Special Concurrent City Council and Redevelopment Agency Meeting April 20, 2009

0:00:0020th 2009 um and have the roll call please council member Jones mayor Pro ablon here council member Lyman here mayor Potter and council member Chang is absent and um we'll have council member Jones lead us in the pledge please join me congatulations to the flag of the

0:00:27United States of America to the repblic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you it is with deep sadness that I share with you that Bruce King the city's maintenance Engineering Services manager tragically passed away on Friday April

0:00:5817th he worked for the city city of Els Sero for over 14 years in the public works department and will be missed by everyone and I can see by the Expressions on your face um that you share with the city council and all the staff in our morning the family is holding a

0:01:14celebration of Bruce's life at the city of San Pablo Maple Hall on Saturday May 2nd at 3 o' and speakers are welcome the city of elero will also honor Bruce King this Saturday April 25th as part of Earth Day an annual event that Bruce had been actively involved with for many

0:01:37years um we have also proposed changes to the proclamation tonight item 5D um to honor Bruce in our Proclamation for Earth Day this year and I want to take a moment to read the changes that we proposed since um the agenda was issued in the last part of the resolution ution whereas Bruce King the

0:02:02city's maintenance and Engineering Services manager who served the city of elero since 1995 dedicated countless hours towards creating and maintaining the city's Green Space and making Earth their success now therefore the city council of city of elero thereby proclaims April

0:02:2225th 2009 as Earth Day in the city of elero dedicates this day in memory of Bruce King and encourag encourages all residents and businesses to contribute and participate to make Els Serino Greener healthier and more sustainable place for all and we will be adjourning

0:02:40this meeting in in his honor before we uh go into close session I have one further announcement that the city manager would like to postpone item 5e related to calper service credits until a later meeting in the fiscal year during budget discussions with the city council and

0:03:03the financial Advisory board so um I apologize for anyone who's come to speak on that item but we will be taking it up at a later meeting oh I'm sorry and I believe Miss abson has another announcement regarding our Earth Day celebration yes um as was mentioned Bruce King was very very

0:03:22active in Earth Day for many years and I personally um appreciated being able to work with him he was always Pleasant and um very inclusive of everybody and all their ideas so it's we're you know I'm really sad at what's happened to him and we're really going to miss him and one

0:03:43of the ways that I think people could if they wanted to honor his memory was by helping to do the very things that he um enjoyed doing so much on Earth Day and um if you'd like more information about how to do that you can email green c.o. ca. us or go to the website

0:04:10www.c environment. org and and um Roose is very has been very instrumental especially in the tree plantings he uh was in fact our arborist and he was the expert in all of those things and um so I would like to think actually that as we plant the mini trees that we're going

0:04:30to be planting this year that we um think of it as honoring Bruce's memory thank you I have comments okay um we'll now move on to item three oral Communications from the public we have two speaker slips for the 7:30 session the first of which is Ken burnt good evening chairman members of the uh

0:05:07rment agency my name is Ken Burt [address removed] I'll only take a couple minutes of your time I have in my hand a copy of the serito theater lease and it says impartial that uh the any late payments in the event that tenant shall fail to pay landlord within five days after sum is due any base rent

0:05:41additional event percentage rent Etc will be be interest at 10% perom or the highest rate pered by law that's not the real reason I'm here that's just let you know that I read it um real reason I'm here is article 5.1 talks about real property taxes B despines real property taxes

0:06:08what they are I will not read the long list of of defining real prior tax all I'll do is read the last line that says the property will be assessed for property tax purposes as it privately owned and the Tenant shall be responsible for the payment of all such real property

0:06:31taxes that said I have in my possession bills from the Contra Costa County tax collector in the amount to the city of Els Sero in the amount of $ 57,7 89 and checks from the city to the uh tax collector in the amount of 63,64 and3 9 cents nowhere in the lease agreement is

0:07:05there authorization nor can I find uh authorization for the city to make any delinquent tax payments any kind of tax payments at all um the question came my head while I sit back here I wonder what the friends of the library or the friends of the senior center are

0:07:23thinking now with 63 $64,000 of money that could have been used for what they've been looking for 10 12 years I guess what they were promised 10 12 years ago um but I know my problem today my question today is who gave the authorization for the City development

0:07:47agency and where did they get that authorization from to pay the delinquent uh tax all taxes I would appreciate your for responding in mail snail mail because I I don't have a computer uh to me within 10 days thank you very much thank you Peter Lal I'm Peter loal also speaking about

0:08:20the Sero theater for today we were promised fin financial report and uh proposed new theater agreement to be Act on in early may as in accordance with the Redevelopment law instead we have a what I see is an end run totally around the public uh we're going into close

0:08:42session uh later tonight God knows when and then under Point 11 you'll reconvene a report after the out of close session it's about the theater and uh possible action I I don't I consider that a travesty I not dressed up for a masquerade I will not I will not stick

0:09:02around for that uh I hope it's not that the you're not going to act in on anything substantial uh K just mentioned the issue I think it would be illegal in this way to after five years after the fact to try and legalize an illegal uh payment the Sero Saga is now

0:09:23turning into a morality tale 8 years ago the appealing and Plucky operators could point to the parkway uh and several years of increasing success there and now eight years later after having taken $7 million in subsidies uh from the theater based on the letter they sent to Mr Jones they

0:09:44feel entitled to more and more on a continuing basis and by the way it's not true that theaters are languishing in this economy I have uh two reports today Googled movie theaters I is the one shining example example in the economy increased revenues of 8% 10% there's a

0:10:03report out of Hawaii of a theater showing old movies charging a dollar for movies and making it on on sort of fast food like the Sero Theater now I feel that keeping these matters in close session and especially trying figuring out what to do about the mechanics lean

0:10:21that's another $150,000 is essentially damaging uh the theater I think it's shown now it was not a good economic decision we could have done better many better things at pets on the corner we could have uh where the farmers market is that corner could have had you know for half a

0:10:41million here 100,000 there we could have done better but we have the theater I don't believe it should be booted up I totally AG these people we we need a theater but I think the best way to get to that is to really be open not take any substantial decision and let the

0:10:56public know I feel that a lot of elans have gotten used to the theater and and even the initial people who were critical would would like to uh uh would would like to somehow maintain it in some form or another but we can't do it uh by hiding uh hiding the facts you you owe

0:11:17us the facts and I will certainly I I need maybe three more sentence I will not go to court but there's the grand jury there's I'm sure the news there some in investigative reporters who will get onto this and the First Amendment folks will force out the fact and then

0:11:33there are the competitors like landmark and so on they they they don't want a publicly subsidized theater here with the pockets uh in this sort of operation competing with what they planning to do now something similar thank you thank you and just to clarify um Mr lell the

0:11:48agency and the council was prepared to bring forward financial information and as you know because I believe you attended the meeting on April 8th we met in public to disclose changing conditions at the theater and the agency continues to meet in Clos session to discuss real property and

0:12:04potential litigation in compliance with state law so I just I just want to clarify that that's where we are in the process thank you um are there any other speakers not for this session we have three for the closed sessions this evening um is there a preference for hearing those comments

0:12:22at this time or waiting till the uh that time in the agenda each has expressed the desire to speak later in the evening okay so we'll hear those comments and later and with that we'll move on to item four presentations the first presentation tonight is on the Environmental Quality

0:12:40committee uh work plan status and so I'm pleased to see Ron igelman here today thank you I'm very pleased to be here um seems like uh global warming may have started on April 20th um but uh I I first of all Madame mayor and members of the city council I'm Ron eggerman I'm

0:13:03the chair of the Environmental Quality committee and I am really pleased to be here to make the first presentation uh from our committee I especially want to thank you for the vision that you had uh by creating this very important committee and uh I will remind you by uh

0:13:23of what the mission is of the committee I'll just read a few lines here about it uh to serve in an advisory capacity to the city council staff and other boards and commissions and citizens of the city with regard to environmental quality issues within the city to recommend

0:13:39programs policies and ordinances to the council and promote the city's Environmental Quality efforts and to promote and Foster Public awareness education interest support and support for Environmental Quality efforts uh Foster volunteer opportunities and educate uh citizens regarding

0:13:58Environmental Quality quality issues our first meeting was uh June of 2008 and um uh as I said this is the first time I've been here uh and it seems quite appropriate this being Earth week uh to be here and give you a u a report I don't know if that was coincidental or not but here we are um I

0:14:23will say that the uh that the committee itself has become quite a cohesive group there's six of us uh we did lose one guy who happens to be sitting there by coincidence he moved out of the city um and we are in the process of expanding in a in a methodical way and I hope in

0:14:41the next few months we'll have uh several other uh members to join us we're also finding that there's quite a bit of uh public interest our meetings are are attended by half a dozen or so uh actually I think we had 10 people at our last meeting and we Haven done

0:14:59anything to really promote that uh so that's really good I think um I also want to acknowledge the uh great staff support that we've gotten from gu and from Melanie and of course uh Janet who is our uh our Council representative has kept the the um the Whip and uh the the fire to our toes so

0:15:24uh that's great so in the very beginning um we decided to do a a rather brief but it still was a Str maybe I should wait a second in the very beginning we decided to do a a brief uh strategic planning process whereby we created a very broad list of potential issues and projects to

0:15:58be considered I mean we had like 30 items here ranging from uh controlling fugitive light into the atmosphere uh you know recommending dog parks so people would be more inclined to stay here than drive their cars elsewhere encouraging businesses and residents to reduce toxicity to consider

0:16:20uh initiating a project to convert uh food oil to biodiesel that to give you an example and um but what we did do was to create a set of priorities for the committee um based on um you know uh based on a set of priorities uh reflective of one the urgency to reduce

0:16:47carbon and ecological footprint as well as based on the feasibility of the projects in terms of ease of implementation whether the committee has the resources to implement the ideas if the project has the capacity to build Mo momentum leading to more uh resources

0:17:05for other projects and if it is compatible with staff uh based projects and priorities so at this point we have focused on four main issues and we've divided up into uh three subcommittees and one is sort of a committee of the whole uh one is to incentivize local

0:17:25businesses to provide recyclable will take out containers and to reduce packaging a lot of communities around here have done that and um we've uh so one of our subcommittees has already uh done a an informal survey of mostly takeout uh fast food kind of establishments and we found that many of

0:17:51them are voluntarily uh switching they just know it's the right thing to do and they're are a couple that said oh don't even talk to me okay I don't want to hear about it it's uh too much cost but we do think that and it's become sort of an overall uh uh focus of the committee to

0:18:15try to do as much as we can with incentives and as little with the big stick of ordinances and must do and things like that so at this point uh in the work of the committee uh that's the that's the approach that we hope to take um and part of that is by educating

0:18:36uh the public that there are certain you know businesses that are being you know uh very conscious of the you know not using styrofoam and not using plastic and things like that and we hope that that would be a good way of having um city folks support the the the uh the

0:18:58restaurants and the like that go along with what we hope will be a voluntary uh thing to do and not make it a a mandated uh issue uh the second uh issue is to create a recognition program for environmentally outstanding residences and businesses and we're looking at

0:19:20things such as how you know how a uh let's take a resident would uh reduce their energy use how they they uh deal with air quality toxic such as in cleaning materials around the house uh water efficiency you know what they how they plant their Gardens drip irrigation

0:19:40you know Etc their own lifestyle in terms of do they do they drive to work do they carpool do they use public transportation and um any other kinds of uh qualities that were're still you know looking at and that would be uh again for residences as well as well as for in

0:19:59you know individ uh businesses and uh the third uh third priority has to do with um looking for uh a way to increase incentives for solar installations as well as Energy Efficiency uh measures again for residences and for businesses uh we have found through our

0:20:25initial work on this that by doing uh energy audits which cost anywhere from $6 to $800 so they're not insignificant um it's possible for people to identify really easy ways to uh plug up holes in their in in their homes uh leaky Ducks uh drafts out of the um you know their chimneys uh things

0:20:53like that and uh and it's basically the low hanging fruit that people can do that aren't terribly expensive uh and then of course there's uh you know solar either solar hot water or solar volic there are already lots of uh programs to to get rebates uh state and federal and we've identified um uh a

0:21:19number of places where uh there are in existence uh Cooperative buying uh uh well they're co-ops that that buy large quantities of uh photovoltaic uh materials which then you can pass down uh the discount from that they also have excuse me uh lots of technical information about uh the

0:21:45design and installation for homes and that we don't have to reinvent the wheel and an individual who is looking to um you know to into solar uh voltaic uh installations would find a way of um already knowing you know who to go to and get the best you know prices

0:22:09possible at some point in the future we may be coming to you with uh the notion of Municipal uh funding uh of such projects whereby not not unlike Berkeley we hope to just sort of refine what what that City and some other communities have done uh the ability to attach the cost to a house

0:22:34because a lot of people move within five six years on average and it typically takes 8 to 10 years to pay yourself back for the installation but if it's attached to the property and it's not a personal loan then the next buyer would just pick up on the cost of that and I

0:22:51think that alone would encourage people to make uh the kind of Investments it might take for a complete you know you know residential business is an entirely different project uh the last thing that we've been doing and we've had one so far is to create a program of

0:23:07environmental environmental of environmentally related movies um preferably done by local filmmakers and uh we had our first one at the Sero theater that's all I'll say about that um and that was thirst it was sold out G couldn't even get in um so um and and again we're trying to combine you know

