Special City Council and Redevelopment Agency Meeting January 19, 2010

0:00:00the meeting of the El Cerrito city council we'll start with roll please councilmember Jones here councilmember Lyman here councilmember Potter here vice mayor Chang here and mayor Abelson here um we this is a special meeting because um of the holiday yesterday and I hope

0:00:25that you all were able to enjoy it in your own way we had a very wet but wonderful Martin Luther King day yesterday and um I think the rain has continued the next item on the agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance read by council member Jones to the flag of the United States of

0:00:53America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all the next item on the agenda is Council and staff Communications um I can start if you would like I can start if you would like okay thank you um I I'm gonna go through a couple

0:01:22things really quickly here um so bear with me uh first was uh January 7th uh council members Lyman Jones and mayor Abelson attended the mayor's conference uh Jim Wonderman spoke of the bay he's with the Bay Area Council and he talked about the state uh constitution convention which is

0:01:43probably going to be a ballot measure this coming November it will have a limited scope and that's sort of one of the high points that I took out of this presentation uh it will only cover those aspects of the Constitution dealing with the budget process the relationship

0:01:59between state and local uh agencies with regards to money uh management of the state business in Sacramento and the electoral process including initiatives and term limits for more information you can go to repaircalifornia.org um then uh on I would like to you know make

0:02:21a special plea and thanks to the public works department as I was driving around yesterday in the rain I will say that I saw they seem to be everywhere I saw them at least two different places cleaning out uh some of the storm drains and sewers so I want to give a special

0:02:34thanks to the public works that we're working overtime on our holiday uh to keep our storm drains running so I want to thank that very much this coming Thursday is a state Senator Mark de sonier is holding a town hall meeting regarding state government reform and by the way repair

0:02:54California will be there with for a presentation this is 7 P.M to 9 p.m at Pinole City Hall with the address is 2131 Pear Street in Pinole for more information you can get call 925 -942 -6082 um and then I'm uh I'm proud to announce that a couple of dates that are coming

0:03:24up the crime prevention committee met and has identified a few dates that I'd like to have everyone put on their calendars if possible uh one is about the programs that they do which is neighborhood watch and Home Inspections and there's a public meeting for the public on Monday March 22nd 6

0:03:46p.m to 7 30 p.m here at City Hall and that's about the neighborhood watch programs so if you are interested in starting a neighborhood watch please come that night Monday March 22nd 6 p.m City Hall we are going to have a bicycle Rodeo bicycle event again this year and the

0:04:06date that is tentatively selected for that is May 22nd and and I will confirm that in a future meeting but May 22nd that's a Saturday um and then uh National Night Out is Tuesday August 3rd and I'm hoping everyone is starting to plan for that event thank you thank you

0:04:30none okay I yes thank you I was just going to re um back up a council council member Lyman had said about the state constitution convention and I I would hope that it shows up soon on a city council agenda to see if we want to endorse that it was a great presentation and I think it's

0:04:55probably going to be the the uh it will probably even supersede the concerns of the budget I think it will be the issue on the November ballot Statewide so I think it would be nice if we were able to put that on as agenda item and discuss it thank you so I wasn't at the mayor's

0:05:18conference but um I understand there's many possible initiatives that are coming forward both in June and in November and we'll probably need to be selective about the ones that we want to discuss here or any resolutions and support but I think it's worth tracking that um

0:05:35effort and last count we thought was 110 yeah yeah so so maybe staff can give us some input on possible resolutions of support as we sometimes do for legislation that we're particularly supportive of I I can tell you this though they are organized Statewide they have support

0:05:54Statewide they're the ones that I've noticed so far that actually have carried they've they've been carrying out this process for over a year now Statewide and so I think it's got to be we should watch the other ones but I think it's one of the if not the leader

0:06:12it's one of the leaders and it's serious and they they have uh good people behind it [Music] interviewing we did some interviews last week on Monday and we did some just now and I would like to announce the following appointments to boards committees and commissions

0:06:39to the design review board um we are reappointing Carl hampson and appointing Maggie laylee to the economic development board there's one vacancy and we are appointing Leslie Adams to the human relations commission there are five vacancies and we are appointing Elizabeth block so if

0:07:08anybody's interested we are especially uh looking forward to receiving some applicants for the human relations commission for Parks and Recreation Commission there are two vacancies we are reappointing Margot takamiya and we have appointed Michelle Jawad in addition

0:07:32there are three vacancies on the arts and culture commission and we are appointing Thomas how I'm not sure if I'm doing this right how do you say hello hello and um we have two vacancies if anyone is interested in applying in addition to that we have a vacancy on the Civil

0:07:55Service Commission and we believe that there will be an upcoming one on the financial Advisory Board which is not yet open so if you're interested in any of those appointments please apply and I would like to thank everyone who applied for the vacancies that we currently have

0:08:12it was very difficult uh coming to a decision we had a number of good applicants and we look forward to working with all of the ones who were selected and with that we'll move on in the meeting and um the next are there any staff Communications okay next we'll move on to item number

0:08:40three on the agenda which is oral Communications from the public on items that are not on the agenda or on consent calendar items we have one speaker okay um Britt Johnson and Catherine Ray the council has allotted three minutes per speaker family members tonight I come

0:09:23and in 50 years of City Council meetings my father the last time he was here in front of you not in this beautiful he said that a city with a theater is indeed a rich in different cities and you guys have three wonderful theaters now the one that's 50 years old and one

0:09:42that's brand new which is the new Opera Company that's coming and it's an artistic director is a former student of the Comcast Pacific Theater has played on that stage in fact his son is currently in our kids classes so while we're happy to honor the 50 years and we invite you to all our

0:10:00festivities we also are looking forward to the next 50 years I can talk loud enough that everybody well it goes on I know but that's okay I'm not a big microphone girl so I want to invite you all to those bridges handed out invitations to everybody and um we have

0:10:15tickets for opening night on February 5th and I also hope that you'll go by and share in the glory of Doug wagoner's artwork on the corner of Pomona and Moser thank you um and Janet a mayor Abelson has agreed to come on the fifth and present us with a proclamation yes and we'll have that

0:10:35and I've given Scott uh a bunch of tickets uh this is our opportunity to invite um all the people that are important to us and um want to partake in this anniversary to come and and celebrate with us uh we'll be opening of a play over The Tavern and it's a 1959 Imperial

0:11:03period piece about a Catholic Family in Baltimore Maryland I think you'll enjoy it it's a it's got very humorous moments as well as some poignant moments after that there'll be a nice reception this is what we do for every opening night so we hope that you can enjoy that we also

0:11:23want to get you more involved not only the council but staff and other members of the city official Stan family Cheryl and I have talked and we're going to get a procedure going so that there's a bunch of tickets that comply with the new rules about gifts and everything can

0:11:40be done and and we can have you participating more in our our theater and we can participate more in the life of the city and we particularly want to thank Scott and Karen and Suzanne for getting us a superb publicity that they have in the news last couple of newsletters and

0:12:02shepherding the mural that you see on Mosier that was done by local artist Doug Wagner I think most of you are familiar with that the original mural is in the lobby will help you come and see that what you see out there is a photographic reproduction and we really

0:12:20appreciate the the arts and culture committee it's working that and the city's approval to put that up so thank you very much excuse me Brett yes sir you said that over the tavern was about a Catholic Family 1959 Baltimore yes Nancy Pelosi by any chance could be I I thought of

0:12:42the same thing it's thanks members of the listening public will also go too I think you'll have a great evening if you do with that we will move on to the next item on our agenda which is item number four a presentation on National Night Out foreign council members Mr Hannan and fellow

0:13:20residents my name is Randy kalish I'm the chair of the crime prevention committee I am pleased to be able to present to the city our sixth annual National Night Out award from the National Association of town watch as exciting as it is to win for six years in a row it is even more exciting

0:13:38to rank 24th in our Nationwide category this is the highest national ranking we have ever achieved for this award and it truly reflects the hard work and dedication of all of the volunteers the members of the crime prevention committee members of the El Cerrito

0:13:53police and fire departments as well as all the administrative staff that participated in the event I would like to give special thanks to Molly Hazen our National Night Out Chair and committee Vice chair Chief Kirkland Captain Regan and Lieutenant Keith of the El Cerrito Police Department

0:14:10Chief Maples of the El Cerrito fire department and Scott Hannan Karen pincos and Suzanne Ayala of the city's administrative staff for all of their hard work and dedication I would also like to recognize Jean go and John umamoto of the crime prevention committee for their support and efforts

0:14:28finally I would like to especially to dedicate this year's award to all of our neighborhood block hosts and the members of the city council who made National Night Out 2009 so rewarding thank you I would now like to introduce Molly Hazen our dedicated committee Vice chair

0:14:47thank you Randy I too would like to thank everyone who took part in last year's National program for making a qualitative difference and special thanks to Randy kalish for his excellent leadership as committee chair last year's program is being called one of el Cerrito's best nationality out to

0:15:05date we had a record 27 block parties throughout the city and the National Association of town watch reported that over 36 million people took part in this unique program as in years past our important message being communicated throughout our city is that neighbor by neighbor we're all

