the month of June of the new grand jury the standing

0:15:34committees we have are the audit and budget committee which deal with financial matters of any kind County government that's County issues spending taxes city government such as traffic and what city problems come up the law and Justice committee which looks into

0:15:51police activities and the sheriff's department Special Districts which handle water fire sewer and Health and Social Services which are County agencies and County hospitals the grand jury is supervised by a judge who also acts as a consultant and is available for advice we have a

0:16:13County Council for legal matters reports are issued during the year on our findings and recommendations and this is the format we put out reports during the year and at the end of the year they're into one booklet for that term that grand jury system and these are available free uh

0:16:35from the booklet that I handed out and I put some out there for people who are interested in joining the grand jury uh to be selected you must be a citizen 18 years of older a resident of cont Costa County for one year basic understanding of the English language and not convicted of a felony

0:16:55you may not also hold public office while being on the grand jury and the pay you are paid $15 per meeting with a limit one meeting you can have 10 meetings per day but you only get paid for one and you get mileage if you travel like to here to elero um that concludes it the grand

0:17:19jury is made up of people from all walks of life not just professional or accountant types and I'd like to your community that the grand jury can that people sometimes shy away from it because they may be a blue collar worker or feel are not qualified well it's it's not that way it's it's

0:17:42everybody is welcome and in fact we we'd like to get more participation from West County um we're kind of uh lopsided now this year we have heavily with wock Creek conquered and Pittsburgh area and we only have a few from from this area so that concludes my talk and if there

0:18:05are any questions uh Mr Olson aside from asking if they pay for lunch when you no no no then I'm not interested no uh one question though uh you said that there's only two states that have this type of grand jury do you know why the other 48 or do not use this my opinion is I this

0:18:30is my personal opinion from Reading up in the grand jury I think that they did not like the the oversee of of an agency like the grand jury they just they just abolished it and figure we don't need it everything's running smooth but it works for California Nevada but uh I I have no

0:18:51idea why the other states abolished it and maybe someday they'll abolish it in California thank you appreciate it and I just like to say that uh um elero is one of the bright spots in the grand jury and there's uh it's uh I've worked here over the years in the 60s and 7s I was

0:19:13at air conditioning mechanic I worked on a lot of your buildings at that time and uh keep up the good work thank you so much for coming out and giving us that interesting presentation thank you our next present ation is item 4 C East Bay Regional communication systems

0:19:38Authority good evening Madam mayor fellow city council people my name is scar Kirkland tonight I have the privilege of introducing Bill mccamon to you to give you an update on the East Bay Regional radio system we feel very fortunate that we're able to attract someone with bills quality

0:19:59in to direct us and lead us in this effort since this Council has been seated is that you've been given two pieces of information in regards to the East Bay re Regional radio system the first one was in December when Mr Hannon fored you uh a document prepared by Mr M

0:20:16mccamon in regards to a presentation that was done by Dr Ken Balor from CTA engineering and they are the contract Engineers for the for the jpa the presentation by Dr k Ballard was video uh taped and it's available on the website for your viewing and then at the

0:20:34end of January I presented to the Council on a weekly report a thick packet in regards to an assessment of U the uh Regional radio system we thought it was beneficial Mr Hannah and I and chief Maples to bring Mr mccamon here to give you an update and to let the public

0:20:51know where we stand right now and how it's progressing and if you have any questions we're certainly available to answer those as well so just before we get started on the presentation I wanted to say that um we had the fortune of seeing the presentation from Mr mamman

0:21:06at the mayor's conference earlier and I'm so pleased that you're here today with a full house and with so many people who are able now to see it on the web stream and on the cable channel because it's such an important issue and a major function of local government is

0:21:21to provide for health and safety through the police department and the fire department and I found that we are making great advancements to um being able to share information and be more effective in providing those services so please I look forward to the presentation well good evening mayor and

0:21:40members of the council while Chief Kirkland gets ready I'll just um tell you that we were talking about it earlier this evening the last time that I was here and it just so happens that it was in March of 2007 and that was where I presented at a work session what

0:21:53we were planning to do um to get your interest to see whether or not the city be interested in join joining the Eastbay Regional Communication System Authority and then your Council took an action in June of 2007 to join and ultimately in September of 2007 we actually formed the the agency itself so

0:22:10what I'm going to do tonight is present you a little bit of the background and a little bit of the history um so to give you some idea of the progress as I mentioned earlier we were formed on September 11th of 2007 um there currently 35 member agencies including

0:22:24both alamine and contracosta counties 18 of the 19 cities and contracosta County are members 11 of the 14 cities and Alam County are members and we have four special district members there's a 23 member board of directors we formed a joint Powers Authority Under State

0:22:40Statute and there's a 23 member board of directors um there are two working committees there's an operations and a finance committee with equal representation from each County the board of directors as well has equal representation for both counties there are three elected Mayors or council

0:22:57members that are Ed by each mayor's conference from each County there are three city managers from each County there are the members of the board one member from each Board of Supervisors there are police Chiefs and fire chiefs that are elected and we have a special

0:23:10district rep as well um we've also gotten to a point now we've been acknowledged and credited by the bay area sasi which is a funding organization that provides Homeland Security funds to local government agencies we've entered into a subgrant tou and we're now actually able to

0:23:30receive funds directly from the sasi organization and we've also received an earmark uh the mayors of the tri valley have gone back to Washington three years running now and we're successful in receiving an $888,000 earmark um we just last week received a $1,170 th000

0:23:48earmark um it was written by Congressman McNerney out in the Tri Valley area and we have a $3 million request in this year into Senator Feinstein's office so they've found that they like the idea of supporting this Regional effort and the fact that there are 35 member agencies

0:24:03and the Mayors have signed a letter now to go back to Washington to support our most recent request um we'll hope we we'll be successful in getting an additional $3 million this is to give you some idea of the existing communication systems in Contra Costa County today I think it's important to

0:24:18note that your city is over here in the 800 megahertz system but each one of these agencies whether you appear in VHF UHF or 800 today is unable to communicate with an agency that's in one of the other areas and the example I'll give for you in Els Sero if a police

0:24:35officer were to take a prisoner to the county jail by the time you get to the county jail you would have lost all Communications with that 800 megaherz radio system because you're out of communications range same thing is true on the fire side and so on the fire side

0:24:49we've had to resort to VHF Spectrum to to deal with our interoperability problems but the law enforcement side is impacted a lot more heavily and obviously the system we're designing and building will will correct that problem this is to give you some idea of the situation that exists in Alam County

0:25:05today it's not quite as disperate looking but we still have problems because oops sorry I pushed the wrong button um the systems when they originally purchased in Alam County while we have a number of agencies in 800 megahertz those that are on this column here can't talk to those that are

0:25:22over here because at the time those systems were made they were proprietary systems so the system that we're designing and building today is called the p25 compliance system and the reason that's important that any vendor that builds p25 infrastructure anyone that

0:25:37builds a p25 compliant radio that radio will work on that infrastructure today so in the case where we've got Alam County agencies that are on 800 and Oakland which was on another system those systems couldn't talk to one another even though they were operating

0:25:52in the same Spectrum but that has been corrected with the new technology that we're building to give you a little idea about considerations for the system design we hired CTA Communications to come in and do a full review and audit of the existing systems within the two counties

0:26:09and this is really what they determined that there were a large number of Public Safety users there was a a need to increase the INB building coverage a lot of the the spectrum that was out there the systems were out there in the spectrum that they were operating in did

0:26:21not operate well within buildings um we also have a compounding problem of those agencies that in VHF or UHF had narrow banding requirements by the FCC and needed to replace need to replace all of their existing infrastructure by 2013 so that means regardless of whether you you

0:26:39have no choice in terms of replacing your infrastructure and then those people that are in the 800 system city of Els Sero is part of the Richmond system that technology is getting old and outdated and needs to be replaced so everyone is kind of in the same place

0:26:52that we need to do something so CTA and their work work determined that the appropriate technology for us to move forward with based on the numbers of users is to go for a p25 compliant digital system that would be a trunk system trunk systems are much more Spectrum efficient so they

0:27:11can put more users on with fewer channels and then to go to a simoc cast system so that we'll have interoperability in the two County area this is a map that gives you a an idea there are 18 .5 sites and the reason we say there's 0.5 is because there's a a a repeater that's going to

0:27:33go here at the Marsh Creek Detention Facility that actually um isn't a full repeater site it's it's a a smaller unit but the the area that you would be the most concerned with are the four sites here in West County this is the existing Richmond system today one of those sites

0:27:48is located right here across the street and so we're building out those as we go forward and I'll explain to you that the equipment is being installed in those sites as we speak um the next picture shows the site locations in Alam County and one of the benefits of being part of

0:28:04a regional system is that the county line no no longer is there in terms of before as you're part of the Richmond system you only get coverage from those repeater sites but we're actually building a repeater site up at Lawrence Berkeley laboratory which is going to

0:28:19provide service to the southern part of Els Sero and the Alban area so it's actually going to enhance the coverage that you'll receive in the city of elero today so some of the progress that's been made to date when you have a system and you saw all those repeater sites that are

0:28:37strategically located within the two counties we need to have some way to link those sites together well we link those sites together with microwave um through grants we were able to purchase a 52 hop system that will um not only link the repeater sites but all of the

0:28:51public safety answering points within the two County area and there's two upgrades that are now in process along with the installation of the 52 hops of microwave with a digital trunk system unlike older systems that work off singular repeaters that repeat a signal

0:29:07um the digital trunk system has a master site controller that was purchased for about $6 million has been installed at the emergency Operation Center in the city of Dublin and will serve the two County system in Contra Costa there are four repeater sites that have been purchase

0:29:24with the installation in progress uh they've done additional upgrades and they've purchased some shelters as well those four sites are the Richmond system so the first area to come up in KRA Costa county is going to be the West cell or that existing Richmond system

0:29:38and there's been equipment that's been installed in your shelter out here in the back in Alama County there are eight repeater sites that have been purchased with installation and process there are site upgrades moving forward and there have been upgrades to seven dispatch

0:29:51centers in terms of their consoles now you see that more work has been done in Alam County than Contra Costa only because Alam County in the past has been able to receive more grant funding but that still will benefit Contra Costa County because again we have a

0:30:06partnership here so the idea is to build out the entire system regardless of where the money come from comes from or how it gets spent initially so those eight sites are going to help fund the additional upgrades in the rest of the the two County area this gives you some

0:30:20idea the different um pools of grant funding again this has been funded almost entirely with grants and I'm going to get into a few acronyms here but I think it's important to understand and the first one is yasi up at the top when the federal government decided that

0:30:36they were going to fund Homeland Security at the local level the first um effort to do that was to give the states money like block grants and then the states determine how they would give that funding to the local jurisdictions um there was a program called the state

0:30:50Homeland Security grant program which is on line two where that funding went that comes down to the county and then the county distributes that funds through what they call the Gang of Five but it's basically um the sheriff a police chief representing the cities in the county a

0:31:05fire chief the County Fire Chief and the EMS director and then they make decisions how those funds should be allocated and I'm I know I'm skipping around but now to get back up to the uasi the large cities in the country felt that this was inappropriate because

0:31:18all of the threats they felt were centered in the major urban areas and so they created the urban are security initiative that's the aasi program there were 35 cities and the City of Oakland was named as one of the first 35 cities as part of that Alam and Contra Costa

0:31:33County were included in that so we've been able to obtain funding through that sasi then in um 2007 the federal government decided that they were going to consolidate some of these uasi areas so they created a tier one uasi which includes the city of San Jose and the county of Santa Clara the

0:31:52City and County of San Francisco the city of Oakland and Alama County and so that is one uasi now so when we compete for funds we compete with New York City Chicago Philadelphia and the big cities nationally but because of the size of the area that we're representing we've

0:32:08done very well for funding so we see funding coming in from that stream as well and then you can see down here we received an earmark um there's also PC funding which is um Grant funds that have come out through the FCC through the Commerce Department through the sale

0:32:25of 700 MHz Spectrum when the television stations are evacuating the 700 MHz they auctioned off that spectrum and allowed a billion dollars to be spent Nationwide on interoperability and we're going to receive about 3.9 million for Alam and Contra Costa County so if you look at that we have in

0:32:43process whether we we've possibly either received it or we're about to receive it about $33 million in Grant funds so this gives you some idea um to create kind of an order of magnitude um we received a proposal from Motorola to build out the initial 2count system I'm

0:33:03going to explain later that we're actually having CTA come in and do evaluation work on that proposal but that was the only number we had to work with and it was about $55 million um we added a contingency to that excuse me and then added the cost of the um microwave that I explained

0:33:22earlier so that gives us a total project cost of about $68 million um so given that and the grants we've received to date we have about $34 million that were short in terms of the the final build out of the system so that's kind of an order of magnitude to give give you some idea where we are

0:33:44today excuse me um just to give you some idea about how we're going to fund the system the the system backbone cost minus the grant funding will be allocated to each jurisdiction based on the number of radios each dur stick and operates on the system we looked at a

0:33:59number of ways that we can actually charge subscribers on the system and basically the number of radios you operate seem to be about the fairest way to go about this when we looked at systems nationally that were up and running we have close to about 15,000 users with the initial buildout of the