0:23:32what we're doing you know technically here as well as informing uh the general public about uh what they can do um and uh so I I just want to close uh you may have questions but I I I want to close this very brief report by uh by saying that uh I do believe you'll be

0:23:52hearing from us uh in the future we're just sort of getting our land legs right now sea legs land L whatever uh right now about uh what we can do and uh again the committee is becoming cohesive and um again I thank you for creating uh a very important uh aspect in addition to

0:24:15elsar thank you very much and I want to thank you for your effort and enthusiasm and Leadership on this really important issue and bringing really the vision of the council to a reality so I don't know if there are question questions from other council members just comment

0:24:30comment just like to thank you Ron for taking the time to put together the report uh we're we're making a conscious effort to be uh brought up to date with presentations and this is great brand new uh committee uh sounds like you dug right in I know um council member ablon

0:24:50has uh kept us informed on the progress you're making and and uh how impress how impressive it is so thank you very much you're very welcome and it's a real pleasure and thank you and I'll pass that acknowledgement on to the rest of the committee okay thank you I'd just

0:25:07like to U reiterate U my thank you to the committee members for the great job that they're doing um I think it's very much what we um looked for when we set up this committee and I think you know I'm very pleased at the fantastic job you're all doing um and also like to

0:25:25thank um staff for providing a lot of support uh especially gu Schulz who has uh really been very instrumental in doing the mechanics of getting the committee situp and Melanie minz both of whom come to our meetings each time and um if you would please pass along Ron my

0:25:45thanks to the committee members for um carrying out the intent we had when we created this committee thank you you're very welcome we actually have a good time we know we're doing important work so that and next time we're going to leave a space for G to get into the

0:26:00movie he actually was there very early and then since he was so early and no one else was there except me um he went away to run an erand and when he came back there were no more tickets so we'd like to have that kind of success often thank you so much the next

0:26:20presentation is regarding the city Hall's designation as a green uh business hello my name is Claudia pingatore and I'm with the contracosta green Business program um and it is my pleasure to be here today to present you with the certificate and officially recognize you

0:26:41as a green business um I was I had the pleasure of auditing you and seeing this beautiful building and seeing how it um not only met but exceeded our standards uh as you may know we um cover um waste reduction energy conservation water conservation pollution prevention so it's a very

0:27:01all-encompassing program and this it was a pleasure to certify this building because I mean you pretty much on top of it and I really want to congratulate you for um taking that leadership role especially as a public sector entity because as a county program we feel it's

0:27:18really important for um government to be walking the talk walking the walk so um and I also want to encourage you to continue these efforts I know that we're going to be looking for some improvement when we're here again in three years you have um the resources

0:27:36you have great staff um and I also had the pleasure of working with Bruce so I'm very sorry to hear about his passing um but we um we have um directories that are available for um the public to use and support these businesses that you have and we also have um pamphlets to

0:27:54give to other businesses in the um in your city and they're being held at the Environmental Services Division um so I encourage you to promote this further continue your improvements here it sounds like you got some really great programs going on between the previous

0:28:08speaker and the other items on the agenda so congratulations um I think you are the 25th uh green business in this city and we have almost 400 in the county so not too shabby well I want to welcome you back to City Hall and thank you so much for bringing this um honor to the City and I

0:28:29also just want to acknowledge all the city councils that came before who helped to make this a reality and the staff and the community who all together have always supported the wise use of resources and respect for the environment and aggressive education of our young people to you know bring us

0:28:45into the future for um a green Community sustainable uh Village so thank you so much and um I don't know if others have any comments I I'd like to show you your some of your goods here's your uh sticker that's going to um hopefully go on the outside and the public can see it and your

0:29:08lovely certificate great great um shall I yes please okay we now move on to uh presentation kids for the bay program Miss mendleson is here thank you all right I have my little clicker so we'll see how I do with this great thanks so um my name is Christa medson I'm the program director

0:30:15at kids for the bay and I want to start off by thanking you all for um taking about 10 minutes to listen to my presentation this evening and I also want to thank Melanie for um helping support um me and getting a spot in the agenda today and it's it's also a really

0:30:31great fit to go after the presentations of the eqc and then um of the green business award that's really exciting that's something else we'll be able to share with our students in elero um so the program I'm the presentation I'm going to give you this evening is about

0:30:47our Watershed action program and that's a program that we've been providing here in the city of elero to your local elementary schools for the past five school years and uh I will be Pres presenting you with some highlights of that program see this works not oh I'm sorry I didn't turn it

0:31:09on yet my fault let me try it again little before you do anything there we go okay great sorry so the outline of what I'm going to be speaking about tonight I'm going to start off with um just giving you a brief introduction of about kids for the bay I'm going to tell you the three main

0:31:26comp components of the Watershed Action Program um I'll just share with you which schools we've reached so far in elero over the past 5 years uh and spend most of the time giving you some great highlights of the program and then conclude with a few quotes kids for the bay is a nonprofit

0:31:46Environmental Education organization we're located right next door in Berkeley we're a non we're a project of Earth Island Institute for those of you familiar with Earth island and we've been operating for 17 years years and at kids for the bay we strive to turn

0:32:00children onto science to inspire environmental Consciousness and to create a lasting impact and we do this through our programs uh in which we train teachers we educate students we involve the whole family and we also energize the school Community I wanted to point out one recent award that we

0:32:19won that we're really proud of it's our third national award this one is from the North American Association for Environmental Education and we were awarded this at their conference this year for best practices at the local level in the field of Environmental Education so our Watershed action

0:32:38program as I mentioned has three main components the first component is the classroom lessons so a kids for the bay instructor will go into the classroom and teach five 2hour classroom lessons the next part of the program involves a field trip the students will take a

0:32:53field trip to either the local Creek or to the Bay Shoreline to explore the habitat and the third component is a student- centered environmental Action Project which I'll explain to you in just a bit we also provide the teachers that participate in our program with

0:33:08access to up to eight units of professional development credit through our academic credit program that we have with Cal State U Eastbay formerly Cal State Hayward so in elero each year we pres we provide this program to two teachers and approximately 60 students

0:33:25in their two classrooms so where have we been so far in elero over the past 5 years since 2004 the 20045 school year we've partnered with four schools and that was Fairmont Harding Castro and wind rush to uh part to partner with 10 teachers in elero and reach 250 students as well as all of

0:33:50their families and I put at the bottom of the slide um next school year 0910 um because we've already outreached to Madera Elementary School where we haven't worked yet and we have two really excited teachers at the fourth grade level that are very excited about

0:34:05this program for next year so the first component of the Watershed action program as I mentioned is the classroom lessons and these are some highlights of our five classroom lessons on the left you can see students that are actually building a three-dimensional model so in the very

0:34:22first lesson we teach the students about the geography of the San Francisco Bay Area and how to identify their local Creek Watershed within the context of the greater Bay and after they found their local Watershed on a map and studied it they build this three-dimensional model using clay and

0:34:38then add fresh and salt water to the model and see how those two waters mix to make an estuary environment in the bay the last part of that activity involves putting in a drop of red food coloring in the middle of the bay to represent pollution and we give the kids

0:34:54a story such as the Costco Busan oil space bill that happened something just last year that they're familiar with in the news and we show the students how quickly and how widely pollution can spread throughout the bay and that helps them really bring it home and motivates

0:35:09them through the rest of the lessons in the second classroom lesson which is the photo on the right um we actually take the kids outside of the classroom and we have them do a pollution survey and Cleanup in the neighborhood right around their school and so you can see a

0:35:23student holding a pair of tongs each each student partners with another and one of them is cleaning up while the other one is recording on a tally sheet all the different types of pollution they're finding whether it be paper and plastic metal glass any oil spills we

0:35:38see paint spills anything that we see we record and we count the number of storm drains we can find around the school campus as well this really motivates the students to bring this information home and a lot of students will come back to us the next lesson and report that

0:35:54they've gone home and taken mom or dad or grandma or Grandpa outside and shown them the storm drain in front of their house and said hey we need to start picking up this trash because we now know that it goes to the creek in the bay in the next classroom lesson we tie

0:36:09in this idea of pollution in the bay and how it can affect us and other large Predators by moving through the food chains in the bay so we play this fun game called the food chain game where each student gets to be a certain animal and on the left some of these students

0:36:25are anchovies and they are eating plankton in the bay some of those Plankton are red and they're polluted and some of them are not so the anchovies then get pollution in their bodies and in the right you can see the salmon get to eat the anchovies and the people get to eat the salmon and we see

0:36:40how pollution can actually be biomagnified through the food chain in this manner this lesson really helps students uh helps raise students awareness of the food that they're eating and where especially some of their Seafood is coming from and how that might be affecting their body and we this

0:36:57generally leads into a discussion of what safe levels are of fish to eat if any students are fishing right here in our Bay or in the Delta our fourth classroom lesson is a really exciting one because we bring in animals and the kids get to touch animals and for a number of the students

0:37:15they've never touched a marine organism before in the photo on the left is a dungeoness crab and on the right you see students exploring a stripe bass and so the students actually get to touch these animals get to look at the different body parts and learn about the different

0:37:29adaptations that they have that help them survive in the bay our last classroom lesson brings in ties everything together through the concept of environmental justice so the class divides up into groups and each group is given some information about either a local National or International

0:37:48environmental justice leader someone who is really making a difference in their local community to improve um and make a fair and and healthy environment for everyone there I want to share with you a quick story of something that happened in elero I believe this was two school

0:38:04years ago one of our kids for the bay instructors noticed that there was a student who wasn't so engaged in the lessons as some of her peers she kind of felt like it didn't really matter much to her life and so that uh instructor um found out that this student had moved

0:38:19recently from the Tongan islands and so did a little research and found out that there is a gentleman who lives in Tonga who is doing doing a lot of great environmental work there and created an environmental justice leader card that um the instructor then passed on to the

0:38:34student and said I would like you to present this special information that's really important to you because this is where you come from and this really motivated the student she was very excited to present this information and she actually took a very active role in

0:38:48her class's Action project that I'll tell you about in just a little bit the final activity that you see on the right are a couple girls that are working on their informational posters the students get to choose any concept that they like from the whole program and make a poster

0:39:03about it and we encourage the teachers to post these posters throughout the school and um also in the local community we've had these posted in local grocery stores and other places where community members might be able to see them and learn from them as I said the second component are

0:39:20field trips so we've had students from elero take field trips to some of the local creeks and one of the highlights of a creek field trip is exploring what lives in the water and so we do this by looking for aquatic invertebrates so you can see on the left the student is using

0:39:35a dip net and we also just do the oldfashioned technique of flipping over rocks and seeing what's underneath it and we use these really fun two-way microscopes in the picture on the right to help students really explore and see what's living even though it might be

0:39:49microscopic what's living in that water um each of the kids that come on a field trip gets their own field trip Journal so through throughout the day they're recording notes and they're drawing pictures of what they're observing and the journal really helps them put down

0:40:02their own observations on paper and have something to bring back to the classroom and bring home with them that makes this um a really uh empowering experience for them and something that they won't forget we also have some classes from uh elero including um two of the classes

0:40:20this year that took their field trips to the bay and we went to the Berkeley Marina and there we studied um Shoreline habitat on the left you can see one of the activities we do is using mic um microscopes binoculars to look for um shore birds for identification and also

0:40:37look for different bird behaviors uh and on the right um some of you might know our executive director Mandy billing that's her daughter sukai on the right we got to work with her class last year which was very exciting and um the students we plan our our field trips to

0:40:53the bay on days where there are really good low tides so we can get into the rocky inner tidle and find all kinds of wonderful animals living down there including shore crabs that these students are holding very carefully in their hand the final step of the Watershed

0:41:08Action Program is our action projects and the these are um service learning projects that really bring the whole program home um we have the students and the teacher decide on what project they want to do as a whole class with support from their kids for the bay instructor

0:41:25and some of the projects that um classes in Els Sero have chosen to do have been um Native planting projects and we've worked actually quite closely with um Susan Schwarz With Friends of five Creeks who I'm sure some of you are very familiar with she's fabulous to work

0:41:39with and she loves helping out our classes um we'll meet her at the creek and she'll bring some of the natives that we can plant and you can see these are two different locations along the creek where we've planted over the last couple of years and the students along

0:41:52with planting will often conduct cleanup projects while they're there and uh we've had reports from both the students and the teachers that have said that they've Revisited the site to check how their special little plant is doing because they really take they feel

0:42:06ownership after they've put something in the dirt themselves they really want to come back and see how it's doing the other Action Project I'll just highlight for you really quickly is something we call our safe Bay fishing and cooking presentation um this is a

0:42:22presentation where students work in groups to learn different pieces of a whole presentation that has three key messages one of those is teaching Their audience about um storm drain pollution and how to prevent it safe monthly consumption um safe monthly consumption

0:42:38levels of fish that are caught in the bay because of those pollutants in the bay and then step three the proper cooking techniques to try and uh reduce the intake of toxins from fish that are caught from the bay or the Delta and so in this presentation um students will

0:42:55often give it for another class at their at their school and invite their own families to come and be a part of the audience and it's kind of like a cooking show so after they've presented the information the class actually goes about mixing up the sauce and chopping

0:43:09the garlic and the cilantro and putting the striped bass in the steamer and cook it and all these wonderful smells waed through the school and everyone gets to try a piece of the fish on a little cracker at the end it's very successful um the neat part about this is uh I