0:15:25in this together in our commitment to raise crime awareness so what do you say we do it all again this year we look forward to seeing you all again on Tuesday August 3rd 2010. please save that date details to come now we'd like to take a few minutes for a group photo with our mayor City

0:15:45Council Members Chief Kirkland Captain Reagan and our crime prevention committee members that are here today with our plaque thank you [Applause] thank you no I'm just taller I'm not better looking foreign I would just like to thank the members of the crime prevention committee

0:17:19um for um making it seven wonderful years for El Cerrito and um I think it's been a great program and I I I Echo the comments that were made about attending and I encourage new blocks to start their own party it's a great way to get to know your neighbors uh you may have lived next to somebody

0:17:42for 20 30 40 years and really not know them and this is a great opportunity to get to know them and I've as I've gone around to the different National Night outs over the years seen all kinds of different ways of doing it all of which work well by the way so thank you and thank you Molly and um

0:18:04yeah yeah it's a good effort six years in a row on a national award that yeah I don't think we've had that's amazing oh just about anything nationally yeah and thank you Randy awesome thank you okay with that we will move on to item number five the adoption of the consent

0:18:26calendar move to approve the consent calendar second okay hi make a note that the consent calendar contained an item which is a proclamation that January is National Blood Donor month so I encourage all those who are eligible to please consider Ed thank you um item number six is the next item on

0:18:58our agenda and it's Amendment of the curfew ordinance foreign distinguished council members Michael Regan from the police department the item you have before you this evening is a request to repeal the current curfew ordinance contained within the municipal code and replace it with a new curfew

0:19:31ordinance that addresses both daytime and nighttime curfews this issue first came to our attention at the West County Chiefs meetings Dr harder from the school district addressed the West County Chiefs and asked them to consider bringing forth an ordinance for each

0:19:46City contained within the school district to address this issue the school district's concerned needless to say is truancy however we're also concerned with the safety of the students during the day and for those students that may be unaccounted for when they're not attending school

0:20:00a U.S Conference of mayor's study in 1995 indicated that approximately 70 percent of the city's polled contained or had a nighttime ordinance and of those cities 20 also 20 percent of them also had a daytime ordinance these ordinances have become more popular since the survey was conducted in 1995.

0:20:18they saw they have also withstood the test of losses where they've been determined to be constitutional under certain conditions now the ordinance itself during daytime hours would cover the hours between 8 AM and 2 p.m and those who don't uh this would only occur on school days and

0:20:36would only uh involve students who are required through pulsory attendance either through normal or continuation schools the exceptions for this would be if those students are with in the company of an adult or their Guardian if they are on an emergency errand for their

0:20:53parents if they have if they're on their way either to a job or another school function or a doctor's appointment each of these would be reasons where they would be exempt from the daytime ordinance the nighttime ordinance is pretty much similar to what we've had in the past

0:21:08the exceptions for or actually I'm sorry the hours of the curfew would be 10 pm to 5 a.m in the morning and the uh any student or any juveniles that were out during that time could be contacted by the police to see if they're in compliance with the ordinance exceptions

0:21:22for the nighttime curfew would be when they are again in the company of their parent or Guardian if they are on an errand at the direction of their parent or Guardian without stops or detours if they're in a motor vehicle involved in the interstate travel or if they're if

0:21:38that minor is somehow involved in an emergency you'll see that the nighttime ordinance doesn't differ much from our previous ordinance uh this ordinance would go into effect 30 days after its adoption and we would use those 30 days to work with our school resource officers to make sure that each

0:21:55of the students here in El Cerrito that attended a school here would be made aware of the ordinance so that there wouldn't be any issues with them not being in compliance with an ordinance they didn't know anything about I'll do the best answer any questions I can for you

0:22:09okay Bill yeah thank you I read the report I just had a few questions to clarify some of the points in there um has Hercules enrichment finalized their curfew yet the cities of parole and Hercules have already enacted a similar ordinance and the City of Richmond is in

0:22:28the review process at this time a similar ordinance is setting is heading to their police commission which is the first step of review before it heads to their city council have you had any feedback yet on uh how this is being viewed to be quite host is not a huge

0:22:42change uh it's not really a big departure of the of our normal day-to-day business however it does uh provide us with an additional tool to deal not only with truancy but those students who may become victims or or suspects in crimes that occur during school hours yeah I met with the city of

0:22:59Richmond do you know how that process is going to approval for their Chief last week and he said that it was hitting to their police commission but he didn't have an estimation for when it would leave that commit and it's my understanding that one one of the major

0:23:11reasons why you're bringing it Forward is to try to get something that's standardized from City to City absolutely what we're looking for is for each City within the West Contra Costa School District to have a same or similar ordinance so that all the students know what's expected of them

0:23:28and each Community won't become a Haven for students who are trying to leave another City's ordinance okay on the nighttime ordinance there is a change though then the weekend hours are being decreased it I when I read it I thought well maybe this is to standardize it from City to

0:23:46city but is that the nighttime hours uh the latest I've seen is midnight uh the those that do go into effect at 10 o'clock there's also a neighboring city that has 11 o'clock uh we're concerned about those juveniles that may not have some dedicated place to go if they've

0:24:03already been provided permission from their parents to go from one place to another and they're they're going to be at a school Gathering or some type of party as long as they're at that location I'm sure they're not going to come into contact with us but what we're

0:24:15concerned about are those uh young men and women that may find themselves out on their own uh either being victimized or being drawn into some type of criminal activity when they're not where they told their parents they're going to be okay what about some of the other cities we

0:24:30have uh Kensington and East Richmond Heights and in the cities of Berkeley and Albany are they do they have similar I was unable to locate a curfew ordinance for the city of Berkeley Albany has a similar nighttime ordinance however they do not have a daytime ordinance and I wasn't

0:24:47able to locate any information for Kensington Okay so I'm just uh the reason why it's of interest to me is it seems like to me it would be kind of confusing if each City had a different ordinance and people are traveling from City to City to know exactly what was going on so I I

0:25:06was just hope making hoping that these other cities around us will have something very similar so well within the West Contra Costa school district will no doubt eventually have a same or similar ordinance however the Albany Unified School District May opt to take a different tact however like I

0:25:24said we're going to spend a significant amount of time making sure that our students are educated as to what our expectations of of their life and then generally it's it's basically what we have now I mean there's doesn't appear to me there's a whole lot of change I mean there's

0:25:39some but not particularly we're actually codifying the daytime ordinance however many of the the same issues arise in just merely enforcing truancy or or other issues like that okay thank you yeah I was curious what the nighttime curfew time is in Albany uh if I'm not

0:26:00mistaken it's 11 pm I understand that this ordinance is a formalizing of authorities that generally the police department already has but I am a little bit concerned about the early time of 10 o'clock for the weekends and summer when school is not in session to be realistic about

0:26:17Teen Behavior which I have a lot of experience with so that's just my only thought about the proposed change I can tell you that the current nighttime ordinance has been in effect since I've been working here I've never had the opportunity to actually arrest someone and take them to jail for a

0:26:35curfew violation however I have had the opportunity to use that as a means of contacting their parents and making sure that they know what what their team is up to or to have their parent come pick them up when they're either intoxicated or they're unable to drive or they found

0:26:48themselves in circumstances that they're not prepared to deal with no good yeah I just wanted to talk to talk through some specific examples and see how this ordinance addresses them one would be for example a youth attends a an event or or is working until say 10

0:27:13o'clock or 10 30 and then wants to stop at Burger King or some other establishment on the way home to get a snack that's not directly going home so therefore it's not in direct compliance but it you're just curious if that is something that was contemplated during

0:27:32the discussion of this ordinance if I'm not mistaken the last sentence for the nighttime curfew involves receiving services from a business and so during that time that they were actually at Nations or Burger King that they would be uh fine under the under the ordinance

0:27:47and if all they're doing is getting back in their car and going back home I'm sure we'd never come into contact with them excellent and and similarly there are 1201 movie openings and sometimes there are famous movies like Harry Potter movies obviously most kids would be

0:28:04there with their parents but there may be some that are not and are just curious how this ordinance again that last sentence does that cover that event as well I believe so as long as they're uh being entertained at the business and they're actually not out on the sidewalk

0:28:18or in the roadway I don't see that as being an Enforcement issue and each of our officers understands that there's some discretion involved and they needn't use the exact letter of the ordinance in order to gain compliance or to affect the change we're looking for

0:28:32such as their parents know where they are and that they're acting in accordance with what their behavior and Society I'm sorry their parents and the society expects of them great thank you there was any way that you were able to gauge or get feedback from the youth in

0:28:51our community about these curfew roles and regulations I had an opportunity to look online at some of the discussion boards that talked about this and the the results were quite often mixed some felt uh that it was some type of violation of their privacy or their their freedoms

0:29:09others understood that the the point of it was to ensure that they were secure and that their parents were aware of what they were doing okay thank you anybody else I have one you can go ahead I just briefly if we were to approve this ordinance how would you feel about reporting back at the end

0:29:27of the school year about the number of encounters that um you were able to take under the provisions of this perhaps either as a weekly or as uh oh I see that no issue with that at all and we'd be happy to uh to work with the council in the community to make sure

