Special Concurrent City Council and Redevelopment Agency Meeting August 17, 2009

0:07:38council member Lyman here council member Jones here vice mayor ablon here and mayor poter here and before I asked council member Lyman to join us um lead us in the pledge I wanted to note that the meeting that was scheduled for interviews at 7:15 this uh evening was not held due to

0:07:58a schedule misunder understanding so with that um Mr Lyman pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay this evening we have several um

0:08:26Communications from staff and I want to ask if there any from the council okay uh why don't we start with Council Communications with Mr Lyman um yes I'd like to uh this is almost my liaison report for the crime prevention committee but I do want to thank the crime pre prevention committee for the

0:08:46very very successful National Night Out that was uh Tuesday August 4th uh there were 27 parties within elero and it was probably one of the more successful events we've had in some time um I also want to announce and and remind the viewers at home that triy safety day uh it will be held at the

0:09:08elero Plaza on September 26th that's a Saturday and that's from 11: to 3 um and we'll be there and uh I also want to take this opportunity to let the public know that we are looking for members of the crime prevention committee uh we would like to increase our role we have

0:09:30more than five vacancies so if you are out there interested in helping us with the crime prevention committee it would be wonderful if you would submit your applications thanks thank you yes I attended a um um I guess they call it a summit on called rebuilding California from the ground up which was

0:09:54a um coming together of uh cities count counties and school districts and other Special Districts and um it was a really it was held in um Sacramento it was um two days and what it was really about was trying to rebuild California and uh it wasn't about this budget cycle it was

0:10:19about how do we uh have a state that's working and so we we um talked at a variety of levels and in just sort of in a sentence what I think we came up with was that we need to work together not against each other and I have to say that I felt very good about um coming

0:10:41together and I hope that we'll be able to carry forward some of the recommendations from that meeting thank you thank you um I just want to let council members know about this uh the there's a Transit oriented development dinner forum and dinner Ser speaking series

0:11:00it's free for all East Bay elected which are Alam count Costa County electeds and uh some of us have been too a few and I just really want to encourage us since we have two BART stations um it's great resource it's on September 10th in Oakland B accessible and um a second

0:11:19thing I want to to highlight was um a report that came from the the center for Community Innovation called um it's the San paabo Avenue housing needs assessment and I probably could give it to car uh to to Cheryl or forward it on in the best way but essentially looks at

0:11:38the s paabo Avenue planning Corridor and inventories just you know the housing needs what we've built what we should be building and is a it's kind of a great um housing related compendium to all the planning going on um and uh yeah so I just wanted to share that let people

0:11:58know that it's out there it's another resource thank you do you want to report out the you want me to do it now we're going to take a few items out of order um the update on the state budget is of key importance so we're going to save that for the last part of this

0:12:17item okay um like to report out that the Redevelopment agency met on uh August 5th as soon as we could after the announcement of the the so-called state budget um was announced by the state legislature and we met on two items one is the target site and the other is the

0:12:39uh school property that is commonly known as the senior center property and how the state budgets related to those two um items in negotiation of terms and conditions with regard to the Target site the Redevelopment agency provided staff with additional Direction on the

0:12:58item to go forward forward in the direction we were headed in regards to the senior center uh the agency board has decided to resend its offer to purchase the senior center property which has been on the um on the books since 2005 uh at this time uh from the we're

0:13:19resending it from the West Conor Costa Unified School District in light of the state takeaway of Redevelopment funds and directed staff to notify the District of the board's action um on behalf of the the agency board uh I sent a letter to West con uh Contra Costa Unified School District

0:13:41Board of Education on August 6 notifying them of the agency's board decision and I will also say that um in the letter it's stated that should additional funds become available it's possible in the future we would like to come and back and talk to them about this property the

0:13:58board felt that we um had to take action to go forward to make sure we met this obligation of the state takeaway and that we had other projects that were pressing and uh needed to go forward at this time so thank you thank you um I just wanted to announce that due to

0:14:18President Obama's appointment um of our congressional representative Ellen toer as under Secretary of arms control and International Security with the US State Department um there'll be a special election to replace the 10th congressional seat um and it will be a

0:14:35primary election on September 1st there are 14 candidates running in the election and the polls will open on September 1st at 7 AM and close at 8:00 pm and um I encourage everybody to exercise their right to vote and to be prepared if there is a runoff election

0:14:55that will be held November 3rd and you can get more information by calling the County Election Department at 925 335 780000 and they also have a website at www. vote vot te. us or alternatively you can contact the city clerk in elero at 215 4305 I also want to let folks know that

0:15:29we continue to recruit for vacancies on our boards and commission and the following commissions have vacancies Planning Commission human relations commission committee on aging and the crime prevention committee additionally several terms um on our various boards

0:15:45and commissions will expire on January 1st 2010 and so we will continue to announce upcoming vacancies on our website um so please consider submitting an application it's very simple you click on the application forms it's a couple of pages and you can submit that

0:16:04to the city clerk either electronically or in person and it's an excellent way to participate in local government so please give that um consideration I also want to announce that I had the privilege of spending last night at Camp ravencliff which is the city of ELO's residential um Camp

0:16:25that's been held every year for the last nine years in mid August in um at a camp a YMCA Camp on the Eel River in southern Humble County and my husband and I were very impressed with the energy of our capable City staff who are up there working they've been there for a week now we

0:16:45enjoyed a delicious meal and a campfire and this morning we began our day with a swim in the Eel River under the watchful eyes of Emory weed our senior lifeguard and we enjoyed Pete's Coffee and a great breakfast and I spoke with many of the kids there there are over a

0:17:03hundred youth at the camp they attend West Contra Costa schools they attend Albany schools Berkeley schools private schools they are away from the hustle and bustle of urban life in a beautiful natural setting with abundant wildlife and amazing Starry skies and it was just

0:17:21great to see this positive um experience I think becomes a tradition in their life I wanted to thank the camp director Chris Jones for his hospitality and also encourage all of you if possible to plan a visit in the um future because it was really great to see on the ground the

0:17:39programming um of another great Department that the city um of the city and which we oversee and um which is so important to the young people in elero that is my Camp ravencliff update and with that I will ask the city manager to provide us with the fiscal year 09010

0:18:01budget update that um is going to summarize the state takeaways of local funds and some of our strategies for trying to cope with that mayor did did you want to take any other staff reports prior to that or oh if if if that would be okay um before we do this we have I

0:18:20think at least three um staff updates if that's okay let's take those first then we'll move on to the budget update okay we'll start with um Bradshaw the Public Works director uh thank you I just wanted to report back at the last council meeting um you uh gave the city manager

0:18:40authority to award a public works contract for a a Paving project in town we were able to open those bids and um and award that project just um sorry about that we had four biders on the project which I thought was actually a pretty good turnout since um with the new federal rules they strongly

0:19:09uh urge us to have mandatory pre-bid meetings in other words when you have a pre-bid meeting a week or two before the bids are open who only those who attend that can then bid on the project so it it uh could tend to um um shorten the field of actual biders but we had six

0:19:26companies attend that and four of those companies did turn in bids so I I feel good about that uh the low bid was to Gallagher and Burke Incorporated they've done work here in the city uh year before I arrived here they had done a major Paving project and I was U

0:19:42actually involved in closing that contract out uh their low bid was $732,000 uh and change the engineer's estimate was 787 th000 so it did come in under Engineers estimates we keep trying to adjust our estimat to keep up with the marketplace and we're getting a lot

0:20:02closer than we were last year uh but they still beat the engineer estimate in fact two of the biders uh three of the biders were underneath that insurance estimate so that was that was good news for us so we're able to um go through the process of certifying the

0:20:16disadvantage business Enterprise participation numbers and get the award made so those contracts are out should be back soon and hopefully we can get get to work so again thank you for authorizing us to move ahead while we're waiting for this this meeting to come up

0:20:31uh one last comment um the street lights are in they just arrived the other day so we're trying to get the schedule for the installer to get out and start installing those so hopefully those should all be up by uh next few weeks thanks for the updates I I would say mayor that's one

0:20:53of the projects that um when we were considering what what the what the cut uh for to meet the state budget one of the projects that was up was not to have that and so that's one of the projects that we'll be going forward because of our decisions so great that was good

0:21:12thanks good evening council members mayor um I'm just going to speak really briefly about the fil the boot Drive um I apologize for not promoting it prior to the event this is my first time participating and uh it was a new thing for us but uh the Elso fire Fighters

0:21:28were proud to raise $3,727 in one day actually in in a matter of a few hours we set up on S Pablo Avenue and Carlson right there at the entrance to the plaza and uh we basically stand out there in the corners wearing our turnout pants and we have a empty firefighter Boot and as motorists

0:21:48pass by they drop in uh whatever they can CH whatever they can spare change or dollars so uh we've done it a couple years ago I'm not sure exactly how much much we raised that time but uh through the county it was done over two days and uh collectively throughout the county we

0:22:04raised $47,000 and uh making this local 1230 the largest donor in Northern California so um the firefighters are just really thankful for the citizens for help making this a successful event and uh I just wanted to say several businesses also helped us Macaroni Grill they let

0:22:22us uh put our ladder truck up in their parking lot uh we set up a little booth in PES shoes their little paring out they set a booth Pete's donated some coffee and uh the grand Barber Shop actually let us put a boot in there and people were getting haircuts were

0:22:34dropping money and so um like I said I apologize for not promoting and I hope next year to do more money and uh we're just very grateful and also we also the fire department administration also allocated resources for us to be able to make it have people come by and notices

0:22:52really well so thank you guys thank you well congratulations on that good effort and by the way that firefighter was Joe on you in case you didn't know and this is Chief Kirkland evening Madame mayor and fellow council members not only did council member Lyman talk about National Night

0:23:15Out last week which was a great success and thank you for all those who participated but we also had a another great event that the police department was a big part of and that was tip aop and it's the first time that we had done that as a police department as an

0:23:29association and I can't thank traffic Sergeant Steven bonini enough Macaroni Grill were outstanding host uh they could not believe the amount of people that uh we uh served and the amount of money uh we received it collected was over $4,100 for such a great event and

0:23:46that is Special Olympics we hope it to be an annual event I'd like to thank all those people who were kind enough to uh donate and this represents I think our continuing effort in regards to reaching out to those programs that are worthwhile thank you thank you this a

0:24:02great effort and good cause Okay uh now the now the bad news um since since the council last met and uh and only the last couple months since we passed um our balance budget um the state is was as everybody is presumably aware struggling with balancing their own budget and since the time we met uh

0:24:27a number of things have happened around um the state and how it affects local government so I thought it was appropriate to give an update uh so with that there's a a brief PowerPoint that I wanted to go over but as many of you recall in 2004 the voters in the state

0:24:44of California passed proposition 1A where over 80% of the voters supported a measure to protect local local government revenues from the state taking taking away as they had done in the past uh however there were Provisions that were in the bill that still allow for certain for certain

0:25:05things to happen and one of those as I'll talk about in a second is borrowing and the other is the exemption of the Redevelopment agencies from proposition 1A in terms of borrowing from the cities as the first slide shows the legislature is allowed to borrow and they have

0:25:24elected to borrow their 8% uh which is allowed under the legislation in order for that to happen the governor must issue a proclamation declaring a sever severe fiscal hardship that also happened the legislature must pass this by a two-thirds vote that they are going to suspend the provisions of

0:25:441A the house did that the legislature did that they also must enact a law providing for the full repayment of the funds and I didn't but accidentally put quotes and borrowed funds I think everybody is concerned about the state borrowing money and paying it back you

0:26:01presumably need money to pay it back so we're a little bit concerned about that but they are required by law to pay us back within three years and the legislature can only do it twice within 10 years and they can only do it if the original borrow was paid back in terms

0:26:17of how it affects Els Sero the borrow is $667,000 a little over that the exact number will be calculated based on Act ual revenues or projected actual revenues the presumption is that the borrow could be paid out of the general fund reserves versus making a cut to

0:26:39operations on the assumption that this is a one-time take and in fact that it's a borrow and we will get the money back um as I mentioned it would be payback with interest it's actually 6% not 8% uh that is being worked out in the State uh assuming that we don't use

0:26:58Reser assuming that we did use reserves uh there would be no impact on current operations however uh it certainly raises concerns that the state did it once the state could do it again and it's something we really need to keep watching as I mentioned from a pure

0:27:17accounting standpoint it is treated as a loan so technically we have the money due back to us so it's it's differentiating between a take versus a loan the assumption is we will get paid back and we would get paid back with interest however there's another alternative that is being developed by

0:27:37California California communities which is a jpa supported by uh the league of California cities um The Association of counties and Special Districts where the legislation allows for jpa to be formed to is issue debt to pay back the borrow the primary reason we should

0:27:58consider that and we will bring this back to council at some point for direction is that we would get paid back and we wouldn't have to worry about whether or not the state was able to pay us back that's the big attraction about it the downside is if the state does pay