0:34:15system the ongoing system upgrades and operations and replacement costs will be funded through that subscriber fee as well and then one of the things that we want to do we're sizing the infrastructure so that we can attract other agencies onto the system and that

0:34:29would be state or federal agencies the federal government has come out with with what they're calling the national emergency communications plan and that's a strategic plan for interoperability for federal state and local government for the future and one of the things

0:34:43that they're supporting strongly in there is this idea of not having different levels of government build infrastructure that covers one another so the idea would be if there are federal agencies that are working in this area that could come on to our infrastructure we would invite them on

0:34:56on they would pay to use the system just as state agencies would come on but they're encouraging those levels of government to participate in local Regional systems rather than building out their own infrastructure so one of the the questions that everybody continues to

0:35:12ask is how much is this system going to cost and um we've been a little reluctant to give specific numbers and I want to walk you through why that is but I also want to let you know that there's light at the end of the tunnel because CTA Communications is working on this

0:35:25issue as we speak but when you look at developing a budget we need to understand the total infrastructure costs remaining we also need to understand what these system operational maintenance and replacement costs are going to be one of the things that we found with all of these systems is that

0:35:41there weren't reserves set aside for the replacement of these systems and we want to make sure with this system that there are reserves set aside so we don't find ourselves 10 years from now wondering where the money is going to come from to pay for the replacement of that

0:35:54system we also need to look at subscriber replacement cost there are a number of jurisdictions that are going to have to do full scale replacement of all of their subscriber units fortunately because you've been involved in an 800 MHz system the recent radio purchases that you've made are

0:36:09upgradeable to p25 so you're going to be in a different situation where you don't have to replace all of your existing Radio stock it's a very good position to be in and then Revenue development we we obviously are relying heavily on grants now but we need to look at subscriber

0:36:24fees or possibly incurring Dent to finish the remainder of the buildout of the system so to give you some idea of the timing on the infrastructure cost we've uh entered into a second phase contract with CTA they're working on those projected costs now and we expect to

0:36:40know by the summer of this year the operational mainten and replacement costs are part of that contract with CTA so we're expecting to know those numbers by summer of this year and then lastly with the subscriber unit replacement there are a number of options because

0:36:56there's a lot of competition on the market to sell these subscriber units for these p25 systems because now we can attract many vendors so we're looking at the different options that jurisdictions have in the migration to the new system and then lastly there's the whole

0:37:13issue of identification of Revenue we obviously I mentioned subscriber fees we're looking at Bond financing potentially but then the one at the top that has the most um attraction for us right now is that the Bay Area sasi I mentioned men earlier with San Jose Santa Clara San Francisco and us are

0:37:29looking at developing a master RFP to go out for infrastructure the idea being that we can get one vendor to build out like a design build for the remaining infrastructure and then potentially do a leaste purchase on that infrastructure so that we can use futureye grants to

0:37:46take care of the debt so we're looking very favorably at that and watching as that progresses as a possible way to finish the uh build out of our system so I'm going to go through these fairly quickly but there's a couple that I want to highlight um CTA recommended a

0:38:03continued build out of the p25 infrastructure that we're doing today they recommended in their phase one report that we obtain value Engineering Services we've done that with the um entering into phase two of the contract with them they've recommended that we develop an issi standard for the system

0:38:20that's a technical term but basically what it means it would allow us to interconnect with San Francisco and San Jose and Santa CL which is our plan to do now which would allow Bay areawide interoperability as well as the ability for these systems to back each other up

0:38:34so if we were to experience a major equipment failure in our system the San Francisco or San Jose Santa Clara system could back us up um day-to-day management of the system we're working on um they want us to begin developing a maintenance plan and standard operating

0:38:51procedures um we have a users group but they want us to expand that users group and then there's been some additional Spectrum that's become available with the sale of the 700 mahz spectrum and they believe that the um EBR CSA should apply for that spectrum and control as

0:39:05much of that Spectrum as they can so that we can build capacity for the future and then they also believe that based on the original contract that we should redefine the scope of the additional phases which we did as part of their um their contract so that's a an overview of where we are today and

0:39:22I'd be more than happy to answer any questions we might have but I would also like to direct anyone that's watching or to you to look at our website there's quite a bit of information um there are videos of Consultants that have come in that have provided assessments to us as

0:39:37well as background documentation on all the work that's been done today be happy to answer any questions are there any questions I just had a comment I know in uh I was at the mayor's conference when you first introduced this uh real early in the proceeding and at that time um

0:39:58you were estimating the cost to be in the uh the mid uh $70 million Mark I think very first before anybody knew the details so it's nice to see it's actually coming down a little bit rather than going up at this point and I understand the other thing I think it's

0:40:14real important is every disaster we've had um either here or nationally somewhere in the report of what happened and how to prevent it is communication and to not have communication between not only people within our own County but also other counties is really

0:40:36archaic um we need to depend on each other we need to talk to each other I think this is a great uh issue and we've always supported it and I think it's well worth continuing it so thank you for the work thank you question yes um I have a what I think is a simple question for you um

0:40:56you talked about uh lacking communication between here and Martinez in our current system will that be true in this system no in in fact those um those sites that I showed you but covering the two counties um there's a standard that we're using that we want to have 95% coverage portable on the hip

0:41:18and and that's the standard that we're using to cover the area and and we're going to have that and and Mobile coverage which is a m much more powerful radio it almost blankets the entire County every part of both counties are covered thank you how soon will the for um West County

0:41:37the West County sites the equipment is being installed now um we've been waiting because there was a microw upgrade that was required and because of the grant that we're using we had to get a soul Source waiver from the federal government we've just received that now

0:41:49so we can begin installing that equipment so we're probably 6 to 8 months out from actually having it up and operational so we could begin testing and it would be beneficial for us to have p25 compliant radios by that point or you're saying some of ours or most of ours are already some portion of

0:42:05all of yours are today when we get to the point where we're going to migrate the existing Richmond users onto the new system they all have to be p25 compliant at that point so that they can work on the new system um I question can you can can the system communicate with Solano County at

0:42:24all at this point or is it is Solano County outside of the no actually we've been working very closely with Solano County um there are some significant benefits for both Contra Costa and Solano County as you look down the river and see there's one site that we've had

0:42:39to add a Crockett because the only way we can serve Crockett is to put a site right in Crockett because of the way it's in that small bowl if Solano County becomes part of the EBR CSA which is something we're looking at now a site that they would need in bisha or on that

0:42:55side of the river would serve Crockett so there's benefits to both counties um we hired CTA Communications through the sasi to do an initial study of Solano County to evaluate what they've got and then see how they might hook into our system and they're in the process up

0:43:09there now forming a jpa as well so we are working with them great well thank you so much again for coming out and all the important information and it's um one of the great successes of a regional collaborations thank you very much for your time so we're now going to move on to uh

0:43:29presentation item 4 d an update of elero seis mic hazard's identification and mitigation program and I'm so pleased to introduce the staff to uh provide the presentation Madame mayor members of council I'm Mitch o shinsky the community development director for the

0:43:49city and I'd like to introduce Brian Fenty our building official and Dwayne dolman our economic development project manager we're going to uh talk to you tonight about an update on elero seismic Hazard identification and mitigation program Brian and Dwayne will talk about our

0:44:07existing seismic code provisions and they will summarize the seismic Hazard evaluations that have been done by our Structural Engineering consultant and what the consultant has found from their studies they will also describe the typical cost for retrofitting buildings

0:44:24versus repairing them or repl ing seismically hazardous buildings and potential incentives for retrofitting and then I'll come back uh to talk with you about some decision points that Council may want to focus on and provide direction to staff on and then we'll briefly bring you up to date

0:44:42on soft story seismic hazards that are the next step that we will be moving forward on so thank you and I'd like to now turn it over to Brian thank you I'll just briefly talk about the slides that we view the elrio municipal code requires Property Owners to hire an engineer to

0:45:03evaluate buildings with potential seismic hazards the municipal code further states that the property owner shall submit a letter of intent for dealing with the hazards identified however our current code does not require the buildings to be retrofitted or to eliminate the seismic

0:45:23hazards as a proactive approach the city has hired a structural engineering firm to evaluate each of the buildings and to provide a report with retrofit recommendations the hazard list has been split into two parts the first is potential unreinforced masonary buildings the second other hazards at

0:45:45risk of falling or collapse all but a few of these buildings are located within the Redevelopment area Cisco engineering of Berkeley was selected to perform the analysis for the city most of the buildings on the urm list have been evaluated and seismic Hazard warning signs have been

0:46:07installed many people think that the cost of retrofit is too expensive and it is high we feel this comparison is the most important information being presented tonight that is the cost of retrofit versus the cost of doing nothing a typical retro fitting cost is

0:46:27$2 to $60 a square foot versus damage repair costs at75 to $150 a square foot and compared to building replacement costs at $200 to $300 a square foot add to that the loss of business Revenue the loss of building rental income and the potential liability for injury or loss

0:46:50of life all that adds up to is that the cost of retrofit is the the most economical choice you can see there's a wide range of estimates depending on the building design the risk and the occupancy use Where Do We Go From Here should we require retrofit the timing the

0:47:12incentives the schedules the building evaluations clearly show a risk due to potential collapse to retrofit seems like the best choice what level of retro retrofit should we do it would not be possible to retrofit most of the buildings up to today's standards the current code provides an

0:47:36exception that voluntary retrofit of existing buildings can be designed to the 1997 uniform code for building conservation this exception benefits the property owners greatly I'll now turn the mic over to Dwayne uh the next slide lists the the typical building deficiencies uh that are found

0:48:04in urine buildings and they typically relate to either unreinforced walls and store openings or issues where walls are not properly attached to the foundation of roofs uh as well as issues where veneers or facades aren't properly attached to the to the building uh when we looked at that risk

0:48:21assessment when when we're determining the risk the reports basically looked at three different things three different categories uh one was the level of reinforcement that actually exists in the buildings some have more than others the second is basically how many

0:48:35building how many people can the buildings hold and then based on these first two how many people would be uh potentially injured in the event of a building collapse so then we categorized our buildings into higher risk buildings that hold more people and have a greater

0:48:49risk of collapse and then also lower risk buildings that that hold less people and have a lower risk of collapse from a timing perspective um we are recommending for the higher risk buildings a time frame of one year from the passage of ordinance for a property

0:49:07owner to submit retrofit plans or demolition permits and then an additional year for them to complete the work or in the case of a demolition an additional 18 months to complete that now based on preliminary uh uh um look at our at our building inventory um we might we most likely only have a hand of

0:49:25buildings that are going to fall into that highrisk type of category for lower risk buildings uh um we are recommending an additional year or up to two years for for property owners to submit plans and then an additional year to complete the retrofit so in summary from a timing perspective

0:49:44for higher risk buildings we're looking at a total of two years for people to complete retrofit and for lower risk buildings a total of three years for people to complete their retrofit the next thing we looked at were were incentives um and what kind of incentives could the city offer for

0:50:02property owners to complete this retrofit we basically looked at three things the first was the cost of the actual structural evaluations um and in that case the city's paying for the evaluations and those are approximately $2,500 per report the next category that we looked

0:50:18at was when someone comes in to do the retrofit that the city could pay for the seismic retrofit fee or in some cases the demolition fee um so if you're looking at retrofit it approximately adds up to about $1,000 for the for the fee that they would pay and then lastly

0:50:34the city could if it's a case of retrofit the city could FASTT track or expedite the permit processing fee to ensure faster we estimated a two-e turnaround time for that so our recommendation would be to return to the council in June of 2009 uh with a seismic retrofit mitigation

0:50:55ordinance based on the presentation that we've made tonight or on Council Direction uh and with that I'd like to turn it over to Mitch shinski so now we'd like to ask Council for your input on four areas of discussion that are up on the screen uh now that we've heard about the

0:51:13engineering evaluations the costs of retrofitting the questions are do we want to require retrofitting uh the timing of retrofitting as outlined in the report uh high-risk buildings 2 years to retrofit or 18 months to demolish lower risks 3 years to retrofit or two years

0:51:31to demolish uh the incentives as outlined are those appropriate for us that Redevelopment would pay for the retrofit or demolition permit costs and then the schedule for the ordinance that we talked about uh June of 09 to come back with that ordinance um so now I'd like

0:51:49to go back up to the top of the list if if that's okay with Council and if we can talk about those issues and and perhaps provide some direction back to staff okay well why don't we just take them um from the top I think the first one well I'll start with Greg then I

0:52:07have questions before we actually okay get to these questions if that's possible why don't we take a short period of time to ask questions and we'll just start and go down the line and then we'll resume with the first question on the list um the two bu the there's almost 50

0:52:22buildings 24 that are on reinforced masonary buildings and 25 that are not unreinforced masonary but have other uh deficiencies is the second group also going to come under like the soft story regulation as well or these are all not covered by Soft story these are all

0:52:43first round stories and there's approximately 50 of them I assume thank you the second group does not Encompass the soft story buildings uh um soft story buildings that we've talked about just briefly and we're moving into next is really primarily uh apartment buildings and and residential

0:53:05like that although there are some soft story aspects to these commercial buildings on the list but um not primarily soft story identification you've testified that there's only a handful of buildings that fit into the high-risk category um would it is it vantageous for them to