0:29:45that this ordinance meets the needs not only of our department but our community you're talking about working with the school district and it occurred to me that um the school um EX in within our West Contra Costa Unified School District the um they have closed campus the El

0:30:09Cerrito High is a closed campus so theoretically there aren't any students wandering around who um during lunch hour however Albany High does not have a closed campus it has an open campus as a result any number of students come over to El Cerrito Plaza and buy lunch and our

0:30:29customers of our businesses so how would um their presence be treated I think that that would be on a case-by-case basis if the business called us and as we've heard from other businesses in the past and says I have 30 kids running around inside my business and I can't

0:30:46effectively do what it is that I needed to do we would certainly address that however I don't see any issue with contacting the school resource officer or the principal at Albany High and explaining to them the situation and as long as this doesn't become problematic

0:30:59I don't see it being an issue at all however if it were to become problematic I'm sure we could use discretion in dealing with it to make sure that we're taking care of our community because my concern would not only be those juvenile safety but the the ability of our

0:31:15businesses to to run as normal so it would really be the um some sort of an incident that was occurring that would actually trigger enforcement of this is what you're telling me right on a case-by-case basis if the the business called us we would deal with it right now however if an

0:31:32officer happened to be on routine Patrol and saw 20 or 30 students hanging out at a restaurant he may take proactive action okay well I guess I'm kind of wondering about is for the Albany High students who are go off campus for lunch they're doing what they're supposed to be

0:31:54doing I think one could say um so which which which rule would override which would ours oh yeah absolutely they're within our community and like I said as long as their presence doesn't become problematic in our community I don't see the issue arising however if

0:32:11it did become problematic we would have a tool to deal with okay our Council questions finished okay well this is an ordinance which means we need to conduct a public hearing and if any member of the public would like to speak during the hearing please submit a speaker slip

0:32:28no no speakers I'm sorry no speakers okay um so I I'm looking at this piece of paper it looks to me like I now need to open the public hearing I think at this point I will move to close the public hearing it should be open because we're on the back page now [Music]

0:32:53taking it okay all in favor are there any additional comments from the public all in favor aye aye that's closing up okay thank you um is there any for any discussion or do we have a motion I have discussion um I'd like to float the idea that we we keep the weekend hours at 11 o'clock

0:33:19since Albany that's albany's hours and it's what we have used at least on one on one night uh I just feel 11 o'clock on the weekend is fair particularly to the older teens I would get nailed continuously if we had this when I was a kid at 10 o'clock yeah same um anyway a more serious note

0:33:46pretty sure I was always going to and from I was just um just for point of clarity councilmember Jones it was 11 o'clock for weekdays during the summer and it was midnight for weekends and you're proposing to use 11 p.m for weekends correct because the proposed is 10

0:34:03o'clock correct yeah I would I could support that because I do think it's more realistic yeah I could as well okay any further comments is there a motion well I have a question about how um that change could be accommodated in the first read formally well we haven't

0:34:30changed it before we vote on it yeah it would for example affect ten uh section the under article three nighttime curfew uh purpose and intent of the nighttime curfew alphabetical num lettering a capital A it would affect capital letter C capital letters d so there are a

0:34:51number of places where we potentially need to make this modification um you know to insert 10 o'clock on weekdays and 11 o'clock on weekends so there are a number of places um where where this would be modified I think in most cases we can say that it would be between the hours of 10

0:35:16pm and 5 a.m on weekdays and between 11 p.m and 5 a.m on weekend nights okay we we have to Define weekend nights is it Friday or just Saturday Sunday I think it would be Friday Saturday since it's 11 p.m it would be Friday at 11 p.m and Saturday at 11 PM I'll go along with that

0:35:40but there are a number of places do we need to identify all those places in the first reading I think that um your motion was actually clear about the the um about how we would I mean I I think we could go through it section by section but I think the motion that you

0:35:55just about the about how each reference to 10 pm should be changed to 10 p.m weekdays and 11 p.m Friday and Saturday Friday and Saturday nights or we can add a definition um for weekend that is um you know Friday night and Saturday night or something like something along

0:36:11those lines or actually we could just make it Friday and Saturday night within the text right I think that would be the most clear for somebody who is reading this who is 16 and isn't used to reading legal legal mom with jumbo um is 2p if school gets out at noon

0:36:38I guess this is a question for for staff if school gets out at noon and this ordinance is till 2 p.m is it there there wasn't a caveat in here that if they're supposed to be school they should be in school but if there is no school then then the ordinance does apply it does not apply is that the way

0:36:57I read it my reading of it is my understanding was the caveat would be if they were required to be in school is in the first section and that's obviously that would take into account schedule changes or days off for the school that we hadn't anticipated at this time like like the

0:37:13teacher work days that are seem to be random correct well it just if I may on page seven Article 2 C it does stay um the hours are 8 A.M to 2 p.m with stated exceptions so I and the exceptions are later and and I believe they did cover this at least it was covered in the um

0:37:42I think the point is at the top of page eight where it says in the hours of 8 A.M to 2 p.m when absent from school so if school is not in session then they're not actually can't be absent from school thank you um so I will ask one question before you complete that motion

0:38:05[Music] in our town of having midnight events certainly around Harry Potter uh we've had a midnight um event at Barnes Noble and we've also had a midnight opening at the movie theater I've attended both I'm positive that's when they opened and those were part of a national event put

0:38:29on to promote those those items um would students who were behaving have a problem with this with being with this ordinance no I don't believe so and the reason I say that is there is the section about them enjoying the the use of a business and I think that one could reasonably

0:38:50construe that if they're waiting in line for a midnight movie or uh or a midnight book signing that that could be considered as using that business and that's without their parents is what I'm thinking okay thank you okay um let's see where's the correct language

0:39:08uh see I move to introduce by title and wave first reading or any further reading of an ordinance of the city of El Cerrito repealing and reenacting chapter 10.70 of the El Cerrito municipal code miners activities or places prohibited with the stated intent of amending it to wherever it

0:39:41reads that the nighttime curfew is between 10 pm and 5 a.m to have that to apply to weekdays and the curfew to be between 11 pm and 5 a.m on Fridays Friday night and Saturday night Mr second a second okay all those in favor please say aye aye in the opposition or abstention motion

0:40:11cares unanimously have a comment okay with that we'll move on to item number seven on the agenda 7A is support for West Contra Costa Unified School District Middle School in El Cerrito um hello council members I'm Karen finkus the assistant city manager on December 14 2009 the El Cerrito city

0:40:36council and the West Contra Costa Unified School District Board of Education held a joint meeting here in our city council chambers to discuss safety concerns around the proposed move of Portola Middle School students to the portable campus at El Cerrito High School

0:40:49on January 6 2010 the board passed a motion that rescinded the decision to temporarily move the portal of students to the high school portable campus until the new portal of middle school is built on the Castro site this is consistent with the city of council's desire and

0:41:04request of the board and means that the portable classrooms at the high school will be moved soon and the much anticipated Play Fields will finally be built at that same meeting the board majority appeared committed to moving the portal of students out of the current portal of

0:41:18building as soon as possible until the new campus is completed the board discussed many options for relocating the students and directed their staff to explore Distributing the students throughout the district until Portola is rebuilt the district held a series of meetings

0:41:33last week with parents to discuss this and all of the potential parent choice options that were presented at that meeting Dr harder the superintendent reiterated that the board has repeatedly affirmed its intention to build new Middle School in El Cerrito and has

0:41:48allocated the necessary resources to do so the board will be considering this item at their next meeting which is tomorrow on January 20th it is a discussion item only so they are not scheduled to take any action but they will be discussing the relocation of the portal of students

0:42:04the board of education has been through a process since 2006 to determine the fate of Portola Middle School although they've been discussing the fate of Portola Middle School for many years before that considering that the temporary placement of the students throughout the district

0:42:17could be in place for at least four years by The District's estimation and considering the round of school closures that have occurred since the decision to rebuild Portola was made the city council may now wish to make a statement of support to the board of their

0:42:30decision to place the Middle School within the city of El Cerrito and to serve the Portola and El Cerrito High School attendance areas and in addition to support the board's intention that these placement adaptions are indeed temporary until the new Middle School is

0:42:42completed and with that I'm available for any questions any questions any comments I'd like to move approval of the resolution of the city council of the city of El Cerrito supporting the West Contra Costa Unified School District Board of education's decision to build a middle school in the city of

0:43:03El Cerrito serving the Portola Middle School and El Cerrito High School attendance area would you accept a friendly Amendment you were a little too quick for me I'd love to insert aware as Clause acknowledging that the school district on December 10 2008 approved the sequa

0:43:20for a project for a middle school project in El Cerrito would you be willing to take put that whereas Clause the fact that they have us they've approved a sequel for our Middle School in El Cerrito I wasn't aware of which December 10th of 2008 that was the that's when

0:43:38they certified the current uh SQL document for a Middle School in El Cerrito it was my understanding the intent of the resolution to be broad beyond that specific site or project that's fun okay so if we've had a motion in a second discussion yeah I just want to make sure