0:28:14us back we would presumably get it with interest and we would make a little more money than otherwise although you know it's a whole calculation of the value of the money in our bank versus the state's Bank versus what our rates are versus what they hang back but in conversations

0:28:30among staff we're getting more and more uh intrigued by the opportunity to um to join the jpa in the borrowing and we would presumably have that on the next Council agenda to discuss because that seems to be the timing um as it's current currently being developed

0:28:47unfortunately we don't have all of the all of the terms yet but um it would certainly transfer the risk from us to the jpa and that's probably the most important thing in light of the state's condition which I'm not sure anybody sees getting better in the near term I

0:29:05think the biggest impact on elero is what happened to the Redevelopment agency um the cut Statewide is$ 1.7 billion do what was I think surprising to us as well as most Redevelopment agencies is that the size of the shift is between five and six times as large as anything that's ever been considered

0:29:25before the and as you may recall the last shift from last fiscal year was challenged by the California Redevelopment Association and who prevailed in court saying that this was not a lawful take and so in order to get around that the legislation was drafted in a way that this would act as a

0:29:46backfill of the state's proposition 98 obligations for education and it was believed by the state uh that this would somehow make it legal the Redevelopment folks both at the association and numerous public agencies have taken the position that this is still not legal and we anticipate them

0:30:08going to court shortly for Els Sero the take is almost 1.8 million from the Redevelopment agency that's about 50% of the unincumbered money that comes in uh in one one year there's another 364,000 next fiscal year if we were to use up all of the money we have on hand we

0:30:29would still be $1.3 million short I mean we the agency unlike the general fund typically does not budget reserves their their goal is to spend and issue debt and do projects and as I said earlier nobody nobody foresaw this happening and it it's our understanding this happened

0:30:46on the last weekend of the budget deal that they needed a place to fill the Gap and they went to the Redevelopment agencies as chair Jones already mentioned the board and in close session elected to resend the purchase agreement around Senior Center uh versus either

0:31:04cutting staff cutting projects like San Pablo Avenue uh or other other options that might have been available to the Redevelopment uh agency as I mentioned the action is being challenged and again we hope to Prevail and not have to shift that money over but it is it is

0:31:21significant and it certainly opens the door that if the court do not rule in our favor um I think it it's not going too far to say that it puts all of the Redevelopment agencies in Jeopardy of survival because for cities with larger Redevelopment agencies such as s Pablo

0:31:39Richmond panol U the takeaways are considerably larger and uh it's really going to affect the ability to do the do the things that the agencies are trying to do particularly in the down environment down e economic environment other concerns that I just wanted to take the opportunity to point

0:31:58out we are still in a recession although there is some murmuring that things are getting better the biggest immediate concern we have is that we are concerned as our many people that the state budget isn't really fixed and that as soon as they do their next revise as early as

0:32:16this fall it's going to show a giant Gap again and in this prior version there was a gas tax takeaway which for elero is nearly half a million dollars a year made it to the final essentially the final day where it didn't get approved in one one house and was taken out our

0:32:36concern is that it could get put back in the next round and this would severely impact our ability to do uh Park maintenance playgrounds storm drains all of the things that Public Works does uh in and around the city so we're keeping our eye on that um we have some concerns

0:32:55all around KRA custa County and uh currently in elero that the county assessor is lowering property values and it seems to be irrespective of the market as you're aware we watch home sales here very closely and in July uh home sales were strong again I mean the

0:33:13volumes are probably never going to be like they were in 0607 but the the median home prices continue to be in the 600s so we're not really sure what the uh reassessments are based on but we have already made a public records act request of the assessor to see the tax

0:33:29rols as well as their calculations so we'll we'll be reporting back on that sales tax remain vitable although we're happy to hear that Cash for Clunkers is a big success at Honda but we don't exactly know what that's going to translate into yet um and as we've talked about before Honda is by far the

0:33:47major sales tax producer in eloro uh sales taxes at elero Plaza remain strong but as you recall we've already lowed lowered um last fiscal year we lowered our sales tax numbers by almost a million dollars and um we're going to be stretching to make that this fiscal

0:34:05year and as we talked as we continue to talk about we continue to Bell Titan particularly around vacancies and we'll continue to Monitor and adjust and um I hadn't really done this until today but if you I added a slide that you don't have in your package to look at our

0:34:21projected vacancies in October and uh it was a little shocking to see it on one piece of paper uh we are projecting uh by the essentially the second week of October to have 18 vacancies that is pushing 10% of the workforce here um while I I'm going to give all the credit

0:34:40in the world to our folks for holding it together I'm not sure how long we can go with that level of vacancies um we do have authority to fill some of these positions and it's likely we will selectively fill but um the the vacancies are mounting and we're and as

0:34:59we've discussed uh repeatedly you know we're very hesitant on filling filling positions under this climate until things stabilize but um it was really eye opening to see it I think for me as well as all the department heads on one piece of paper um because we we tend to

0:35:14focus on on each department so with that if there are any questions I'm not asking for any action at this point again we would we will be back for direction uh in the future regarding um the prop one a borrowing as well as the Redevelopment agency payment Mr Hannon could you give us a

0:35:33little more information on the jpa I know that you said that um we don't know the exact terms yet but I'm interested in knowing the revenue stream and how it might work and the advantages for us being involved um well the legis as as our interpretation of the legislation

0:35:50and others is that it allows um for California communities the way the legislation is written it essentially allows for only that jpa to do it no other jpa um so the purpose and the league and seesac and the Special Districts push for it was particularly for cities who didn't have

0:36:10reserves to be able to pay the to front the cash on the borrowing but to allow the borrowing the accounts receivable to be securitized so they would go out and issue debt they would take over the obligation from us pledge the amount of funds do back to us to pay the bonds

0:36:29back at the point that we turned our essentially assigned our debt and they and they bought our debt we're out of it entirely and then it's if the state for some reason doesn't pay it back it wouldn't it would be not paying back the jpa versus us so it's just sort of

0:36:46taking shape right now and it's our understanding that it the they're pushing for a September issuance so uh we would be back at our our September meeting for we would presumably be um making a recommendation but looking for direction on whether or not to use reserves or to join the borrowing

0:37:08pool so that sounds like a good thing for cities but I'm wondering in this climate um what your opinion is of the ability to enter the bond market you know I would I would generally I mean I would generally defer um to our finance folks and I don't know if the finance director if you've spoken

0:37:26to them but it's our understanding that because it's pledged and it's constitutional requirement presumably that that they will be able to sell the bonds not as an attract not at a remarkably attractive rate but it's a massive borrowing and people are you know the state For Better

0:37:43or Worse pays its Bond obligations but I I I believe that part of the reason that they want to do this is for the difference for them in the interest rate right now Leif is down to 0.9% it's very difficult to find anything to invest in at this time if they are able

0:38:00to secure an interest rate of 4% for 3 years this is a better deal than there is out there anywhere around so I do believe that this is basically the utilization of people trying to find something somewhat secure and for us it's the transfer risk and it's 100 cents on the dollar and the amount in

0:38:19our portfolio is as far as I'm concerned it's not a bad deal okay okay are there other questions just a quick one U Mr Hannon if you could refresh my memory I can't remember if it was six or nine positions that we were going to hold vacant through most of the year I'm just comparing that

0:38:37number to the 18 that you projected in October I believe it was around nine I actually printed that out today to do that chart and um I want to say it's I think it's nine but it's it's around there yeah that's that I think nine I couldn't remember if it was six or nine

0:38:52we had the nine we had budgeted for six retiree positions and we're so far we're right around that I mean the the period is still open for another month and a half so we don't know the exact amount so there's those built in and then there have been a few uh departures in the

0:39:08interim so thank you probably there yeah thank you uh for the City attorney uh wanted to double check wasn't the Redevelopment Act passed by a vote of the people it was not a legislative act correct I'm sorry I didn't ask you before no that's okay um and I honestly I don't

0:39:34know it's an interesting question i' I I've never heard before that the California Redevelopment law was was voter approved it given how big it is it would be very surprising if the entire thing were voter adopted but um is there another is there a follow-up question to

0:39:49that no I was just going to make a statement that if it was that um people shouldn't forget that this was a vote of the people who created it and not the legislature and and therefore um it is the city's money and it's not the state's money but it is the city's money and uh I I don't think we

0:40:08should forget that I think maybe um what you're referring to is the California Redevelopment association's position has been and this was initially our understanding the state's position when it wasn't included in proposition 1A was that Redevelopment was already protected

0:40:26by the Constitution and there seemed to be concurrence on that until the state needed the money um so and CRA prevailed in court last year on that argument so I don't know if that gets to your question but it is in it is believed to be constitutionally protected well it

0:40:45gets to my argument yes thank you uh just one other question what about projects that cities that Redevelopment agencies have already under contract or contract obligated um are those it doesn't matter uh they're left out you're left out on a limb with it what I think I'm I'm to some degree

0:41:10guessing I think the state you have to pay it back and the state doesn't care how if you if you have to pay it out a general fund if you have to lay people off it's up to you to choose but recall that if we don't collect it so they're going to take it if we don't

0:41:28send them the check so um it's really up to the city they they've made it they've been very kind that way to make it very broad that we can pay for it out of any pocket we want but they're going to they want to be paid okay so if we're out 20 years on some projects

0:41:46um that's our there are projects just stopped and that have already been awarded that have already been started yeah I that's what I kind of thought I I just wanted to see what you said thank you well I would just take it one step further I think all of this is a

0:42:04takeaway of the city's money whether it's from the gas tax potentially from the Redevelopment agency and also from the prop 1A suspension and it's very frustrating because we do work to balance our budget and to live within our means and then um we have these unexpected and unplanned

0:42:22for circumstances it's even worse at the county level um and everybody scrambling and it trickles down to us also the county takeaways I I'd like to make one comment if I may um I just want to point out that the um and I'm going to draw a blank on the full acronym for the ER

0:42:41which is the basis of this but it's an education uh based uh takeaway and the money that the state is taking from us will be used or is supposed to be used in our school district to assist the school district so um in light of our decision that we announced earlier today uh about the

0:43:01$1.7 million sale purchase of property that we are not going forward with um the Redevelopment money is still going to be used in the uh School District so at this point I just wanted to make clear to all of our um constituents that that this money is still going to be

0:43:20used for the school district well Mr Lyman thank you for reminding us of that and I think further that it's me to be used in our city in our school district correct thank you for that clarification okay um if there no further questions thank you Mr Hannon for the report and we'll continue to um

0:43:39hear back about new developments as the state continues to readjust their budget and also we'll be interested to hear about the jpa the next item on our agenda is oral Communications from the public there any speakers we have two speakers first Tom panis excuse me good evening Madame

0:44:11mayor members of the council and City staff uh I'm here to speak on behalf of the Els Historical Society we just want to give you a few comments regarding item 5C on the uh consent agenda and I've given the city clerk copies of of my testimony here um sorry Tom panis

0:44:28[address removed] Els Sero um the historical society's uh primary interest regarding this item is in how the proposed contractor will ensure observance of application of and compliance with the secretary of the Interiors standards for rehabilitation of and reconstruction of historic

0:44:46properties according to SQL guidelines um particularly with respect to Rehabilitation of the Elm Street House's exterior character defining featur number one and number two ensuring compatibility of the entirely new construction with historic resource in terms of its architecture sighting

0:45:04landscape and other factors that play into its historic nature uh on the second point we need to remember that the historic house and the other components of the historic resource are not to be treated uh as a poor orphan or stepchild in terms of the overall development plan they're supposed to be

0:45:20the key features of the plan um as I just alluded theoric like to reiterate that the entire site not just the house is a historic resource uh the Historical Society has a very strong desire and participating in this new squet process as noted above we have particular

0:45:38interest in how this application of the Secretary of interior standards regarding historic resources will be planned executed and monitored um we're wondering whether or not there's already a memorandum of understanding in place between the city and the developer or if

0:45:51that's going to be developed to uh cover this Rehabilitation and construction and and we'd like to better understand the scope of work that's going to be carried out on this contract and also regarding you know we we think this contractor is a fine contractor PMC is well known um

0:46:06I've asked around a little bit I haven't heard that they've done a lot of work here in in um supervising application of the Secretary of interior standards and we were curious as to whether or not uh they will be doing the work themselves or if they'll be contracting out to do

0:46:19that thank you very much for your time thank you um it's my understanding that an eir will be prepared and so these comments can become part of the um comments received and also I believe that the proposal is a available for review at the city uh City Hall Madam mayor I just wanted to

0:46:42clarify that the environmental consultant will be looking at doing a mitigated negative declaration for this one okay so is that um a change from the staff report the staff report I believe does call for the mitigative negative deck contract oh I see it was only if they

0:47:02were to demolish the building they would need the e but we can enter this comment letter into the process for the mitigated neg deck yes and we will take all of those issues into consideration as the process goes through and basically the answer to all of those