0:53:26potentially change their occupancy so they become low risk as are these buildings I don't you you've not provides enough information but are we going to provide these timing issues so that we're potentially going to to have someone adjust their occupancy so they

0:53:42drop into a different timing category uh the ones that we've identified so far that in the higher risk are primarily because of the um the way the building's constructed as opposed to the higher occupancy and asked the Cisco contract if I'm following your numbers U the fact

0:54:00that we paid approximately $2,500 each uh math says that we've paid Cisco approximately $125,000 to do this work is that sound right their contract to date uh our contract with Cisco was 88,000 I believe um and some of them the the 25 that are on the supplemental list

0:54:17will be will be less um on a on a per report basis because those are those are mostly going to be the same type of of evaluations great thank you um yeah the first question I had had to do with um whether or not the businesses are going to be able to financially afford

0:54:38to be able to do this and one of the things I've been hearing is that there's no money available um for anybody to borrow so usually if you were going to do something like this one might presuppose that they would borrow money to do these projects but I'm not aware that that's a

0:54:57available right now for example so um it almost sounds as though what that means is to shut the business down and I'm kind of concerned about that as an alternative can I just make a comment that that's kind of a discussion item I don't know you please do provide some

0:55:14slight clarification but I think that that is an item that we can discuss as a whole group well okay the question had to do with the have you looked at the financing aspects of this and would it be possible assuming that the businesses could actually afford the um cost of

0:55:33financing is it even available to them I think one of the things we've taken into consideration and Dwayne O'Brien can chime in more on this is that with the timelines that we're talking about that there would be two risk uh two years uh of time to retrofit for the high-risk

0:55:50buildings and there's a small amount of the high-risk buildings and then 3 years we're proposing for the um the lower risk buildings that uh we would look hopefully for the economy to improve by then and for financing to become more available okay Mr Jones yes um what are some of

0:56:11the major cities doing in this area what what's been their experience and how are they handling this for instance San Francisco um we we looked at a number of cities and how they're handling the urms um I mean there's a there's a vast differences some of the cities um have a

0:56:34very large inventory some not as much um some have a had a little bit of a head start as far as when they started this so uh there's quite a wide variety on the mostly on the timing of of when cities require retrofit and that ranges from a short period of time uh Albany

0:56:52our neighboring Community um has a 2 to threee time frame on up to uh a city like Berkeley um in other cities where you have uh property owners could have four five six years to do retrofit um many of the Cities looked at the option of of categorizing similar to

0:57:11what we have the the risk assessment for the buildings so similarly based on on building occupancy and and types of Building Construction so then they then timed their risk assessment to the amount of time that they gave the prop proper owners to retrofit the building uh and then the third category

0:57:29that that probably had the most variety was was what type of um really what type of funding was available to assist um Property Owners uh and that also depended on the city so some cities if they had you know um a large pool of Redevelopment funds were able to look at

0:57:46that some cities that had availability of cdbg funds were able to use uh that funding source for for retrofit some cities uh looked at um uh uh building property owner um assessment districts and that was the way that they funded so it's it's quite a variety of

0:58:06how cities looked at this type of um issue okay we've identified a couple of incentives in here with uh permit costs or demolition permit costs as we move forward to working on the ordinance we'll continue looking at incentives and try and find creative uh opportunities

0:58:23out there that we can use to work with the property owners on okay and um just one more we've done this this is a formal study it's it's done by the public uh by the Redevelopment agency it's it's for public information and I don't know if you know this answer or not but now we have a

0:58:48report that identifies buildings and basically owners have been put um formly on notice that their building is dangerous and is in danger of falling uh do you know if the insurance companies will now come and basically force the issue to either improve or they'll lose

0:59:09the insurance don't I I don't know that I can answer that but this is not the first time now that these buildings are put on notice actually uh a survey uh uh list was put together a number of years ago with the buildings identified on the list uh went back and met with the

0:59:26property owners uh and had a uh a group session with them before we uh started moving forward with the engineering studies and then as we have gone through with the engineering studies we have followed along with warning signs state law actually requires the war warning

0:59:41signs to be posted on these buildings and we have been working to get those signs up uh on the buildings it's to be in public view that warns people that these are a uh a hazardous building and there might be a a danger in the case of a seismic event okay so just a followup and then

1:00:00I'll go then do you know and and again maybe this is somebody for the legal do you know has state law so long as the owners have put up these signs that warn the public are they now kind of basically covered is that all they have to do at this point I believe at this

1:00:19point the state law just requires the signs and I would defer to Sky yeah I believe that's correct that that I mean depends on what you're asking by covered but but it it's certainly the only state law obligation that they have um that's not a limitation on their liability though um

1:00:37and while I can't address the insurance industry's practices I mean my my experience with them probably everybody in the room is in a lot of cases it depends on who you ask at the insurance company about what they're going to do in terms of adjusting your policy or um

1:00:51for information like this but I think um Mitch's point to sound which is that that this is not new information for anybody presumably not for the in the various Property Owners insurers either okay thank you J um I guess I'm curious about what actual buildings are on the the high-

1:01:13risk list and are these in places that are kind of along the Avenue where we want to see Redevelopment occur and are we PR in the life of buildings that maybe you know should you know could be better used or or in places where land could be better used well without going

1:01:33into specifics a number of the buildings are along the Avenue and they certainly might provide opportunities for reuse higher and better use of the land a higher density so that's something that we'll be talking with the property owners about their options uh retrofitting versus Demolition and

1:01:52replacement with a building that they might actually get greater Revenue out of Greater use out of in in the long term so that's something we'd certainly like to see okay so I just wanted to add based on the comments that I heard that really since the early 1980s it's been state

1:02:10law to for cities it's an obligation of cities not Property Owners to inventory the buildings to order the signs to be posted and it's also the intent of the California seismic safety commission that the cities come up with a plan to mitigate the hazard they don't dictate

1:02:25what the plan is and many of the surrounding communities have taken the step forward to draft an ordinance that will make this possible with the support of the community and with some kind of financial incentive and a schedule that will ensure that these buildings are

1:02:41mitigated in a timely way as we wait for our next large earthquake and I think that the um experiences in our lifetime in Pasa Robo San Francisco Santa Cruz North Ridge all point to the need to be proactive on this so the first question that staff poses is um shall we require

1:03:04retrofit of these buildings well what you had just said I guess we're we're sounds like the state has passed laws this uh to say that should be or you could demo them I guess but um it sounds like the state has actually answered that for us correct well they they tell us to mitigate the

1:03:30hazard and one way to do that would be through adoption of an ordinance requiring retrofit and or demolition yeah I'll just try in briefly say the state has not told cities you must require retrofitting they've said mitigate the hazard and so the mitigation can be retrofitting it could

1:03:46be demolition could be vacating the buildings I mean there are many ways that it could be accomplished but we we need to think think about given the list of the 24 buildings you know and what what do we think is the best approach well the opening question is do

1:04:06we require retrofit which is slightly different I me I think that's what council member Jones was trying to point out is that it that that's a limiting option as opposed to vacating or demolition um do we want to support or promote retrofit um I think that that

1:04:27answer is yes um but I don't think we want to prescribe it to specifically retrofit if if as council member Chang has pointed out Demolition and uh progressing into the the new future is something that that property is ready to do so Madam mayor perhaps I should

1:04:44interject then and say perhaps the more appropriate question is do we want to require mitigation of the hazards that should really be the first question rather than ret I think I'm hearing that the answer is yes and I would take it a step further because I don't think you you can vacate a

1:05:01building and still have a hazard there because the building can collapse and and it could affect people around the building so my preference would be to say that we would like to um mitigate the hazard through an ordinance requiring retrofit Andor demolition the second I'm back like take

1:05:24a look at that uh the second question regards the timing of the retrofit and I think this is part of why I wanted to discuss this question of the availability of financing and um the amount of time that businesses have known about this issue for their buildings and and perhaps had um not

1:05:45taken advantage of opportunities to retrofit when the economy was a little stronger but then given that the staff's proposal to allow 2 to 3 years for the retrofit um first of all when we say the the timing is that the timing to completion of the uh work or the taking

1:06:10out a permit or what we're suggesting is that in the case of the high-risk buildings they would have one year to prepare plans uh that would either show how the building is going to be retrofitted and then would have one year to actually do the construction work to

1:06:27retrofit it or in the case of where they're going to demolish it we would give them 18 months so they would have either 2 years to retrofit the building from the adoption of the ordinance or they would have 18 months to demo it from the adoption of the ordinance for

1:06:42the second group the uh lower risk buildings we'd be talking about 3 years to retrofit or two years to demolish so just having gone to various things on the economy I'm not so convinced that the there will be money out there to borrow to do this work in that time frame

1:07:06um so it seems to me that's not a real viable alternative u based on that um so it either needs to be if if we want to proceed um then that would either mean that uh I we could still leave it at that realizing it's not very likely it could happen or um I I guess that would be how we we we

1:07:39just know that it wasn't very realistic Mr jnes yeah um yeah I agree that I think the concept of picking a time period and and given the different levels that we have is a good one um and I don't know if this is feasible but maybe our finance uh Department would have a suggestion on this or the

1:08:01Fab maybe we could uh build in a trigger that at some point in the future there's some indicator Financial indicator that the that the loans are out there and they're reasonable and they and people can afford them that then this type of time period could kick in and that's I

1:08:21know that's abstract right now but um if there was a trigger point that we could then kick in a time period to start this program let me um suggest another option I'm not comfortable asking staff to move forward with an ordinance that we're not confident can can be um enforced so

1:08:43perhaps we could explore um like a hardship provision that once uh building owner could demonstrate a good faith effort to secure funding and that was not possible for for them to achieve it there could be perhaps a one-year extension or some other time period that

1:08:58we could discuss another hardship potentially would be U again not knowing the precise list of this if there are some of these structures that are um historically uh valuable and they require a a longer period of time to get plans put together to restore the the nature of it that

1:09:20could potentially be another hardship provision for extending these um because the the structure is some significance that has to be preserved during the uh during the the retrofit process I would support including a provision for um extension of time if historic conditions were um discovered

1:09:39and that additional mitigation was required on that issue the concept being that there are hardship Provisions by which someone could extend their their uh application um um the other thing I'm wondering about and and again we I don't know what you know which what actual businesses we're

1:10:01talking about or I'm assuming there are businesses there I don't even know that that's necessarily true these are buildings not businesses most of them are occupied by businesses okay so if a building were being retrofitted perhaps May it's even likely that meanwhile the business can't

1:10:21operate is is that like to be true Brian do you have any feeling don't think so I would say most likely that they can or can't be occupied business can still operate they can still okay that's what I was learning because if it couldn't that would uh remove the ability to get

1:10:40a loan probably I I would also want to point out that many of these businesses are leasing these buildings they are not the owner of the buildings that they're occupying so obviously they are going to have to work out through their lease agreement the Provisions for the

1:10:55improvements to the property okay so that which which has some other complications so they couldn't really whether or not they can actually walk away from the building is another question to based on the lease I suppose but um so there there are some issues there I guess is the best way to to say

1:11:17that of various sorts um okay okay um I would just also Echo concern about the financial Market of getting loans and just it doesn't seem like there's a lot of capital out there for people to tap into to do this work and if we're going to put something out there and no one

1:11:43can Finance retrofits then what does that mean for our program and would everybody get hardships then and so thinking through that um would be a concern for me well the timing yeah I think an brings up a good point the timing uh of this I think we we have to look at I

1:12:08would favor having staff come back with with some sort of draft ordinance at some point having us take a look at it and then um probably have a better feeling of where the economy is going and take up that that question before before we we put it uh uh before we pass

1:12:26it or not pass it I guess mayor um the current proposal before us and I'm looking back a couple of slides talks about one year from passage of the urm to get a building permit plan for retrofit uh for high risk and two years to do a permit plan for low risk um the question would be is there an

1:12:51interum deliverable that we can get from the property owner within a reasonable amount of times say uh you know 8 months for high- risk and 12 months for low risk that that at least causes them to go through this financial evaluation um so that it's not necessarily a building

1:13:10permit they haven't hired an architect they haven't done a tremendous amount of the work but they're they are by ordinance required to to do the enough work so that they can make a good Sound business decision to pursue one of these options that we're leaving open in the

1:13:28ordinance I was going to suggest that perhaps in that interim time period that U maybe the requirement is that they do secure an engineer and move forward and prepare the plans which would be a much smaller cost than the actual work to the building and that they then submit the

1:13:45plans to the city and that we would review and plan check those plans and then when the financing opportunities are there then that could be obtained to actually do the work on the building and I understand you've staggered the the submitt from these two um categories so

1:14:02that the high risk don't overlap and get um caught up inside the building permit submittals from the low risk but if the majority are from the low risk and we are giving them 24 months they're all going to come in the 23rd month and expect two we service so really getting

1:14:19them all to go through this financial assessment in some fashion um in in a 12 Monon time frame or 8 to 10 8 to 12 month time frame um and then having the build the time to complete be you know contingent on on some date of getting that analysis done or or having them basically moving it

1:14:41into a three-step process an assessment of building permit submission and then completion of the task I think that that would allow some of the building owners to really understand their choices and potentially their building permit would not be the same as what