0:43:59we're clear that the city with this first of all I'd like to thank before I get into that I'd like to thank the um West Contra Costa Unified School District Board of Education for reconsidering their position on the Portables at El Cerrito and taking the action that that they did I

0:44:20think um the meeting we had here with them uh I think went a long way to clarify issues and and uh proceed to a decision which they made given that I want to make sure though that it's clear that the council with this resolution is not endorsing any site that that to the

0:44:44portal of school what we're saying is that we would like a Middle School in El Cerrito and I just think it's important that people understand that and it's it's clear in in the resolution I just want to make sure that that thank you okay all in favor please say aye aye aye in

0:45:08the opposition or abstentions motion carries unanimously with that we'll move on to item 7B um as you know there has been difficulty in um fully appointing enough members to the human relations commission to have a quorum and to conduct the business of that commission and um in addition to

0:45:32that item I believe there are some improvements that can be made in consistency and efficiency of the way the board's commissions and committees are currently configured in the municipal codes and an opportunity to do some cleanup of the code so it was my interest to see

0:45:50if folks on the city council would like to form a subcommittee and I wanted to nominate and to serve as one of those members comment other comments I certainly am interested in this as as uh as a new member to the to the council all in in now participating in as

0:46:14liaison and several new groups it's interesting to me that that these groups are functioning the way they are and there might be ways for us to um provide more support in some cases or at least more direction or more guidance so I would like to consider myself as a

0:46:37candidate also for that subcommittee if I'll defer to potentially people who have more seniority or more experience but certainly would be interested in serving on that yeah that seniority experience gives us knows that we shouldn't serve on this subcommittee no Aaron I would second the two

0:46:57nominations by the way I would like to note if it's only been two years since we did that last time so I would suggest that we not uh that we try to limit ourselves to things that are not working well as opposed to the whole thing or it's going to become a never-ending task well

0:47:20I would agree I think the focus should be on consistency and efficiency as we move forward particularly as we Face difficult Economic Times in our budget to try to find the ways we may be able to streamline or otherwise make our procedures for Recruitment and for

0:47:34interviewing appointments a little more straightforward okay so um I believe this are we ready for a motion um I I if there's a motion needed or it can the subcommittee be formed with council member Chang council member Lyman well I think the American appointed okay

0:47:57okay wait do that okay so as mayor I will appoint council members Chang and Lyman to form a uh subcommittee for the purpose of um looking at our board in commission uh uh structure and you you know what you're using two terms efficiency and consistency and I thought um an

0:48:22opportunity for a code cleanup um okay so those three things apart as well for that no okay so two member subcommittee yeah it has don't want to lose the fact that there should also be a specific discussion on human relation commission at way to be able to okay so those are would be the tasks of

0:48:46that subcommittee um as opposed to a complete overhaul which we did two years ago um so okay with that we'll move on to items seven C which is an amendment to the Cerrito theater lease and this is the Redevelopment agency item so I will turn that over to our Redevelopment

0:49:10agency chair Potter I will ask for a staff report good evening uh chairperson Potter and board members um this is I'm Lori Trevino the Redevelopment manager and I'm here this evening to request adoption of a resolution authorizing Amendment of the lease agreement with

0:49:29Pleasant Town Motion Picture company for the operation of the Cerrito theater um on July 1st of 2009 the agency and clemsontown entered into a lease for the theater the base rent for the theater is four thousand dollars a month and the um lease was the rent was scheduled to

0:49:50begin on January 1st however the lease also provided that should Pleasant town be unable to obtain a liquor license for the theater before January 1st that the agency in Pleasant town would agree to renegotiate the terms to take into account the Lost revenue from the inability to sell beer

0:50:09and wine Pleasant town did apply for a liquor license in August of 2009 Pleasant town has town has already agreed to conditions um on the license that were proposed by the ABC and they don't anticipate being unable to obtain the license however the license still is in

0:50:26process so as such Pleasant town has approached the agency to renegotiate the terms of the lease to account for their loss in Revenue Pleasant town did provide information to staff regarding revenue and profitability during the first months of operation they have exceeded projections for

0:50:44admissions and concessions Revenue however the revenues from the restaurant operation are far below projections because there are no sale of beer and wine which is the most profitable portion of the business and revenues for the sale of food from the restaurant

0:50:58also follow beer and wine sales and so they're well below projections um based on customer feedback however pleasant town has told us that they anticipate that they will get a positive response to the liquor sales once they begin and that they think they'll be able to ramp up their revenues once

0:51:17they've received that license so the the amendment that you have before you this evening provides that the rent will commence 60 days after Pleasant Town obtains their liquor license and if they're unable to do so within 12 months of the lease commencing which would be

0:51:31July 1st of 2010 that they could return to the agency again with another request to renegotiate the lease terms so if you have any questions I'm happy to answer them our agency Council Karen Tiedeman is here as well as Kai Boyd from Pleasant town yeah I um happy with the operation and the

0:51:55people running it and all so this these comments and questions are strictly on the business side of things could you give us a justification for two months you know the the reasoning was that um that it would probably take about a month um from the staff's perspective we

0:52:14thought it would take about a month for them to ramp up to actually getting their food sales up and going um and the beer and wind up and going and then they would have a month of I'm actually earning a little bit more Revenue before they started to pay rent okay

0:52:30um I'm sure that um I don't know maybe we could hear from the owner but a month they've had six months to to get ready a month to ramp up to me sounds a little excessive but I'll keep an open mind on that one that's all I have questions do we have any public speakers we have

0:52:53one speaker Al Miller ale Miller [address removed] uh thank you for the opportunity to speak uh I'm happy to come tonight to support the resolution to amend the lease agreement with Pleasant Town Motion Picture company I believe the proposed action is prudent I'm especially pleased because it also

0:53:20reflects uh Lessons Learned From the shortcomings of the lease with the original operator and uh I think it provides the justifiable support to the current operator to ensure the long-range success of the Cerrito theater I believe that's important because the continued successful operation of the

0:53:41theater is in all of our best interests and will continue to be a major asset to El Cerrito and our greater community so I encourage you to approve the resolution thank you thank Q all right is there any discussion yeah I I got a few comments if I could at this time

0:54:01um I'd like to take a minute to recognize the timely submittal of financial information from Pleasant town it's it's really truly a pleasure to have that information provided to us so that we can actually see the shortcomings of what it what it's the shortcomings of not having the

0:54:21beer and wine sales uh that that was very useful for us in our deliberations I've been several times over the last two months and I think the operations are are going very well and they've been sellout crowds and the only thing I might you know advise is that they get

0:54:40bigger signs for the food uh signs that the help staff can find them quicker um and I'm looking for attending when there is uh adult beverages that we can enjoy okay I my only comment is um for a number of reasons I would like us this instead of saying uh two months after I would like to go

0:55:13for whatever they get the license to go to the end of that particular month plus one more month so that the rent calculation starts at the first at a first of a month and I'm I still don't you know I'm a little queasy about the two months I I don't know that you need two months to

0:55:31ramp up and get going uh so if they for instance as an example if they get it uh on February 20th it would go till the end of February plus the month of March and would start April 1st so that's what I would suggest if we have 60 days in there and they get it say on the ninth of a month

0:55:58that now we're going to calculate uh prorate the calculation at the end of the 60-day period and so uh and I don't know how to word it I've been trying to think how to word it but that's what I was trying to get whenever they get it they go to the end of that month plus one more month before

0:56:16the rent starts so perhaps we could get input on the rest of the agreement which still is in effect on the timing of the payment of the lease sorry I'm not sure we're sure of the question oh so it says in the resolution and the look at all the other provisions of the

0:56:43agreement are still in effect and I'm assuming that the time that you pay your rent is part of the original agreement so maybe this is a moot point perhaps it good evening um the original agreement does provide that rent is typically due on the first day of the month but it is prorated if

0:57:03there is a partial month so reading the provisions together and Mr Jones example under the current language if they got their liquor license on February 20th they would start to pay rent on April 20th they would pay a prorated so effectively one-third of a month's rent

0:57:20for April and then on May 1st they would pay a full month's rent so that's how it would work under the current language so it's just a matter of few weeks that we're discussing here it's it's somewhere between 1 and 29 days because if it is if it is you know February 28th

0:57:41that they get their license then they would you know owe it April 1 if it's February 1st they would owe it April 1.