0:43:24think also because maybe eating's involved really helps kids think about this a little more um we the class that does the presentation um gives out brochures to all of the audience members about which fish to eat or not eat from the bay and how many to eat each month

0:43:39if a family regularly fishes from the from the bay um and I had a class this year at cter elementary that did this this is actually their photos that did this project and when we went to the Berkeley Marina on our field trip um the students took those same pamphlets that

0:43:54they used for their Action project and passed it out to people on the Berkeley Pier who were fishing as well because they really wanted to spread the word about well we see these people are fishing we really want them to know um that some of these fish are not so

0:44:08healthy to eat and these are the best cooking techniques so you don't get as much of the pollutants in your body oops Yeah so in conclusion I just want to read you just a few quotes um from a few different perspectives of program participants um first is from a

0:44:26principal here at Castro Elementary her name is gayen Murphy and over 10 years ago when she was a classroom teacher she did one of our very early kids for the bay programs that was called the urban Creeks program so she's really supportive of her teachers still keeping

0:44:40with the kids for the bay programs in the future um she said I still remember all those great activities and lessons I am glad that my teachers at Castro Elementary get to be a part of another great kids for kids for the bay program um the next quote is from a teacher uh

0:44:55named David Co at Fairmont Elementary and he told us this program is invaluable the students are so excited the way you teach the curriculum really engages the students you have really touched many of them our class is grateful that the city of elero supported us by providing the funds so

0:45:12that we could benefit from The Watershed Action Program there was also a parent um a few years ago at Harding Elementary that mentioned my son loves your program one day he was building a model the next day he was picking up trash he really loves science but he doesn't get enough

0:45:27in the school thank goodness you were at Harding this year and of course I have to leave you with a quote from one of our students this is a girl named Anza who goes to school at wind rush and she shared if you wash your car in the driveway all kinds of pollution like

0:45:42soap and the guck on cars gets washed down the storm drains and into the bay I took my mom on a tour of our neighborhood and showed her the storm drains around our home my mom didn't know about storm drain pollution and she was glad that I was learning about the

0:45:55environment with kids for the bay and with that I really would like to thank all of you for your support I want to thank the Environmental Services Division and um the city's clean water program for your support and hopefully we get to continue this great partnership into the future thank you

0:46:10thank you so much for the presentation and sharing with us the exciting work that you're doing it sounds like it would be a great opportunity for everybody in this room to participate and some of the activities and they don't just cover um environmental science and other Sciences

0:46:30but also speak to the habits that we have and from washing our car to trash to using plastic bags and um take out food so I think it's a great reminder and it looks like also a lot of um physical activity and art and so we really appreciate it and thank you for

0:46:48the presentation thanks yes had a question um by the way thank you very much it's it's great it's it's the way people are going to learn in the future I think but anyway I was just wondering do do our schools in Elso have a formal uh curriculum on Environmental

0:47:08Education and is this a supplement or in many respects is this all that the students get um when you when you run this so there I'll try and give you a short answer that I was about to launch into education but you don't want to know all that um so there are education

0:47:24standards that the state mandates for every grade level of what the students should know by the time they graduate from that grade level and of those some are science most of the time that never gets taught in the elementary school level that's because the students aren't

0:47:38tested on that until fifth grade in science so the standardized tests that kids get in second grade and in third grade and in fourth grade are focused on math and on language arts so that's what gets most of the attention not to the fault of the teachers in fact and we

0:47:55have a number number of great teachers that sneak in as much science as they can um but you know I can't cite schools exactly here in elero but there are definitely schools in the state where principles won't allow science to be taught because they feel like that's

0:48:09detracting from the math and the reading time um so that's kind of the fact of the matter even though there is a state mandate that says that should be taught at different grade levels um the exciting news is that within the state of California there's something called

0:48:24the e education and the environment initiative um where the state is working really hard to get environmental education standards written into different subjects so written into math and into language arts and into history and social science so that by reading you know a little story about your local

0:48:45Creek that could be counted as your science and your language arts time so I know that environmental educators are trying to get creative and working within the the constraints that teachers have to work in in um but for a number of these students you know this is the

0:48:58only science they'll get all year well thank you I hope groups like yours uh can advocate for formal formal curriculum it's pretty important thank you thanks thanks again we're going to now move on to item five adoption of the consent calendar and just a reminder since we have

0:49:22removed item 5e the items we're considering tonight are 5 a through 5D and 5f through 5G I move adoption of consent calendars item 5 a through 5 D and um 5f through 5G noting that um D the Earth Day Proclamation has been revised to include um the mention of the memory of

0:49:51Bruce King and um Proclaim proclaiming April 25th 2009 as Earth Day in the city of elero and dedicating the day in memory of Bruce King second it's been moved and seconded all in favor I opposed motion carries with the four council members present um we now have a public hearing

0:50:19item six regarding the zoning ordinance amendments and we have a staff report good evening mayor council members I'm I'm Jennifer Carman planning manager um the new zoning ordinance went into effect in March of 2008 the proposed changes included in in the draft

0:50:37ordinance in attachment one in your packet and Illustrated in attachment three are primarily minor clarifications to make the ordinance easier for the public to understand and staff to use there are also three minor changes proposed to the zoning map to fix some

0:50:52minor typos um in the original document staff expects the ordinance to continue to evolve over time as it is used by staff and interpreted by the Planning Commission and Council the Planning Commission reviewed these proposed changes in a March 18th public hearing

0:51:07and recommended approval the proposed changes fall under the scope of the initial study prepared for the revised zoning ORS in 2008 and no additional squa analysis is required at this time and staff recommends that we that these changes are approved thank you thank you

0:51:25are there any questions from the council yes I have a couple okay thank you uh for this just a couple things the agenda uh Bill States the staff is also presenting five changes which affect zoning regulations correct I'm assuming uh asking for your confirmation if it's

0:51:45true or not that the um that the Planning Commission that's also from the Planning Commission they've endorsed these five changes yes okay thank you and second on U section 19.20 point11 a large family uh daycare location it says the uh uh we're changing it from 300 feet in all

0:52:09directions to 300 linear feet um apart along the fronting Street does that mean that if there is a uh facility across the street from an existing one that that 300 ft is included in that or not included in that um not included in that what we are running into a problem with is the 300

0:52:32feet in all directions prevents them from being on adjacent blocks um and we've had a number of applications that we've had to put on hold or deny um because of that there is the potential um for two large family daycares to end up directly across the street from each

0:52:49other um with this this change but we do feel that it more than likely won't happen um we do have separation requirements to prevent them from being adjacent immediately adjacent to each other um but I think it would be rare to see that instance happen yeah I I think we have a

0:53:06couple of situations in in the city now which this wouldn't affect because I imagine it' be grandfathered but um yeah I was just wondering about that thank you any other questions um in attachment three I think it's attachment three on the U second page there's or third page it's about

0:53:28section 1914 020 yes that should be and there was a question there's a couple of questions in the second column and uh it proposed a minimum lot size 8,000 to 10,000 square ft and yet there was 10,000 has been selected as the as the size lot I was just curious how why not 8,000

0:53:55um well first we don't have really any Lots in the city that are 8,000 square feet so in discussing it with the Planning Commission it was decided that 10,000 would be the minimum and that's actually a very small lot for a planned District but we the commission and staff

0:54:10felt that if an applicant came in with a really an Innovative project that maybe that might be appropriate okay great thank you um and then in non-conforming uh parking yes um which now I'm looking in attachment one on uh some page number of attachment one section Roman numeral uh

0:54:3716 uh Arabic number one if a single family resident property is legally non-conforming because it contained one covered parking space prior to two covered parking spaces being required is it possible to provide the date at which two covered parking spaces became

0:54:58required so that so that somebody a lay person reading this would understand what that date was um we could go back and find that I believe it was 1987 um but our documentation historically is is slightly unclear so we've used 1987 as the base date um sometimes back to 74 um and the in the

0:55:22various documentation our first own notes was 1953 um so we've sort of used it as anyone coming in now who has one parking space where two are required now falls under this rule so how does how does 2B work a single family resident property that contain two covered parking spaces but

0:55:43the number of car covered parking spaces has been reduced to one why why is that one exempt I mean because if they have one now no it's actually not exempt the this um section says that if you have one parking space you can keep it if if you're non-conforming we won't make you

0:56:07bring everything up to code so you can leave your non-conforming parking as is if you're adding on to your house in a way that would make every other code reference apply to you but if you're in a situation where you converted your garage or in some other way eliminated

0:56:23that second space that doesn't give you this exception but that's what 2B says is that if I eliminated the second space I am exempt no it it mean excuse me but 2B actually says that 2 A1 does not apply to you that's what it references back to oh you sure it's not referencing to

0:56:45one or the whole code in itself yes that was the way we wrote it so that's not the way I read it so I'm just curious if there there's a way to improve the wording it it I mean Arabic room number two says this section does not apply to any of the following a single family resident that

0:57:06contained two covered parking spaces that has been that was previously reduced to one space it then the entire section 1927 50 would not apply no it it was this maybe the subsection if we yeah I think that because we're reading in the staff report a little out of context I'm

0:57:27wondering if we can get clarification from legal council sure I mean we could certainly revise that to say that um subsection um one doesn't apply but would you have to bear in mind is that what the section does is allow for a limited amount of um expansion of a single family home for specified types

0:57:51of houses and so it is actually true to say that if they had a two-car garage and they didn't and they eliminated one of the spaces then the section doesn't apply to them because then they have no opportunity to expand the house without getting um without bringing the entire

0:58:07building up to up to code because as it is they they're they they they're not legal noncon they're not within the um the exception to the legal non-conforming which really makes me think I should explain this I mean it I think it what I'm trying to say is I think that the actually works

0:58:25as written and so let me try another attempt at explaining that um so uh most single family houses in the city are required to have a two-car garage at this point if they have one then they're most likely legal non-conforming what SE subsection a does is provide for a

0:58:43limited amount of expansion of that legal non-conforming house without having to get a conditional use permit but what what subsection two says is um this section doesn't apply if you had to and you basically got rid of one of the two spaces you have to if you're going

0:59:02to expand the house at all you have to re you have to add a second parking space so it's a double negative in some ways yeah believe me Jennifer and I went over a a few different ways of trying to word this and again I'll go back and say that we could we could revise the

0:59:18wording or the council if you want to could revise the wording to say that um subsection A1 above does not apply to any of the following but what we came what basically what we decided was this was the the way to structure it that worked the best but it I think that if

0:59:33the council thinks that there's still some ambiguity there that you should change it the attempt to to change the language here is to clarify um staff's interpretation and planning commission's interpretation on appeal of the original language which if you go to attachment

0:59:49three on page five um is a little more confusing so we bulleted it out um and tried and maybe ended up with double negatives um but we felt it was an easier way for the lay person to understand what exceptions apply to who and what makes you legal nonconforming

1:00:06if you create the situation you're not legal nonconforming that's essentially what that section says um my final question was on attachment three where we were talking about the um C Cur property yes the graphic uh that was in our attachment 3 it's not clear that there was a

1:00:33RS10 um so we just the top piece yeah I'm I'm looking at this right now um and mine doesn't show it it didn't print out correctly um essentially part of what the curve property was originally zoned um RS10 um but a different name at the time it was R1 B2 and during the discussions that we were

1:00:57having with the kurs about possible Park dedication we rezoned it yeah I'm not it's I'm not questioning the I'm not questioning the the the the resoning what I'm questioning is does the does the attachment have to be accurate at the time that we're adopting it since the my attachment is doesn't

1:01:15show which doesn't show the change do we do we need to make a change tonight so that the attachment is is accurate um I can answer the procedural question but I'm not sure what's wrong is it that the the map that's depicted there on page nine of attachment 3 is incorrect

1:01:40um no it just doesn't have RS10 written in the corner ah um where it should okay um again it's an excerpt from a larger map I think is there a reference to that other map in this staff report that's this is the zoning map right right if I may why don't we just say

1:02:03that we would like staff to properly uh label make sure that the that the map is properly label we can do that okay I mean that is a I would consider that to be a sufficiently minor um clerical change to the version that's introduced that if you introduce it tonight staff

1:02:22can make that correction and so when when it comes back to you for adoption it will be compliant with government code requirements thanks I have one uh clarification for Miss Carmen is um sorry if there is a lot that's 8,000 square feet is it eligible for a variance should it be buildable given

1:02:46the conditions of the terrain under this prop so if there was an exceedingly small and there was a reason for that could it be approved for R1 with a variance even though we have a 10,000 ft minimum lot size the we would need to we would have to look at when the lot

1:03:13was created um but more than likely I believe we could do that okay okay um then thank you for the staff report we will now open the public hearing and hear comments from the public each speaker will have three minutes to present comments although you don't have to use the entire three

1:03:35minutes and as you know we have a light system at the front that shows a green and then yellow and red when the three minutes is up do we have any speakers there's no speaker slip submitted okay for this item do we have a motion to close the public hearing so move second that's been moved in second

1:03:54second and all in favor I oppose so the motion carries um uh we're we we didn't have any public comments so we're ready for a motion on this item I move to approve by Title Wave further reading and introduce an ordinance of the city of elero which amends chapters