0:47:17points Mr panis raised is yes this will be a public process the environmental review will look at all of these issues okay great thank you next speaker Al Miller good evening Al Miller [address removed] I was unable to make the July council meeting or I would have

0:47:46done then what I'm about to do now I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank Monica courts and her staff and Corey Mason uh world one music outfit and his staff for another very enjoyable uh Fourth of July and World War I anyway World Music Festival that we

0:48:13had here on the 4th of July I think it's one of the Premier Events of the city I bring a lot of people in and to get a chance to see a lot of friends and I think they did another great job uh and Janet follow on comment to your comments on the meeting you were at about changing the state of

0:48:32California I had the privilege last week to attend the state conference of the California Association of Sanitation agencies which we heard a presentation by a gentleman of the name of Fred Neely about the Cal forward uh efforts I strongly recommend that City staff

0:48:52senior City staff and each of you if you're not not aware of Cal forward to do some research and find it uh it also is a group nonpartisan that is coming up with the recommendations that will be the plan is submitted to the governor who will submit it to the legislator for

0:49:10an up and down vote or if they don't do it it'll come back to us but they're addressing all aspects of the state it's kind of like a a nonpartisan small group appointed by the governor in the legislature instead of Constitutional Convention of four or 500 delegates but they're covering the same

0:49:31issues uh I found the recommendations that they're coming together on uh some of them to be startling some of them to be about time and some of them to be even more scary but you should be aware I think it would be very helpful and informative to you to know uh this

0:49:50aspect of stuff that's going on because it'll affect a lot of the ways cities are are financed and managed thank you you want to comment thank you okay it's now um time to move on to item four we have a couple presentations tonight and the first one is regarding

0:50:12the blue star veterans memorial marker and we are fortunate to have Tom panis to make a presentation thank you very much Madame mayor for inviting me to come make this presentation uh we have a lot of we have a lot of veterans in our town uh that ranges all over the board we

0:50:39have a man named Howard hanamura who is the famous 442nd regiment served in Europe Italy and several other places Germany uh Bron came home with a bronze star and a Purple Heart Al Miller here tonight served 26 years in the Navy we have Ellen pasha's son is about to start

0:50:55his fourth Tour of Duty in a very dangerous spot Halfway Around the World um we owe a great debt to these people um the blue star program was started in 1945 by the National Garden Club to honor our people who serve in the armed forces the blue star designed dates from

0:51:15the blue star in the 1917 service flag seen in the windows and homes of family members who had family members in the armed service and here we have one in El Sero that's Dr his four daughters grandkids and wife in the window there you see two blue stars they had two sons

0:51:31off at the war um you know as I put my flag up on Memorial Day I was sort of lamenting that we don't do much in elero anymore uh to honor either Memorial Day or Veterans Day we used to do a lot more um and I my feeling of lament was only uh emphasized by the fact I had recently

0:51:51been in Greece and in my father's Village I had gone back and laid as ceremony they do every year where we lay wreaths on a monument for the many many wars that was per people were involved in uh but in elero there used to be a very fancy thing that happened on Memorial

0:52:09Day there was a parade up Fairmont Avenue to Sunset View Cemetery um you can see that we had a large number of uh veterans and officials uh who spoke and who were available at it the actual agenda is pretty impressive um songs speeches uh let me draw your attention there to item

0:52:30number nine the reading of General Logan's general order which is the order that uh began our observance on Memorial Day and I gave the city clerk copies of that for each of you um that's the uh that's the address that includes let no vandalism of avarice or neglect no

0:52:47ravages of time testify to the present or coming Generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undip undivided Republic and after that item 10 we had a reading of Lincoln's Gettysburg address and we went on and only after all that uh item 15

0:53:02did we have the actual Memorial Day address so they made a big deal out of it in those days well you know the Garden Club did something really special for us this year it was an incredibly good presentation Janet I'm sure you would agree uh Marian Kent president of

0:53:17the Garden Club and our famous Esther Sergeant put together a tremendous program for us started off with instrumentalist Jun Simo who did a very moving tribute to Bruce King there weren't a lot of dry eyes in the audience after that and he's just a fantastic musician in any case um

0:53:36the well-known Elmer Silva actually lives in Richmond not El Sero but from the VFW uh gave an invocation we had a fantastic Color Guard um here we have officer hubs firefighter Murphy and officer wallr preparing uh here we have the fire department standing at attention

0:53:56uh as the colors Advance up the street Pledge of Allegiance not actually led by our fire chief but uh he sure looks great in this picture not that he doesn't always look great uh all of our our men there at our PW and Mia flag there mayor Pro maon gave a very nice

0:54:17speech at the beginning of the ceremony then we had Kate Roush from John Joy's office gave a presentation a short presentation followed by J Merrick from Nancy Skinner's office who did the same Phil Munley the county veteran service came and not spoke at good length but he spoke for a fair amount of

0:54:36time about what the county does for veterans and actually I believe Mr Munley was responsible for making sure we had all three matched flags for the ceremony uh then fire chief Maples spoke let me tell you he spoke from the heart about our veterans and our police chief

0:54:53did a fantastic job doing the same thing I'm not really used to our police chief being quite so direct regarding his experiences and I was so impressed by what he said uh Marvel Lions who runs an organization that once a month gets together and writes letters and packages

0:55:10up Goods to go to our guys overseas gave a little presentation then we had Karen Tedford from Ellen toal's office uh present A C certificate of appreciation to our mayor protm for our blue star marker uh we're ready for the unveiling here uh that's Julie west from the California

0:55:30Garden clubs and Jerry melon in the middle and on the right's Barbara post from the elero Garden Club and that Barbara bending over and her husband Bob's on the right there they presented a beautiful bouquet of flowers that sat there for a long time here we have our Chiefs enjoying

0:55:48the show we don't usually get to see them smiling at the same time Julie west from the Garden Club spoke Jerry melon District director spoke we had a few final comments by our mayor protm comments and benediction by Elmer Silva and you can see from Mrs Kent's expression they were not all

0:56:13serious the colors were retired and here's Esther Sergeant posing in front of the marker to say she was proud about this would be one of the great understatements of all time and there we have four partners in crime Mrs Sergeant Julie West um uh Mrs Canton Mrs melon posing by the

0:56:35marker the Garden Club put on a very nice reception after our city staff was there and the city staff certainly did a lot to make this possible um there's our police chief and I was just so impressed by our by our chief look at what's inside his hat those four men in Oakland who were

0:56:52gunned down that's what he was hearing around on his hat that day Elmer Silva and Phil Munley the two veterans Representatives having a chat and that was it it was a wonderful thing you know I'd like to thank the staff who helped install the marker and make the ceremony possible the various

0:57:12spers who really gave us something to chew on regarding our veterans the Garden Club who organized it all and of course our veteran our veterans themselves thank you Madame mayor thank you so much for the present presentation there any comments and thank you Janet ailson for

0:57:33your attendance okay meil make a comment I just wanted um to first of all thank uh Tom panis for his comments and all of the people who did participate and um I want to invite uh the members of our community to go up uh to Arlington Park and see the mark um and think about what it represents

0:57:59and um and um I hope that you'll do so soon it's uh near the clubhouse and um it's it's there for us to remember those who um gave their lives um on our behalf and um I know I have two uncles that I never met because um they were both killed during World War II

0:58:25and uh it had a profound impact on my um family uh even as I was growing up and was an adult I don't think my family ever got over the impact of that but they would have done it again so anyway I hope you'll go up and see it thank you thank you okay our next presentation is going

0:58:49to be from officer Dela Campa regarding the police training program and we have Chief Kirkland to make an introduction good evening Tom thank you that was heartwarming I very good still gets me here when I think about that that's so nice to have it encapsulated

0:59:08and a photograph and a nice presentation thank you for your efforts in that regards tonight uh we're continuing the series if you will uh about the police department about your police department and tonight we have a special guest and that is Sergeant Robert dampa uh

0:59:20Sergeant dampa is kind of behind the scenes in a police department even though a lot the programs he does participates in UC see all the time he's in charge of all the hiring for the police department as well as all the training you'll learn tonight that he is one of our cert one of our certified

0:59:35trainers in a couple Arenas that being the uh taser as well as CPR and first aid and I'm sure there's some other ones that I have forgotten already so Robert thank you evening Madame mayor and M of city council I am happy to come here and tell you about my position the admin admin

0:59:54ministrative Sergeant is what we call at this agency I find that when I go to National anout events and things of that sort very few persons in the public know what that position means I can tell you that every police agency in this state has someone who is the Department's

1:00:11training manager they may call that position different things but training manager is a common term and that is one of my main jobs at the department one moment and being part of the training manager position that means that I am the liaison to California post and that is something that I know

1:00:36that you have heard repeatedly in other presentations and so I was going to start off by giving a little bit of background about just what post is it is a commission out of Sacramento through the Department of Justice established by the legislature and they essentially set

1:00:54police officer standards and training post you hear that a lot it is not as big as an organization as one might believe they have only 130 employees and there are 58 counties they have people assigned to each County they're quite spread out but I the person at this

1:01:12agency who deals with the local post consultant uh the post program is something that the elre police department is involved in it's voluntary agencies are not required to be involved with it but we are it is incentive based and the things that we get out of it are

1:01:28reimbursement for training we get services from post and we have access to their specialized training programs for our Personnel again you often hear post approval for training such as the bicycle program that was brought up previously what does that mean that means that our course meets their

1:01:48standards not only in content but in how it's presented the safety plan Etc ET based on that they issue our Personnel essentially credit ours for having attended the training in years past post wasn't quite as open to the local agencies uh in recent years they have

1:02:08made it quite accessible for the agencies to get their own courses post approved and that is another benefit of being part of their program therefore we are able to put on most of the mandates to our own personnel some of the mandates come from the penal code I won't list these all they're in

1:02:29the in the document but there are a lot of mandates for things that people may or may not actually think about very often but there are requirements based on case laws from Criminal Case decisions such as the Miranda most people are familiar with Miranda well that is actually the name of a defendant

1:02:47in a criminal case and that case law binds all police to this day uh we are required by a case law to train adequately to give realistic training we must do scenario-based training um it is not enough that we simply shoot paper targets at the range we have to have decision-making based

1:03:08scenarios built in with the training people sometimes believe that the police academy is all inclusive that that is enough for an officer to function it really is not we have to train these things continuously post calls them perishable skills and it is because they are they are

1:03:26perishable if one does not do a lot of the kinesthetic exercises they're very easily forgotten therefore we train continuously no matter what the person's rank or tenure in the department they're required to train on a regular basis it develops muscle memory it maintains

1:03:45their own confidence in their abilities and we also use it to evaluate employees training is what we call it the there are synonymous terms that you'll hear other agencies um basic training there's skill verification qualifications is a common term continuous professional training is

1:04:06a post word as is perishable skills one also here's refresher and updates all of these are synonymous in our department with training as I mentioned the police academy everyone all of our swarm Personnel have obviously been to Police Academy but it changes over time we have

1:04:25Personnel that went to 500 hours and we have people now that go to an academy that's over a th000 hours things are continuously added generally at the state level and that can be via new laws it can be by the agency that runs the academy as well the police academy itself of course

1:04:45also does not have one there are 38ms in this state and we have Personnel from a number of them the cies are run by either individual agencies the biggest agencies tend to have their own Oakland has their own Los Angeles has their own otherwise they're usually done via Regional training

1:05:06centers and those are post approved locations usually in the bigger counties wherein multiple inservice training courses are offered and some are offered through community colleges as well the nearest one is Napa Valley College post requires that each of our Personnel do at least 24 hours of post

1:05:27approved training during every 2-year period they call this continuous professional training they mandate different topics be covered 14 of those hours have to be broken down as I have put up on the screen here four hours in driving four hours of firearms four hours of rest

1:05:44control and two hours in Communications the others are not necessarily mandated we are committed to exceeding that minimum standard because 4 hours of defensive tactics training every in every two-year period is just not enough were you to to give that example to any let's say

1:06:06a martial arts instructor if if a student could enroll in their school and be proficient in four hours of training every two years they would just laugh so even though our guys have had a lot of training the cies they need to keep doing it so we mandate that they do it

1:06:20at least three times a year we mandate that they' shoot Firearms at least three times a year and they do what we call a scenario based testing simunition is a common brand but we're not exclusive with that brand they provide a product that's similar to paintball so we do Sim scenario Based

1:06:39training with simunitions every year we also train the Kenington police department and some of our other local agencies come with us to train as well now some of your future uh presentations that you're going to hear are about individual programs within the department

1:06:54if you can just picture a training tree there are various branches you we have firearms instructors we have four El police Personnel that are firearms instructors just to be to do their job as an instructor they have to go to live training and this is outside of the department and I've put