1:14:57they're analyzing under their engineering report I I have a question um is it the building owner or the business owner the building owner property owner property owner that would be required to do this Ely responsible yes okay so you know along the lines of the discussion I've

1:15:19just heard I I support completely supporting uh property owners in securing Financial wherewithal to complete the retrofit I'm just concerned about creating another step for those business those property owners who may be in a position today to take this project on and move forward

1:15:40and so these folks and Mr ashinsky if you could tell us the date that these businesses have been notified because I believe it's been at least 10 years and they have not done the responsible thing of correcting the Hazardous situation on their property so although I am

1:15:58sensitive to the economics of it I don't want to create this long drawn out step for those folks who are in a position to do the right thing and who have not yet done that I'm not sure that I have the exact notification date Brian I don't know if you do I know this provision has

1:16:14been in the ordinance for some time and the list was done 7 years ago or more well the the original uh urm building identification was in the early '90s around 1992 and that's kind of the irony of the whole event is that since 1992 most cities most counties within

1:16:36the state have only achieved uh compliance in about 10% of the buildings and so it's pretty sad and and that's why we're trying to move forward and mitigate the problem before it becomes a disaster uh and we end up losing life and losing business well I also would

1:16:53like to add that ELO is fortunate cuz 24 buildings in a t city of this size is a relatively manageable number and if you think of o Downtown Oakland and downtown San Francisco and I know Sebastapol had a program they started 20 years ago where they pulled by Lottery random

1:17:12addresses and required that in that year those people who had their name and they had planned that it would take 20 years to do it and they did it so we have a reasonably manageable problem and I think that we need to move forward to address it so I'm hearing pretty clearly that we're interested in

1:17:33providing uh support for um those property owners who may have trouble financing this requirement and that we're looking at a hardship provision and possibly some extensions in time I was uh I was very impressed with the incentive ideas that were outlined in the staff report and now that's the next

1:17:53item to discuss I did have one question about whether there was any problem providing um permit fee payment and other Financial incentives through the Redevelopment Agency for addresses that may not be located in the project area where that I think Sky's can there's only uh there's only uh I think

1:18:16two or three that are outside so we can come back with further information I know that Redevelopment can expend funds outside of the Redevelopment area in certain cases and we'll go back and research that and come back with an answer unless sky has the answer no I

1:18:31was pretty much going to give the same answer I know um the agency council is here tonight I don't know if she knows the answer off top of her head but I was just going to suggest that uh we uh come back with that because uh there are circumstances under which it can be done

1:18:43but I don't want to uh speak to that without a little bit more certainty yeah and well then I just we'll certainly research that would would you'd like to make a comment okay so I was going to suggest that maybe council members could make any comments on the incentives that are

1:19:01outlined in the staff report and then um and then to include as part of the next step to investigate the uh feasibility of using Redevelopment agency funding for addresses outside the area I I'd like to speak to the one of the reasons why I asked how much we've already

1:19:20invested uh in in um analyzing the urms uh $888,000 contract um to to get us to this point um at $950 a a h facility or a building we're talking about less than $50,000 um to provide an incentive to um Carry This home so to me that that's something that um is in keeping with the

1:19:49what level investment we've put into this already so you know that incentive is is great and and frankly the reason I was asking about if there's an interim deliverable uh that we could try and encourage is potentially uh consider that as part of an also an incentive um

1:20:06in some fashion because it is I think it's critical for us to understand the real problem and and getting the property owner to understand what their their obligations are um so they can make informed decisions but at this point the the current Redevelopment Inc

1:20:24the current incentive is well within keeping of what level of investment we've put in so far any other comments on that on the on the incentives outlined in the staff report I'd just like to see what staff U outline I don't the only other thing I could think of is

1:20:48um is staff may approach some of the financial institut utions we have locally to see if they either have a current program or would consider a friendly a business friendly program that people could tap into um certainly it would certainly help their press at least some of our

1:21:10financial institutions to to go locally thanks okay so given the comments that you've heard tonight um do you still feel that the June 20 9 deadline would be realistic yes are there any comments regarding that yeah I do I just want to make sure that we have uh Reach Out public

1:21:32meetings on this with the business owners and people in and I'd like it to go before the uh Planning Commission to see hear their recommendations so there has been a number of public workshops and extensive Outreach through the chamber and other groups um I'm not clear what decision

1:21:50point the Planning Commission would be looking at or whether it would be an information item well this we have a formal ordinance that will be coming before us I think they could comment on that typically um I think this ordinance would not be in the in the zoning code

1:22:08as we were thinking the planning commission's purview on ordinance typically are zoning ordinances I I was just looking for the pro a proper uh committee or or commission to take a look at us and give us their opinion before it comes to us even though they wouldn't have a formal role because it's

1:22:26not a zoning ordinance they certainly could give input on that if you'd like sure okay what about the economic development board also well I think there's been some Outreach to the um EDB but Dwayne you want to comment on that uh I mean we've had discussions with the EDB throughout the process

1:22:45about um the program and and and how we're going about it and and we have had the Outreach to the business Community um throughout the last couple of years um so the EDB is very aware of of this kind of program but they haven't seen the ordinance see that the guts to make

1:23:02this thing happen is in the ordinance and I know they're not going to be happy nobody's going to stand up and say I want to spend $50,000 on my bu building in a year but at least they can we'll have a uh a chance to explain the program why we have to do it state

1:23:17regulations and if you've done it before we'll do it one more time before uh it comes to council well I think that would help us too it'll give us uh some dry runs and to get some input to help sharpen up the ordinance before it comes back to council great so you want to

1:23:33work that into the schedule uh for presenting to to the Planning Commission into the EDB and then as um close to that June 2009 we'll have an opportunity to review a draft ordinance yes okay that would be terrific okay thank you um I think we were going to go on to the

1:23:52soft story seismic Hazard just to in closing talk about what's next after uh the seismic hazards with the urms and and uh that we've talked about tonight soft stories and soft stories as I think we had stated earlier traditionally we're finding most of those in uh multif

1:24:10family residential buildings uh two photographs up on the on the screen there illustrate when you have uh a bank of carports or garages at ground floor then with structure above them uh they don't have solid walls on that at least one elevation and so that creates a soft story situation and so

1:24:31then the next slide shows the photo on the left is I believe the Northridge Earthquake as a result and then the illustration on the right shows what happens when an earthquake and gravity meet and then we have the collapse of the soft story and then the next um slide is that what we're planning to

1:24:54do with the soft stories is we need to identify those buildings and create a list for those just like we did with the urms and we have started the field survey on that this month uh we'll be conducting Outreach meetings with the property owners once we identify the

1:25:10buildings just as we did with the uh urm list uh then we'll come back to council report on our findings uh and then we would move into preparing a retrofit ordinance and I think uh what we learn from this first ordinance we're going to come to you with will uh prepare us to

1:25:27frame the second ordinance along very similar lines um and that would uh include uh a program to actually require the retrofitting and then we would do implementation of that U along a similar uh schedule that perhaps that we come up with for this first ordinance and

1:25:45depending upon the economic uh conditions of time as well so we'd like to thank you that concludes our present presentation and we'd be happy to address any other questions you might have said yes um I'm really interested in this particular topic I went to a program a while

1:26:02back um I actually can't remember who put it on but it was um held in the city of Oakland um building and there were um different um public agencies from around the Bay Area there and they talked about having some um plans that could be used in Flatland there were sort of generic plans that

1:26:24could be almost used anywhere and um I'm wondering if we could if somebody could look into that and um get information there one of the one of the good things about that discussion was it looked like that the cost of the retrofitting of soft construction uh could greatly be reduced

1:26:45by the use of this concept that they were talking about I think that's a really good point and in fact our discussions with our structural ER have pointed in the same direction that with the soft stories uh generally it's a more limited solution than with the urms

1:27:00where you have a number of issues that you have to resolve with the soft stories it's really reinforcing that opening so it typically is a simpler operation yeah and and which is important because it's my understanding that the quantity of buildings that might have this uh problem is much

1:27:18larger it might be um I'm not really positive but um we do have a lot of Apartments um near the BART tracks in particular so I want to thank you very much for the presentation the combination of your expertise in planning building and economic considerations really provides us with a

1:27:38comprehensive look at the issue so we look forward to your return your rapid return thank you thanks okay we're now going to move on to item five the consent calendar where we will be considering items 5 a a through 5D permission to withdraw 5B 5B um any objections to a

1:28:00drawing okay we'll take up item item 5 b separately move to approve uh uh consent calar consisting of five a b and c second a c and d a c and d sorry did you say you were going to remove item 5 b Bo okay can redo the yes I'll thank you move to uh approv consent

1:28:27calendar consisting of items 5 a c d second all in favor I I opposed uh the motion carries unanimously and now we will now consider items 5B and ask Mr Lyman for a report sure I woke up this morning to what I believe is a rebroadcast of the 60s minutes uh article with Alice Waters and uh she was

1:28:52talking about uh growing local and local food and this particular location if no one's been to it is fairly level and and potentially would be a great location I know that uh city of San Francisco had a what they called a victory garden and what I would like to try and um

1:29:07potentially proposes a liberty Garden um to Pro try and promote some location within the city that where we could have a liberty garden and this might be one of those locations and that's really all I wanted to say about this well Mr Lyman since that's not on the agenda I appreciate the comments and

1:29:23now we will consider approval of the certificate acceptance for the navali or Reservoir property so moved second all in favor I I opposed so that motion carries and I appreciate the comments item uh six is a public hearing on the appeal of a Planning Commission

1:29:45decision and um we have a procedure for the public hearing ing which I would like to describe today we're going to hear testimony regarding appeal of a Planning Commission decision denying a use permit to exceed the allowable square footage of a second unit in the RS5 single

1:30:07family residential zoning District at 782 Pomona Avenue um the way that the evening's proceedings is going to occur is that um I will request a report from staff and following the presentation we will hear about approximately 10-minute presentation from the applicant and at the conclusion

1:30:27of the presentation we will hear from all the speakers that are here tonight wishing to speak and if you would like to speak on this item make sure you fill out a speaker card and hand it to the city clerk speakers will be limited to 3 minutes although you don't have to take

1:30:41up all that time and if someone has spoken before you and you agree with their comments you can just indicate that after everyone's had the opportunity to speak at the public hearing I will seek a motion to close the hearing so with that I'll ask for a presentation from

1:31:00staff good evening mayor uh Potter and members of the council my name is Noel ebalo I'm with the planning division uh just to give you a brief uh background on the existing house in 200000 um the owners received a building permit to demolish and construct um a house on the site the new house is uh is

1:31:283,800 Square ft in size it's a three-story home U the house took about 2 years to build and in 2000 the uh original owners were issued a certificate of occupancy for the house um in 2007 the house uh the C current owner purchased the the house from the original owner with the

1:31:57intent of having a multi-generational family living Under One Roof with the daughter and the um fiance and the parent living all under the living all within the house the uh in late 2000 um and 8 their agent submitted a plan to the city to convert the Second Story into a living unit a

1:32:26second secondary unit the square footage far exceeded what was required by the state and the city so we worked with the applicant to reduce the square footage to what is currently proposed before you 986 Square ft uh the requirement for the uh reduction um required a use permit through the

1:32:55Planning Commission which we brought to them on January 21st of this year the Commissioners considered staff's presentation they considered the agent's presentation of the proposal and also considered comments from the neighbors the neighbors basically spoke in

1:33:18opposition of the uh use permit and in deliberating the case the Planning Commission determined that the secondary unit seemed too large for one person to live in that um the common spaces um mixed with the private spaces which made an awkward floor plan for the

1:33:45entire house that there was potential for additional units also to be added added within the current house and finally that reducing the size of the second unit to 750 square ft it would be a permitted use without the benefit of a a use permit um so as a result the commission denied the uh use

1:34:13permit now since that meeting in January the uh owners have appealed this the case because they felt that the agent really didn't didn't adequately represent their needs and their intention for the house so upon further discussions with the owner the it was expressed the staff

1:34:38that um the additional square footage was for an ailen parent um who is in a wheelchair and they basically needed the square footage additional square footage for the unit also for for maneuvering area for the wheelchair and also uh they were also proposing a livein caregiver um to take

1:35:02care of the parent now the neighbors have expressed that the house is too large and should not allow for the second unit that the owners will turn uh will turn it into an apartment and however the the essence of this use permit from a planning and land use standpoint is that

1:35:26one will the additional 20 36 square ft impact the neighborhood as well as the neighbors two is the larger unit consistent with the residential character of the neighborhood three will the 200 extra 236 Square ft change the intended use of the house and the Zone which is which it

1:35:56is located in staff believes that the additional square footage will not impact the neighborhood and will not alter the single family intent of the structure as it was built staff has made the finding that um the addition is within the existing footprint of the building

1:36:22the driveway is over 30 ft so it it can accommodate onsite parking for the additional um secondary unit that the use of the secondary unit accomplishes the state's goal in providing additional housing um and it also is consistent with the city's General plan and zoning

1:36:42ordinance this includes staff's um presentation staff recommends that the council approve the attached resolution approving the the appeal and granting the use permit based on the findings uh outlined in the resolution so that concludes staff's presentation and the applicant is here

1:37:03um to answer any questions you may also have before the applicant presentation I'm wondering if there's any questions from the Council of Staff yeah I want to be clear in the uh staff report that there was information that is in the staff report presented by the applicant that was was n available