1:04:1819.06.13 19.20 1926 19.20 7 1947 and portions of the official zoning map contained in title 19 or uh the uh zoning ordinance of the elrio municipal code noting that minor um clerical revision to include um the proper titles being inserted into page eight of the

1:04:48zoning map second secondry it's been moved and seconded all in favor I um opposed did you need a roll call vote okay thank you okay we're now moving on to item seven updated fiscal policies and I'm happy to have Mary Dodge of finance manager to present this comprehensive

1:05:14document to the council good evening mayor remember of the council I'm Mary Dodge Finance Director City treasure and I'm here tonight to discuss the proposed new new comprehensive Financial policies these uh these came into being as a result of the February 14th Council goal

1:05:32setting meeting where uh fiscal responsibility was one of the items of focus so we went back and looked at the items we had and the last time anybody looked at the two major ones was 1994 so we did some research looked around found some areas that we felt that we could broaden the scope of these

1:05:51and we drafted this it was then taken to the financial Advisory board on April 14th and the items they discussed have been incorporated into this draft to the extent that I had everything I could and uh one of the things we're going to do with this is we've also proposed an

1:06:10annual review this will be new for this type of policy and we plan on bringing it every year with the investment policy but this year for the new process it's is kind of on its own so um we think we have all of them Incorporated we plan on looking look at it and would like to

1:06:25answer any questions you have on it okay well just before we take questions from the council I wanted folks who might not have had a chance to review this to um get a flavor for how comprehensive it is and it involves a number of policies relating to um long-term financial planning budget

1:06:46policies general fund Reserve policies financial reporting policies operational man management policies financial management policies Capital Improvement project policies equipment replacement funds our Enterprise funds and um throughout the document there uh are a lot of checks

1:07:10and balances and specifications about um the standards that we use in our en accounting and investment policies and it it's very reassuring and I think it's taken us very far from where we've been but varies a lot of the intent from the early and um efforts of earlier Council so I

1:07:30really appreciate it and um with that I Mr Lyman do you have a few questions I do actually um I have a a couple of recommended edits uh I'm going to be looking at three paragraphs that essentially all deal with the same concept uh paragraphs 2 2.7 7.4 and 5.51 I'll start with 2.7 because that's

1:07:54me where it's uh best uh described the annual review process should include an assessment to determine if funds are available to operate and maintain proposed Capital facilities and other public improvements um however in 551 um it's similar and it says before accepting any Grant the city shall

1:08:15thoroughly consider the implications in terms of ongoing obligations that will require in connection that will be required in connection with the acceptance of the said Grant and present that report for approval from the city council and in 74 the same concept again

1:08:32uh comes out uh however in 7.4 it's um a little more restrictive and this is where I would like to make a proposed edit the city shall actively pursue outside funding sources for all capital Improvement projects outside funding sources such as grants shall be used to

1:08:51finance only those Capital Improvement projects that are consistent with the 10-year Capital Improvement project and local government priorities and I propose to strike the following and whose operating and maintenance costs have been included in future operating

1:09:05budget forecasts um paragraph 7.5 does address the operating in addition to the other two paragraphs that I've highlighted uh paragraph 75 does address the um operating budget for any Capital Improvement so I I feel that the last sentence in 7 point or the last portion

1:09:24of 7.4 could be eliminated and not lose the intent okay I will make that changeit a minute the 2.5 discusses is more of an operating budget component and on the grant one which is all of these can be adjusted to however you think they should be since grants are not

1:09:44restricted for capital projects they could be an operating activity and I think the concern here is that we end up with a grant function that might have like a salary component that wouldn't carry beyond the grant so I think that that's that's part of the focus on that

1:10:00one has also has a comment regarding that item yeah I um respectfully uh disagree with uh eliminating the uh part of 7.4 that was outlined 7.5 talks about life cycle costs 7.4 is taking in all operational cost and maintenance cost in the future um I know it's it's a slight uh

1:10:32difference but I think it's important because um in my opinion uh the operating and maintenance costs involve more than life cycle costs and so I um but I see no harm in letting staying letting that stay well the challenge would be is if a grant came available to us today and we

1:10:54did not have we did not know about the capital project and we did not have it budgeted in your in the annual cycle we would have to turn the grant away no we um I I don't I don't think that we would have to turn it away I think we would have to make sure that um we try

1:11:14to maintain this standard however if it it wasn't available um we can give exception to that I mean just says this policy says very clearly whose operating and maintenance costs have not been included in future operating budgets so it's just it's very restrictive it I mean there's no

1:11:34question that when we accept a grant if you go back to five 51 it says before accepting any Grant the city shall thoroughly consider the implications in terms of ongoing obligations and will be required in connection with the acceptance of said Grant and present uh present the report

1:11:53for appr approval so we in 551 we have the opportunity to turn down the grant if we don't have the operating ability but in 74 we don't it's conflict in 74 you can't consider the grant if you don't have the operating well 51 says uh that we should do the analysis so I I I think the intent there

1:12:19is to do the analysis before we accept the grant and and I don't know that that's restrictive I just saying we can't we should not approve a grant until the analysis is done agree we do agree on that U Miss Dodge maybe you could help clarify the intent of item 74

1:12:39and um whether we would be vulnerable to not being able to um take advantage of opportunities that would come up if they came up between our budget Cycles if I look look at the sentence that says um if you go to the fourth or fifth line where we have Capital Improvement projects that are consistent

1:13:01with the 10e capital Improvement project and local government priorities I think that the local government priorities in the adjustment in the budget process throughout the year would not have this would not restrict us from being able to accept these grants um if the wording if if it

1:13:17if the wording needs to be changed even to or local government priorities uh that might have that a little bit more flexibility I I think the concern would be that um a grant opportunity comes forward before it has been included in a future operating budget and it would be something we

1:13:38would want to take advantage of so is the council comfortable with changing the wording to tenure Capital Improvement project or local government priorities or who's operating a maintenance cost is is that the direction that we're going I it could be worded a little bit easier

1:13:56some somewhat easier to reflect the fact that there's more flexibility needed in that statement you you could change the you see the the problem is it's past tense it's have been you can change it to will be and then and then it's fine because then at the time that we accept

1:14:11yeah at the time we accept the grant that's fine it's it's really the problem because we have to predict the future when we set the operating budget that's that's the main problem say we're not very good at predicting the future the future is beyond us okay that's a very

1:14:25elegant edit one word change costs have been to costs will be included in future operating budget forecast thank you okay are there any I mean this is a a new and very comprehensive document and I appreciate that change I don't want to get into word smithing but if there are

1:14:43other policy level comments um yes what I actually wanted to know if this policy had been reviewed in uh terms of requirements of um other systems from which we obtain um money such as I'm thinking of the cca's um program for giving out money um for um where you have to have a fiveyear

1:15:11plan I'm not quite sure if they're still going to be having that in major J but just sort of I'm thinking of this on a more generic level if there's a program from which we regularly or not regularly but occasionally get funding based on some other criteria I'm wondering um if

1:15:30we've got a a way in this system to um deal with it in a different way than this 10year plan so that we could in fact consider and possibly accept those grant that Grant I have not um run this past CCTA or any organization such as that that we currently receive funding on Under the

1:15:56Umbrella of the old policy that is much more um much less descriptive than this one normally these organizations prefer a little bit more depth in these policies and we tried myself and the Fab to not be too restrictive in in these types of of uh discussions um I'm not

1:16:16sure what specific components they would need um I'm just wondering more if you looked at it um the the other thing that I was um wondering about is what I Loosely think of and may maybe it's been covered a little bit the chicken the egg approach what comes first and um I would

1:16:38hate for us to be in a situation where only once a year are we able to look at grant opportunities because they come up all year round are so are we with the changes that have been suggested in particular or are we protected from that preventing us from the intent is here to

1:16:57is encourage Grant um to to seek out grants at every opportunity the once a year item only um reflects on looking at the policies once a year because the word smithing in this can be refined as we go along um as the climate changes as things and just to be able to make sure

1:17:16that we do recognize well there were references about being in the tenure plan I just want to make sure that doesn't override everything because things don't just change at the beginning of a year when we do a budget they change all the time and the intent is not to restrict it for any any time

1:17:34during the year okay you you made a suggestion of changing the and to or local government again we're going back to 7.4 or local government priorities I think that that edit would be well received to to respond to your comment J okay and or we say and or okay okay are there any um

1:18:07speakers is there a motion I'd like to make uh some suggestions here excuse me on this um one thing I would like to see included is uh fiscal policy on crisis management um there in in managing uh disaster or or emergency uh situations there is powers that the local uh authorities can use

1:18:40for instance to encumber uh equipment and food and supplies needed but there's also uh ways proper ways of managing and keeping records and that sort of thing um I would suggest that we have have that in there it could be as little as a a couple sentences saying that we're

1:18:59following whatever state policy is on that actually it's one of the projects that the Fab kind of has in the works is developing a separate comprehensive disaster financial plan and we've basically gotten only as far as um getting some materials from other agencies and uh finally got an example

1:19:21or two to start with and hopefully after the budget season we will um bring that back to the Fab as a a a fairly major project okay we could include this one here to say that but we don't have one to really reference until we get that one done sure maybe I could ask uh Chief

1:19:39Maples uh the disaster plan do they recommend a management uh procedure from which to proceed in a yes uh most of disaster planning mechanisms recommend having a financial disaster plan also for procurement of goods and equipment and costs um I've spoke with Mary in depth about this and she has

1:20:02told me that she's bringing a couple examples before the Fab and then it will come back to council good so we have something in which the Fab and the council can uh look at and take off from sure thank you very much thank you um second thing is and I don't know if it's

1:20:18now or we take it up at the budget I I was going to bring it up at budget time but I'd really like to look at the general fund Reserve policy um with the possibility of increasing the 10% and I don't know if you want to take that up now or during the budget process

1:20:35which policy number is that that you're referring to three you is there particular is there particular 131 131 and anywhere else where it says 10% and actually I have a whole proposal that I had lined out uh that I wanted to present during the budget session but if

1:21:04this is the proper time I guess we could take a look at it well actually with council member Chang abson I would be more comfortable putting that off perhaps till the budget discussion it's a pretty important item I yeah I would U okay I would agree with that rest the council concurrence

1:21:23of putting off a discussion yes so all five so all five of us could be here and we could link it to the budget and have a look at what our reserves are projected to be yeah I would just ask if if there's any um homework or anything we can do between now and then to help

1:21:39you uh with the decision that we can bring back whether it's what's common what other cities do what our finance folks recommend just so we could I think maybe I could share my ideas with you and you guys could take a look at that and see so that when I bring it before

1:21:57the council um we have the information we can make it decision ready with whatever material you might need to make a decision okay we can talk offline on that thank you council member Alon yeah I just wanted to talk about the um the the concept of why we have the Reserves

1:22:15to begin with uh particularly as it relates to operating um the um the experience that I'm looking to is the contracosta Transportation Authority um we just completed uh measure C in that program which was a 20-year measure and uh the income source for that was sales tax

1:22:36revenue and there were Reserve funds built into various portions of that and um the the general intent of that Reserve fund was um pretty much exclusively um to deal with with uh downturns in the economy over C and and lowered sales tax revenue over limited periods of time that would then be met

1:23:02by a later U upsurge hopefully um going the other direction so that the U money would be made up somehow and that was the intent of the reserves the intent of the reserves is not just to have reserves the intent of the reserves needs to be for a purpose and um in

1:23:22terms of operating reserves that was a very important purpose in majure C because in fact we over at the 20-year period that that measure existed uh there were upturns and downturns and uh it enabled operating um environments to remain stable during those uh downturns and

1:23:45then in the upturns the money would be put back in and um for example what that meant in in real life is is that the money that went to Transit agencies um was somewhat stable so they could continue to provide the rides um and pay the salaries of the drivers Who provided

1:24:04those rides all the time not just in good years um so looking to this policy I don't really see it saying a similar sort of thing this is all about getting the money in but it's not it's not to me uh imparting much about why we have a reserve and um the fact that in in an

1:24:25emergency or uh an economic downturn in particular that in fact that's what they're there for um for for operating funds I'm talking about now I'm not talking about Capital funds um but um and uh although in fact there's a capital side to it too something that you thought might if if you don't have

1:24:46if you were planning on building a project let's say that was going to cost um $100,000 and you were assuming that you're going to uh gather together reserves or through a period of time but in fact the rate that they were coming in at was lower than expected then you

1:25:05need to have a way of compensating for it oh you've got to reduce your project size so all of those things are really important Concepts and I know in um major C we're very much alive um and part of it and I'm just not really seeing that being um stated here and I I

1:25:24would like to see some language that um it talks about one year and in fact economic downturns I believe usually last the ones I've seen under measure see lasted longer than one year um so um if if that's the intent of having the reserve and I certainly hope that is the

1:25:44intent of having operating reserves then um I think we need to allow for what um history has shown it can happen so I was um looking at item policy 2.4 which speaks to what one of the potential uses of the reserve which I think relates somewhat to what you were just

1:26:09raising even though it's in a different section of the policy part part of the reason that we have the one-ear item in there even though we try to broaden it farther than that was it was the intent to incorporate where we started from the old policies into this one and in the

1:26:25old policy it basically stated that one year or that was where you were going to be we have changed it so to recognize that things can happen longer than one year but the reason it is in here is to try to incorporate the old policies with the new it can be changed there may there