1:07:11it up here but quickly it's 80 hour instructor course to teach Firearms they have to go to another 40-hour class to teach the rifle they have to go to a 32-hour class to teach the simunition scenarios courses and then they have to go to another class to teach the less

1:07:26lethal weapons and then every 3 years they have to go at least a 24-hour update when they train our officers it's usually three or four our blocks we do it at the uh Chevron facility in Richmond every other month our Personnel are offered those courses they may not

1:07:46go every other month but they must attend with it three times in the year they must do assim once a year defensive tactics it's a similar uh setup each instructor we have three has to go to an 8h hour defensive tactics instructor course they have to go to an 80h hour impact weapon instructor course

1:08:05and they also have to do updates every three years this is also run similar to Farms every other month we'll do generally a three or four hour block of instruction for the personnel and we do it right across the street in the vacated courtroom sometimes it involves these

1:08:23kind of uh suits for protection chemical agents are included driving instructors of course they have to go to 40-hour driving instructor course they have to go to a 24-hour course on how to teach on the simulators it's all very very lengthy we do driving training usually at the fire training

1:08:44center on cutting once a year and that's low- speed defensive driver skills most collisions are done during lows speed back in parking Maneuvers that's the kind of training we do that's also mandated by the vehicle code that we cover our Pursuit policy in the course

1:09:00of our training so yet another reason that we do the training repeated repeatedly this is actually what our simulators look like we use the contracosta Sheriff's Office simulators and that's exactly what it looks like okay motorcycle training I believe you have also heard about the motorcycle

1:09:17program to instruct on the motorcycle course we have one Corporal who's been to the 80-hour instructor course in addition to in his previous position as a rider he went to the 80-hour course and every year they do a 4-Hour update and that is actually coming up in just a

1:09:32couple weeks it's also done at the training center on cutting to carry the taser one must have the six-hour taser course two-hour update every year as the chief mentioned first aid CPR we have a continuous requirement to provide that training it's up to 12 hours every two years or

1:09:50skill demonstration if a person demonstrates the skill they don't need to sit through the class in addition to that we have school resource officer program we've all heard about that program that requires that the officer attend a 40-hour class and the only one

1:10:04in Northern California is in Sacramento bicycle Patrol you've heard a lot about that that is also part of our in-house program there are other ways to do some inh inservice training hours that we take advantage of post does provide some DVDs they have some things that are

1:10:20being put online and we take advantage that when we can some of those other mandated requirements Municipal pooling Authority requires that we adhere with assembly Bill 1825 harassment training prevention that's ongoing every other year of course there's FEMA and Nims National

1:10:40instant management system there are courses required for line level personnel there are other courses required for supervisor and management personnel and we have to meet all those requirements we have a training plan do document that you already have in front of you that actually is reviewed every

1:10:58year and it delineates position by position in the agency every position police officers non-sworn what have you and it lists what training is mandatory essential and desirable uh depending on a person's tenure they will get the man mandatory training first obviously the longer

1:11:15they're in a position they'll get up to the desirable courses because they still have to meet the 24 hours of every other year training so rather than have it be halfhazard selected based on one's assignment the training is basically lined out so there's just a quick

1:11:30example up here but suffice it to say if one is promoted they have to meet the requirements of the prios in addition to the new one and it just goes on and on Institute of criminal investigation is a program that uh you'll see occasionally in the weekly reports it's

1:11:45an investigative training program run by California post uh each of our detectives attends this program it's usually five courses not necessarily ly in any order upon completion of five specified courses they get a certificate in it especially if they're assigned uh

1:12:00we have had detectives earn the certificate for the listed Specialties burglary narcotics sexual assault and homicide there's also leadership training sergeants go the supervisory Leadership Institute after they've been a sergeant for two years that is a lengthy program 24 hour sessions over

1:12:21an8 month period command college for those above the rank of Sergeant is eight non-consecutive weeks of advanced leadership training that is a very quick version suffice it to say that it's so complicated that even to be the training manager I had to go to over 40 hours of

1:12:42training just to run the program so please understand that you've gotten a very cursory uh summary but uh obviously we are very proud of the program as I mentioned briefly we do train a lot of the local agencies and uh we are proud that agencies come to us because they believe

1:13:01that our training is quality and professional and we appreciate the support from the city to us to keep do that keep doing that I'm happy to answer questions if you have them well I just want to say that the effective training really shows in our community and our officers and we

1:13:18appreciate that and we have heard from other specialized um groups on the traffic officer program and the school resource officers program and it's very nice way to put it all together and to understand a little bit better about how each officer's um training proceeds so

1:13:33I'll open it up to any other questions or comments I I'm just blown away by the amount of training that uh professional police officers need um both once one time to sort of be qualified and and the man maintenance of that on on an annual basis so you have your hands full I I

1:13:53don't don't envy you cuz um you're tracking a lot of training hours every year for for the full staff um I am curious if if you have some idea of how many hours on average because it's going to differ because different officers are at different places in their career but

1:14:12on average how much time are uh you know police officers are spending training I could estimate average officers now some have more as you mentioned some are near the lower end of that average is probably 40 hours a year easily um some based on position and their tenure they may have had classes

1:14:35outside of the area that previous years so subsequent years they don't do much specialty training and they will be closer to the minimums but an average is 40 hours easily that's that's significant and and as the mayor said much appreciated in in the Dem demonstrated through your interactions

1:14:55with the public um I did go through the pl training manual uh fairly closely and did notice that there's only one detective Corporal that uh gets media relations and I'm I'm glad we don't have a lot of interactions with the media but I am curious um why there aren't other

1:15:11positions that are have the media relations training uh listed so I was just curious if that's something that primarily because if one is assigned to supervisory or management level position presumably someone who's of higher rank than the detective Corporal they get

1:15:27that training included with the management course with the supervisory course so a detective Corporal who's not been to those advanced level programs that would probably be all that that person has gotten great thank you that was a great answer well I'd like to thank you for

1:15:42that um excellent uh report one of the things I've been under the impression that happens in the police department is that people rotate between different positions so there's a lot of cross trining and um so I would assume that what that means in terms of the training

1:16:00that you've just spoken about tonight is that somebody will be trained in an area and then they'll be assigned to a new area and they'll then sort of start as a more um Junior person in that new area and work their way up so that overall uh we have a very educated and trained

1:16:22Department am I getting it right you are one could be in detectives for several years next assignment may be motorcycle traffic and to some degree yes they'd have to start fresh to learn the new skill or they may be promoted and have to go to supervisory courses so yes

1:16:39you're right Some People based on their assignments and their Mobility do receive more training thank you any comments well thank you uh thank you appreciate it's quite impressive to see it and uh I want you you call it a quick overview but it's real impressive to see

1:17:02exactly what we we do I I really think training is is important um in all all departments Public Safety Recreation whatever um but in our society that gives a certain uh privilege to police power uh it's important that um they are trained and I'm I'm impressed with California I

1:17:29um you see news stories come over the wire and you you kind of scratch your head in other states how some of these people get in trouble um you just you just wouldn't see that in in our usually in our uh in our departments because of the training involved and I I go back to

1:17:49what the uh Chief told me one time I it was a issue coming up when taser was being considered by the city and it I forget what the incident was but there was something Nationwide about you know tasers and he had indicated that all the research that the department had done on

1:18:09tasering and by the way it was studied for over three years before we put it into place that it was training was the number one reason for the misuse of uh of the uh of the weapon so to speak as well as the taser was being put in as a non-lethal tool by which we could use

1:18:32but it it just shows the kind of uh not only the training we get in California but we here do in Els Sero where we just don't jump and and and start implementing we we study there's a determination of whether we go forward and then we train everybody and currently does every officer uh I don't

1:18:53want to stay on tasers too long but is every officer qualified for taser they do not see that's it's part of the training correct well I think right now we have 15 of them so some people were not terribly interested in carrying it um so they weren't we weren't and we

1:19:10weren't able to provide them for everyone so those who didn't want it didn't have to carry it but those who wanted to go through the training and that have the responsibility and track record to suggest that they're capable of handling it we're given the opportunity given the device and given

1:19:27the training so they just you just don't sign up and get a taser you have to know what you're doing and so that's just indicative where I'm going it's just indicative of the type of training we have on all all parts of the department so really appreciate that and so uh finally though I the

1:19:47training and the reason why I think it's essential is um the better trained people we have the safety of the public and the proper uh enforcement of law is is much better and of course and foremost in my mind the safety of the officer uh when they're out on the street and uh

1:20:08performing their job so thank you very much very welcome thank you very much for your presentation I think actually in light of this article in the chronicle today about San Francisco officers was really surprised how a majority of the officers didn't need to use force on an

1:20:28annual basis there was so so it just makes sense that you know you do need these trainings and it's very important for you know staying fresh and thankfully you don't probably most likely don't have to use it um on folks that's very true that's part of the reason that we have to train reply

1:20:45because these acts are infrequent yeah um but if you could just speak a little bit about um racial kind of diversity training and it's something at my office we've been looking into and um it's kind of ethnic sensitivity you know we're an increasingly diverse community and I'm

1:21:07just curious if if that is just a standard thing that comes at the beginning or if there's kind of deeper levels of training that are available that is one of the many legislative mandates that came about several years ago it was approximately six years ago that that was

1:21:23um brought out by the legislature all police officers had to attend it was a 5-hour class so every person in the agency from Reserve officers to the Chiefs had to attend that course um those who were hired after or prior to that because it was not included in the

1:21:38cies from that point it was included in the basics so all of our newer Personnel have had it in basic training yet another reason that the academy just gets longer things were continuously added uh with that also came a fiveyear two hour research and post provided a DVD two

1:21:57hours in length that met the requirement and we made everybody watch it so that was their mandated update there are other ways to do the class um it's held at certain places throughout the state but it was much easier to just have people watch the video in the building and I'm just

1:22:17curious is your sentiment that people feel like it's useful and it's helpful versus it's something that's dreaded or is it actually effective and do people feel like they debatable its Effectiveness is debatable you know the video itself I'm sure they put a lot of work

1:22:33into it but I don't think many of our guys learned anything new from it it's fight to say but sometimes training unfortunately is viewed by people that is not terribly exciting it's just something they have to do they all did it um but I don't think anybody was

1:22:49really ranting or phrasing it afterward MH and it's not that they don't give importance to the topic it's just the videos tend to be rather mundane but that's the way it is sometimes thank you I understand so um I want to thank you for the PowerPoint and the presentation but

1:23:09I also wanted to note um that I really enjoyed the agenda item five 4B that came with this item it's the Elso Police Department's training plan and I want to thank Chief Kirkland it's a very concise easy to follow a clear document that um was a nice companion to the PowerPoint

1:23:29presentation and Sergeant Dela Camp I also want to thank you for partnering with me on National Night Out that was very nice to um visit some of the parties and be able to talk more about the police department so thank you very much have a good evening byebye okay we're going to now move on

1:23:48to item five our consent calendar tonight items 5 a through 5H and they include items from the city council the Redevelopment agency and The Joint City Council Redevelopment agency I move adoption of the consent calendar items 5A through 5 H second it's been moved and seconded all in

1:24:12favor I I opposed motion carries unanimously okay there no public hearing tonight T so we'll move on to item seven policy matters and the first um item is to look at potential future Revenue measures thank you uh mayor members of the council um what you have before you

1:24:37is our uh a request to allow me to enter into an agreement with Godby research to perform ver uh essentially a voter survey um as you may recall uh we have done this a number of times and we think with great success most notably the recent measure a streets measure uh the

1:24:59reason we're here now is twofold one is related to our unfunded Capital needs which we have we think methodically worked through a list by getting feedback um and initially we dealt with City Hall we've dealt with the swim center and uh and now the the streets and the streets

1:25:25were largely based on um the input of the survey and what the what the people of Elser made as their priority but as part of that um it's really important why do we need to do this now we're really looking down the road to November 2010 and Brian Godby will talk about

1:25:44that a little bit as the next likely time that we would take any action if that were the desire of the council and as we learned in measure a it's really critical if you're going to be successful particularly with a two-thirds vote to start early and uh typically that's or a year or more so in

1:26:04order to do the research and be ready for next November we would need to start start now and in spite of the economy as as Brian will talk about uh voters seem to get it they seem to understand what's going on in the economy they understand what's going on in the state and it

1:26:19largely uh does a lot of our homework no one is surprised the city needs money uh based on what's going on um the other thing that's come up as I talked about initially today tonight was what's going on with the state um we are we are very concerned as I mentioned earlier about

1:26:37future State takeaways and any further erosion of our revenues I believe will either require new revenues or we will for the first time certainly in my tenure have to start cutting programs I think the budget was uh certainly tighter than it's it's been and we are

1:26:54relying on open positions that ideally we would love to fill and uh for all the reasons that you just heard from Sergeant ampa officers are off the street a lot so when we have vacancies in police or fire we're backfilling them with folks uh it starts to put a strain