1:37:22to the Planning Commission at the time they made the decision correct through through the mayor yes that is correct um there there were two specific items that were not conveyed at the Planning Commission that the parent is in need of a wheelchair to get around the the apartment that was

1:37:44not conveyed to the uh to the Planning Commission and that also live in take uh caregiver is going to be living with the uh with the parent that was not conveyed to the um Planning Commission thank you any other questions okay thank you very much thank you um next we'll hear

1:38:08from Miss Swang representing the appellant and you have 10 minutes thank you um good evening Madame mayor and the city council of elero um my name is Tammy Wong and I am the daughter and Main caregiver for my mother Pearl long and her trust owns 782 Pomona Avenue I along with my mother

1:38:36will be living with my fiance haime orun in the elero home as soon as all Renovations are completed for her in-law accessory unit to make it fully handicap accessible my mother had a stroke several years ago and is H plgic she has paralysis through the left side of her

1:38:54body and requires a wheelchair to move around safely in her home we are requesting that the council allow our family to make her in-law accessory unit larger than the recommended size of 750 ft to 986 Square ft with this additional square footage Pearl will be able to

1:39:14have the following amenities number one an ADA wheelchair accessible bathroom number two two a sitting room that can accommodate a hired caregiver when I am unable to take care of her due to work or school number three um several 5ft diameter turning circles on both sides

1:39:33of every door as is recommended by the Americans with Disabilities Act for people in wheelchairs um number four 42in wide hallways and clear space for safe wheelchair accessibility number five multiple circular traffic p pattern so that a wheelchair user can move easily Around

1:39:54furniture and in between rooms in the unit um it's easier for a wheelchair user to move in a circle than moving backwards and forwards in a straight line so that's why we want to include that um number six would be clear floor space in front of all windows in the

1:40:10unit that will allow a wheelchair user to roll up and access them easily and open them easily and safely um all of these amenities um I wanted to also add um the clear floor SP floor space will allow us to have enough room for my mother's furniture without having to place Furniture below windows

1:40:32or taking up valuable space for the wider hallways and turnaround spaces for the wheelchair each of these handicap related amenities requires a specific amount of square footage Peong requires assistance from a caregiver for her activities of daily living and she

1:40:48requires the extra space to meet this and and all of her other disability needs each of the described amenities has a strong safety and health justification for the inclusion in the renovation our goal is to make as much of the house wheelchair accessible and to do so with minimal construction and

1:41:07no disruption to the neighborhood if the city council of of el Sero grants our request for the 986t accessory unit we will be able to leave the existing house intact um through smart space planning and moving one interior wall we will be able to have a safe handicap accessible unit

1:41:28for my mother to live in and maintain her independence I want to thank you mayor Sandy Potter and the city council of Aliso for your decision on this matter concerning my mother's rights as a disabled person a property owner a taxpayer and a resident of the city of

1:41:45elero please do not let the misinformed opinions and rumors spread by Neighbors to affect our real need to make a home for my mother that is safe comfortable and conforms to the recommended guidelines of the Americans with Disabilities Act thank you thank you are

1:42:02there any questions from the Council of the applicant I I have some but go ahead um yes hi thanks for your presentation uh just a few questions here you had indicated in your letter that you couldn't make it to the Planning Commission meeting so you had a representative and the representative

1:42:30did not mention the handicap um accessibility uh did you think about asking for a postponement of that meeting so that you could attend uh you know honestly no I didn't because I didn't realize there was so many so much opposition in the neighborhood um no one had contacted us or tried to make a like

1:42:54a good faith effort to talk with us I think well actually I think our two adjacent neighbors talked with my fiance CU my fiance lives at the house right now my mother can't live there obviously because there aren't any you know the the bathroom and accessibility um

1:43:08construction hasn't been done and so he spoke with um Don Baker and our other neighbor Jeff Nal n I'm not sure how to pronounce his name and he had discussed the project explained Our intention that my mother is in a wheelchair and we're trying to make a portion of the house

1:43:27accessible for her as a wheelchair User it's not about renting out the unit it's not about some you know misguided desire to make it into some sort of apartment building we have no association or history with that I don't know what happened with the previous neighbors or

1:43:42the previous owners and so that were those were the only two people that asked us about it and then the other neighbors in the neighborhood uh no one ever approached us as far as I know okay uh on the plans that list James Wong as the owner you explain that that Pearl is

1:43:59really the owner does does uh Mr Wong have power of attorney yes he does okay that was um just our our agent didn't understand how the property was owned my my brother James Wong is the power of attorney and um manages my mother's trust so technically it's Pearl C Wong revocable

1:44:21trust owns the house okay so is he overseeing this contract or are you overseeing it with your mother he's overseeing that okay um on the plans that you submitted to the Planning Commission it shows a kitchen a proposed kitchen on the third floor mhm you stated though that there's

1:44:43only going to be one kitchen I I didn't there is one existing kitchen now because it's a single family home right it has one kitchen but if we create an accessibility unit that unit will have a kitchen and then there will be a kitchen for the rest of the house okay is there

1:45:00a reason why your proposed unit on the if if the unit on the second floor that is going to be your mother's unit is not the main kitchen but there's going to be another kitchen on the third floor why does your mother's unit need a kitchen well us typically inlaw units or

1:45:21accessibility units they are a functioning apartment right so functioning Apartments have a bathroom a kitchen and living space right so my mother does I would want her to try and cook a little bit and if we need to hire a caregiver the caregiver one of their duties would to be help her cooking

1:45:42meals and perhaps like making her meals for her so the goal is to have this unit it's independent of the house and it kind of Fosters encourages her independence and her ability to try and practice her ADLs and you know cook and maintain some sort of normal you know

1:46:00semblance in her life okay so uh go back if I could go back to my original question is there going to be one or two kitchens in this there will be two kitchens there will be two kitchens I think that's standard though if someone is going to have an accessory unit

1:46:15everyone in the city of elero can have an accessory unit up to 700 50 sare ft all accessory units in order for it to be considered like an apartment or in-law apartment to satisfy the city's desire to increase housing stock in the city they would require a kitchen a

1:46:32kitchen is like a n natural part of that definition oh I know that but it's not required oh okay okay okay um let me see here live in uh the care you you stated in your letter that it you're the caregiver and then there may a Livin caregiver that's not in I mean we don't

1:46:54plan on having a Livin caregiver it's just a person who when I'm not able to take care of my mom right we can hire someone that can stay with her and that's what we'd like to do because my mom likes to maintain her privacy and she doesn't really want an in-law I mean

1:47:11a caregiver living with her okay you kind of answered I I was going to ask if you had formal plans for that and if it was a family member but doesn't sound like it correct maybe in the future if her if her health changes it's open to that possibility but for now we'd rather

1:47:29not have a a livein caregiver okay thank you very much okay m j any other questions um no I don't council member Jones uh asked the question that I'm going to ask but I'm going to ask it in a different way um why are you seeking an accessory unit when you can accomplish 9/10 of uh your

1:47:53mother's desires to to live independently in an accessible unit without necessarily putting in it putting a full kitchen in on the second floor in other words you could downgrade some of the kitchen units and potentially uh avoid this altogether so why are you seeking an accessory unit

1:48:14well that's not the the reason why we're trying to because of the natural layout of the house we're trying to minimize construction costs and the easiest way and the quickest way to turn that portion of the house into an in-law unit is to keep the kitchen as it as is

1:48:33and not do anything to it and my mom we would like my fiance and I would like to have our own kitchen and we'd rather not have to go into her unit and cook in there because she doesn't she likes to have her own space and she'd rather have us have our own kitchen we can kind

1:48:53of maintain a separateness and she has the convenience of accessing a kitchen but she doesn't have to um you know cook in there and deal with someone cooking in there every day I understand that um staff I what what is if if there were some uh utilities taken out of the

1:49:13kitchen what would the minimum amount of uh utilities or or uh appliances to be removed from the second floor kitchen that would render the second floor space not an auxiliary unit typically um a second unit provides cooking and bathing facilities if we get down to the specific appliances if you

1:49:36remove the stove um that would probably be enough to say it wasn't a full kitchen but it gets to the intent of how that space is going to be used so at any cooking facility we could judge as a kitchen so it's sort of it's a fine line as to what you would pull out so it

1:49:56wouldn't meet that definition anymore so I I have the same concern about the kitchen because it is the kitchen that requires this use permit and this entire remodel could have gone forward as a matter of right with as a remodel without any additional approvals so when I look at the plan I'm curious

1:50:16about the storage indicated on the first floor is that that a livable space with the bathroom um technically let me get to that put up that graphic um that space does not have a accessible window so technically it would not be allowed to be um it's not habitable

1:50:39under our building code rules um and if you know it was found that someone was living in there that would be a violation of the building code and we would in Institute um code enforcement proceedings on that and that is part of the square footage of the house that's a

1:50:55part of the overall square footage of the house yes and that was approved under relatively recent building codes is that still the building code that you can build that large of a room and it not be habitable correct interesting habitable means for sleeping yes

1:51:15okay okay so um thank you very much for the presentation do have one more question though on the second floor there is approximately 600 square ft of space that is appears to be not going to be used for anything what what are your plans for that uh space that's in front

1:51:34of your mother's unit um we were we were thinking of putting a laundry room there so that she could a have access to a laundry room on the same floor as her living area but we'd be more than willing to eliminate that and just leave the space as it is which is a living

1:51:52room and a dining room okay thank you so the new kitchen is going on the third floor but the dining room's on the second floor correct okay um thank you we're now going to open it up to public comment and just wanted to say that I understand this has um been a long and involved

1:52:24process and that that there's history at the site so I'm going to ask what I ask of everyone but just to remind everyone to make every effort to make your testimony substantiated by fact and we are open to hear um all of your concerns so with that if we could have the first

1:52:40Speaker Elaine Baker Madam mayor council members um the history is the issue here this house was truly conceived created and used as a multif family residence from the day it was built there were two families of five people each living in that house and the city had either not the interest

1:53:16or the resources to put a stop to it it makes us very nervous to see something that appears to be a replication of what's already happened thank [Music] you C could I just ask if we have reports of that type of behavior at this property if I may through the mayor know

1:53:41we I staff checked the uh Records for that site there was no code enforcement um cases regarding um illegal uses or illegal units in the prop on the property no record of complaints inquiries none okay next speaker Jam or hi my name is hun I'm the fiance of Tammy

1:54:09Wong and um first I'd like to respond to the previous comment um which is all opinion and really has nothing to do with us because we are not the previous owners it really has nothing to do with us and if these people had such a problem with the previous owners why did

1:54:27they not complain there is no history of code enforcement no complaints to the city whatsoever except against us and um I also wanted to um talk a little bit about the planning of the space and why it is so large is basically because of the house the way it was built um I did

1:54:45submit a diagram which showed the square footage uses and it shows um that basically we have three long hallways that go from one wall to the other if we were going to design a space for our current situation it would be completely different and it would be 750 sare ft

1:55:03but because of the current conditions um which include two Shear walls which are not alterable fin for financial reasons and structural reasons we have the the wall between the hallway and the kitchen and we have the the hall the walls between the living the sleeping spaces

1:55:20and the hallway plus a lot of Windows um and that really is where most of the square footage is being taken um also the fact that it was said that we were going to have a living caregiver that is not true our intent only is to have a caregiver during the day when we are not able to take care of

1:55:42her during the day because of work in school also the basement is not habitable it would be completely illegal for anyone to live down there um I am currently working on my architectural license so I take building codes very seriously and we are more than insulted

1:56:00that these people are in basically calling us criminals saying that we are criminals and that Our intention is breaking the law that is not true at all it was offensive and insulting and most of these complaints are based on fear suspicion distrust and in my opinion

1:56:16these people believe that the majority of people are bad and I believe the majority of people are good so um that's all I have to say thank you thank you Ed I think there was a lot of opinion in that last statement um I may run over so I may use my partner's minutes as well uh good

1:56:47evening I'm a neighbor who lives in the 700 block of Pomona I was also someone who spoke in opposition to the variance for 7A Pomona at the planning meeting a few weeks ago I'm grateful that the Planning Commission unanimously denied the use permit though I'm perplexed that the

1:57:05letters and emails opposing the variance were never read into the minutes of the meeting and hope the letters and emails that you have received will be read here tonight it is clear that even though the planning code stat what the city's goal and bylaws are for our neighborhood's

1:57:23designation of RS5 that the city originally violated its own code in allowing this house to be constructed the code States quote to promote and protect single family neighborhoods at a base density of up to 10 dwelling units per net acre and to minimize the out of scale appearance of

1:57:45large homes and development relative to their lot size and slope and relative to adjacent homes in the neighborhoods the variance to create a unit in the building that is already in violation of the city codes and that 3800 Square ft is 2 to three times the size of the average home in the

1:58:06neighborhood is completely unacceptable our city planners completely let us down in allowing this Tran horse of a house to be built in the first place and I strongly urge the council to with the neighborhood and not compounding this mistake by allowing a unit to be subdivided inside this

1:58:25monster house that alone at almost 1,000 square ft would be larger than some of the neighborhood neighboring homes this would also set a terrible precedent we are aware that they could create a 7 square 50t square unit without getting a variant and would urge the owner to take