0:57:49so it we are talking there is a finite um duration that we're talking about that is between 1 and 28 days yes a couple of weeks leave a comment um the comment I would have is that I think the intent of putting in two months as the what I'll call the startup period is reasonable I think the the

0:58:12idea in the first month they have to sort of figure out uh given what's going on at that point in time what to do and they have to order [Music] um product for sale and they have to receive the product and then um I would assume in the second month they would actually receive

0:58:35um income from that so it wouldn't be until the second month is is what I in my working uh understanding of the model that they would be re beginning to receive the profit that they would then turn around and use to pay the rent okay so that would be my thought about

0:58:53uh why two months would um sound um of interest but I'm seeing the um a member of the audience here are the operator I okay then we'll hear from the operator Cerita theater thank you um the the reason that we believe the two months is reasonable um in terms of the operation when the we

0:59:23have no control over when the ABC issues the license on what day you know what week whatever you know they're going to issue it when they issue it and at that point only at that point then can we begin to you know make agreements with beer and wine distributors

0:59:41um there there are um there are things that need to be done with it with the Distributors you know all the lines for the for the kegs for the beer taps have to be flushed out and then all has to be run and tested and you need to have you know we've talked to the beer

0:59:57distributors about this it all has to be tested um and so that takes time you know even though we have the license you know it's not all in place in place yet there's also um staff training that needs to be done so that everyone understands the rules the regulations

1:00:14um we it's not really conducive to at this moment conduct staff training for out you know for alcohol sales if we don't know that alcohol sales are going to start for until let's just say March 1st because you know we can give them all that information and it goes out the

1:00:29window it needs to there's a you need to have it be timely um so I you know I do think it's reasonable for the the two months because the you know the license issues and there's going to be two or three weeks there where we're you know getting all the ducks in the row

1:00:44and the eyes dotted and the t's crossed and making sure that um we're ready to go before we before we serve a glass of beer or a glass of wine to anyone um so to know that it's available and that you aren't going to get you know until people get up to speed I think

1:01:10um you know six weeks is or uh the two months is reasonable um I've got a question for the operator um Kai the time from between the lease that you joined with us and the time that Food Service uh started was approximately um Food Service began September 30th the

1:01:34last day of the third quarter um so almost 90 days is there a corollary between the time it took you to because we didn't we we authored through lease on July on June 29th or June 1 or July 1 so it was about all of July August and September and and is that is there a corollary between the

1:01:53rollout of that program and and the rollout what you're going to have to do with beverage service I think it will be faster um if you'll recall we took possession of the building on July 1 we opened midnight July 14 going into July 15th for the previously mentioned Harry

1:02:11Potter showing we know we did in about two weeks time what most people do in six to eight weeks and then you know so there was a whole you know including hiring an entirely virgin staff um there was a whole process there and then you know we we got the operations

1:02:28the basic operations of the theater up and running and everything and then we started you know we started looking for a kitchen manager and a kitchen staff and so we got them hired in September and we got the kitchen open by the end of September so it was but it you know

1:02:44it was there is a there is a process to this you know there will I think we have the staff in place to implement the staff is very excited about the prospect of beer and wine coming you know for the simple simple answer of you know it's one less question that you have to

1:02:59answer for every single Patron who walks through the doors you know when can I get a beer or when can I get a bottle of wine we had one lady the other day who was just incense that we couldn't sell her a carafe of merlot and it's like sorry hands tied um so but I think I think we can be more

1:03:17efficient in that process because we're not you know we've been operating um so we're not trying to do quite so many things at the same time but you know we do you know we do want to do it right we we don't want to make any mistakes this is not something that um

1:03:35you know we want to take any chances with we want to make sure that all of our eyes are dotted and our T's are crossed and everybody's on the same page because you know the last thing we want to do is do something that's going to violate the conditions that we've

1:03:47negotiated with the ABC and you know it has been a it has been a lengthy and time-consuming process it took much longer than I think any of us had the thought it would take um but we are seeing that it's you know we're we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel

1:04:04okay thank you thank you well Mr Jones has something yeah uh let me maybe there's a little plausible way here uh I would suggest that we we word it that it's 30 days after the start of the of the sale of the beer and wine that way the the operator can take as long or as short as

1:04:26they want to actually put the license in in operation with the sale and I understand Anne's uh figuring we need to notify the public but it's been my experience if somebody is offering beer or wine for sale doesn't take very long for people to to know that well and I but I guess I

1:04:49think of you know just folks getting up to speed on when is the theater coming back open you know for a period I think you know even though theater was open people didn't realize it was and so it just takes time to communicate and just I think um I would like to make a motion to adopt

1:05:06the resolution to as as it is that is that the motion second okay it's been moved and seconded and um I would like to say that I find that there's minimal difference between the 60 day that's already been negotiated and seems to be mutually agreeable and 30 days after the start of

1:05:26the sale and actually the 30 days after the start of the sale could not motivate the operator to get the sales going because this also allows that the lease could not be paid all the way through to September so I think we want to get the sales as soon as we can and we want to

1:05:41get the lease payments as soon as we can so I support this there's any other discussion it's been moved and seconded all in favor aye motion carries unanimously and I will turn it over to Mayor Abelson to discuss the financial reserve policies thank you and that is item number 7D

1:06:12is there a staff report on this there is good evening mayor rielson and members of the council I'm Mary Dodge I'm the administrative Services director and I'm here tonight to talk about the general fund Reserve policy um this policy um the financial Advisory board has prepared a revision to the

1:06:33current policy that they they did as a um back in July or June when we were first discussing the budget council member Jones had some concerns on the percentage that we are using for our Reserve policy he felt that it was a low and could be reviewed and mayor Abelson had a concern

1:06:54that this is potentially the best time we would have to utilize this Reserve so with those two concerns in mind the financial Advisory Board prepared to come up with a recommendation trying to address both concerns they reviewed surveys they reviewed other policies they reviewed

1:07:16um other experts opinions and they came up with a recommendation this recommendation they worked really hard on this there's there was many hours of discussion we've been we've had this on our agenda since July and the goal was to try to come up with something that was a compromise

1:07:34so what they've come up with is a two-tiered approach in the first year it's between 15 and 10 percent of our general fund Reserve now that number is the percentage the ratio of operating expenditures and transfers to how much money we're holding in reserve and it is

1:07:52to be utilized for a variety of things that was also taken into consideration by The Fab what's our exposure what's our risks what would we need this money for and so the first tier they had between 15 and 10 this could be used for economic uncertainty this is money they

1:08:09anticipated to be used by the council for adopting programs for just general operations and one of the concerns the councilmember Jones how do we get this money back so part of their present their recommendations was a time frame for replenishing the reserve so for the the 15 to 10 percent this

1:08:35would be replenished in The Proposal on a five-year period a five-year rolling period within our 10-year plan and the second tier would be between 10 percent and below this is what they have recommended to be utilized only for natural disasters or unanticipated

1:08:56significant liabilities such as lawsuits or or items such as that the recommendation says that if you use that money it needs to be replenished within the 10-year plan within a three-year period this is always a three-year rolling rolling period I left on your chairs earlier a copy of our current

1:09:1810-year plan so you can see that the percentage that we have on the bottom of that 10-year plan is this number that we're talking about and you can see how we have proposed utilizing it in the current budget for the next 10 years um if we do change this to this plan

1:09:35there will need to be actions that would um significantly increase a replenishment because right now we are planning on with the budget concerns the way they are now we are planning on utilizing some of these reserves in the next few years with a tendency to build

1:09:52it back up to the over 15 percent now the 15 percent has been kind of an informal policy that we've had since I I first came here and we first developed the 10-year plan the council policy has said 10 years and it said 10 years before we adopted these new comprehensive Financial policies but

1:10:12we've tried to keep an informal goal of 15 as we worked on our 10-year plan just to give us a little bit of leeway so this concept of the 15 is one that I believe has been presented to you in the past and is one that we have taken an informal approach on um one of the the new real Concept in their

1:10:37whole thing here is the the payback periods and as well as the two tiered Concepts and that's the financial advisory board's proposal and I'll be glad to answer any questions all right I was gonna see I'd like to hear what the city managers thoughts are on the um implications of

1:11:03uh attempting to bring it up to 15 The Reserve up to 15 percent within the specified time period and what the impact be on operations vaguely is that possible well I vaguely um as the 10-year plan shows we had planned to that as as Mary alluded that there Reserve would drop sort of into a 11 or

1:11:35so and if we were right on and I wouldn't say we're ever on to the dollar but I will say that we've been sort of plus or minus one percent so I think I think we're pretty close generally if you assume that one percent very roughly of the general fund expenditures

1:11:55is 250 000 and you needed to increase reserves by four percent to get back to 15 percent by uh 2012 2013 assumed that we would have to find a million dollars from within our budget to put into reserves um we could discuss all night and we're actually we'll discuss in February uh

1:12:21when we do the mid-year budget and look at next year's budget you know how we would possibly get if we were in a situation where we needed to find a million dollars whether it's for reserves or because revenues may be off in this in the economy you would have a number of scenarios whether it's

1:12:38increasing finding a way to increase revenues or finding a way to reduce service or reduce compensation to employees or leave positions open or furloughs it'd be a whole menu of operations but your net would have to be finding plus or minus a million dollars in three years to increase the reserves

1:12:54to 15 so that's that fair so that would be at the same time we would be and I don't have a feel yet for what the news is going to be when you do the budget presentation in the near future but that would be on I assume it's negative news am I correct I I think it's fair to

1:13:16say it's negative I don't think we're prepared to say how negative yet I don't think so those but that would be additive those two would be added together and we would actually have to find uh the sum of those two correct it was our intention in the plan to continue to utilize these reserves for

1:13:34the next couple of years so this would be a complete reversal of that of that so what a plan I would say that we have never tried I mean we we never have budgeted to go below 10.