1:26:42may be a desire to define a little bit what we mean by um general fund Reserve policy but I do like the spirit of it for instance 3.4 says onetime revenues will not be used to fund ongoing City programs um a reserve fund is a reserve fund it's for emergencies not not to

1:27:04keep alive ongoing programs um I can see one of the definitions I've heard of of uh revenue is to have enough general fund Reserve policy in the case of emergency to keep operating for a certain period of time until the governing body and the community can figure out how to fix the emergency and

1:27:25go forward um so if you're asking that we should Define it a little better maybe we should um I'm actually suggesting that it might be to stabilize the provision of um benefits to the community that the city provides in the case of measure C that's how it was used

1:27:46um you know and I use the bus example because it's pretty I think clearcut that you don't want to um because you don't want to lay off a bunch of drivers because sales tax revenue went down and then have to hire them back the following year is it possible to to

1:28:02modify the last sentence is it possible to modify the last sentence of section 3.2 where it does say this Reserve would be for expenditures of a non-recurring nature or to meet increases in current Service delivery costs that that second part the or part does talk to your bus

1:28:21driver an techology where there may be a need to U continue the the service to the service well I think it's not so much about increased costs is it is about decreased Revenue we also looked at it as an Revenue issue problem I think we're getting a little bit um deep into the

1:28:41discussion Mr Jones suggested that we might look at the 10% um amount for the reserves my understanding of the reserves based on this policy is that during times when the operating Revenue uh is not uh enough to meet the expenses then we can dip reserves under these

1:29:01conditions that are specified here and um his question related to whether that threshold for the reserve should be 10% or something else um I think it would be useful for the council when we do come back to discuss this during our budget to have information about what other

1:29:17cities are doing and also what Municipal Finance experts recommend in terms of Reserve uh I'm also interested in what Elsa's past reserves have been over time because I think that um although it's very very important to have a rainy day fund we also have an obligation to spend

1:29:35taxpayers money on services and um City functions during the time that we collect them and that it's not okay to collect taxes and save and save and save a large amount of that in a reserve fund and not deliver the service so I think we need we are faced with that balancing

1:29:52act uh and perhaps that the information requested might help us to arrive at the comfortable amount for our uh organization the yes the information you just outlined is something that we were going to I was going to talk with the city manager offline about the 10%

1:30:09because if you get into whether it's 10% or whether we raise it um there still has to probably in and it sounds like council member Aon concurs that there has to be uh maybe a little tighter definition of what we mean as we go forward and I I would personally I would

1:30:28recommend that um there never be an automatic expenditure of those reserves that there it would always have to be considered are you referring to specific policy here well I'm kind of looking at um number um 2.4 seems to be catching my eye more than um I think it's implied that the council

1:30:56has to approve but maybe it should be stated see I keep seeing the one year and and first first all of all I don't know how you well you can expect anything you want but how you don't have any way of really knowing how long it's going to last at the beginning of the

1:31:12period you can always tell in hindsight but well I think if I may I think the one year is used because in one year the budget cycle will come up and the council can uh then uh take up the crisis during a budget period um I guess that wasn't how I was reading this well I think other policies

1:31:34kick in after that one-year provision as Mr Jones said to get us to the next next budgetary cycle and then we apply the rest of the whole policy to make those adjustments here's here's how I'm reading it it says the cause of the imbalance is expected to last for no

1:31:50more than one year what if it's expected to last for two years this is an example then that means you can't use it is how I read that okay I I would defer to the City attorney but my understanding is one we we now do annual budgets and you would have the opportunity to review it every year but

1:32:09two that the council can't bind future councils to the use of it or not anyway so you would we only do Appropriations for the for the year and I think there's sort of two types of ways the reserves go up and down one is unanticipated where expenses may be below budget but

1:32:28revenues don't materialize and our reserves get eaten away for some reason I think what this is saying is the planned use of reserves where the council and we we did this once before where the council adopts a budget with you know an intentional draw down of reserves in

1:32:47advance um and we would do that annually um in that case it didn't materialize we didn't have to use it but the Council made a conscious decision in adopting the budget that we were going if needed we were going to use it so you know there's a way I could see that it would

1:33:02handle my problem here with it um is that um if the cause of the imbalance is expected to last for no more than one year doesn't quite work for me as such but what would work is that the use of reserves can only be for the imbalance that is expected to occur Ur in the

1:33:23upcoming year something like that J the second part of 2.4 says in the event that a budget shortfall is expected to continue beyond one year the planned use of reserves must be developed as part of a corresponding strategic financial plan to close the gap through Revenue increases Andor

1:33:42expenditure decreases so if you if you are looking at a situation where you have two years in a row where revenues are going to be off you can't you can't solve the first year by reserves alone you have to solve the first year with Revenue increases and uh uh expenditures

1:34:00reductions where if if you think it's only going to be a year you can solve the Gap with re with uh rainy day funds only I guess I just isn't and I'm thinking of the measure C example this would not have worked well I think what I hear you miss Aon is saying is that um

1:34:16if you think it's going to last longer than one year you have to wait to your budget cycle so what happens in the interim if you you want to do the you want to take some steps in that first year but you you're anticipating it's going to take longer that kicks you into

1:34:33the second part and so we don't have the flexibility if you read it that way too but we do the corresponding corresponding strategic financial plan I would I'm assuming anyway that it would be uh part of that would be the the budget and that that's when you make you

1:34:52can make your corrective actions for the future or or mid year like we had this year where we did change things we didn't so would it be helpful to have a policy statement that says um that at any time during the fiscal year the city manager could um bring to the council for

1:35:11consideration expenditure of the reserves he does that the POS general manager or city manager does that now I know but is it not written in this policy clearly because this discussion makes me think that maybe it w it wasn't clear that that is in fact what we that

1:35:31wasn't actually what I was getting at I think what would maybe work for what I was getting at is what if you an economic down term let's say that we think that they typically last two years okay you could look over time this Transportation Authority does this a lot

1:35:47they look over time and see how the sales tax revenue um in terms of collections kind of moves up and down and there kind of patterns to it um they aren't one-year patterns um that's what my problem is so it now I understand that we can only in a given Council year

1:36:05um expend money in that Council year but um we understand that it would losing my TR trail of thought here um we need to recognize that in fact I it seems to me when we're starting out with this point in time where we're looking at the one year we ought to be able to acknowledge that it's not one

1:36:31year um because and here's an example that's real um if we've only got let's say $50,000 in reserves we can't use it all up in that first year even though it's there because we need we need to reserve it also for the second year Mr Lyman I think we're going to be

1:36:50continuing this item uh because of the discussion about the percentage in item in item three and I think we should give staff an opportunity to address our comments tonight and maybe bring a new Financial policy forward well um I was prepared actually to vote on this item holding over

1:37:10another discussion to the budget may I make one comment on the one item that you were talking about I I think that uh my interpretation of this goes back a little bit more to I think Lord to Scott to to the city managers where in that first year um and and the mayor's comment in regards to choosing

1:37:29sometime to spend reserves that have accumulated over time if you have a builtup reserve fund and you want to be able to utilize those funds to buy something that you need you should be able to do those without it having to be considered a serious um utiliz utilization of your Reserves

1:37:51but in the other instance where you are having long-term Revenue declines this is where the plan is required to be able to show how you anticipate getting those reserves back up the the one-year item I believe is intended for use for when times when you have an excess in your

1:38:11reserve fund that's my interpretation okay thank you for that clarification are there any other comments we going to hold this over or not I'm I'm interested I think in holding it over and seeing if staff can rework some of these sections to reflect what we talked

1:38:33about I don't think it'll take that much work it'll give us an opportunity to have a discussion about the percentages once uh member chain returns okay is there um a motion to continue so move second all in favor I I name May motion carries 3 to one okay the next item is item eight

1:38:57Council on reports and do we have any I do you want me to go first yes please okay um the financial Advisory Board met and U they did uh discuss the investment policy in addition to the financial policy that we uh analyzed tonight um they just also considered uh item or

1:39:23through Liam's report they talked about uh the um item that we withdrew from the um for consideration in the future and they have established Fab meetings on I think it's Tuesday May 5th uh in addition to their normal uh Tuesday May 12th uh meeting and for the crime prevention

1:39:45committee there were two uh dates that I want to remind everyone about the first is bicycle safety day uh which is May 16th and that is noon to 4: at the DMV parking lot and the second date is National Night Out will be held the first Tuesday of August which is August

1:40:064th thank you no the Integrated Waste Management met this this past month one thing that comes up and it seems to come up a lot um is that their Earth Day celebration is on the same Saturday is our Earth Day and I didn't know if uh we actually send staff or or some representatives to

1:40:30Integrated Waste I was going to ask somebody at the county you mean the West County the Waste Management Authority right do we do we participate oh yeah even though our Earth Day is same day we certainly try yeah good but but everyone wants to group around Earth a the real Earth a so

1:40:58you usually pick the week weekend before the weekend after and you compete with not only the waist Authority compete with Berkeley compete with so there's a whole lot of competition for the oh I know it's just it's nice they seem to do a good job there and be nice to have

1:41:14represents representation there there are also different kinds of there different ways to to celebrate Earth Day and some do it by mostly having booths and some by having work parties and we're a work party group primarily oh I know but and the county is into demonstrations

1:41:30and um you know that sort of thing representing the whole County so um that's okay I was just making sure that is there a county level one I wasn't aware of it what's that is there a county level one yes the Integrated Waste Management West County West County West County okay second of all there

1:41:49seems to be uh we had a presentation a by East Bay mud and they are now um regenerating 90% of their or self-generating 90% of their the energy that they use at that plant and they they hope within the next 5 years to be over 100% and actually selling energy back to the grid so that

1:42:11was encouraging and uh then n bico from Hercules has been in uh well they contacted him because he's the president of the board uh talking about uh turning and there's a German company that has successfully turned just normal garbage into diesel fuel with zero emissions and there's a

1:42:34lot of good things about it um so I I think what it is is the authority is starting to look at some of these opportunities to turn waste into meaningful uh energy uh to help out with that so uh there was also uh looking staff had presented a proposal to start using

1:42:54food waste um in a broader sense than it's now as you know Els Sero is the pilot program for that so some of the things coming up thank you um I was not able to attend the arts and culture commission meeting this month and I was wondering um if the assistant city manager might have an

1:43:15update on the art opening for The Gallery at the city hall thank you mayor Potter um the new exhibit is by a um local resident named Joan kais and they are oil paintings on canvas and linen we will not be having a reception um for the artist like we have before she declined um but the public is

1:43:41certainly invited to um come see the beautiful exhibit we've got nothing but compliments on the exhibit and we're very proud of the exhibit and of Miss kais so so thank you thank you and I have had the privilege of viewing the paintings upstairs on the second um Gall

1:43:56Floor Gallery and I encourage everybody to take the opportunity because they're really uh beautiful works of art so thank you I I wanted to remind folks that during our consent calendar we approved a proclamation for Bike To Work Day and just to remind everybody that

1:44:13that day is May 14th I know we're going through a heat wave it's been Spare the Air and so that's a good reason to get out of your car and let's carry it over all the way through May 14th for Bike To Work Day that concludes Thea on reports um as many of you know the Redevelopment

1:44:32agency and the city council will be reconvening in closed session but tonight we will be um adjourning this meeting in memory of Bruce king um we are deeply saddened by the loss of the city's maintenance and Engineering service manager who tragically passed away on Friday April

1:44:5217th he served this city for 14 years and it w is with the deepest respect for his life his public service and his permanent contribution to the health of the environment in Els Sero that we adjin the city council meeting and ask for a moment of silence Bruce we're going to miss you very

1:45:41much I need to call I know I know I think I'm supposed to do this one okay we're now going to convene the special city council close session meeting um and announce a special to confer with legal counsel um on anticipated litigation pursuant to government code section

1:46:1054956.9 and this is a time we'll take oral Communications from the public on item nine we have a number of speaker slips submitted for item nine however I think they may actually be for the Redevelopment meeting is that correct is there anyone here for item nine looks like there are no speakers

1:46:45for item nine so um is there a recommendation about how to proceed with public comment for the other closed session items should we just take them at this time or do we need to open the Redevelopment agency meeting I think I I realize it's a little bit difficult but I think that

1:47:11since um the first closed session is for the city council in the second is for the Redevelopment agency as as um potentially um logistically difficult as that as it it may be best U for the sake of the record for the council to to conduct the closed session um on its

1:47:26item and then come back out and convene the Redevelopment agency um close session separately do we have an estimate of the time we're um planning for I expect about 10 minutes for the city council close session okay so we will now um convene in close session and

1:47:41we should return um in about 10 or 15 minutes thank you for your patience for we have no reportable action from the Clos session and I'll now adjourn this special city council meeting like to convene the special uh Redevelopment agency meeting um we will be taking public comment then going into

1:57:28closed session at the end of this um the Clos session will be under pursuant to government code section 599 56.8 uh we will have three what is it two issues I guess before the uh Redevelopment three issues before the Redevelopment agency first one will be resources Community Development would be

1:57:53the negotiating party and uh we will be discussing terms on that the second project is the target Corporation will be updated on uh contractual terms on that project and the third one will be dowy Street Productions and we will be uh discussing terms of payment so to contract on that one uh uh

1:58:20at this time I'd like to call for oil Communications from the public are there any speakers tonight yes there are several um the first is Daniel swock I um good evening um my name is Dan sleck I'm the executive director of resources for Community Development I want to thank you for your commitment to