1:27:11and that's true for all of our departments but you know everyone is stepping up and trying to do their share um the other point and and the reason we want to talk about the state takeaways now is I don't think anyone thinks this is a short-term problem that the state budget

1:27:26problems will likely continue and if it became necessary to make a choice between new revenues or uh Cuts we would probably want to take action before the start of next fiscal year we are going into this making the assumption that we would not go to the voters twice in one

1:27:44year particularly with a two-thirds vote unless something just remarkably unforeseen happens in the survey research um why don't I I turn it over to Brian just to talk a little bit about what he is seeing I many of you are familiar with uh Brian he's uh this is

1:28:00probably his fourth or fifth engagement with the city since he was selected in fiscal 04 and then I'll I'll come around and close thank you Scott uh Madame mayor members of the council we're pleased to be here to talk a little bit uh about the three things really the Electoral

1:28:18environment that we are confronted with um the timing options before you for 2010 and then some of the different Revenue options uh particularly in light of the presentation that Mr Hannon gave earlier with respect to the Statewide budget situation and some of those

1:28:35takeaways uh also with me today this evening is Dr Amilia Davidson who we will be working as the team on this particular project uh and uh and look forward to to working with you is there a controller that I should have oh it just magically turns thank you um what I wanted to talk about first was

1:28:55the Electoral environment many people say Revenue measures can they pass in this kind of economy well as we all know we have been in this kind of economy since the summer of 2007 it has gotten progressively worse uh and yet there's still when we go back to the beginning

1:29:11of 2008 have been a wide variety of measures on the ballot uh what I'm doing here is showing you different election scenarios the results different kinds of measures within them the first one is the February election um earlier last year uh which was in fact the

1:29:29presidential primary it had a relatively High turnout uh not getting into the turnout details because this is a Statewide analysis so it varies from Community to community but in general it was quite high for a presidential election and you can see that there were

1:29:44several City me measures on the ballot that required a majority uh and that all of them won in fact the elero uh roads tax uh was one of those measures uh in the city column here majority and 2/3 uh this is was in fact the highest success rate that we saw of all of the 2008 and

1:30:042009 elections and I'm not going to go in each one of those I'll let you look at that at your leisure the June election of last year we also saw a variety of measures 78 in total uh this had a lower turnout relatively speaking and in fact was the lowest turnout last

1:30:20year of all of them uh but you can still see that there are a number of measures 68% in total that are passing whether those be Municipal measures or County measures or School District measures when we move on to November of last year now November it's important to

1:30:36note that the economy or the stock market at least collapsed in September uh unprecedented in most of our experience yet there were 233 measures in the state of California that were already on the ballot and 76% of them passed this is almost an unprecedented number given this the the bulk of

1:30:57measures that were was on the ballot um and you can see some of the really high rates for school districts uh with their prop 39 55% requirement Bond measures uh cities majority measures won at 71% and for twoth thirds City measures that won at 52% not quite as good as a majority

1:31:18which is an argument for looking at majority measures now in 2009 the story is a little bit different there haven't been anywhere near as many measures on the ballot um there were 21 on the ballot before May 19 and there a variety of different elections types and we'll talk about

1:31:35that in a moment um but we use May 19th as a dividing line here because that of course was a Statewide special election uh which is important what's interesting here is despite the problems with the economy and obviously a small number of measures admittedly uh we had the second

1:31:51highest success rate for all of the measures uh at 76% with 67% of the city majority measures being successful uh May 19th was a different story and it's m perhaps one of the most dismal stories we've seen in recent years that was in fact the Statewide special election there were very few

1:32:11measures on the ballot most uh of our clients and most of the um other communities throughout the state tried to avoid that uh that in some cases you could be successful in doing that in some cases it finally caught up with you because as you also remember first it

1:32:26was going to be in January and then it was going to be in February and then it was going to be in March uh and then it was going to be in April and then it wound up being in May and by that time people had decided to put it on the ballot their measures on the ballot in

1:32:38June or wound up consolidating because of financial issues that in fact was the lowest pass rate um of all these elections that we're looking at however it's important to note one of our clients the city of Hayward was successful with their uut for the very first time uh and got the simple

1:32:56majority that they needed to be successful uh after May there have been again a few number of measures in total but the win rate has gone up um and what we've been seeing in our polling work really since the middle of last year is that people understand there is an

1:33:15economic problem we don't have to explain that to them uh they also understand that the state budget is in disarray and and Mr Hannah spoke to that earlier uh and so we don't really have to explain that to them either they they know that they've been hearing that

1:33:28story and reading that story for quite a while and so well there was some uh disaffection with the state measures in May and that probably led to the low rates of passage for those eight measures in on May 19th and it might have actually impacted uh downward some

1:33:47of the measures right after that because a couple of those measures that were after the 19th the ballots were actually in the voters hands at the same time so they voted however they voted on the Statewide measures and we all know that that was largely no uh and they may have

1:34:03voted no on their local measures too again there AR a lot of them so the sample size is relatively small here but it is what it is so I think in some that really means that uh there is an opportunity even in these dire Economic Times to pass Revenue measures when you

1:34:18identify the voters needs uh and make sure that it is priced correctly and that is an important part of this entire process Switching gears then and looking at next year's election calendar uh and the opportunities that you have uh these are the various elections and types of

1:34:35Elections that we're confronted with next year uh for any one of these given elections there is an 88 day deadline for the council to take action to place a measure on the ballot that's your last chance to get something on the ballot it may actually change if we look uh more

1:34:50carefully those dates and each local county regist has some discretion is when they're going to require uh those um submissions uh to explain these different kinds of Elections because the first three everyone says Whoa We have a March election yes we in fact do um

1:35:05state law allows for three maale ballot elections which is not like a Landscape and Lighting mail ballot this is actually a ballot is mailed to every voter whether you are permanent absentee or whether you wish to vote absentee in these three election scenarios from

1:35:21March 2nd May 4th and August 31st that ballot is just mailed if you choose to use that then you have a traditional polling place election which is a special election in April uh on the 13th that looks just like a regular election it's just at a special time of year which is an option then you have

1:35:39the June 88th uh polling place election which is also the gubinatorial primary uh that's an interesting opportunity because the turnout is going to be higher and as we looked at in some of the other charts s turnout does seem to have an impact on the success of

1:35:55local Revenue measures but the turnout is uh footnoted in my mind because the uh the gubinatorial election will have a big impact on that um and right now the um people running in both primaries seem to be narrowing dramatically uh the question remains what other issues

1:36:16become lightning rods around that gubernatorial election and some have started suggesting that Healthcare could become a more Regional or State issue uh as early as this morning uh as a result of comments were made over the weekend at the national level if that's the case

1:36:33the gubinatorial election Healthcare could become quite hotly debated I'm not predicting that I'm just saying that's a possibility and that's one of the things that might make it a very hotly contested election even though there may not be multiple candidates in each each

1:36:47party running but they will C if there is down to two uh one and Democrat and one Republican which is quite possible they will be positioning themselves for November quite early uh then finally we have the November 2nd polling place election which is the gubernatorial

1:37:04General uh all of those keep in mind uh for a moment as we look at the different tax types because this has a huge impact um on the most important question here what kind of majority do you require uh you'll notice that these two lists the simple majority measures and the 2/3

1:37:22super majority measures have a lot of overlap um and that specifically with the sales tax the users utility tax the TR um transi documen tax the property transfer tax and the business license tax all of those can be simple majority measures if they are on the November

1:37:37election uh when the council is regularly standing for re-election or members of the council they can also be simple majorities if the council declares an emergency um and the City attorney will obviously be be uh closely involved in what that is and how that that process goes about but it is

1:37:55something that is allowed under state state law then all of those same measures can also be 2third um super majority measures and in fact the Els Cerita Road sales tax was one of those uh in 2008 the polling showed that we could get that level whether or not we

1:38:12can for a special uh sales tax or uut remains to be seen that's one of the things we'll be looking at uh but what I think the the history over the last two years shows is that cities are doing better when they're looking at simple majority measures for all of the obvious

1:38:29reasons uh in addition to those uh overlapping measure types you can also look at um a general obligation Bond measure which is something that funds facilities uh it is backed up by an adalum part of adalum property tax which is a cost per 100,000 of assess valuation uh you can also do a parcel

1:38:47tax which with the right duration can also be used to serve The Debt Service of a um a bond to do facility measures but typically partial taxes are flat rates in smaller amounts and for shorter duration so they're not always bonded against those are a variety of the

1:39:03different tax types that you have uh as options as you move into uh to 2010 Brian just if you can go back to that slide I would just jump in and say we with the city attorney have done a fair amount of um have had a fair amount of conversation about these and likely

1:39:21scenarios for elero are actually I think Brian's trying to give an overview but are really relatively small either because of timing um items that we would have little impact based on their revenue or at where their current rates are um particularly the utility user tax and um

1:39:44to some degree the sales tax that we would be pushing them up to where we would sort of be setting the the ceiling for how high these would go in in the region so um there's only sort of a small group of these I think that are actually you know real candidates um uh

1:40:03here um particularly with the utility user tax election that we recently have I mean from a staff perspective having been through that I'm somewhat reluctant to go back particularly with our focus on the environment I'm not sure we want to encourage uh higher utility use to

1:40:19fund our programs so um you know I don't want to spend too much time on this but if you go through the simple majority list I mean what and and we're in that case talking more about the state take away arguments I think we're focusing on some interim sales tax in all likelihood

1:40:34because of the realities in elero um in terms of two-thirds you know then you get into a geobond or a parcel tax which will largely be driven by what what it is we're building and where the support is um and how that shakes out but a lot of these measur measures um probably the

1:40:53last three on the second list would never generate the revenue needed to build a library or a public safety building um so I just wanted to caveat that um Brian could certainly go into that more detail but um and and I would just reiterate and the City attorney has

1:41:11been involved is if something were um if something else were to happen from Sacramento and the council decided we need to go to the voter and and try to do something to keep keep service and programs where they are that would require the essentially the similar Declaration of fiscal emergency

1:41:32um which uh initially we feel would not be hard to support in terms of what's in terms of what's going on in the economy and the state so if that's sorry I just wanted to jump in with specificity on that emergency declaration also the city of haywards uut they required a

1:41:50emergency de decaration and it was not an issue um it was fairly straightforward they made that determination then they put the measure on the ballot uh and the campaign focused largely on what is the uut going to pay for we know we've got challenges so uh was fairly routine in that respect

1:42:09although I don't think would be routine from the number of measures that you see as emergency declarations but again the with given the economic climate and the Statewide budget situation and uh it's easy to see how those fit together uh in conclusion there were 372

1:42:27measures on the ballot in 2008 in the middle of this financial and meltdown and uh budgetary crisis in 75% one clearly the higher turnout elections had a higher success rate it's also important to note that it's not just a onetoone uh analysis with the turnout rate it's also what kind of effort goes

1:42:46on both in terms of the public information that the city under takes uh when they put a measure on the ballot and whatever independent Campaign Committee comes uh together outside of this room to uh to support the campaign uh in 2009 uh in in the center of the storm there have been far few me few

1:43:06measures clearly but they are still winning at a two-thirds level which is pretty amazing given the depth of the economic problems um again the Statewide election took a toll on the measures that were on that ballot um but in general higher turn out elections here

1:43:21are helping as well I think in terms of 2010 my crystal ball says that higher turnout elections will continue to be good and uh as Mr Hannah mentioned uh November of 2010 is an opportunity for some of those simple majority elections and that will have a higher turnout rate

1:43:39No Doubt at least the highest turnout rate next year there may be this moderate turnout uh in June and and we'd want to study that to make sure that that's an option if if we decide to go that way uh and then we've got the lower turnout elections which probably be more

1:43:53problematic for any one of your issues but as the economy improves so do chances of success well there it's very clear that people understand the problem and understand how it trickles down from the state at the same time when they're they feel like they have more disposable

1:44:12income they're more likely to spend that that doesn't mean you have C blanch there's still a limit to how much people can afford on any given Revenue measure but it certainly does increase the chances of success so that's the uh brief presentation we prepared for this

1:44:27evening we can either answer plenty of questions about this or we can uh milia and I can both talk about the survey process as well as the survey methodology at council's pleas okay well thanks for the presentation we do have um The Proposal here in the staff report and there any

1:44:45questions uh from the council yeah I was wondering if you could take a minute to um explain your split um your split methodology that you're proposing uh for capturing this and in light of answering the questions that we're looking for which is um a short-term interim um Revenue uh to

1:45:11to combat our economic situation that we're in and also how it would help us answer the question about a capital large Capital uh infrastructure investment for our public safety building which we desperately need I'll let Amelia speak to the methodology um uh voters are naturally influenced by

1:45:35what they've heard in a survey so the reason that we split that sample is so that one group hears uh information that pertains to Capital Improvements the public safety building and also the library whereas the other group hears information that pertains to an interim