1:13:48I mean our goal as the plan shows is to be closer to 15 but we all know that as you recall last year we significantly or drastically I would even say cut revenues um uh again in in second meeting of February we'll be talking in more detail about how revenues look this year and

1:14:07we're also going to be bringing you a draft budget for next year um so it's too it's a little bit too early to say I don't I expect that revenues are going to be off this year not nearly as significant as last year but off a bit um and next year you know we're probably

1:14:24looking at flat to down Revenue so it's it's a tough time to be doing budgeting I wanted to say that I'm really impressed with the amount of effort the Fab put into this and I think a lot of good ideas are presented here as amendments to the direction that we have

1:14:44been going I think that there are a couple two issues for me that I'd like to discuss further and one of them is um sort of an acknowledgment that we have been keeping at 10 and that this 10-year planning really is already going on and in fact we have been making decisions the only

1:15:03way that we can fund the reserve and continue to provide high level of service is either to generate new revenue or make cuts and we have been running very lean and we have been exploring ways to bring in new Revenue as we saw by the Godby research report so I think an acknowledgment of that is

1:15:21important but secondly I feel strongly that the reserve should not be limited to just natural disaster or an unanticipated liability but that we are CR currently in an economic or fiscal emergency that warrants the use of those revenues and that that kind of use needs

1:15:41to be permitted under our policy so that we can be mindful of a minimum reserve of 10 which has always been the stated goal since 1991 and then to build up a beyond that with the goal of 15 in times when we're able to do that most effectively with minimal cuts to the

1:16:00services we provide yeah if I'm if I may first I want to start out by thanking the Fab they put in a lot of hard work and considered deliberation they discussed the meaning of every sentence and possible meanings that it could have so they they did take your charge very seriously with regards

1:16:22to working out this policy with the intent of of trying to balance the two goals that the council members provided and now mayor Abelson so I so I think they actually um did a did quite a good job on on trying to balance something that that we had provided one of the things that was

1:16:44not stated and is that they actually tried to figure out what risks this would be needed for what is it that um this this might be used as call this into use because there was a discussion at one point that you know FEMA's out there so we don't really need anything for

1:17:04um for earthquakes because the federal government would step in or um you know that that we have um we actually have I didn't know this before this process that we have insurance Revenue insurance so that if the some of our largest taxpayers don't come through with sales that we actually

1:17:22have a provision for insurance on a revenue um so our risks are actually fairly Limited um and so the the reason 10 was selected as uh as a basement um is actually because it's the thing closest to one month of of pay payables um 8.3 percent is one twelfth of our

1:17:44budget so you know 8.3 percent is the cash we should have on hand to pay one month's worth of expected costs so to go below 10 um and this is trying to get to your second Point council member Potter you know the reserve really does need to have a some hard bottom and it could be

1:18:03eight eight and a third it could be five but it really should have a hard bottom that we have on hand so that we have that the capacity to pay our monthly payables in in the event of some form of uh unexpected cost um so so there there is it's not a rainy day fund that we can dip into when the

1:18:22times are bad it's it needs to be there when the times are really bad um and and so the concept of two-tier was developed that which is um you know touchable we can use like we have I think we were into this year's general fund and over a hundred thousand dollars so there should be some amount

1:18:43of money that we have at our discretion in any annual budget that that allows us to accept grants or enter into contracts like the Godby uh contract to get information um they recognized that and that is anything above 15 or even the 10 to 15 percent um is available for that type of of use

1:19:04on our part the key being and this was the other thing they tackled which which was suggested by councilmember Jones is what's the refund rate what's how fast should we try to get these funds replenished um if we go below the hard bottom you know if we go below

1:19:2415 what's the replenish rate frankly we could stay at 11 for 10 years as long as every year we adopt a five-year plan that says we're going to try and get to 15 percent the policy does not say you can't stay below 15 percent what it says is you need to have a plan

1:19:44to replenish it um so so this policy does not does not it just says that this 10-year plan is no longer valid but we could conceivably year in and year out stay below 15 percent as long as we thought we had a way to get back to 15 within five years so um you know in that sense the and

1:20:09believe me there was a lot of debate about about that and they um did not want to necessarily tie our hands but give us a policy that we would use that guides us when we're making decisions and setting our budgets on an annual basis so it it's not um this isn't

1:20:31trying to tie our hands it's trying to give us guidance to answer the questions that were asked of of it um I would suggest that we don't necessarily adopt it tonight out because we will have an opportunity to to evaluate this in the context of our overall planning process

1:20:53but I do want you to consider what the the um the merits of this of this policy because it does allow us to be fiscally prudent when it comes to that event that we know is imminent but it does uh you know recognize what we've been doing which is staying between 10

1:21:20and 15 percent for a very long time and that's really where they're saying we can be there it would be nice if we were above 15 we should be trying to get above net 15 percent so I actually think this policy codifies what we've been doing you know in a very elegant way

1:21:36foreign thank you um no I I was really impressed and appreciate the work of the Fab the city staff in the outside Financial experts and looking at this um it's it's obvious that there was a lot of time spent on the study and research and Analysis of the of the questions that have come up

1:22:01and also considering a variety of plans and and methods um I think we need this type of review and I think we need it by a third party and that's why we have the Fab and uh so I thought it was a job well done I'd like to make the following points on on this uh it's pretty obvious by both

1:22:25the Fab and the city staff that a reserve fund is an important core element of the budget and it's one of the key elements for fiscal management of the of the city's Financial Resources um all the uh all the parties involved indicated it was important to remain to maintain a

1:22:48reserve fund even in a time of serious economic down turn and tight budget constraints and just as an offshoot even the state of California it requires school districts in particular West County to carry a reserve fund no matter what state they're in and it's actually if you read West County it's

1:23:11one of the things that they feel it's holding them back and addressing some of their budgets but I I had envisioned either a higher percentage or higher amounts of money before the analysis because my real intent in this is not a percentage it's the amount of money we're going to hold in reserve and

1:23:35I don't think three million dollars is a lot of money to hold in reserve and I I just point out a couple of examples we've had in the last couple years where cities have had to dip in heavily into the reserve fund on unexpected events San Anselmo a couple years ago when they

1:23:53had the hillside collapsing on their public right-of-way it took a ton of money for them to to keep that to clean up and to keep that open now I'm sure they collected some money from insurance of the private land but in the end they had to pay a lot of money for

1:24:13that Pacifica is going through that right now right now and even though it's the owner it's the private owner's responsibility somebody had to come up and Shore up that that whole Cliff area and it's giving away again by the way so they have quite a ticket on that Bart we

1:24:33all know that they're unexpected legal and and training funds due to unfortunate events has cut in into their budget quite a bit and we just had one with the underground piping broken and we were lucky that was a very small uh repair if we get something bigger it really eats

1:24:55into our funds so my my concern is not necessarily a percentage as much as how much are we going to hold back in this and uh I've had conversations with city of San Pablo the representatives there who have a large Reserve fund there and I asked them why and they said they don't want to go

1:25:20through what they did before they had the casino where they almost went bankrupt they don't want to revisit that so they their motivation is to have a lot of money in reserve Walnut Creek had such a huge Reserve fund that they were able to to finance a major part of their Library

1:25:39here now I know we're not Walnut Creek I'm not saying we are I'm just saying that they had a lot of money in their reserve and continue to to do so and I think Greg and I at the at the mayor's conference that we talked about earlier is talking to representatives from Martinez they have

1:25:58over 10 million in their reserve and they're about the size of of our city so although I don't think we need 10 million so don't get me wrong they have unique situations there that they probably want a little more than we do uh but because of the uh strong and thorough study and Analysis by Fab and

1:26:18the city staff um I would encourage the council to accept the fed's basic recommendation and adjustments uh to the city's comprehensive Financial policy now I have a couple of suggestions on adjusting it a little bit but I also am in agreement with a council member Lyman that we don't take

1:26:39it up tonight I think originally when we talked it was mentioned that maybe one of the proper spots to make decisions on this is at the mid-year budget for two reasons we would know figures by that time and it would give staff some time to implement it in the budget so I would agree uh

1:27:02with that I also agree with council member Potter that we need to take a look at um I think it was when we get below 10 percent how we use that money I think it's a little too restrictive but I think with a little tweaking of the wording we can give ourselves the

1:27:25flexibility we need yet keep this the spirit of what the Fab is uh recommending so uh with that I just think that uh I would be in favor of not putting it off till we get the figures and see how it affects the budget um but I don't think to be quite honest with you uh our 10 now which is our it

1:27:51was roughly three million dollars I don't think it's enough we could have a serious event and really wipe that out and I I do think personally I know the Fab they really looked at this but I think we need more than one month's payables but at any rate that's my

1:28:08comments okay um do you have any comments well I'm a little bit confused because it was my understanding that we're setting a reserve policy which is like at a policy level and it sounds like maybe we're waiting to see how it's going to affect this year's budget and I

1:28:23I think that's the whole point we need a policy that gives us the flexibility to be able to conduct our annual budgeting within the context of and it can't be so specific and so restrictive and I also have to say that there are you know I often in this job on the city council I

1:28:41think about how I do my own finances at home and you know it's savings are not the only way to deal with crises that happen there are there are other avenues to explore and furthermore I don't know that it's good public policy to save and squirrel away all this money and then