1:58:44the olone gardens project it's 6431 and 6495 portal a drive rcd and the Hatland center for the blind as you know have been working together to build a new development El Sero that combines housing for students of the Hatland Center the offices and classrooms of the

1:59:01center and affordable homes for the community we're now at a critical juncture and I want to talk briefly about two of the issues you'll be considering tonight first I want to say that we are fully committed to the involvement of the Hatland Center in this project rcd has a long track record

1:59:17of working with Social Service Providers on housing developments and the Hatland Center is one of the most competent and Visionary partners that we have worked with we are highly confident that Hatland will be in this project now I want to talk about the issue of the

1:59:31Hatland Center requirement to raise $2.8 million before this project can start construction this is a necessity because of the unique nature of Hatland program which is essentially a residential School for the Blind these Hatland Center units cannot be funded by the

1:59:48affordable housing program that can pay for the remainder of the project therefore this is a financing challenge that we can't eliminate but it's one that we're quite confident that we will ultimately meet Hatland and rcd have agreed on a realistic agreement that

2:00:02allows the project to proceed if Hatland is unable to raise the needed funds we are confident that they will raise the funds but the development's ability to obtain outside loans we need to do to the design work required to begin construction requires a viable option

2:00:18for the project to complete that does not depend on Hatland fundraising this is not a new issue and again this is a contingency plan that is a requirement of our other funders it is our plan and expectation that hatlin will move forward with us on this development the

2:00:34other issue I wanted to discuss is staff's concern that the Project's entitlements are less assured ex Hatland particip pardon excuse me that um that portion I think can be taken up under policy manners uh actual the actual uh recommendation by staff is actually an agenda item

2:00:57under uh item number 11 when we come out of Clos session so if you're going to address the staff's report then we'll take it at that time take it at that time okay well then I'll just say uh I think this is going to be a project that um you'll be pleased with um we

2:01:15uh I think it's going to have great value for the city for many years I think it's one that'll have National significance with the involvement of Hatland the development's on a great site um close to shopping and Transit um and I think it's also a good Financial

2:01:29deal for the city the city's 3.5 million will leverage over $20 million of outside investment so anyway I'll come back later thank you thank you very much next speaker please Lisa Montoya Peggy Jen good evening my name is Peggy Jen I'm from the local initiative support

2:01:58Corporation one of the lenders um involved in supporting the um olone Gardens project I wanted to first of all thank the council for having the foresight and the vision of um taking on this exciting project um Lisk is a national nonprofit that works in supporting local community local

2:02:19communities and creating vibrant inclusive neighborhoods and we um I had the opportunity to bring this uh lone request to our credit committee as well as the request to potentially partner with the Redevelopment agency and there was excitement on our part to um support

2:02:35this um Innovative project um we have a long history working with resources for Community Development um our organization's been around for almost 30 years now and we have provided um rcd with over $10 million in financing all of which they have um fulfilled their

2:02:53commitments to us um as a borrower but also um not just the letter of the loan agreements but the spirit of of how the financing was committed um our um affiliate the national Equity Fund which is an investor in affordable housing tax credit projects like the aloney gardens

2:03:12has invested over $41 million in um rcd sponsored projects um which is about seven affordable housing developments so they are a very competent um organization and we have every expectation that they will work very closely with the Hatland Center to fulfill the vision of the city um the

2:03:33the item in question around um having many having the possibility of the Hatland Center um potentially not be a part of the project I think um what is important for us is that we expect rcd to work with the Hatland Center to to meet that fundraising challenge um but

2:03:52it is early and pre-development so it's important to um for us to see that rcd and Hatland has many options open and to have that flexibility to anticipate any changes in the financing environment so um while we it's it's more of a contingency plan to ensure that the

2:04:11project can move forward um um when when the environment is a little bit unpredictable so I want to um assure the council that I think your vision will be fulfilled and you'll be pleased with the development thank you next uh speaker please Patricia Williams good evening I'm Patricia

2:04:39Williams the executive director of the Hatland center for the blind first of all uh I want to express our sincere gratitude for the city council's $3.5 million funding commitment to this project the staff board students and Friends of the Hatland Center are all

2:04:54very excited about the idea of moving to a new center in the town where we've wanted to move to for over 10 years and the commitment that you made on March 2nd has allowed me to finally move forward with our fundraising efforts because now our investors see this

2:05:10project as being more than just our Dream for the future after the city's commitment two of our main investors who I've been talking to about this project for several months said to me oh congratulations so this is real sit down let's talk um the point being that doors

2:05:27are suddenly opening and people are getting on the bandwagon our overall funding plan is this within one more week we will complete our donor presentation materials then we'll be begin meeting with individual donors and presenting them with the opportunity to invest in the center's future through

2:05:44this project we have already applied for Grants to purchase furniture for all of our student Apartments as well as computer upgrades for our Tech Lab and offices since we will need new equipment and Furniture in our new home these grants allow us in essence to move the

2:05:59project forward a contractor who sits on our board will build out our commercial space at cost which will save us many thousands of dollars I am working with a highly respected local Capital campaign consultant and after looking at our donor list and connections she feels

2:06:15that although it will not be quite as easy to reach our goal as it would would have been two years ago we have a lot to work with and that it is entirely possible to meet those goals we will leave no stone unturned as we move forward aggressively to meet our funding

2:06:30obligations I also want to let you know that even though our campaign has not yet fully kicked off as a result of your commitment we are already seeing some amazing results from some people who are suddenly willing to help in just two weeks of trying I have been able to

2:06:46obtain pledges for $175,000 this is close to 25% of what we need to raise by the end of October in addition we have already been able to start building an honorary Board of sponsors which so far includes a wealthy local businessman a senior VP of Morgan Stanley leaders from our field and Paula

2:07:05luk who is our benefactor and head of our leadership Society in addition we have quotes of support from representative George Miller whose Uncle helped to found our Center the CEOs of the American printing house for the the Blind and the American foundation for

2:07:20the blind the two largest organizations for the blind in the world and others in other words support for our project has begun to Ripple out and create a web of support that support is a natural outgrowth of the support we have gained over the last 38 years from government

2:07:37the private sector and from leaders in our field by the end of July the Hatland Center will have spent close to $100,000 on this project I am a conservative ative person and believe me I would have not have taken this on unless I thought we could do our part in raise the money

2:07:55we have committed to raising although I cannot give you a written guarantee of our success I want you to know that I am confident that the Hatland Center can meet our funding commitment to the project and make our dream come true I thank you once again for your efforts to work with us on the

2:08:12challenges represented by this project and I want to urge council's continuing support I'm confident that by working together we can bring to fruition a wonderful project that will meet the needs of the Elser community and be an addition to your city that will make you

2:08:30proud thank you Patty Mafi Robert Brower uh I'm going to be speaking about the merits of this when you come back on 11a but what I wanted to talk about was something that I think is appropriate to right now I'd like to just refresh our recollection about three important

2:09:00things this first came to you in September of last year you were faced with deciding whether satellite housing or the Hatland project would go forward you decided to take the Hatland project forward and you gave them 100,000 predevelopment costs most of which was

2:09:16spent on my property drilling holes doing surveys and listening to how much noise there is from bark that entire event was an open session open to the public to everybody there was no close session for that decision it came back in January on a staff report that staff report talked

2:09:36about the problems of how you needed to get a loan since you had taken a significant amount of Redevelopment money and invested it somewhere else on other projects you didn't have the money to fund this so it was about a loan that entire discussion occurred in Open

2:09:53session in front of the public there was no closed session on that none the third time it was here was in March in March you voted 5 to approve the immediate acquisition of the property you told the staff get the loan buy the property I had a close of escro datee of March

2:10:1431st that all occurred in open session in front of everybody the public and on TV there was no closed session and now when you're the way that I read the report when you're ready to pull the plug by putting on conditions that had never existed where do you go you go behind closed doors and

2:10:34hide now does the brown act uh uh does the brown act allow you to to do that absolutely not you know what the brown Act is for if you're going to sell a property you want to discuss among yourself the lowest price you'll sell it for you don't want to tell that to the buyer if

2:10:52you're going to buy a property you don't want to say the highest amount you're going to say because you don't want to tell that to the person you're buying the property from single term of this is laid out terms of the contract that the that we will be briefed on but the decision

2:12:11itself and the discussion on what what that decision is will be made under item 11 thank you next please uh Lind Linda moss on the Sero theater I'm Linda Moss I live at [address removed] and I'm here to support the cero theater and we sincerely appreciate all the hard work that you city council are

2:12:47doing and the city staff for the cero these are difficult times for all of us it has been a very very long road getting the Sero up and going what seemed like an impossible dream has come true not by Magic but through the dedication of many the serero has become a unique

2:13:14asset to the community but it's not at all surprising that there are few bumps in the road especially in such difficult Economic Times we ask that you stay true to your vision please do everything possible to keep the cero operating without interruption as a movie theater thank

2:13:42you next speaker please Ken burnt good evening again uh I me to uh apologize for my last talking to you I gave you uh figures that didn't balance the county tax bills were one figure the amount we paid was something else lest you think it it was L laziness on my

2:14:10part because my career was in banking over 40 years and they all whenever you got two figures they had to balance I have been trying to get all the non-confidential information Communications between your agency and the theater and staff I asked uh Scott Hannon in October for this

2:14:31information early part of this year I received 229 pages of information that was totally useless not a figure in the whole 229 pages about half of that 2 29 Pages were agendas tell me what can you learn useful from an agenda I don't know but I'm sorry that I couldn't get the

2:14:59figures to balance I couldn't get any place in any of the reading that I had that gave the chairman here uh and the city manager the ability the authority to write checks for the taxes when the lease that I have makes no mention of the city paying any part of those taxes

2:15:20sorry thank you very much thank you next speaker no other speaker slips chair Jones okay with that before this should be a good time I think to uh reiterate the report out of our last of the agency's last meeting and uh I'll just read it here um that based on the

2:15:45notification received April 7 2009 from Downey Street Properties or Downey Street Productions of their intent to close the Sero Speak Easy theater the agency board will not be going forward with consideration of proposed amendments to the lease and the ddla for the Downey Street Productions

2:16:06on May 4th 2009 as previously reported the board has given direction to staff and agency councils to work with Downey Street Productions on an orderly transition of the Sero theater to a new operator as was suggested by the CEO of Downey Street Productions in addition the agency board gave direction

2:16:28to staff to begin the process of selecting a new operator staff will all was also given the direction to Begin work on the final determination of lease obligations to the agency including the transfer of equipment and fixtures to the agency ownership the agency remains

2:16:45committed to the Sero theater as a Comm Community Asset that was a report out of the April 8th uh special close session of the agency and with that we'll go into close session thank you what's the alarm code e like to reconvene the uh special session of the uh Redevelopment

2:54:20agency uh the the agency did not uh discuss item 11b I mean excuse me 10 where are we here I just had it uh we did not discuss 10 two two and 103 because of the uh amount of public that is here for 10 one so what we're going to do is discuss um item 11a uh under policy matters first

2:54:55conclude that go back in special session for the other two uh the other two sessions just want to report out we did not give uh staff uh Direction there was no uh there's no uh Direction given to staff let me put it that way and um we did check this is what we have been provided and what

2:55:23we're going to be discussing is a change to the agreement therefore we were given the background in close session on that and we we did not uh make any decisions that's why we're here in Open Session to discuss that so with that I'd like to ask for a staff report

2:55:43please good evening agency chair Jones members of the agency board I'm Hildy mile project manager for housing the item 11a tonight is to consider Amendment of the project description of the hland center for the Blind and family housing development on Port TOA Drive uh to ask

2:56:01you ask you to consider amending the approving resolution of the $3.5 million loan for the project to make the participation of the Hatland center for the blind in the project uh an optional condition of agency approval of financial assistance um to allow more flexibility for the project um in the

2:56:20eventuality that Hatland is not able to meet its fundraising goal um we bring this item before you tonight because we feel it's a it's a piece of new information and that the the spirit of the council's approval in March 2nd or agency board's approval in March 2nd was approving a project that

2:56:37of which Hatland was an integral part so we're bringing this before you tonight for your discussion thank you public presentations Communications excuse me um no other speaker slip submitted didn't we have hold on here didn't we have where was the executive director ah this is the time to address

2:57:01the comments on the staff report so Mr Bower I'll take them first and then yes thank you for your patience on this you I'm sorry I no no that's that's all right I just wanted to keep things straight here I just uh I guess I just wanted to um uh say that one thing I

2:57:24want to to to talk about for a minute is the uh concern that's in the staff report that the projects entitlements are are less assured if Hatland participation is not guaranteed and that to hedge against that risk the agency should not spend significant funds on

2:57:42the acquisition of the sites until entitlements are achieved and um you know I just wanted to say that that that's a big change from the what we were thinking was the plan uh which was to go ahead and acquire the sites uh very soon actually um and we don't think

2:57:58it's the best course of action if if you did uh do that it could have the impact of forcing rcd and Hatland um to spend what would be a significant amount of money for our two nonprofits to go ahead and and get the uh approvals so um that might make it difficult for us to carry

2:58:15the project forward um so I I I just wanted to say that uh if you do want to go that route um one way to support the project could be to consider funding uh the design um and engineering and carrying costs of getting those entitlements um and uh so we hope if you