1:45:52measure uh for general fund purposes in order to uh identify tax rates for the Ina measure and also duration we'll be testing both of those in a threshold uh similarly for the capital Improvement measure will be testing duration uh not duration rather but tax rate for that as

1:46:12well great thank you sorry um maybe this question might be more relevant to staff but just curious about how um past survey data would inform you know what's what would be considered on this next round sure I mean why don't I would you guys take a shot but I think

1:46:38that's largely why uh we're recommending it to continue with Godby is because of the history and um each survey that we've done we've sort of built on the prior uh findings for consistency and sort of what um particularly um one area where uh Brian and his folks have been

1:47:00really helpful is around shaping the arguments and shaping the question um but I'll I'll sort of defer to you uh you do have a number of previous surveys to draw from and largely what we're looking for there are the measure features that have resonated well with

1:47:17voters uh the public safety building also the library was tested in a previous survey so we do have some VOA reactions to the features that uh would be a part of that measure uh several of the arguments as well um we can draw information from that portion of the

1:47:35survey at the same time some of the arguments are changing because of the economic conditions and I'd also say looking back to the sales tax surveys which preceded the roads measure Road sales tax uh it was very clear that the priorities were roads um in the town and so it made

1:47:55sense to to go down that path and that the sales tax did much better than the parcel tax that was another split sample situation uh and it helped us make that decision so we would look at that particularly the priorities in the past to see if those change but as Emelia

1:48:10said you know we're in a different climate so lots of things have changed priorities have changed um and as well as affordability has changed so we need to look at not only what we've seen in the past but what is going on in the ground right now I think a great example

1:48:27uh of a city that's in a similar situation to yours is the city of San Rafel uh they have been working on their public safety building and their Library as in in addition to ongoing program funding uh for five years now 2009 yeah five years uh We've in that time been

1:48:45able to pass sales tax general tax for uh the general fund uh we have been able to renew an ens parcel tax uh at a slightly higher rate and then we find we've gone through two rounds of trying to figure out whether it is the public safety or the library both are

1:49:02priorities both are important uh but it became a question of what is the most important in this economy and in their situation it has become the public safety facility they were going to have a public safety building on the B Bond on the ballot this November the library

1:49:19will come at a later date but it's about shifting priorities not just what we've seen in the past but the past is a benchmark for that as well and I guess to follow up um what has come up in the in just in the last year um are things like open space and maybe new issues

1:49:38that weren't tested before in the Loney Greenway master plan that just got completed and I'm wondering if things like how how will you work in you know other new ideas that may not have been tested yet or what would be the public process for that the uh interim measure presents a

1:49:56nice opportunity for that uh since those types of projects would most likely be funded by that general tax uh in that case we would test a number of uh potential services to maintain uh and how those resonate with voters and their likelihood of supporting the measure so

1:50:13we'll have an opportunity to test a full list of various city services and understand how voters are responding to those but I would say in regard to the capital measure that is focused on the buildings and you know the really big the big stuff but uh I think the um inura

1:50:31measures go to sort of continuing on the right track and doing you know smaller projects that still may be million dollar projects but are not 20 million projects thanks okay um I have a question on another aspect of this and that is the timing um what I heard previously um is

1:50:53um that it's you do better when you have time uh to fully develop a campaign uh and um educate the voter and so forth so that would speak to the November um 2010 election over an earlier date however um the thing that's going on now that's different than previous times is the shape of the

1:51:25economy and we really don't for sure know how that's going to go but it could have an impact I would think on depending on which way it goes on on voter um preferences do you have any comments on that yeah I certainly do um the uh the approach that we take to this

1:51:45is to say there's a three-phase process there's the research process there is the public education process and then there is the independent Campaign which obviously the city cannot fund but the council can be involved um on their own time the amount of time that any one of

1:52:05those takes is is often variable and it depends on the that first phase if the survey research says wow we got loads of support that sort of says well we can compress the second phase the public information and move to the campaign phase um if on the other hand the public

1:52:23or if the polling says not so much uh then we have to expand the public information phase to uh to give people more information about the issues that are confronting the city the campaign phase because of that 88 days is almost always the same length that you really

1:52:41don't have much Choice there Council sometimes put measures on the ballot earlier than the the deadline which gives the campaign a little more time but uh but not that not generally so if we were thinking about a June election for example uh and we're doing polling

1:52:58in the in early September uh then we've got some information by let's say mid to end of September to begin to prioritize messages to the community in a public information setting in September and October and a little bit in the November then you're pretty much done because

1:53:16it's the holidays and so we have to take that into account so if there is a public information component dictated by the survey uh the holidays impact that then you're looking again restarting in January and uh and February and then making a decision at that deadline which

1:53:32is basically in the beginning of January so that would be a schedule for a June election if the survey were to say there really isn't support for something uh or we wanted to go toward that Council election where there's a simple majority requirement then that stretches out the

1:53:49public information time that we have and we can use that to our advantage so then the other uh factor that we didn't have before was um the economy um and the that could go I suppose three ways up down and no change do you want can you comment on that uh well uh yeah I've got a crystal ball

1:54:13just like everybody else does and and M crystal ball says there's a congressional election next year uh and that the economy will be better as a result or at least people will think the economy is better as a result of that now that's a very political analysis of

1:54:30the economic climate not a uh I'm not an economist um I think there are some economic fundamentals that have started to turn although it's started to turn is the operational term so things are getting better but I don't think that anybody's prepared to declare an end to

1:54:48the recession yet um based on the fundamentals a survey is also a snapshot in time so as you understand if the economy changes voter sentiment could change with it uh so one thing that we do in the survey is we assess voter opinion of future economic conditions and then we segment support

1:55:07for the measure based on how they feel about the economy and what their expectations of the economy are in the future so we can project if the economy changes for the better or for the worse or stays the same what might happen to voter support as a result okay thank you Mr Jones thank you

1:55:26um just going to ask professional opinion I guess at this point but um couple of these things the I've heard in the media reading in the media several people including the governor had stated that uh the last uh the Statewide initiatives to support the ballot uh

1:55:45budget went down and they said this was a true indicator that people didn't want taxes raised so I I'm going to ask you why in this climate and based on that if in fact that's true and that's probably Up For Debate but if in fact it is why would somebody vote Yes for local tax

1:56:05initiative um yeah I I've saw that story as well and and I found it somewhat confounding because I think that the uh explanation of those five measures was Limited at best um having been in this business for 25 years I had to look really hard at what those were about I

1:56:28don't think it was adequately communicated to the voters what the situation truly was and what those pack those five measures actually did uh I think and if you look at some of the polling that was available public you'll see that the level of awareness of what

1:56:42they each of the five did was tremendously low so I think that first of all just say that was a pleite on taxes no taxes I think is incorrect because I don't think that they was communicating what was happening and certainly no one said until the very end uh when it was probably too late because

1:57:01many people do vote absentee particularly in low turnout elections like that oh by the way we have a26 billion deficit and if these don't pass we're in trouble well that was 10 days before the election maybe seven days before the election half of the people had already voted at that point um so I

1:57:17I don't buy the the Govern govern's argument to start with um secondarily I think tax elections are always about what is it for my community and so when we're looking at all of those measures we looked at before the biggest jurisdiction that we're talking about in

1:57:33any case is a County uh but it's the county I live in uh and so I care about the county I live in as each of you do uh the state is a more um abstract entity I mean we all know what the boundaries are and all the sort of things but what what is uh raising say the sales tax 1% Statewide do for me in

1:57:54my County if it's going to raise billions of dollars and doesn't LA County take most of it anyway so I I think when you make it concrete about what happens in your city you're even focusing more than those larger jurisdictions which are successful in the list that I have and part of what

1:58:12we're about doing in the survey is finding out what is it that the voters priorities are what are they willing to increase their tax taxes for because they feel they need those in their community and how much are they willing to be able to pay all of those have to

1:58:25come together to be successful and I think um we and by we I mean we and the uh the public opinion research um and revenue measure Community were very good at matching that particularly last fall where we had literally hundreds of measures on the balance uh and making

1:58:43sure that I I know I've talked to several of of my competitors and we've all um said in July of last year we said wow the economy is probably going to get worse now that doesn't mean we're Geniuses but I think in July anybody could have said that and we said okay

1:59:01we're going to have to be sensitive to the tax rates because of that uh and we all adjusted our expectations from the data down uh and lo and behold when the stock market collapsed in late September everybody said we're going to lose all of these measures but that wasn't the

1:59:18case because we had Focus on the priorities and we had focused on what were the the ability to pay uh in advance of that and crafted measures that then met those needs I'm a cynic probably but I don't think that those five State measures met those tests okay just have two other

1:59:36related one is um and and I'm sure this is what part of the reason why we would want to go out uh for survey but seems like to me um it would be let me put it this way the new new projects versus keeping current we're going to go out and say we're losing all this money um but we want you to pass a

2:00:00a measure to put a library for instance a library up um it's almost contradictory when would you say that uh we're saying that we're hurting we need more money to to keep current services and oh by the way let's fund a library so I I don't know if you have any comment about at this

2:00:19point if you have a feeling on um should we stick to just keeping things current or is it possible to go out with a new project I mean our our library is over 50 years old but we don't necessarily need one right a new one right now I think that that's a combination of

2:00:39looking at the priorities that we've seen in the past uh which we have certainly done uh as well as verifying those priorities and it very it's different for TR Community uh and I again San raell is on the ballot right now so I think it's useful to look at that um the library is important their

2:00:57library is is old as well um but in this economic climate that's not a priority that gets two3 um and so a difficult decision was made and it was a difficult decision um I've known the library director for 10 years um and but we did this survey and the data said that the

2:01:15library is important but not important enough to get two3 uh in other communities facilities fall into that same category that the library and sanell did and shortterm operations um budgets are more important and that's one the one of the reasons for the split sample is to make that determination is

2:01:33it a short-term operations issue or is it a a facil longer term facility sure and finally um because of the the problems we're in I can Envision that there's going to be a whole lot lot of agencies that will be going on the ballot in one case or another I we've got the county we have

2:01:56Special Districts we have cities all going to be vying for increased revenue and uh the only one of the few ways we have is to go back to the voters and ask for it uh any feeling yet on how that's going to play out I think that the big area to watch very carefully is the sales tax uh

2:02:19because uh as your City attorney can cancel you there is a limit to how much uh sales tax can be increased locally uh and that means cities and counties are competing for those dollars or for those potential percentages really and so that's an important thing to be

2:02:38considering the other things like the uut there isn't that limitation um there may be some limitations in terms of what people can pay uh but that's true all of them but the sales tax is one that is the most concerning in terms of just where do other jurisdictions go and do

2:02:56you get preempted as a result of that but again that the City attorney could probably come that so we'll just have to wait and see who goes out and for what reasons well and I think that's a reason to keep June alive now there's some caveats in keeping June alive if it would if you as

2:03:13it were uh one is you meet the 2third threshold if that's what you decide to do or is it one something that uh necessitates and justifies a an Emergency declaration but June is a possibility clearly the longer we go the more risk there is that somebody else like the

2:03:32county might step in and say we're gonna raise the sales tax for County purposes So based on what you know about elero and pass do we have time to go out in June uh I think it's a reasonable assumption I think our if you remember back to the last last time we were here

2:03:49when we were talking about the the sales tax for the roads that we we were sort of looking at a package we realized here as we do for many of our clients that it's not a one we do one Revenue measure and then we're done for you know the next 30 Years unfortunately the economy

2:04:05aside we're in a budget situation where there are many needs and few resources so I think part of the overall strategy was do the 2third for the roads because there was support for it uh and that that would then allow us a little more discretion to do a general fund measure

2:04:27at only a simple majority uh and so that was part of the thinking as we uh approached that sales tax uh in 2008 I think that remains the case with respect to June we need to see where we've where we've come from from you know the what would have been uh November of October

2:04:46of 2007 now to to for today but I think that's still a viable option right thank you and had a brief question yeah um this has actually to do with our roads project and the timing of this um surveying versus actually seeing some real um asphalt um hit the ground and I'm not

2:05:11sure what that timing is one versus the other first of all but I'm wondering if that might have an impact on um the polling in that it will either um show voters that in fact we do what we say or it um kind of doesn't because we haven't done it yet so I guess the first

2:05:35question might be of Staff about the relative timing of the two well I think the main portion of the resurfacing will be hitting about the same time as a surveying I think think it you know it's hard to predict um it's sort of an irony of I want my streets paved but I don't want to be put out

2:05:58while my street is getting paved so at the same time we're redoing streets the phones ring here off the hook much more than at any other time so I it it just may depends on your perspective if you get if you're parking a block away and the phone rings and it's Brian's shop is

2:06:12serving what do you think about City maybe that's a bad day for some folks but if you get CAU the day after your street is finished and all pretty maybe it's a good thing I you know I don't know I think that's correct I I think generally the pardon our dust is a good