1:58:45that course as opposed to to the rendition given by the planning uh commission's representative here the planning commission's unanimous decision was based on the fact that since 782 pona had been purchased by the new owners the James L Wong Trust of Elkgrove and not

1:59:07um any other name not Peong approximately two years ago and since the owners are not and have never been in Residence that there is great cause and concern to ask many more and deeper questions as to the real intent of the variance and the future use of this home

1:59:28especially given the checkered history of 782s illegal use as a rooming house with as many as 10 people living there and I am not accusing the Ws of criminal activity I'm saying that this house is a perfect setup for illegal use and that unlike what the planning uh

1:59:50person said the main objection was that um was that they that the owners were not in Residence and they've owned it for 2 years and the planner said that the application for a variance shouldn't even be before them for decision since the owners were not in Residence and

2:00:13that at some point when they were in Residence they could reapply and I'm afraid that he left that out also the planners caution that the variants would travel forward with the house even after sale and that was also cause caused for uh caution and concern we as a closely net neighborhood

2:00:34with at least a dozen children under the age of 10 are already being asked to absorb the traffic of a new high school of, 1600 students as well as potentially absorb the traffic from the 600 ptoa Middle School school students being placed in trailers at the high

2:00:52school we feel that additional construction as well as the deeper questions that must be asked about the true intent of this house um makes us hope that the council will not approve this variance um I ask that the council deny this variance appeal and side with

2:01:13the residents in compliance with the neighborhood zoning of single residents and the ruling of the Planning Commission and to provide the neighborhood with some guarantee or means to monitor the usage of 782 Pomona also I would like any letters and emails that youve receiv received to be read

2:01:31into the minutes of this meeting and I have one additional question since the legal owner of the house is the James L Juan trust does that mean by the letter of the law who must live in the house to fulfill the letter of the law regarding in-law units is it James El Wong or is

2:01:54it Tammy Wong and I really would like an answer on that thank you very much thank you um I think there were two questions there sky are you able to comment on the first one that was just asked the first one being about who may who may live in the house as the owner

2:02:16of it if it's owned by a trust I think perhaps a clarifying statement which is my understanding that with an in-law unit um the in-law part of the unit can only be occupied by um someone who is being it is being rented to by a person who's living in the primary residence

2:02:34the owner yeah the the owner must occupy one of the two units if there's a if there's a legal second unit um if it's owned by a trust I actually don't know I I would I would actually need to look that up I've never actually looked at that question before um so first we need

2:02:49to identify who the ACT which trust actually owns it since it appears that there's some dispute in the record and then we need to figure out um who um May lawfully occupy the unit um to satisfy the requirements of the second unit ordinance um if it's owned by a trust

2:03:06okay thank you and I also wanted to clarify that all the letters that we've received on this item from the Planning Commission until this meeting are part of the administrative record for this case and there's not need to read them into the record but to note that they're

2:03:21now part of the record that's correct okay thank you next speaker Ken kenberg I'm Ken oh thank you Jeff nollie hello mayor council members uh my name is Jeff N I live at [address removed] and I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight I'm grateful to be able to participate in

2:03:52this Democratic process I don't know the owners Tammy and James or Pearl Wong I understand and believe that they are trying to create a comfortable place for Pearl to live I'm touched by these values and I support these efforts to take care of pearl keeping her close to

2:04:09the family as she ages with that said I don't believe granting the use permit would be good for the neighborhood I'm worried about the use of the unit when Pearl is no longer lives there the use permit runs with the property the owner could sell the house and the next owner may have completely

2:04:26different intent the fact that the current owners don't plan to rent the units doesn't mean that subsequent owners uh won't Veronica R represented the owners at the January Planning Commission meeting and said quote I'm not sure what will happen to the house if they will be able to move in there

2:04:43unquote she also said quote the house might be put back on the market market and then again you never know what's going to happen unquote what could happen is it turns into a duplex with one mailbox the in-law unit has a permit condition that owners live in the

2:05:02building however the Planning Commission stated during the original hearing quote there is no enforcement of deed restriction that the owner must leave live on the property my personal experiences with the elero code enforcement is uninspiring at best I've lived at 776

2:05:22Pomona for 10 years I chose the neighborhood because it's quiet easy residential character and medium and small houses single family residences in 2002 782 Pomona was constructed and within a few years the house had been subdivided into at least two units the kitchen installed on the

2:05:42third floor and multiple families live there in the summer of 2005 I notified the LC toito building department by telephone about the second kitchen and I never heard back in the spring of 2006 the owners excavated along the side of the house and created a doorway to the

2:06:00bottom floor of the three- storage structure I notified the Elso building department by telephone about this work because I was worried that this was going to become more rental space the bottom floor is designated a storage room however it is full ceiling height

2:06:16windowed and has this door put in apparently neither complaint can be found on City records and I don't know if they were ever looked into this neighborhood was disrupted by the transitory nature of 782 Pomona renters we are a community of people invested in the neighborhood a duplex is

2:06:37disruptive to this I would like to repeat that uh it is not the current owners uh I would like to repeat that it is not the current owners in an alien mother that I object to on the contrary I'm touched by their idea of multi-generational family living together here's what I propose give the

2:06:59Wongs what they need the conditional use permit give the neighborhood what it needs a sunset clause on the separate entrance dividing the first and second floor that creates a duplex when Pearl is no longer living there go back to the single family residence structure one entrance for

2:07:17both floors and no duplex support this neighborhood and its desire to stay a single family household Community thank you thank you James H H mayor and members of the city council thank you for allowing me to speak my name is James Wong I'm the son of pearl Wong who is the owner of the

2:07:44Jack Wong and pearl Wong revocable trust of which the I I am the trustee uh Jack Wong my father died over a year ago um and my mother's excuse me the sole owner of the trust currently um this appeal for a use permit from my viewpoint is simply about a handicapped senior citizen who would

2:08:06like to modify her bathroom and bedroom to be ADA Compliant and some neighbors seem to have a problem with that due to the past history associated with the property and they have uh indicted the current owners my mother uh with that past history uh would like to appeal to the mayor and

2:08:28the council to uh perade upon innocent before guilty or I'm sure you know what I'm trying to talk about but the the neighbors seem to have a problem with the past uh owner and please don't let it carry forward to the new owners thank you thank you thank you and by the way I have a property uh

2:08:53I have the property tax reer and it is listed in the Jack Wong and pearl C Wong Trust of which I'm a trustee so previous speakers don't seem to have gotten their facts correct in that and many other aspects thank you thank you I have no other speaker slips is there a motion to

2:09:11close the hearing don't move I'd like to put a question to the commission that would be uh this is a count city council and when you're done with your question can you please F speaker slip I shall do so okay Planning Commission representative I have a question for is

2:09:29there you changed your recommendation so um this is the planning staff the Planning Commission had already taken up and made a decision and it's come before this Council now to re-evaluate that decision um if you have a public comment on the ad then can you state your name

2:09:46and we'll hear that my name is Brent Bullard I'm okay owner at [address removed] thanks is there any ADA compliance that cannot be met with the 750 square unit space that's something that the council will be discussing in our deliberations do you have other concerns just as to

2:10:12why the recommendation was changed by the Planning Commission the Planning Commission made a decision and it's the uh recommendations of the planning staff that have been presented in the staff report I hope you were able to get a copy of that it was posted on the web

2:10:32and so now it comes on appeal to the city council and so we are now um after closing the hearing going to go into deliberations and hopefully reach a decision thank you okay so there was a motion to close the public Hearing in a second all in favor I oppos motion carries

2:10:55unanimously oh and then are there closing comments from Miss Wong okay thank you okay so now we're going to have discussion but I just want to start off by saying that um we've heard a number of opinions about the existing house and unfortunately we're not able to re-evaluate the

2:11:25construction of the house that was built under the the zoning ordinance of the time and it's already been approved um the use permit that we're considering today doesn't include any change in the footprint of the building it's not a variance it's a use permit and furthermore we cannot

2:11:47evaluate claims of alleged legal uses um from previous property owners and we certainly can't really discuss or have any insight into true intent but what I can say is that this application is not for a duplex use and an accessory living unit is different than a duplex under our

2:12:09zoning so what we're looking at is in a single family residential neighborhood the construction of an in-law unit in accordance with the provision of state law and a requests to make that in-law unit larger than what's allowed under our zoning so with those guidelines um

2:12:26I'd like to open it up to discussion from the council may I ask a question about the this addition during testimony we had testify Jeff n testified that there was an additional stairwell put into the lower uh space I'm just curious if that was something that was permitted and or

2:12:48is permittable um for that for that space I'm not I'm not sure what the lower stairwell let's see um let me pull it's it's go no there's a stairwell it's showing on this on the upper image here there's a stairwell on the south the north side of the house or the South side of the house if

2:13:14if True North is there on the south side of the house there's a set of stairs that goes down to the storage space um that would be allowed um normally under the building code I I don't know if this was I I don't have the building permit plans in front of me but we could definitely check into that

2:13:32and get back to whether or not it was permitted but it would be permittable is is was my question thank you um well the the basic problem here is the house the house is quite large and by other parts of our County may be to scale but um in this neighborhood it's

2:13:53it potentially was um too large but that's um was for comment in 1999 or 98 when it was getting its permit and uh it is constructed however it's the basis of the problem because of its large spaces its large rooms which is a very common desirable space um in modern

2:14:16construction at it gets divided into a livable unit that livable unit is going to be oversized because the whole house is oversized um whether or not we Grant this use permit is clearly not the issue because past practices have demonstrated that whether there's a use permit issue or

2:14:38not there's going to be a potential for misuse of this of this property so you know past practices um already have demonstrated that the use permit is can be flaunted and and disregarded so that's not a good enough reason not to to issu the use permit since this is

2:14:57new owners um with new intent and new commitments uh the current intent is has been well stated um and 750 ft is large enough for a two-bedroom uh apartment so they're not going to have more users whether that's 1,000 square ft or 750 square ft so uh those are those are my comments at

2:15:22this point Miss Aon um I guess the I have a question about the door that was referred to by one of the um speakers about a door being added do you have any comment on that um the door to the basement floor um the bottom floor I'm not sure if it's yeah I I can't comment on that um I

2:15:46would have to go through back through the building permit history the access to this um accessory unit is through the what level there's an exterior door and there's a door from the first floor up that in this particular case the there is a stair lift on the interior stairs

2:16:06so um the appellant's mother would be able to access it internally through the house however it's constructed to be accessed externally so if in the future it is occupied by another individual that would be their access point as externally as required by the code okay

2:16:24okay but but the way you would get into this um unit via a wheelchair would be via the the chair left yes the the chair left the chair leftt okay and um I guess when I'm looking at this um I'm I'm actually somehow not seeing a whole lot of room because I keep look

2:16:46seeing those circles for turning around and having had a little bit of experience with that myself um I do recognize the need for for space uh and what happens when you don't have enough space um and can't turn around so um that seems really clear to me um the uh so it looks like

2:17:09this unit would have a kitchen um a bedroom a sitting room and a living room and a um bathroom did I get that right okay so this is sort of um a um that's sort of a normal room space for um a person I would in an accessory unit is that true that's that's correct the mayor this is

2:17:36a typical layout for secondary units that we see added to homes okay um likewise there are no external the the exterior walls are not being altered so this is the existing space so this is the space that it would be and I'm not even quite figuring out how if they were

2:17:58to make it smaller how they would do that it would be a Readjustment um possibly the removal of um the uh the one bedroom um there there kind of two spaces now that could be considered bedroom so one Space Room the sitting room yes sitting room um but how do you

2:18:23remove a space that already exist you can shift the walls um so that it's in internally it's just here there's a space next to or there's a wall next to the bathroom there that could be shifted over so that um the bathroom would have to to be relocated so you there's a way to

2:18:46redesign it internally so that you're reducing the space so you would make the bathroom larger is you're say what you're saying I mean the space has got to be somewhere right right essentially the wall that is right here um they would basically make this bathroom area

2:19:05they'd move it over here into what is currently the bedroom and they would make the sitting room into the bedroom so it just make the the remaining rooms larger no they'd actually carve out more a a space out of this accessory unit in this area and add it back to the main

2:19:25structure there are share walls here which for the purposes of construction is difficult to do um to add that space back into the principal structure which is primarily why they're coming forward with a unit of this size it's just easier to construct okay so why they're asking for the excep less

2:19:44less expensive yes and then there's the need for um more maneuverability space for more maneuverability because of the wheelchair okay thank you other questions questions I have a comment because without knowing the answer to the legal question regarding the resident do you have an update well um I

2:20:10I inquired from some of my colleagues um no I haven't received a firm answer yet but best guess so far is that probably any named beneficiary of the trust could occupy the property as the owner satisfying that requirement um that it be OCC that at least one of the two

2:20:26units be occupied by the owner but what I should have stated earlier to clarify is that that it doesn't really matter I think for tonight's consideration because that would be an issue of occupancy in other words what's in front of you tonight is whether or not to

2:20:41Grant the cup to allow for the creation of the second unit at the time that that unit is created then the the requirement would be in place that one unit be occupied by an owner but we wouldn't have to figure out tonight who that would be okay well it's of interest