2:58:34um won't allow the site to be purchased now um that you'll work with us in the coming days to support us um in in helping us to pay those costs and if you did want to do that that could could be achieved by spending a small fraction of the 3.5 million that you've already

2:58:48committed so anyway um uh I just wanted to say that and say thank you thank you appreciate it appreciate your patience U Mr Bower I believe I uh I drew up a two column chart and in one column I laid out essentially what would occur if you voted no in other words if you stayed

2:59:15with the March 2nd vote and then one com I put yes so I just want to go through and show you how I analyze the two different views if you confirm your March 2nd vote and do the loan immediately then the property acquisition would take place in my contract I have a close of escrow of

2:59:40April 30th which was put in the contract designed on the idea that this was going to be a consent calendar item however I included an extension to July 1st so it could be extended to July 1st the risk of acquiring the properties first is that the Hatland Center will

3:00:05not be able to raise the 2.8 million and they'll be out of the project that's the risk that risk is not analyzed in the staff report at all there's no analysis of how big is that risk so I've done that here are what I think are the sing facts first the Hatland Center has been

3:00:23operation since 1972 they have a very broad donor base and in addition to the donor base they have a special friend who has access to large multi-millionaire donors I took that donor base list to the foundation Center in San Francisco go and I asked them is it realistic that

3:00:47with being in business since 1972 and with this donor base they could actually raise the money and they said yes it is re it is realistic I told the Hatland Center that I would be willing to offer a $1.4 million guarantee secured by the sale proceeds of 1127 contra cost to drive

3:01:06another property that I am the trustee of that's how confident I am that they can do it so here's the risk if you acquire the properties now the risk that the Hatland Center is out of the project is very small now let's go to the proposal from the staff that you

3:01:26don't do that you defer acquisition until after the uh planning the planning approvals are uh I suppose a uh use permit or something my close of escrow closes July 1st 2009 if that deadline line passes and the property is not acquired then the entire Project's over I was told by staff that the March

3:01:522nd vote was the last vote so I went to all the students that I have lined up for scholarships and told them March 2nd is the day you voted 5-0 I went back to the students I said your scholarships are now guaranteed by me I have a student who's going to Napa junior

3:02:11college to be a respiratory therapist with on a full-rise scholarship I told them after your March vote it's guaranteed I am now in the position where I either have to flip-flop on on those students or not flip-flop on and not extend the deadline my decision is

3:02:29I'm not going to flip-flop on the students I'm not extending the deadline so if you go along with the proposal the risk is very large that July 1st will come along there'll be no property acquisition and no project at all thank you very much thank you any other uh people would like to

3:02:53speak okay we'll bring it back here to the agency board um well comments right now in discussion I just wanted to say that the Redevelopment agency has been very excited about the prospect of this project in elero and seeing this project to successful completion and one of the public

3:03:13commenters indicated that um this is not a new issue this that we're what we're dealing with today about the fundraising and to us it is a new issue and when we approved and voted five to zero on March 2nd for the project we voted for a project with the Hatland center for the

3:03:32blind in it that was a major component for us and so this is a new situation that we're trying to Grapple with um I just want to lay that framework we've had discussions about the possible purchase of the site as a solution and my feeling about that is that the amount of money that it would

3:03:55be to the Redevelopment agency represents a very large percentage of our total uh available budget and it is also a project that has not been identified in our long-term 5-year plan so it's difficult for us to make that decision at this point when um this project has changed and I

3:04:16guess what I would like to say is the Redevelopment agency has been a very um willing and active partner to bring projects to the city but we need um not only for the agency to invest in the projects but for the team to also do their part to bring in the partnership

3:04:35and I'm just wondering um about R CD's ability to do some Creative Solutions here to make this project happen and I think that um others can make their comments that there's a willingness to continue the negotiation but that Hatland needs to be um a partner in the

3:04:56project okay Janet or um well I did attend the uh Council session last I think it was September where two projects came in both with special needs and they were essentially competing for the predevelopment loan and overwhelmingly um it was sold to the council at that time that hatlin was the

3:05:26face of this development the face of this project um I think that I support a special needs project at this location and understand that they need a special needs project to get the bonus densities that would make this economically viable so what we're faced with is not really

3:05:43knowing what the special need group is and the city has uh services that that that will be providing whether it's pavement uh uh markings or or uh changing the uh different signals out there will be services that we need to provide for whatever service special needs group goes in there and we need to

3:06:04sort of know who that special needs group is and and today we do we know it's the Hatland or is it um so the the real question the real problem I've got is that um you we made a decision bringing the head the national headquarters of the Hatland Center to elero that that was

3:06:23a marquee type of of project and now we're faced with not knowing who the special needs group is and it it becomes a much harder project to support uh the director of Hatland has or rcd has suggested that there is a um an opportunity for carrying costs Mr Brower has said that that solution won't

3:06:49necessarily work for him um I hate the idea of this project falling apart um and really wish that there was a creative solution yeah um I guess that um I was very excited about the idea of the Hatland project um coming to elero and I did identify this project as being the Hatland Center

3:07:21however um I I I didn't totally understand as I think none of us did the um the the funding connection and the the fact that the Hatland Center needed to do its own independent fundraising and didn't have access to the same sources that um rcd did um under head regulations and so

3:07:47forth um so this whole thing kind of reminds me of a um a project at the ashb BART station that was um and I'm forgetting the name of it for some reason because I'm tired I guess anybody know what I'm talking about what nobody out there the what the Ed Roberts thank you campus um and their

3:08:14attempt to um raise money over a period of what to me seemed like actually many many years and um so the way in which I equate this is that when they started out they I believe had zero money and by the time they were done um they were going to have a project I went

3:08:36to the groundbreaking for the project um and um part of I I actually see what what I see Happening Here is it takes the challenge of the deadline in order to get donors to donate money to a certain um extent and I think having these deadlines um will in fact um in a perverse sort of way help the

3:09:06Hatland Center raised the money uh if we went forward as is being um proposed I think here and um not having the deadlines well people will just say well this one's you know doesn't really need it right now we'll just go on and do something else or nothing at all right now but um having

3:09:28the commitment of the city Redevelopment agency will um show to the donor that we in fact are committed and part of what's necessary here just like it was with the Ed Roberts Center is that there needs to be commitment um and um I understand that if they can't raise

3:09:51the money then it would be another special needs group um there are lots of special needs group they all have special needs that need to be taken care of um and you know and that and I understand that that would be the backup plan but in essence I think what this does is

3:10:12move forward on the um plan to get um funding for the Hatland Center and it puts a sense of urgency into it um that maybe wasn't there before but I think that sense of urgency May in fact help them uh raise the money so um sort of a roundabout way of of saying that

3:10:39I'm ready to go forward with this and Mr brow are you still there um you made a commitment of $1.4 million and I was wondering if the rcd and Hatland could could use that in some fashion to have Hatland actually become part of this agreement so that we are knowing that they are I

3:11:01mean you your your testimony is compelling that there's potentially a low risk that Hatland going to make it but we certainly don't want to be sitting here two years from now with a project that there no public court because the Hatland is not part of it so is there a way for you guys to

3:11:20potentially three make a three-party agreement so that Hatland is part of this agreement so we going forward we are actually making a loan to the Hatland Center as well as all the rest of the parties so I I was just curious what your $1.4 million offer is my understanding the Hatland Center

3:11:39needs to raise $2.8 Million by January 20 um 11 based on the conversations I've had with the foundation Center in San Francisco and with the Hatland Center there is no doubt in my mind that they can meet that deadline the 2.8 million I told them that what I will do is I'll

3:11:59put up 1.4 million to guarantee that on January 31st 2011 to the extent they fall short 200 300 400 500 600,000 whatever it is make up that difference and that I want to tell you that I hope that would tell you two things one I believe they can do it because everybody

3:12:23who knows about this tells me they can and it also means that in from my point of view from the trustor's intent of setting up this trust that he was committed to Blind services so I believe that it's a a realistic G guarantee in the endgame but it's a completely worthless

3:12:47guarantee if you don't buy the property agree it's worthless good evening my name is Lisa M excuse me excuse me uh public comments over so unless somebody wants to ask a clarification question I I'll ask my question again to rcd and and others you have a $1.4 million you know commitment uh is that

3:13:12not enough to have Hatland Center be part of the agreement so that we can we know Hatland Center is the special needs group that's coming forward um you I think the issue is that we're being put into a very hard situation you can have Patty Williams come back up and she will

3:13:29tell you that she cannot guarantee to you today that she has $2.8 million we are confident that by January 2011 that she will be able to fund raise the full amount I'm from rcd we are a nonprofit it we cannot guarantee for them that they will have the 2.1 million or $2.8

3:13:47million right now so what we are asking for is your support so that we can move forward the way that our funding is put together we do leverage the bulk of the funds we are going to be bringing over $20 million for this project to the city of Els Sero what our funders are looking for

3:14:09is that sort of fall back position what happens if the Hatland Center is not able to raise their full amount will the will there still be a viable affordable housing development and the answer would be yes rcd has been in operations for 25 years where when the premier special

3:14:29needs housing providers in the Bay Area including Alam conteras and salano County we have a long track record of being able to provide very high quality and very attractive special needs housing and we understand that who that provider would be it's it's it's kind of

3:14:44a is a question if Hatland Center should fall out that is not our intent our intent and we have been working with Hatland Center for over a year to really make this happen but we are in a rock and a hard place that we are being asked to guarantee something that we can't

3:14:59Hatland Center is being asked to guarantee something that they can't and we're being asked by our outside lenders to say okay we want to help you move forward with this but we need to have this fallback position and now the city is saying well we can't accept the fall

3:15:10back position so we can't move forward and that is where we are sort of in a really a rock and a hard place excuse me the city hasn't said anything in that regard yet that's why we're here so I have a comment though because I do have a reaction to that I understand that you're being put

3:15:29in a hard situation but you've then put us in a very difficult situation and we have and I I hate to make these analogies but we're struggling now with a private public partnership at the Sero theater that was launched with all the best of intentions and we've run into

3:15:45difficulties and one of the difficulties is that the way a private business operates and the way a nonprofit organization operates is one thing but we are a public agency holding in trust for the people of all of Els Sero this Redevelopment agency money and we need

3:16:02to spend it responsibly even with lower risk even than in the private sector so it really puts us in a difficult situation than to be sitting here today discussing this so we need some assurance that we can get hatlin into the property negotiation and we're telling you today that we're committed

3:16:21to re looking at the terms of the agreement the predevelopment loan amounts and other ideas that we can all work together to get to this place where this project will be successful okay and Greg do you have comments or did you I'm I'm still trying to come up up with a a solution you know

3:16:44one of our options is to buy the property outright and um that would certainly potentially solve uh some of the issues that Mr Brower has brought up but does that change RC's uh position and and commitments to the project does it change Hatland position to the project what are what are the choices if

3:17:06we did want to execute that option U which has mer because it does unify the project and create a parcel that is potentially developable um you know what what does that do to the viability of all the other fundraising that that Hatland Center rcd is is doing the acquisition of the property uh

3:17:28in the in the near term would take a lot of risk out we wouldn't be going back to uh the two Property Owners almost on a monthly basis saying can you extend you know will we be able to hold on to the property that there there is a big risk that we will lose both sides uh at and

3:17:44the properties will take that risk away once the property is in position we are able to access predevelopment funding from the local initiative support corporation which will help us to move the project forward as well and so I think for for the Hatland purpose and Patty can talk about how

3:18:01this would help them but it really makes the site secure to say this is the site where we're going to put the Hatland Center and we could it that's a big that's a tremendous risk to ask us to start spending additional money where something happens and we don't have the

3:18:18site that's that's a risk that we can't take excuse me excuse me is your question answer not necessarily if the city B purchases exercise our right to purchase the land directly do is rcd Lisk and Hatland Center still interested in pursuing a project I I don't know if we can I'm just I'm

3:18:48just saying I want to know I want to know that you guys are still going to be doing the leg work to bring this project to fruition I I really I mean I've been trying for 10 years and really hard for two years to you know talk to donors but it really wasn't as I tried to mention

3:19:05earlier until March 2nd when the commitment was made by the city council that it was seen you know I'm dealing with really heavy hitter businessmen in the city for example in Silicon Valley and and they look at it it's been a catch 22 it's like soon as this Project's real you come back and talk to

3:19:25me and then and you're feeling the same way of course you know you're putting down money for the city of El Sero and and I haven't raised money yet so it's been a what I've seen is a catch 22 but as soon as after March 2nd when I started talking to people it was like oh

3:19:41my my gosh this is real so let's talk you know and I've been able I think to make and I haven't Unleashed my my people really yet um just myself I've been able to get pledges for 175,000 so the 3.5 million has been crucial as far as I'm concerned for our my being able

3:20:02to move forward to meet our F our obligations okay thank you any other questions or I okay I well I'd like way in on mine before we start um first of all let's clarify something the agency has shown tremendous support and interest in this project um we talk about September there

3:20:28was two projects that were um presented and the Hatland Center project one out in my opinion the way I voted I don't is that I you this project got my vote because the Hatland Center was in there um if if the Hatland Center wasn't in there I don't know which way to vote

3:20:54but we had another party that was interested the Hatland Center was front and center and marketed to us and in that presentation that it that this development centered around Hatland City went along with it city is uh expended $100,000 so far for development uh