2:06:28thing because it means that something's happening and that uh the city is in fact making good on its pledge to fix the roads uh in this particular case or whatever facilities uh we've seen in the past so I'm not as fearful of things happening I am often more fearful of

2:06:45things not happening I think that's where you really lead these problems so I really appreciate the presentation there's been a lot of great data that's been presented and you've been very generous with your time um I would like to bring it back to the council we have a couple other um

2:07:03important policy matters to take up I'd like to make a motion that we adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into an agreement with Godby research to undertake a voter survey to ascertain voter opinions related to the funding of future facilities and

2:07:19possible interim Revenue measures uh resulting from the weakened local economy and recent significant State takeaways um and appropriate $28,155 general fund balance we're only in August from a July 1 uh yes a July 1 budget uh we're projecting uh close to $700,000 out of that it's bring us

2:08:02bringing us down and I realized $28,000 against a $3.4 million balance uh maybe relatively small um but I think we've got a we've got to in my opinion we have to start watching it um it's not to say that uh we shouldn't vote for this because I think we've seen in the past

2:08:29that this has been a great tool for us to assess not only not only um are the voters willing to consider some addition but in what direction and we've been proactive in looking at this crisis that we're in for the last two years and we should should continue to be on the

2:08:49front end of things but I think we've got to start watching our our uh the fund balance and make sure we don't get too low on that K I just I want to quickly just say that I um I think it's we have a duty to our citizens to use our powers to collectively aggregate you know our

2:09:13taxes in a way that I think through this research we'll find out what the priorities are um but it's something that you know it's just it's it's something really important that I think we it's great that we're looking into and it's going to protect our reserves

2:09:28in the or our general fund in the future and we'll re really be able to um you know just hone in on what people want and ultimately just get everybody on the same page to invest in the the infrastructure that we can all have consensus about so I think it's a it's a

2:09:46good move yeah I agree age that it's a good investment it's a tool that's worked um very well for us in the past and I think that given what we've already talked about that we have nine budgeted vacancies but we actually have 18 vacancies that there's a little bit

2:10:00of room even in the budget that we already approved um and that we're going to need this information in order to address our long-term Staffing um issues in order to pass a structually balanced budget next year that takes into account the state takeaways and also it is

2:10:17really our only hope for making our capital projects happen in relation to the public safety building in a future Library so I think it's a good investment and um if the pleasure the council will call uh for the vote all in favor I I opposed so motion carries unanimously again

2:10:37thank you for the presentation um it's with great pleasure that I introduce item 7B firefighters local 1230 um you Sandy chaik employee services manager honorable mayor and members of the council uh you said with great pleasure I think this is a momentous item before

2:11:06you uh I don't know Richard voy May knew uh if there's another 10year contract with the firefighter Union in the state of California there may be but this one is uh pretty special basically what you have before you is simply an extension of an existing mou it is not a renegotiation

2:11:32of the current mou we didn't go through and change a lot of verbage or terms and conditions of employment uh it goes to the year 2016 it provides for stability for the city and stability for the union so that uh the wages are relatively known and you're not blindsided in the middle of

2:12:00things this kind of thing is creative and especially important in these Economic Times uh the one thing I would like to not is that there was a revised resolution due to uh Mr Lyman earlier pointing out out that what we do often is type over old resolutions and uh we

2:12:23left the fire sec I left the fire secretary position in there that position is not represented by this Union uh anymore nor has it been for quite a few years um I'm available for questions but I would like to introduce Richard voy he's the vice president of uh iff local

2:12:471230 hi Madame mayor and councel um I've met all of you I believe at least one time and um I'm here tonight on behalf of the elero firefighters uh to thank the city council uh we believe that the contract extension adds long-term stability to the department and the city as a whole

2:13:11and uh she's right probably uh historically you probably won't see me in 10 years because I think I'll be retired by then but um but I just wanted to come that the fellows have asked me to come in and thank you bks so thank you thank you for giving us the opportunity to take up

2:13:31this item tonight um I did want to note that we're in possession of the revised resolution and all of us have a copy of it um so are there any questions or ready for a motion comment yeah I just point of clarity it is a 10year agreement from the date it would commenced but it is um slated to

2:13:52terminate on June 30th 2016 which is a mere seven years from now um so rich you may still be [Music] around yeah I just uh I can't agree more that this helps the predictability of expenses and uh it keeps the city staying out in front of trying to manage uh our Affairs whether it's in good

2:14:16times or bad uh we have the ability to to know what's coming up and that really is an advantage so I'd just like to uh thank the firefighters for assisting the city in stabilizing the future with fair and reasonable long-terms and conditions and mutual cooperation that uh benefits us all and

2:14:38I think this this achieves this thank you very much thank you I think we all concur with that so comment well I just wanted to add one comment and I think uh one of the important features of this is it uh enables us to follow our uh City policy of of um being at median and um

2:15:01it it does so on an ongoing basis and I think that's one of the best features of this but um I you know I look to um other agencies now and the difficulties they have had very recently um without naming names but um it's just such it's very refreshing um in our city to be able to

2:15:23have this before us tonight and I'm looking forward to this okay is there a motion I'll make a motion um that we adopt a resolution approving um a 4-year extension to the me memorandum of understanding between the city and the International Association of Fire firefighters I local

2:15:501230 specifying compensation benefits and working conditions for firefighters second okay um just on discussion clarification it's the revised resolution yes that's the revised resolution um agenda item 7B all in favor I opposed motion carries unanimously and thank you all

2:16:16again okay item 7c is the financial software upgrade good evening Madame mayor and members of the council I'm Mary Dodge the administrative Services director and I'm here tonight to talk about uh the finance system um the one we have now it's called new world and we bought it

2:16:38in 2002 and it's on an as400 platform which is outdated and functionally very limited um what we would like like to propose is to upgrade with the same vendor to their net version which runs on a micros Microsoft based SQL Server system um and and um continue with them

2:17:01as our same s Source vendor the reason we want to do this for one reason is that they're want to give us free software they only have uh two clients in California of their 13 that are on the old platform and they would like very much not to have to maintain the

2:17:16call center anymore not have to um provide any patches or upgrades so they are encouraging us to leave the old software um we've looked at oh within that portion also there is still a $150,000 termination provision should we decide to leave their services before

2:17:36the six-year contract is out I really think that after we install it we learn the functionality we do the migration that there is not a very likely probability that we would want to leave them before that we have looked at other systems I've looked at quite a few um

2:17:54over the years and some just out of Interest recently and then we did bring in one other similar type vendor to um just to kind of see what things look like and when we did our it manager James Chan who we all hold in very high regard brought up some real strong

2:18:11concerns on the ability of other vendors to be able to get our data out of the old as 400 and put it into the SQL servers at this point we kind of started considering new world as a potential soulle Source vendor the um concept is after we did this initial migration to

2:18:30better Hardware we would be able to go anywhere if we chose but right now we think that new world is our best source to be able to get the old data out they have migrated 36 other clients from as 400s and the other people did not seem very familiar with the structure of how

2:18:50they would have even approached it um we do have seen a real good strong commitment by New World in the last few years as far as I'm concerned the company and their product in the the five years I've been here has increased significantly this is also the same system that is used by the police

2:19:09department and I have heard they are using the net type of version for their dispatch and Records management and I have heard very positive comments from them in the structure and the the the usability of that one we do um anticipate increased deficiencies um this will provide us which with much

2:19:30more flexibility in our data uh in the software uh demonstration that we saw Citywide there was some good enthusiasm for the project because it is so difficult right now to get data out of the old system we took this uh to the Fab on August 11th and uh they reviewed the

2:19:54proposal and the contract and they uh made a motion that we go forward with this project and the concerns that they had with the contract were they wanted more protection for the city since it was the vendor's contract with one aspect of that being uh in that $150,000 Clause there was nothing that

2:20:13said what if they went bankrupt um they wanted to cap on travel and they had a concern on the fact that the U maintenance agreement went from 7% um up to 8% um and since your but your um packet cut off we were still working in negotiations and we wanted to still try

2:20:34to bring this in to you the contract that I put uh before you today that has the uh Flags those flags are on the two areas that have been changed and we've highlighted the wording in them um they have put in uh reassurances on the bankruptcy comment for the 150,000 um we also had our assistant

2:20:57City attorney um discuss called them and discussed with them cons you know just the concept of us using their contract as an addendum to the original contract which was their contract and I have heard no other concerns her concerns were were cleared on the the cap uh has

2:21:16been placed on the Travel and I didn't really push on the 8% it's $3,000 of a difference between the contract and the other and when they had initially proposed it it was just part of the packet of the new um people who get the free software they'd already the contract was

2:21:36initially proposed at eight years I talked them down to six years just in case we wanted to change and so at this point that's that's the contract that we have in place the entire project is $200,000 we have $75,000 already committed in the CIP fund and the proposal here is to appropriate

2:21:57$125,000 out of the equipment replacement fund and I would be happy to answer any questions and uh that I can great thank you I I'd like to reiterate that the Fab did um review this and and although they're not a collection of attorneys or or computer Specialists they did um find that there

2:22:20were some Clauses in here that they had comment on um and I would like to you know report out that um Miss Dodge and new world has a oral understanding uh regarding uh item D under exhibit ablea Roman numeral 2 payments for licensed standard software item D which is the

2:22:44travel it's one of the flagged items um it reads that there are 19 trips are anticipated um to cap out at $19,000 from I think it's someplace in the midwest uh the oral agreement is that this is probably going to be only four trips um or less actually even but for longer periods than um than what's

2:23:07stated here so the 19 trips they agreed was an error and they said you could cross that off but we don't really know exactly till we get our plan together how many it is so the importance was to cap it at the 19,000 correct thank you um I okay I just wondering if you

2:23:27recall the cost of the first contract to turn uh convert our old system to the First new world system I believe that contract is in the packet it is it's the second second document if I remember correctly it's about 150,000 I I was thinking the same thing I thought maybe a total of 60,000

2:23:48but it's within that range so you know I think that ever since we um stopped using the typewriter and the adding machine will most people stop that and we got into all the computers that um we have gone down this path where relatively quickly our great new systems

2:24:04and softwares and even the hardware becomes Obsolete and it appears that we spend about 40 or $50,000 per year if you look at it in the last decade or last five years in the next five years to update and upgrade these and I'm wondering if there might be a more annual way of including that cost in the

2:24:24budget because um it should be expected now that these are the kinds of expenses that we'll encounter to keep our accounting system up to the standard and to be useful and user friendly to our customers as well as to our staff so that was just a thought that I had um

2:24:44I'm fine with this way that it's being financed for this round and coming out of the equipment fund but I'm just wondering in the future if we can somehow show it regularly I did a calculation an estimation and I had it at about $35,000 so we have considered the same

2:25:01thing and this is the type of an asset that can be included in an equipment replacement fund that we have established and have payments advertised over that uh over that period of time right now it's not proposed because we really do need to make these changes and

2:25:18one of the other components I didn't mention was there are some pers regulations they want new reporting to be done as of January starting in April and new world has expressed reluctance we are the only client they would have who would need to have significant reprogramming this is one of the reasons

2:25:35why we're going forth with this now um or we could have waited a couple more years till the economy might have changed and done part of the equipment replacement fund we do need to do this at this time and we do recognize that we hope to put it in the equipment

2:25:50replacement fund as soon as we can okay so leading up to 2014 just remember we thought about this last time well I think you know I think that that brings up a good point we could formalize it and this idea has been floated before we could formalize it by forming a a technical fund that is

2:26:12dedicated to this just like we do as the the vehicle fund I you're right the amounts of money that we're spending on technology each year I think requires something like that so I would certainly support something like that to be considered in the future by the other thing I would add in doing

2:26:32our research for this um we found at least two of our neighbors um Berkeley and Alam have put in place technology fees in all of their permits they not very large but when you add up all of the permits and trans transactions which would essentially go to this type of

2:26:49dedicated fund to create a revenue Source acknowledging that all of the software particularly software could also be Hardware but it seems like the software upgrades or ultimately drives the hardware as I'm sure everyone at home knows when as particularly if you

2:27:03upgraded to Vista you probably just gave up and got rid of your computer um we have we struggle with that here um for instance mean we are we have not upgraded our operating systems we have not upgraded our office applications because we are just waiting to pick the

2:27:19right moment to do that and not get sort of sucked into the regular upgrades that certainly seem to be required that don't sound like a big deal when you upgrade your software but then all of a sudden you find out your hard drive is too small and your bandwith isn't enough and

2:27:34so uh it is something that makes a lot of sense and I think we will certainly be coming back to you in some combination of the master fee schedule as well as a you know dedicated whether it's a dedicated fund or a Sub sub account account within the equipment fund um for next fiscal year great thank

2:27:51you and this also only replaces the current software that we have so if we really would like to take advantage of some of the new technology um that would be available such as easier online payments um being able to have people go online and check their personnel