2:20:56because many of the arguments that we've heard tonight are specifically um tailored to this particular family but I just wanted to also go back and say um that the in-law unit is allowed for and required by state law and I support diversification of our housing options in elero and our zoning

2:21:19and our general plan allows for the creation of the 750 square foot in-law unit so what we're considering now whether for this owner or a future owner is whether the increase in square footage will provide an amenity to elero and provide a type of housing option

2:21:39that we're lacking and one of my questions as I've looked at this tonight is this is a larger in-law unit so this could Fe feasibly be considered a two-bedroom unit and when we looked at parking clearly two cars um could be accounted for by the main unit and it

2:21:57seems as though two more cars could be accounted for by the in-law unit but what I see is a driveway parking for that and is that going to is that adequate to accommodate uh the total of the four cars yes through through our code the uh accessory unit is is required to have one uncovered and can

2:22:17be in the existing driveway behind um the uh one of the spaces in the garage so there would be essentially tandem parking one car each in the garage and then in the driveway for each of the two units yes okay any other comments yeah I have some comments here I I think you've stated

2:22:44correctly really what we're trying to de side here is whether to allow 236 extra Square ft also there's if I understand staff correctly um there's also another consideration of will will this change the use of the facility um how should see this I understand the

2:23:10uh residents concerns because it's just not in this neighborhood um I've heard uh comments complaints um about other parts of the city having uh large houses and there's more than one family in there or more common there's a business being run out out of a uh single resident so I understand

2:23:32that concern however um the owner has testified numerous times that they're only interested in this for their family um this setup personally I think 750 Square ft can be hand can handle the requirements um by eliminating the uh sitting room that doesn't appear to be

2:23:56needed unless we have a live-in caregiver and there's testimony by the applicant that that probably won't happen also I'm a little concerned about uh two kitchens in the space um and I don't know if one if one is required I mean if two are required in in this in this case um to the

2:24:26applicants uh I think side of it uh they are not constructing additional footprint this is basically an interior Improvement it's allowed by state and and local code I um it was interesting we had testimony that we could fashion this to be a win win-win for what we have and I and it's interesting

2:24:55cuz I did put that as as one of the uh solutions to this and that is we condition this um that when the property is turns over or sold that um we could condition it so that uh the unit be put back or at least the kitchen be disconnected and and uh then the new owner would have to

2:25:23reapply uh to the Planning Commission to reconnect and have a good reason for that uh I also think though we hear that uh quite possibly there has to be some uh code enforcement and monitoring of of these types of conditional uses not only here but at other places in

2:25:45town um the other the other option we have it it concerns me that the Planning Commission did not have all the information that we're considering and one thing we could do I'm not necessarily advocating it but there is one thing we could send it back to the Planning Commission to re-evaluate the

2:26:04application uh because of the new information which was that um this is an a Ada application for a family member okay Mr Chang um I I guess I uh would Echo U my fellow council members on the issue that this the space already does exist and it's um I hear uh council member Jones um

2:26:35your approach of wanting to do a conditional use upon change of owners but I I think that would put um unequal treatment on this home because there's other accessory units in the community that exist and we're not I I I think I I just would wonder legally if that would

2:26:55be a problem to to do is I was just saying city manager that it's kind of an open question whether or not you can um impose in essence a time limit on a conditional use permit or set up a trigger to require the the revocation of a conditional use permit because it is um an approval that's

2:27:14supposed to run with the land so basically can carry forward from one property owner to the next and it's sort of consistent with um the some of the underlying policies that are issued here in terms of the creation of of diversity within the housing stock within a city

2:27:29um but it does seem that there is some support in case law if particularly in instances in which the property owner is amenable to the cup having included a condition that would sort of have a trigger for revocation or a time limit that would sort of sunset the the cup um

2:27:46but whether or not it's enforcable is basically an open question right now um it becomes more supportable if the applicant is is agreeable to that condition well I have a little bit of a problem with that approach because tonight we're being asked to make findings and the three findings that

2:28:01we're being asked to make are in regards to balancing the neighborhood compatibility and the benefits to the entire city this is not an application just about this family and this property which is um difficult to model it's about making findings that this application for an in-law unit is

2:28:22consistent with state law and with the city's zoning and general plan objectives so if we believe that the in-law unit can be effectively created and add to the diversity of our housing at 750 square ft then then we should deny this um appeal and if we believe that it's in the benefit of the city to

2:28:43create an in-law unit that's a little bit larger to serve a different um client or renter then we should overturn it and allow the construction of the larger in-law unit uh I would just um want to complete my my comment is that you know recognizing there's it would be

2:29:01a 236 ft addition but that's 25% of the home and the in in looking at I mean it is is the the Mac the the lesser of the two but the code calls for you know 40% of the home or up to 75% of the floor area and I guess um in order to address the need of a of a more Diversified housing stock

2:29:30and to create an an accessible unit um without creating a financial hardship I think is um is should be considered okay Janet okay um I have a question about the um wording Diversified housing stock um maybe I'm not sure maybe I should ask the planning staff that question um the the thought

2:29:55that comes to my mind is that um part of um what I would hope we would be Diversified about was accommodating people with disabilities and it's my understanding that there's a a extremely severe lack of um accessible housing stock in our city um everyone I know that disabled

2:30:17and in a wheelchair has a really difficult time finding a place to live um in the city um so I'm wondering if that is a um when we talk about Diversified housing stock if is if in fact the the word diversity includes people with disabilities it does include that it I I

2:30:39think mayor Potter was getting to the um the second finding about the diversity connecting the that's I conf finded to the general plan which talks about a diversification of housing types and we had discussed earlier today different sizes of accessory units that exist in

2:30:57the city and how they can accommodate different demographically um different demographics of the city whether it's a professional with a child um or uh to a couple that would live there or someone with a handicap who could benefit with a disabled housing who could benefit from

2:31:16the um nature of construction that this rental would provide um so I think it's a number of different things that fall under that diversification so what I'm kind of wondering about is um if um this were approved as is it would provide uh and and this family moved on then the a

2:31:36family that followed might be able to use it uh for another person who's disabled if it were um not uh put into a condition later where that would not be possible or I mean I would assume there's other um there are other I mean people who are not disabled often don't

2:32:00like living in a um in housing that's specifically for people with disabilities things are different heights and on there there are variety of features about it depending on uh which ones are put into the unit that um are more accommodating of a person with disabilities that you know based on the

2:32:19height of different things usually um and and the the way it it all is so um and um so I'm just kind of concern you know I don't quite see the the purpose in making it a smaller unit um with the you know I guess I just don't really see the point um Mr especially when we have a lack of did

2:32:45council member you should not be misled this will not be an an a wheelchair accessible unit unless unless they are a family member of the of the larger unit there is a three-step exterior walkway to get to this unit if it is an accessory unit and and dealt with as an

2:33:07accessory unit so this will not be wheelchair accessible unless there is a chair lift put in on the outside of the house if you look the primary entrance to this is is through the sliding doors um the sliding doors in the back and you will see near the back there's

2:33:28three uh a three step up right there where the arrowhead is showing on the uh on your graphic so this do not be misled it will be handicap accessible and wheelchair accessible to Pearl but once this unit is sealed off from the rest of the house because uh the the primary

2:33:46owner is in the larger space and this and the secondary unit is being rented it will not be wheelchair accessible stock without an additional uh um lift being placed on the exterior of the building I don't understand what you're saying I thought I think one the

2:34:07point is that um this is the primary entrance this is steps there's no way to be that this is wheelchair accessible wait did I just say that whether not it's wheelchair accessible now it's not a designated accessible unit it can be we're considering the creation of an

2:34:25in-law unit that has some attributes that might make it desirable for someone who might be sometime in the future in a position to rent it but we're looking at providing a larger than usual in-law unit because we're interested in providing more choice in our housing question okay I was told you

2:34:46said that there was a chair lift internally it on the internal stairs leading from the garage not not on the exterior of the home when you said cheer left I kind of envisioned a thing that holds onto a rail and goes around yes goes upstairs around yes um Corners it's from the parking garage

2:35:07from the parking garage so that the entrance is in that way the wheelchair entrance correct okay and for the particular use that the app is proposing they will have access through that garage as um council member Lyman stated in the future if Pearl was not living

2:35:24there it is unclear whether or not they would still allow that access to remain and more than likely access would be external the example I was giving would be one in which it would be a family member so I think actually in that case in which case reason that think there's

2:35:40the statement you're making is is for some other situation correct and I will go back to my earlier questions to the applicant if if this is desirable to a family member why why not render the kitchen on this floor uh less of a kitchen not put the interior door in and

2:35:59not call it a secondary accessory unit um you can you can put a washer and dryer in instead of a stove and have this be a uh a very useful space for a family member that has a wheelchair necessity without putting in the the interior door that's that's lockable and

2:36:22still apply for a kitchen on the third floor and in that space then you are creating a a space for a family member that would doesn't require a conditional use permit okay is there a motion um I'd like to make a motion to um Grant an appeal of the planning commission's decision and approving a

2:36:43use permit to allow a second unit to exceed the maximum allowed square footage on the site located at 782 Pomona in the RS5 District second all in favor wait discussion on the on the motion okay we had some discussion we'll have um we have discussion on the motion

2:37:05the motion was just made we have to have discussion on the motion and what I was going to say is um I I don't know that I'm in favor of the motion I'd rather see this at 750 square ft maybe with some of the uh improvements that have been talked about either uh closing down on the bathroom

2:37:27or uh modifying the kitchen so that it's not a a true second kitchen so that's the way I'm looking at it right now okay is there any other uh anyone want to add anything to that well I'll add something it would seem to me that functionally it's it's a lot easier to have kitchen

2:37:50facilities um where the person with a wheelchair is because to take food up and down the stairs um means that the person in the wheelchair can never really do anything themselves okay so it's I think it's a functional there's a functionality there that um is enhanced

2:38:09by having that kitchen space there okay and and I'll repeat my earlier testimony which is that whether this was 750 ft or 1,000 square ft it still function it still would function as a two-bedroom uh apartment um with the proper design and so um this is still in keeping with the

2:38:31intent of the neighborhood intent with the laws whether it's 750 or 986 it's been moved and seconded all in favor say I I I opposed no so the motion carries 4 to one um the appeal of the Planning Commission has been granted for the application thank you all for your time

2:38:55and attention we have a second public hearing tonight which is item 6B regarding the very high Hazard severity zone maps for um fire hazard and I see that battalion chief bond is here for a staff report Madam mayor council members thank you very much for having me here tonight

2:39:17to discuss the very high hazards fire severity Zone and the change in the current ordinance in which we have tonight is the first reading for the ordinance the second reading will be our first regular uh council meeting in April in which it will be finalized if

2:39:36you approve tonight a little a little history about it the very high fire severity zones were established as a direct result of the Oakland Hills fire with the assembly Bill 337 in 1993 that required the designation of very high Hazard uh fire severity zones and the maps identifying those areas for

2:40:03local jurisdictions as well as the state it also established a wild end Urban interface building code chapter 7A that has special building Provisions for properties that are being built bu in very high fire severity zones created vegetation management standards as well

2:40:22to address the uh abundance of fuels in those interface areas to try and reduce the fuels to reduce the the configuration hazards that may uh be there and also it requires that the the maps be updated on a periodic basis El Sero adopted our very high Hazard or fire hazard severity Zone in

2:40:451995 based on criteria that was established by at that time CDF the criteria that was used to establish the uh the zones was very subjective and resulted in hazards severity zones that were a full spread the gamut they were very strict and very loose and and anything and everything in

2:41:11between that in early 2007 calire now formerly CDF began a series of workshops introducing the plan and review the the hazards VAR mappings throughout the state of California and doing during these workshops they developed criteria that would be utilized throughout the

2:41:34state a standard that would be used regardless of where the the mapping was to take place that criteria followed along uh a few specific things one was fuel loading the the amount of fuel that was in the area the slope on which the the properties were built the aspect and that is the way the

2:41:56sun uh reflects upon the hillside the flame length that would be generated if a Wildland interface fire was to to begin in that area and then the fire brand generation that would spread that fire from one property to another and and the distances in which that uh fire spread would be would be uh

2:42:17spread and the speed at which it would spread elero along with contra cost County Fire protction Protection District was uh very instrumental in working with calfire and developing the new Hazard severity zone [Applause] maps as a result the the new map that calfire has

2:42:41produced it is the state map pretty much mirrors the the severity zone maps that the city of Els Sero adopted back in 1995 with the exception of two small areas that have been eliminated no longer meet the criteria of very high fire severity zones that directly affects about 150

2:43:02Parcels that will no longer be within the severity Zone uh areas and will not be affected by the building codes and things like that if there was to be new construction in those areas the new maps uh the city is is changing the ordinance 8.3.1 0 removing the sections that is

2:43:24describing the very high uh fire hazard Verity zone map boundaries established in 1995 and is adopting by reference the maps that calfire has produced and we're we're eliminating the boundaries that are in the old uh ordinance that tell you on the Northern boundary we have these streets

2:43:47and those streets they're being eliminated we're going to be operating strictly off of the map and it does a couple things for us one is it um makes it so that the next time the calfire updates their maps and if there's any changes or anything like that we don't need to adopt them it it's

2:44:08something that we've already adopted the maps by reference and whatever the references are they will be uh followed by our by our code and uh sky has forwarded uh council members some other information with that as well the City attorney again this is the first reading