1:28:58decide you're going to do a public project like a library to me it seems like if you're going to do a library you set out on a plan to say for a library and so I'm concerned about putting away money and then sitting here one day and having to make a decision about whether

1:29:12to fund a reserve savings account or pay for a police officer that we need it to have on the streets so I feel like that's where the policy discussion has to center around at the policy level how we want to Grapple with this essential thing which is our Reserve that does

1:29:31give us a buffer as we move forward but also acknowledge is that these are very uncertain times and we also have a level of service to provide to our residents yeah that's okay do you have any more comments Greg yeah actually the the part of the reason why it's as low as it is

1:29:51is because we do have borrowing capacity where we have a very good um rating at the moment and we have very good borrowing capacity so that was discussed as as a good basis for why the number could be kept low um and not higher uh but there comes a point you can it takes time to get to

1:30:11that letter to the letter of credit to the you know Bond people and so it you can't get that money overnight and so there it needs to be some you know something at the bottom of the checking account that allows you to cover that you know that 20-day period 30-day

1:30:28period whatever it is that you need to before the alternative funding sources come in whether it's FEMA Insurance uh lent borrowing or whatever so there is a there is a desire to have something at the bottom of the checking account not to be working near zero um and I I understand the decision that

1:30:45I mean that is something that we the Fab grappled with which is you know what is that amount and should the the council's hands be um so should should there be an additional consequence as a result of going below some amount that which indicates they set it at 10 percent

1:31:08um and and they basically we're trying to say that the policy should be that there is a certain amount of money that is we should think twice about before we use it because it's they're not saying you can't use it this is a policy we can change the policy on the day we decide

1:31:27to use that money below 10 we could change the policy um but this is to make us think twice before we go below and and 10 is the number they gave us but below that number we should be thinking twice and and have a plan for replenishing it in a in a timely manner

1:31:50yeah I hear their hesitancy and I really think that this is something that everyone should be thinking about um and if we're ready to move it I personally there are some numbers I might tweak um I'm not the professional but I listen to a lot of the discussion um you know the 10 is a is a good number

1:32:10is eight and a third um but it needs to be in that ballpark because of the cash flows that they're expecting before we could get alternative cash flow um you know so that there could be some tweaking on that end um whether it's three years to pay it back or five years to pay it back

1:32:29that's something that's also debatable but having a plan to pay it back is is something that we should be looking at um and and it may mean that in order to do something this year we have to plan not to do something two years from now or three years from now they're not

1:32:46saying you have to pay it back next year they're saying that you like your homework finances if you're going to go into that that deep Reserve you need to start thinking about what you're not going to do in two years or three years or if you're between 10 and 15 percent

1:33:01five years whether it's five years or seven years you know those are those are debatables but I think the basic concepts of having a lower tier and an upper Target are is one that's that's a plottable and that we have payback times to replenish those that are commensurate with our the value that

1:33:25we put on having that Reserve whether it's the lower Reserve value or the target Reserve value I I want to answer the question about why we needed a reserve fund we had a situation where the state at the last minute came to the Redevelopment agency and wanted to take and still wants it 7.1 I mean

1:33:471.7 million dollars my guess is that if we didn't have the offer to the school on the table that we took off so that we could have money to pay that obligation should we need to my guess is the Redevelopment agency would come to the city and say we have to borrow some money now if to pay this

1:34:08if we had the the full 1.7 million that's over 30 percent of the reserve fund just in that one hit and what I'm trying to prevent by getting a a an increase in the reserve fund is that we have money so we don't have to decide between um something else and a policeman

1:34:32if we can if you Recon we recall this city was in uh down down very low on their funds at one time and I don't want to go there again either and I just think it's good policy that's why we have insurance policies that's why you and I and everybody else here buys home well besides it's a it's

1:34:55it's forced upon us but we buy life insurance policies we buy property insurance policies As and we're paying good money for it as insurance against catastrophic events and I I just see that we should carry over the same function to the city the city has insurance I understand but if we get hit

1:35:21with a big lawsuit if we get hit with with something it doesn't take long to start adding up on the dollars our our good neighbors over next to us in Albany they at their Community Center now they have it wrapped in plastic as many of us know and it's been there for a couple years

1:35:41they've had trouble that the initial problems that they had cost nine hundred thousand dollars they got a settlement out of the insurance they don't have it insured apparently anymore or they're fighting over it but can you imagine if we had to pay a million dollars to get

1:35:55something here fixed what that would do to our budget right now because it's so tight so I'm just I'm just would like to have a cushion that we can call on we have a six hundred thousand dollar payment on this building a year what happens if we get to the point where we

1:36:15we can't make it a reserve fund a a good adequately uh funded Reserve fund we could at least pay that off for one year instead of laying people off and and and doing things just to make the six hundred thousand dollar payment on on this building so that's what I'm trying to do with this

1:36:38policy and the Fab has come up with a formula they feel will cover that um I've got some I've got some comments along that line and how we reach the 15 percent and that sort of thing but uh I think it could wait to the mid-year budget it'll give us time to think about it

1:36:59I want to add some comments so far I have been on the board of the Contra Costa Transportation Authority for some time uh now and um we have reserved there we have a reserve um I don't know I would call it well we have a reserve policy we do that it's not as the funding source is not as

1:37:29flexible as it is here so it's you know it's sales tax revenue so it's what it you know it's what it is from year to year you don't really get to choose and um the concept there that we've discussed and when I go to economic forums that I hear a lot about are the

1:37:51the economy kind of basically Flows In 10-year Cycles and if you look at the history of El Cerrito as I know it economically that's kind of been what happened here um you know in the early 90s as I hear it was really bad here for example one of the things that happened in those uh

1:38:13really poor Economic Times as I hear um was that we went down to zero Engineers on staff from having had I don't know how many before we lost all of our functionality in that area a hundred percent we had none so we had to um in the late 90s when I became aware

1:38:37of what it was actually going on um I became aware that we had a part-time um consultant engineer and that was our Engineering Services in those times so we didn't really recover very easily from that so um there's this ebb and flow that goes on in the economy and if you look at

1:39:01things from an economic Viewpoint right now I think what you would say well in fact what I've heard said is that this is the worst um drop since the Great Depression um that that's the comment I have heard said and um so that's you know I think of great concern to all of us first of all what

1:39:24can uh what I don't so that's the time when if there were a time it would be more acceptable to use Reserves that would be it that would mean this is it um the um problem of course with any of that is well what's going to happen next year you know what's going to happen the year

1:39:45after that we don't really know and we won't really know till we get there so I don't really on a personal level like to assume that we're at the bottom of the trough because you know it's only his in history do we find that out so no matter what we do I know I have a concern about

1:40:05borrowing from the reserve even if they're even if there is a policy that says we can borrow from the Reserve I don't know about the rest of you but that's it still hurts and at the Contra Costa Transportation Authority we have gotten um pretty well to the bottom of the

1:40:23trough you might say at times and it impacted programs greatly and it meant that they were taking in for example in the parent Transit area which is one of their areas where it was they were they had reserves um they were having to cut way back on providing service rides to senior and

1:40:47disabled people who had no other way of getting around and that was the that was the programmatic impact of um not using Reserves and saving the reserves ultimately they because that particular major has a finite life that one was 20 years the new one is 25 but

1:41:07the um they had to use at the end they had to use up all those funds and so they developed a program for getting rid of the excess reserves so what that meant was all of those days of cutting back on funds was to not um I don't want to see something similar to that happen here where we've got all

1:41:26these reserves yet we never use them and over time the value of that money maybe is just totally lost like right now you can't earn anything on money anyway I mean I look at some savings accounts I have and the interest rate is you know in pennies sometimes and in

1:41:49pennies on large amounts of money so you don't save today in a bank enter in any interest it's worth talking about it's not a good time for for um maybe it's not a good time for any sort of investment I don't know but the um so I have a lot of concern about um hoarding money with no plan ever to use

1:42:18it um and um so part of so what I would look at is an efficient isn't it what I'm thinking of as an efficiency of um a reserve that's efficient and one of the ways that I'm one of the things I'm wondering about this proposed policy is the segmentation of the two

1:42:39types of Reserves so that you could have ten percent for one type of need but for another type there's only five percent even though there in fact is money there so it bothers me um to that are operational um Reserve is doesn't it's only really five percent and that's much lower than we

1:43:09have as far you know had in my networking knowledge of the city's history which doesn't go back that many decades but so I have some concern about that um segmentation and the need for that in terms of having a one month supply of money if we had the big one it's unclear to me that the

1:43:33banks would be open to give us our money in all honesty the right warrants and things yeah I mean or that we would be you know I mean there's all kinds of if it's really a bad catastrophe um think Haiti there's there's nothing left and you know there's really nothing

1:43:51left so those are the the kinds of things that I think about and then I think about on the other hand um the services that we provide that we would perhaps have to cut back on or cease providing now at the trough of the economy and so it it um I don't quite understand how we would in the near

1:44:16future manage to create additional Reserve funds um when we're at the trough situation if we were planning it out over a longer period of time say even a 10-year period of time I could I would have a better feel for the fact that it would happen because I would expect that the economy would go