2:28:08accounts enter their time cards remotely this is something that we will have to come back and address and it but it does create some significant efficiencies to do that this one right now is just a replacement of the current software that we have thank you with that I'd like to make a motion

2:28:29to adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into an additional contract with New World Systems of 141,000 for the upgrade of our financial software the cost of the project shall include necessary Hardware imple impementation and some additional software the total cost of the project

2:28:50shall not exceed $200,000 with funding of $75,000 existing in the capital Improvement program and $125,000 appropriated from the equipment replacement fund second all in favor I opposed motion carries and thank you for that report um we are now moving on to item

2:29:15eight Council on reports yeah I have uh three to report on financial Advisory Board uh we reviewed and commented on item 7B um we will be evaluating the scope of financial Advisory Board uh over the next uh two sessions I think um we did begin the researching or discussing the

2:29:38reserve fund policy uh which is part of the financial policy and our goal is to have a new Reserve fund fund uh policy as part of the next financial policy uh that the council would consider in the december/january time frame uh so that that new policy would be available for

2:29:58staff as they go through their budget planning processes um the crime prevention committee I pretty much reported at the beginning um of the meeting uh the National Night Out was successful TR safety day is September 26th at Elser Plaza between 11:3 and we are still looking for members um I also

2:30:17as alternate attended the waste management board U meeting and there we uh moved on three items uh we accepted a waste oil Grant um we issued many grants including a $6,000 uh Grant to the elero community center Native Garden project so that that was one of the three items um and

2:30:41authorized a press release about the abolishment of the California Integrated Waste Management board um occurring thank you all that n in eight minutes thank you I have a couple of uh reports I attended uh the East Bay division of the league California cities and we had a speaker Bruce King who

2:31:03spoke about today's business environment and how we can compete effectively um he gave a similar report I believe about a year ago and um it was uh very informative um and helpful in understanding what's going on with the state you know the current state of the

2:31:23economy and what we might expect for the um immediate future and and more long-term future uh the Environmental Quality committee met and we now have um most of our positions filled uh in terms of our original allocation of 15 not all but um it it's it's be becoming a a more

2:31:47robust committee you could say and um our issues are also becoming more robust um the issue that uh the committee is grappling with that I think is of most interest right now is um the animal section of the zoning ordinance and um it started out with somebody um coming in and talking about

2:32:14um wanting to have chickens and um our current zoning ordinance which is brand new actually um specifies that you can only have bantams I think it is that are really small and produce very small eggs so um it turns out that there are in fact a lot of people in elero who have um hens not roosters and

2:32:40um they they do so because they want to have eggs and that's sort of the the connection to the Environmental Quality committee is it's it's a way to provide quality eggs U for use in one's home so um uh in talking about this item and talking to um the the planning staff

2:33:02we've come up with a plan for uh dealing with this issue and then it turns out that there are other things and so it's now become known as the animal section of the zoning ordinance because it turns out the there are uh similar issues with bees and with goats um that uh were generated

2:33:24elsewhere so um as you may remember the purpose of the um Environmental Quality committee is to look at at different functions across departments and provide input into that process so here's how we're currently planning on um seeing that work uh this issue will start out

2:33:45with the Environmental Quality committee making recommendations um interacting I believe with planning department staff to do that um and then after that process has completed itself the um proposed um um section of the or of the zoning ordinance will go to the planning

2:34:09department to staff where they they'll massage it uh as they see fit and then it'll go on to the plan the planning department um and its normal process so this is actually a really good uh example of how the Environmental Quality committee can be useful to other

2:34:29committees in and commissions of the city which is actually how we envisioned it so I'm pretty excited about this and in terms of the process question because it's exactly what we were talking about and um so far and it's which in certainly it's in its infancy is working

2:34:46quite well uh as a process um and um we're having a little bit of fun with the issue itself um our chair has a rubber chicken that he has brought to the meetings and he um he he uh squeezes at appropriate times and just I think to say how while the committee is working uh with its

2:35:13members people laugh when that happen happens so people have a sense of humor about what we're doing and I think that's that speaks well to to the people on the committee and to our chair um and um so in addition to that we're we've got a number of subcommittees and I'll

2:35:30just go through the list of names um uh one is West contracosta Integrated Waste Management Authority Min Grant application I'm not sure if that's the same one you just talked about I think it is might be okay um so that part of that was through this committee um then

2:35:49the community green teams which is a fall tree planting um an Outreach strategy and planning for a fall Outreach event for the city which I think we're anticipating might be held here on the Plaza um and uh I've already mentioned the um animal section of the um

2:36:11municipal code and then and then those those are the ones so right now what's happening to the committee is it's formed subcommittees to actually work on each of these different things and it seems to be working pretty well right now um which given the the young age of

2:36:26this committee I think is a really good sign that's my report thank you thanks I just you're talking about it going uh your your committee crossing different I'll throw one in on you this this also became a a crime committee uh I mean crime prevention committee issue

2:36:47I was at one of the uh neighbor night out and one of the women uh in the neighborhood on in the elm Elm Street area came up and talked about this very thing about her chickens and how people are are kind of taking them on as the as the neighborhood pets and it was a

2:37:0715minute discussion on this right so it's kind of interesting it turns out there are a lot of chickens in El cero the more I talk to people the more I'm finding uh that they in fact do exist and um just hens though right haven't heard of any roosters okay uh had a couple things and

2:37:26by the way I just wanted to uh mention this that the question I had about uh Redevelopment and its uh origination Point prop 55 in 1952 approved by the voters establishing Redevelopment and it's right to collect property taxes so technology got that answer for us right

2:37:50away so thank you very much um the mayor's conference and I'll let the mayor talk about that other than I just wanted people to know here that um the mayor El Sero was the only one at the table to kind of question the county assessor and it was uh mayor Potter who

2:38:10was leading the charge fully expecting other Mayors in particular those from East County that are getting clobbered by this to to kind of pick up the charge and kind of press the assessor a little bit on what's going on and she was the only one out there she was left hung out

2:38:28to dry so uh she did us well to she did us well and and she represented Elser well and uh thank her for it and she can report on the conference uh itself last thing is on the uh the uh jpa the sports field jpa just want to let you know we're we're still searching for the

2:38:51final funding uh to complete the whole park and uh the board is working with uh uh East Bay reg uh Regional Park District for part of that and then eventually uh we have already appropriated $25,000 from measure from the measure uh for ours but we're going to be searching for that last uh few

2:39:19dollars to make that happen so we'll keep you posted thank you thanks um so I'll report on the San Pablo Avenue uh specific plan advisory committee meeting which happened on um the end of July as well as the community Workshop that happened last Thursday and uh council member Jones was with me on

2:39:40the advisory or or the um well there was two advisory committee meetings I guess the the original one was continued to just before the the community Workshop so it was a two-part meeting um mayor uh council member Jones was at the first one um and I was at all all of them and

2:39:59I'd say it it was a very um pleasing Pro I guess pleasing stage to be at having been involved for the last two years um there's been over you know seven advisory committee meetings and three Community workshops and I think I think overall there's there was good consensus

2:40:19and support for uh the draft of of the plan and where it's at to date um I think significant um developments out of the plan were um Prim I would say the the the BART station areas next to the Plaza BART and Del Norte BART station um expanding the density allowed from 45

2:40:42units an acre up to 65 units an acre as well as um looking at a Converse reduction in parking to one parking space per unit within the BART station areas recognizing that these are very um uh there's a rich s Rich variety of Transit options there and that we're

2:41:02very supportive of you know um of exploring further as a implementation stage of um a very thorough analysis of overall parking demand over time over the the whole area as well as over the whole buildout and so um a bunch of strategies are included to to use as a

2:41:26menu of options to to start off with but I think it was we've had lots of good conversation about you know how parking is connected to housing affordability and connected to greenhouse gases and climate change so it's been a very important I I believe dialogue also

2:41:43between the two cities and getting on the same p page um and so that the The Next Step um Mitch isn't here but I it the the plan is all the feedback is going to be integrated I think there's still time to to do that if you guys haven't had a chance to look at the draft plan um all

2:42:04the all the suggested changes will be moved forward then to the design reviewed boards for each City and then the planning commissions for each City and then finally the councils um and I believe for all three of those or all six there will be two sets of meetings first a steady session

2:42:20then then actual hearing to adopt or to to support adoption um and then the design review board meeting we had actually right after the close session um from the redevelop last Redevelopment agency meeting was the the first issue that we covered was a um upholding of a

2:42:43design review of a fence that would will be installed behind the the condos on Richmond Street or the tow houses that have been there for a while between kind of just north of mour um on the east side of Richmond so staff and the board encouraged neighbors to try to work together I

2:43:03think there was some concern that the Community Access was promised kind of but it was on a verbal basis so overall the appeal was to deny the the fence but in the end I think um hopefully the the two those opposing the fence and those who want the fence will hopefully work

2:43:23together and make a solution um and the other big issue was the review design Review Board review of Safeways proposal um and they didn't take action this is part of their conceptual review process where they forward comments about the the overall design of the plan

2:43:44although they were having some issues of of feeling like they wanted to comment on the site planning which is more of a Planning Commission um perview but generally the the board felt like they wanted to encourage Safeway to explore mixed use options and to look at what

2:44:05they could do to replace a gas station with buildings and and um also generally very uh pleased with what Safeway was doing to open up the store to the the the target box to the greenway and to put a deli kind of um patio seating and really kind of set a precedents for

2:44:31um um doing development that's oriented at The Greenway makes it safer uh but overall forwarding comments to the Planning Commission to that that they should consider mixed use um finally the the economic development board um we did a planning session on the home business

2:44:50expo which would be the first for the city and in light of um just some kind of travel home Transportation statistics in the last two years um folks working from home in Elso increased by 46% and so it's very interesting good timing I think on uh staff's part to put

2:45:12this event together because there's lots of people at home cultivating incubating their businesses and getting a chance for everybody to hear about what what's going on and um providing resources and classes and it'll take place on October 25th on a Sunday from 1:00 to 5: it

2:45:30they're planning to charge roughly $25 I think for commitment but look look um keep an eye out for that event as it unfolds and that's it for me than thank you I guess I will begin with the report of the mayor's conference which was held in conquered um in August and um the county assessor came

2:45:58and made a presentation which many of us are aware of that in East County the property values have dropped quite a bit and that it's had um a devastating effect on the economy and as much as we're struggling here we're a little bit buffered from that by the um Rel ly

2:46:15stable property values in Northern Alama County and in the elero area um I do want to say that we did ask questions about what was happening with reassessments and what we learned was that prior to 1994 when Gus Kramer was elected as the county assessor a property owner could request a

2:46:39re-evaluation based on um an appraisal and it would be considered by the County and then the property could be reassessed at a lower rate and if the economy rebound then there was a mechanism to bring it back up to what it would have been under the regulations of

2:46:57Prop 13 um but since that time 1994 assessor Kramer has taken the policy of automatic reevaluations and we were interested in finding out the methodology because elero Lafayette ninda and some of the other cities uh are not feeling the impact of the economic dter in the same way that some

2:47:16of the cities in the East County are and I have to give credit to the mayor of Lafayette who also ask them follow on CR questions about the methodology we did not get the answers we were looking for and I understand that staff is now working with the county assessor's office to understand

2:47:33better what's happening with that um in addition we got a really good update from the County Board of Supervisors Gail OK was representing them that night we have been in touch also with John Joya the state budget cuts have been devastating for the county there's a lot

2:47:48of trickle down effect and um many of the cities and the county offices are Reeling I heard that the county public works department and flood control district was laying off 60% of their workers so that's the magnitude of the impact that these budget cuts have had

2:48:04um we continue to get reports from the Board of Supervisors and I wanted to say that our next uh mayor's conference will be on September 3rd I believe it is in s raone and the speaker is going to be the former mayor of San Francisco Willie Brown so you're all invited to attend

2:48:22and if there's any issues about car pooling um or Transit let me know or let Scott know and we'll make arrangements but it sounds like an interesting program um in addition I wanted to report the arts and culture commission we now have a call to artist uh request

2:48:39for proposal for the components of the S Pablo Avenue streetcape program program that involved public art and I wanted to encourage all interested artists to check that out it's on the website it's the call for artists for the San Pablo Avenue streetscape and for those

2:48:56interested to please submit a proposal the due date is September 14th and the next meeting of the arts and culture commission will be um this Wednesday and I did I have one comment about the animals I think is very interesting about the chickens but I wanted to remind everybody that um

2:49:16chickens in residential areas are only for use of that household and they should not be used for commercial uses that needs to occur in a different zoning District so as the um Environmental Quality committee continues to struggle with that I just want to bear that in

2:49:30mind okay if there no other liaison reports um I will adjourn this meeting to our next regularly scheduled meeting which will be Monday September 21st here at the city hall