2:44:32tonight the second reading will take place at first council meeting in April and uh the ordinance will become effective 60 days after the after the second reading and close closing Madame mayor council members like to thank you again for the opportunity to talk to you

2:44:50tonight in supporting the the change in the in the ordinance and uh by making the reference to show your continued support in the safety of the citizens of Elso any questions I'll be more than happy to entertain them at this time thank you are there any questions

2:45:12um these Maps will be uh at the Chief's office but will they also be located somewhere else uh yes they'll they'll uh be located uh in the fire prevention officer office and we're going to try and get them onto the web as well so that uh can can look at the city website and find

2:45:34them they're also on the calfire website in which that shows the the state maps that we are adopting without making any local changes at all so so it's what I'm trying to find out is if they'll be more publicly accessible so people like real estate agents or prospective home buyers

2:45:52can find them and and assess these maps in some fashion so I just curious what their availability will be yes we'll we'll like I say we will we will make maps that will be available uh they'll be on the website and one of the things that we can do is is houses or or

2:46:10properties that are in a very high fire severity Zone they actually have to be disclosed as being in in that zone upon transfer okay so um we're be going to be conducting a public hearing similar to the one we just held so people who are interested in commenting on this item

2:46:28should submit a speaker slip to the city clerk and um you'll have three minutes each to make comments so I wanted at this time if there no other questions of the battalion chief to open the public hearing before before we do that I'd like to move to extend the meeting by 15

2:46:44minutes oh goodness second second all in favor I that last item was so engaging I lost complete track of time so is it okay then now if we would open the public hearing are there any speakers no speaker sub submitted is there a motion to close the public hearing I move we close the

2:47:11public hearing second all in favor I I public hearing is closed are there is there any discussion is there a motion I if I just I just want to boil this down to Simplicity make sure I got it right and you guys can tell me if I do or not the the basic um issue here is

2:47:36we're reducing the area that's covered by the very high um hazard map by 150 houses and instead of of having a textual description in our ordinance we're going to have uh the ordinance specified that the maps are available um what I'd like to see is that the maps

2:47:54are available where the maps are available be specified as other than just the chief's office otherwise um I I could I'm sure there's a motion in here somewhere I'm a question can the maps be available on the internet via calfire the maps are currently available

2:48:13on the calfire website uh we can we can uh get those uh that website address and and make that be published and again we can put that on on the city website as well we could link it there I think that would be helpful cuz then we would have hard copy Maps as well as digital um

2:48:30Maps I don't know if that needs to if if that if it's worthy of of getting that into the current ordinance the way it's written skot do you have any thoughts about that s I'm just pondering the maybe a way to revise the text of the ordinance if that's helpful certainly

2:48:54right now if you notice the last sentence in the proposed revision says that it will be kept on file with the office of the fire chief just to clarify and that's in part to sort of recognize that an official copy will be kept somewhere in the city files I mean if

2:49:06the council believes that that you'd like to require um by ordinance that it be kept some other way um we could either go specific to um some other offices like the city clerk's office um you could specify the city's website um or we could just leave a general to um U

2:49:26you know provide um and you know take steps to ensure public availability of the map can I try the following language out on you and you can say yes or no abolutely um so at the end of the sentence a copy of these Maps shall be kept on file in the office of the fire chief and made accessible

2:49:44through the building department that would be perfect Perfection is a high standard is uh is that a motion that is a motion I move to approve by Title Wave further reading and introduce an ordinance of the city of elero which amends elero Municipal Code section 8.3

2:50:070.010 elero very high fire hazard severity zone map um with this minor Amendment to the ordinance second do we this roll call or voice your preference okay all in favor I I opposed motion carries unanimously and thank you for the presentation and we'll look forward to seeing you

2:50:31again all right so we're now on um item seven policy matters a joint city council and Redevelopment agency item a request for housing fund advance for the pool investments from the general fund and we have a staff report good evening mayor Potter members of city council my name is Hildy mile

2:50:55I'm housing project manager um I'm before you tonight to request a interfund loan of approximately or of no more than 1.5 million from the pulled Investments portion of the city's general fund to the loan moderate income housing fund and this would be in place of the loan

2:51:15that the Redevelopment agency board approved at the previous meeting the March 2nd meeting uh in place of the Lisk loan um the reasons that staff is recommending this is uh it is staff's analysis that the general fund uh loan would offer uh better terms to the loan

2:51:34modered income housing fund as well as a very competitive rate of return to the city's general fund the financial Advisory Board uh met and reviewed this item on March March 10th and recommended this item uh this uh action to council uh I can review very quickly in

2:51:55light of the time the financial considerations and then answer any questions um the proposed um loan term would be for approxim for be for 10 years um at 4% interest the housing fund would make annual interest in principal payments to the city's general fund there would be a loan agreement this

2:52:14would be recorded as indebtedness um on both the agency and City's financial statements um the balance of the pooled Investments portion of the city's general fund um and the recent interest earnings are contained and the attachment to the staff report um it is

2:52:32the city's Finance director who's here to answer any questions uh conclusion that the pulled Investments uh balance is sufficient that the 1.5 million would not adversely affect our liquidity um we also had an independent Financial Consultant look at this proposal uh and their conclusion that

2:52:53the proposed loan would provide the general fund uh with a better rate of return than it would be able to obtain in the market right now that the risk of the general fund is primarily tied to uh the property Assessments in the Redevelopment project area um which we

2:53:10have a good sense of and I provides I provided a history of that um assessed valuation in the staff report materials um and it given the difficulties in the current credit markets uh an internal borrowing would be the best strategy for the agency to achieve its housing goals

2:53:27and to help the city achieve its housing goals and that the proposed borrowing is a common strategy that other cities uh and agencies are pursuing at this time for similar reasons so I conclude my staff report and welcome any questions are there any questions of

2:53:43Staff uh I have one of the finance director okay this Mary here there you go thank you in the report it it said that uh we're encouraged to pay this if if we approve it uh pay this back as soon as possible other words not go the full 10 years uh how do you envision

2:54:10that to happen it's been the intent all along for the Redevelopment agency to issue bonds and the only reason they haven't issued the bonds is the current economic status makes it very difficult to do that and not very cost effective so when the economy and the bond market

2:54:26writes itself the agency is anticipating selling Bonds in the first money that the housing portion would use they would repay this loan with those bonds okay in the meantime do we pay back with uh Revenue received from the AG the 20% said set aside would be funds that we would use

2:54:46to do this okay and there the test um a pair a test on the revenue coverage that the um housing fund currently has to meet current debt obligations and proposed debt on this has been tested and and appears adequate great uh the finance Advisory Board reviewed this

2:55:07they did and was that a unanimous I I couldn't tell by the staff report was that a unanimous uh recommendation voted unanimously I feel it was a unanimous recommendation there were a couple of concerns that we did discuss and uh were addressed and I think our in your staff

2:55:26report um they were concerned about um liquidity and uh I do feel that with the I went back and looked at our um quarterly report for the last few years and that pulled fund does fluctuate at around $10 million so I think that tying up a million and a half of it especially in

2:55:46light of the unavailability of appropriate Investments is uh would not put a strain on our liquidity and would get a little bit better yield I do believe it is a win-win for both sides appreciate it thank you Mr Lyman the other two concerns were um uh slippery slope to find out if there was any other

2:56:06um funds any other uh City uses that might need to also draw from this borrow for the general fund as a result of a lack of ab ability to bond and uh there was none specifically identified and the other concern was in my head a minute ago and has slipped to this slate hour I

2:56:28apologize no that's okay thank you any other questions comments is there a motion comments can we have a motion then we can discuss maybe I'll make a motion I make a motion that um the city council and agency board adop resolutions approving the oh I'm sorry sorry there's a public

2:56:50speaker and we need to hear from that speaker sorry about that Al Miller [address removed] I don't want the council to take the comments I'm going to make as any indication that the current staff would do this to you but the days of the committee of the whole the biggest

2:57:14problem that we discussed was the lack of confidence of a large segment of the people in the city with the Redevelopment agency that lack of confidence was centered around the fact that over the years the city had made arrangements to loan money to the Redevelopment agency

2:57:37uh involving staff time Etc uh some of the loans were just loans one of the loan was just made others were made under M us that required annual reviews and status of keeping track it turned out that when we were asking questions neither the city nor the Redevelopment agency could tell us

2:57:59who owed what who owed whom how much and when it was expected to be paid off uh so the comment that I want to make as a ghost of Redevelopment agency loans in the past is that however you approve the loan it's up to you to be sure that you understand the agreements that are being made the

2:58:23arrangements that come with the loan how it's to be repaid who's to review the repayment so that you'll not find yourselves in the role of previous councils that could not tell the citizens how much they had loaned the Redevelopment agency and how it was ever going to be paid back thank you thank

2:58:43you um I did want to point out that in the resolution the draft resolution there is a provision that the inter fund loan is consistent with the city's general fund investment policy and will be documented in a loan agreement between the city and the Redevelopment agency and that that

2:59:00loan agreement will be a matter of public record um and will be reflected as is our tradition in our very easy to read and transparent budget okay um with that in mind and thank you for the public uh comment and I apologize for step stepping ahead of you there um the um so I make a motion

2:59:25that the city council and agency board adopt resolutions approving the following number one to authorize an inner fund loan from the pulled investment portion of the general fund to the low and moderate income housing fund for up to $1.5 million to be repaid by the tax increment revenues of the low

2:59:45and moderate income housing fund and number two that we resend the agency's approval of a loan from the local initiative support Corporation or lisc for up to 1.5 million to be repaid by the tax increment revenues of the low on moderate income housing fund I'll second all in favor I I

3:00:08opposed the motion carries unanimously we have five minutes and um still item eight council is on reports May mayor par I'm sorry there's one additional speaker a general comment speaker who I didn't realize is here to speak oh was that um under the first yes public speaking okay is that speaker

3:00:31still here it's Miss woo I have some problems I want I can stud in the home I can in the night all time I not good I don't know what I want to you help okay thank you for your comments you can you can be seated thank you thank you um we we'll now move on to item

3:01:27eight council is on reports to extend sorry extend okay we need a motion to extend the meeting I move that we extend the meeting by 5 minutes second all in favor I I I okay um Mr Lyman any reports I do I have two reports and I'll make them quick uh Financial Advisory Board in addition to

3:01:57bringing for to uh bringing forward the item that we just moved on um I do with great regret uh announce that Lance cing did withdraw from appointment on that uh commission they did make a request that and they will be hopefully bringing forward at some point um a request to

3:02:15restructure how uh the committee uh minutes are recorded they would like to alleviate um a burden on staff for the minutes um and they did make a comment that's worth repeating that is with regard to having a resident group uh review developer proposals as they come

3:02:38forward um crime prevention committee uh bicycle safety day is May 16th 12 to4 at the DMV parking lot and they did uh struggle um with with joining the National Association of town watch um which is a complicated issue not to be delved into here but they did um after

3:02:59much debate uh decide to join uh for another year the national Town watch and hold National Night Out in August thank you um ready okay um I have a report from the the Environmental Quality committee um which met uh this month and um one of the things that was discussed

3:03:22was um the appointments to the committee may remember that there was an issue about uh what the process was for appointing people to the uh committees and um so um it's the committee's understanding and wish that um the candidates for appointment be directed um

3:03:48to uh attend meetings of the Environmental Quality Committee in particular um and then um um they would with one exception um uh who who's already been approved by the council um that they would then um be forwarded to the council for approval that being being the process

3:04:11that's been used previously on other committees thank you if that makes sense but um that's it thank you for um taking that up with the Environmental Quality committee Mr Jones just want to report the Integrated Waste Management board uh uh did not meet this past month M ch um

3:04:33design review board didn't meet this month but the um Economic Development board did meet and they set June 28th as the Home Improvement business Expert um the next this a follow-up event from the first successful one last year and um they talked about setting up another

3:04:53event of a um a inhome business um event sometime in October that would focus on helping people see you know if they wanted to start a business um based in their home or um get help with marketing the the existing business that they have in their home um and we had an update on

3:05:18the S PAB Avenue process and just heard that we're the the timeline is moving forward and I think at some point they'll um come to the council or um staff will come to the council to to update us and um welcome new chamber staff member Mark Scott who's our past

3:05:37Fire Chief and um the the new chamber is now going to be situated up by um fat apples near Fairmont in kaloa so thank you and on that note I want to note that I am met for the chamber luncheon and provided a stated the city address on Wednesday and it was very successful and it was a good

3:06:00Outreach to the business Community um public comment period is over and I want to announce um tonight the elero fire department Mourns the loss of fire engineer David L Garrett a 20-year veteran of the department and we will be adjourning this meeting in his memory

3:06:20David L Garrett died tragically in his home on Saturday evening March 14th he is survived by his wife Joan and his daughter Tiara David began his career with the elero fire department in 1989 As A Firefighter and was promoted to engineer in 2004 Dave was known and loved for his

3:06:42good humor fantas ftic cooking and Larger than Life presence he will be sorely missed by all who knew him and loved him and we adjourn this meeting in his memory with deep sorrow for his family and this community's loss and with the highest respect for his life

3:06:58and service and I would like to ask for a moment of silence