3:21:17Capital it also uh I it hasn't been brought up by anybody tonight the agency borrowed money or will be borrowing money if this goes through from the city to make the thing happen so the talk about um being in a rock and a hard spot uh goes both ways we are risking $3.5 million on this if

3:21:48the thing blows up our money for all intents and purposes is probably gone that's what we're facing and we're facing a skeptical uh we would be uh facing a skeptical public asking what are you spending our money on why did you get into this um the funding sources although not

3:22:15guaranteed uh when when we talked about this was identified and at that point although no no guarantee was made by Hatland they certainly felt that they could raise the money what's happened after March 2nd is a couple things but basically is all of a sudden we've got deadlines to hit that

3:22:37we didn't know about before that's what's happened after March 2nd the city didn't guarantee uh uh scholarships they didn't guarantee anything with that March 2nd except that we would uh go ahead loaning the money under the original terms now we find out that Hatland may not there's a

3:23:01possibility Hatland may not be part of this that changes it that that's not a minor change in my my opinion um we do have projects that are uh potentially on the board or at least we may need that money for uh we have tradeway we have uh Del Norte possibly nothing's settled but we

3:23:33do have other projects waiting we also could uh open it up again for other rfps to use the money I mean there there's some things we can do if we decide not to go along with it but in my opinion to risk yet oh by the way on on and remember we talked about this we're

3:23:55actually not first in line it uh on the repayment of a loan should it should it go up we're we're second and we still went forward with it so I think the agency uh with all due respect I think the agency has shown a lot of uh support for this project and the fact that we actually on

3:24:18March 2nd went forward has been pointed out then suddenly people uh apparently are interested I don't see where that's changed we have support what's changed is the conditions of the agreement between R rcd and Hatland um that that's what's changed and and these

3:24:43deadlines which the agency participated zero in we didn't set the deadlines the deadlines are set between the parties not between the agency and then now to ask tell the agency basically it's our problem it is not correct I would like to see the parties get together and maybe with uh Mr Bower

3:25:08who represents one of the two properties to to come up with something creative um we're taking all the risk on this to be honest I if I was from what I heard in the presentation the agency is taking the risk rcd doesn't want to take the risk hatlin doesn't want to take the

3:25:29risk we have a property owner that needs to sell their property I understand that but then we're the ones on the hook and at $3.5 million I don't know where we can we I don't know I know if I'm comfortable putting this on the hook without some additional assurance that

3:25:46that this may go through as as originally proposed so that that's my comments okay well I um I can't support amending the resolution 579 to U make the Hatland center for the blind optional in the agreement um I would support coming forward to the city council with other changes in the

3:26:10agreement um that could help facilitate the project moving forward I'm I mean Karen has moved up to the the desk and and yeah so I'm going to ask my question again because uh chair Jones has made it very very clear and compelling argument that we are under under the existing

3:26:35agreement our investment is subordinate to others and we end up with essentially lots of of risk of not having a piece of property after essentially forking over $3.5 million which is why my line of questioning about us buying the property direct um at least we then have a

3:26:52tangible asset for for some of the investment we've made the applicants have said that they would proceed going forward with the project under that scenario um it it strikes me that that does potentially allow Mr Bower to follow through on some of his commitments and potentially for hat to

3:27:11become a viable I've heard the testimony I heard and maybe I misheard it said that if the land acquisition was done Hatland would become a viable partner in the in the project going forward and I think that that would alleviate a lot of pro lot of issues here can you please expl talk to us and

3:27:30see if tell me why the a direct purchase would be would be something that is or is not um we can something we can do well in in terms of the direct purchase it's definitely something you can do and your predevelopment loan agreement does give you the ability to

3:27:47step in um it's a little bit convoluted in the predevelopment loan agreement because we had some challenges with the purchase and sale agreements but effectively it allows you to purchase the property um the benefit is just as you said you would own it you would control

3:28:03it should the project not be viable um you would then have the ability to either do an AR FP to look for another developer to develop affordable housing on the property um you could sell the property I mean one of the risks you would have to consider if you were going

3:28:20to buy it is is this a purchase price that is supportable and do you think that if you had to sell it you could get it back um you have to weigh that risk with if you made the predevelopment loan and for some reason the project is not viable it it is exactly as you said you

3:28:38would have a deed of trust your deed of trust is is in a subordinate position certainly a deed of trust is not um as good as owning the property you have to foreclose since you're in a subordinate position the senior lender can wipe you out um so you have a much higher level

3:28:56of risk with loan than if you were to buy the property but buying the property is not risk-free it's not a guarantee that you're going to get your 3.5 million dollars out of this project if the project can't go forward but it probably guarantees you'll get something

3:29:10back if you can't go forward thank you sure but if if I'm understanding Mr Bower U made an offer of putting forth some money as a guarantee believe is that the right word and um could that money be used to somehow offset part of you know in other words instead of us

3:29:39doing it if it's instead of it being an all or nothing could it be a you know part use Mr Bow's guarantee plus then we would put in the difference is that does that make sense at all would that be well I don't know the terms of what he's offering in terms of the guarantee if I understood it

3:30:00correctly it's a guarantee against Hatland fundraising goal which does not get you through purchase of the property well but if we then added the difference is what I'm suggesting the difference between the purchase price and the guarantee amount right because the the I believe what I saw I heard uh

3:30:22mayor Potter say is that she wanted it to be the Hatland Center am I correct there and um what uh Mr Bow's offer generous offer does is also connected to the Hatland Center if I'm not mistaken my am I correct there okay so then um our risk is not um is less than three million right it's well

3:30:53I I'm not sure we would certainly have to explore that but I think if I understood it correctly you would still have three million in the property and if hatlin was unable to raise their 2.8 Mr Bower is proposing that he would guarantee half of that so so I guess it

3:31:11reduces the risk that they're not able to raise the full amount but I'm not sure it reduces your investment in the property I mean we would we can explore that but this is the first I've heard of the guarantee is tonight so I um explore an idea here um I would only

3:31:30consider buying the property if in the agreement they agree to actually buy the property once they rais the money I I don't want the agency to get into land banking we've got a number of properties we're holding already and it would only be in a sense a bridge purchase if if I may use that

3:31:53term to get us from point A to point B but there has to be an agreement that as soon as the money is raised the purchase is made from the agency and it may that may uh that the guarantee by Mr Brower could possibly be used at that if we're hitting January 2011 and we're less than $1.4 million

3:32:18away um then the per the the uh land could be purchased so I but I don't know if I want to do that but I I'd say I would cons that's the only way I'd consider buying the property is that we get it we Bridge it we get rid of it you know what if I could just I have a procedural

3:32:40question can we decide tonight about this possible purchase by the city of this property or are we considering the item 11a as it's stated on the agenda well you're considering the item is 11a as it's stated on the agenda you can give us direction if you want us to

3:32:55change the loan terms because before you as loan terms if you want to go beyond that I think you can give us Direction but we will have to come back to you with so well I think perhaps maybe we're ready to call the question because we um have some Direction on both the

3:33:12requested Amendment and also direction to go back and try to explore more creative terms for the agreement I think we should yeah I think we should vote on the issue at hand and then give any direction further direction if any staff if we want to pursue whatever

3:33:31ideas we've talked about I'm a little bit confused what that means um if we go ahead and vote and let's say we voted yes ar ar are aren't we maybe precluding it or I'm not sure what a vote me well maybe I could make a motion and we sure why we do that that that would help

3:33:49maybe I move to um deny the request to amend agency resolution number 579 that would specify the um Hatland center for the blind as an optional condition of agency approval financial assistance to aloney Gardens mixed use project is there a second on that we need a second to

3:34:14discuss doesn't mean we're I'll second it for discussion okay it's been moved in seconded we have discussion on it now so well if we my only discussion is that um I I want assurance that Hatland Center will be in the project I think we discussed it earlier I'm the concern that I have

3:34:38about um going this route now now is that I I actually think we need to go figure out the details of um Mr Bow's offer and to figure out a way to put together a package that that can be used to ensure that the Hatland Center will be part of the project and um so you would vote no on this yes

3:35:03okay um for that reason and and I guess my concern is that if if I was to support the current motion I would not want to preclude the ability to bring the same motion forward at some point in the future I mean if if this becomes the only choice we have because we've tossed

3:35:26out a number of choices tonight um is is taking an action on this tonight going to preclude our ability to make the same exact finding two weeks from now no I mean I think you have a couple options options you could take the action on the motion which is before you

3:35:44or you could take no action tonight and give staff direction to come back to you um with some uh exploration of the ideas that you've broached tonight and the possibility that if we can't resolve it that this would be a continued item on your next agenda if we don't have any

3:36:01other options okay well I think I hear you say is you want this to be a fallback if nothing else can be worked out I can't support it tonight because I don't feel we've exhausted our options but I could support this if this was our only option because as it's been

3:36:19pointed out our risk is the Hatland Center not coming forward is low but it's a real risk right okay there's there's no uh prohibit you can bring it back you can bring it back anytime you want bring it back it doesn't have to be by the um certain side of the vote well

3:36:36no you can always bring up an item for consideration I mean we I suspect we're coming back to you with something no matter what because if it's the pleasure of the agency I could withdraw the motion and we could continue the item giving staff direction to come back with

3:36:51a another possible solution I I would like to vote on the motion and then give direction to staff um we can always reconsider but I think we have to give uh very specific Direction on this and one of them is we don't if we don't like the amendment uh this amendment here then let's say no

3:37:13now and send it back and then if we've exhausted that want to come back to this Motion in the future then we bring it back but to have it hang out there I I don't know I I'm not for it I guess that's what the reason why I say that so so can can we have the motion

3:37:32stated restated I'm really confused now but um the motion that I made was to not support agent gency resolution 579 to revise uh the description of the development making the participation of the Hatland center for the blind in the project an optional condition for

3:37:51financial assistance to the mixed used project I think the key word there is optional yeah we want to take the option out and if we don't if we don't want that option and let's vote no right now and give direction that we have to have a solution that the handland center is

3:38:06part of this the solution and to vote no is it actually a yes to the motion no voting no yes motion is a no on the resolution that's included in your packet correct that's I want to make sure that the the direction was going to be clear right we vote no we're voting

3:38:24no on what what the resolution is here in the packet that's correct voting yes is voting no on the resolution correct oh that's right that's right excuse me excuse me I was looking at two different things you're at yes this is worse than the May 18 I'm confused now fact that

3:38:41it's 11:15 doesn't help Sandy says that she's her motion is not to request to make it optional we want to have it be uh required so right we vote Yes on sy's motion which is no on this one what is this wait a minute which okay yes means that that we want the handland center or or we don't we don't

3:39:06want the option of whether the handling Center is in or not so she she her motion was stated in the negative is is the problem okay so a was positive in my book but go ahead yes can we have a vote on the motion please all those in favor I I I oppose motion carries for nothing now I

3:39:30would like to make a motion I don't know if this is the motion or just I would like to that we um table the item for now and ask staff to work with um the various parties uh rcd Hatland Center and Mr Bower and his generous offer um and try to come back with something that um moves us forward um

3:39:56and and ensures that the Hatland Center is part of this project and that they are um viable as a partner in the fundraising Arrangements that rcd has with HUD Etc I don't know if I said that quite well I'm I heard what rcd had to say about head requirements I don't want to do anything

3:40:22that would jeopardize those requirements so I would think that um i' just like to see if there's some way to develop that so it all works part of that might be for example that we H um so M we that Mr Bow's offer were used and that we were responsible for the other part of that in the 3.5 million so

3:40:50we're giving dire or whatever what I'm sorry I think it's a different amount actually that that um the Hatland Center is responsible for it's not 3.5 it's a lower number right well yes yeah let's let the staff work out the details with with the parties involved we did talk

3:41:09about for outright purchase we did talk about purchase and then selling we did talk about um there's one more I'd like to make sure staff does explore and that's uh the the request by the director of um is it rcd yeah uh to have to look at the carrying costs to make sure that

3:41:32the property does remain in option for a longer period of time until hatman has the opportunity to come up with fundraising so there's a carrying cost option as well there's there's another option that I think we haven't talked about and that is separating the purchase of the two

3:41:47properties okay I one one way and one the other right maybe we given a lot of Direction I think that um I support directing staff in that effort and I would look forward to seeing this project um the terms of the agreement come back to the agency as soon as possible to help facilitate moving this

3:42:08forward one comment that I think was at least from me is that there is support for the Hatland Center to be there and um as my testimony earlier was this this resolution we turned down tonight may be indeed a resolution we consider in two weeks but i' sure would like to see a

3:42:25lot more um $175,000 is great and I'm hoping that you will let release the hounds the fundraising hounds and you'll have a lot more in two weeks and we can have a higher level of resolution so okay thank you with that uh we will go back into close session thank

3:42:45you we're getting our exercise our special meeting and Report out that on the sural theater issue we have direct staff to come back with a u a public uh agenda size a public meeting on uh May 4th and the information will be available uh soon after when it's when it's available it's

4:31:50roughly the same report out from the April 6th meeting 8th uh no 6th which was scheduling a a meeting for Mar uh May 4th at that time uh the Council will hopefully be taking up final Direction on this issue on the uh Target issue um it was there there was nothing to report

4:32:22out as far as direction or uh potential action thank you very much we're we're closed yeah