1:44:40up and down in that period of time but that it would go up and down in five years in enough at a high enough level that it would um not have a really major disaster on our operating level is a concern that I have um having said all of that I think that it will be very helpful to wait until we

1:45:06actually have some real numbers on our mid-year budget review to decide how to proceed on this and I think that um we should do so at that time not now I if I may I that's when I said I there were some adjustments it is on how to get to the 15 I don't think it's

1:45:30personally and uh we can talk about this later if we do pass it on realistically in these times you can't go from 10 to 15 in one year and I don't think we we should but we've done a good job at we meaning everybody involved with the city has done a good job trying

1:45:48to manage through this crisis and and this is a management tool and I think um we would be able to do that we can get the 15 in a reasonable time mindful of fact we don't want to cut services to get there or or things but there is there is in my opinion there's a

1:46:06management way of being able to get to our goals and I I think you're right you can't go I personally don't think you can go from 10 to 15 percent in one year we've heard it's roughly a million dollars I you know you there's just no way we're gonna we're gonna take a

1:46:22million dollars out of the budget and put it away for a rainy day but there is a way to get there I think and we can talk about it later the I guess another question I had this is sort of a detailed thing was if I understood correctly what it was saying is we would no longer be able

1:46:39to save money for a future building project such as we did for City Hall where we had some money in reserve pulled in reserve for that for this policy you you could separate that money I mean you could dedicate funds into a capital project fund that is earmarked

1:47:03unrestricted Reserve okay okay well it's sort of unrestricted but this proposed policy really restricts it so I think we really need to get clear about that and what the implication is for that as the concept of a reserve students should be some flexibility but

1:47:21but there is flexibility I mean there's flexibility for and whether it's five percent or ten percent you know you you can you guys can set the number there is flexibility I guess the the real question is and and the Fab doesn't have a crystal ball they don't know if it's a lawsuit or a crime

1:47:38spree that has lots of overtime or a you know a a earthquake or some other economic disaster or Redevelopment agency being another take back of the Redevelopment agency they don't have a crystal ball they can't tell you what it is but they they can say that you do need to have

1:47:58something on hand for it and their rule of thumb is a month of cash that's eight and a half eight and a third percent so let's say it's 15 you get that gives you seven and change for or almost seven percent for the operating management Reserve I completely agree with you mayor

1:48:17there's no point in having 10 million dollars sitting in a in a low interest bearing account um when and and be cutting services that I don't believe that's what this policy is trying to say this policy could say this policy the way it's written we could project us to go down to 10 in the

1:48:35next two years as long as we're projecting a a return to the 15 this doesn't say you can't dip into the reserve to balance your budget is my record clearly says you can is but if you do you need to have a plan to correct it you can't you can't continue overspending your Revenue

1:48:56in perpetuity you've got to have a plan to come back in line with your Revenue that's all this is saying well that's not all it's saying because on item 3.3 the Restriction is for the bottom 10 to be restricted for only one-time events that says such as a natural disaster or significant

1:49:17unanticipated liability that doesn't include fiscal emergency or a episodic or periodic I mean an earthquake isn't even a one-time event so I think that that's the that is the sticking point for me I I I support I absolutely support and I think our policy has always said that we're

1:49:38shooting for 10 and we're we're more comfortable with a goal of 10 to 15 and that I find this particular Clause to be problematic and if it said seven percent is opposed to ten it's not the number at all it's the restrictions and and I guess okay so what so and and what would you

1:50:00recommend I mean they're just this is their recommendation right I mean granted we did discuss whether it was tying the council's hands and they acknowledged that it would be and that this was definitely one of the things that we all we would be pushing back on so I you know I'm I'm the

1:50:15messenger on this one because I actually not certain that it is um I believe it is probably more restricted than we want it to be but it you know this is the this is the the whole thing think twice before you go below this number that's the message that they're trying to send well I think

1:50:30that we already know that so I mean I appreciate that work but I I have thought about it and I think that the way I would phrase it is that the portion of the reserves below 10 should be used only for significa significant economic stressors such as a natural disaster a significant unanticipated

1:50:49liability or a fiscal emergency and fiscal emergency is that it's defined in state code so it's a very specific place that you get to and you make findings about what that would be and then that would allow oh and then it could be followed by some 10-year plan as mayor

1:51:07Abelson had pointed out some 10-year plan that includes a long-term way of reestablishing that 10 percent and the the other problem with assuming that it's not creating what I would think of as economic stress in its creation is that it says we have to we don't start at a neutral point the

1:51:30way it's stated here because we have to build up to the 15 percent that's a big stress on our financial uh wherewithal you might say as all by itself so that's in essence giving us the um it's like creating an artificial um emergency we have this emergency that we have to

1:51:59find all this capital to fulfill this uh policy within a certain number of years it definitely says that within a certain number of years that's correct right yep and uh and it's a lot of money for us it's a lot of money if we go down to zero and it's being we are today

1:52:20where we are today which is as I in my description the bottom of the trough not the Top If we were at the trough at the top of the trough uh it would be a pretty different story it would be so it would be very easy to do that we would probably already have it and in fact the criticisms we got not

1:52:42too many years ago were that we had too much in the way of reserves I remember that it wasn't that long ago that I can remember being accused of having too high a reserve level I think this so the um the um so what this is doing is creating at a time when we have

1:53:06maximum stress financially on our city this is creating would would create more stress by asking us over the next few years to increase the reserve level to fulfill the creation of this policy but the thing that bothers me the most again is the segmentation of the money

1:53:29so we couldn't you know every it's like every we can't use all of the money for whatever um economic uh Financial stress we would face what if for example the big earthquake hit and maybe the financial stress could be measured as 12 percent would also say that we couldn't at least

1:53:53I think it would say that we couldn't use 12 percent for a natural disaster I mean why not why couldn't we use it that doesn't what it says we can use we can use anything we want for our natural language at such time as a disaster would occur we never is on the council would need to

1:54:17would want to change and do what whatever they felt they needed to do they would just simply change this policy so it wouldn't really um policy allows for natural disasters and that's the whole point the format of allows for the for a change in the policy that's correct at any time so if

1:54:37if conditions were such that the city council thought there needed to be a change um then they could go ahead and do it um but so anyway the um but the unnatural restriction plus the stress it would put on our city financially or I think some things that I that concerned me and

1:55:01um I haven't really been addressed very well I don't think is this so mayor can I can I I just if we look at it another way and I think this is one of the points that the Fab was making at least the way I read it is that they allow three and five years depending on what part of the plan

1:55:24to show that you get back to your to the percentages and I think what it's saying is is if you can't show that then why are we we're going to start living beyond our means we're going to be spending more money than when we have coming in so we better get our revenues and expenses

1:55:43down in order so in other words if we can't do it in three years that's a sign that we've got to make some adjustments because we're going to get down the road where we're going to have no money because we're spending more than we're taking in so I I think it's just a methodology to

1:55:59keep us in check to make sure that we don't get carried away and start spending more money than we have coming in so how do you account for the fact that we would have to get the reserve level up it's not just that we saw we sort of an even keel if let's say that we right now today had a 15 Reserve

1:56:21level um then it would be sort of what I would call a neutral position we wouldn't have to you know we could just go on spinning at the level of that we are currently spending say relative to um the the financial climate and um that would be one thing but we're not that

1:56:45that's the issue is that we're not at that 15 percent how do we get to that 15 without well we've been as high as 18 since I've been on the council so it does fluctuate and we have I know but we have the ability and if we don't think we can get there then we have to if this policy takes

1:57:04effect we have to figure out a way of getting there and and that's a management that's a management function the question is do we want to get there every year I mean this is the thing we've had for 18 years we've had a policy that's worked and brought us a reserve of 18 percent

1:57:21and I'm not clear what the problem is we're trying to fix oh what I say I brought it up because I didn't think three from three million dollars was enough in reserve for a city of our size um holding uh uh having over 30 32 million dollars a year operating plus capital

1:57:46um in reserve I I just don't it's not a lot of money when we're talking about the types of things that can happen to this city but this isn't the time to be preservous we've heard and there are other ways to deal with some of the emergencies I think we're dealing with

1:58:03them and we're looking we're going out there looking for Revenue we're looking for ways to cut costs and I don't see the benefit given that since 1991 we've had the goal of the 10 reserve and above and we've reached those goals and I understand from the preliminary report

1:58:19we will still be above 10 on our next budget go around and so maybe that is the thing we'll wait to the mid-year budget and we'll hear more and we'll see how we adjust the existing language and this new proposal and come up with something that can work so the state comes along and

1:58:37takes two million dollars away from us and now we're below so not necessarily because we can sell land see when you give that Redevelopment agency that's what I think when we have this discussion we're not looking at all our options there's reserves there's borrowing there's new Revenue there's

1:58:53land sales there's all different ways of coping with the crisis and I think as I've learned that the more options we have and the less restrictions within the context of fulfilling our plans is laid out in our five-year Redevelopment plan our five-year Capital Improvement

1:59:08plan and our budget goals then that's the way that the city has been doing so well in these last decade um and I think it's been working well I yeah I disagree I don't think we have enough money so anyway that's what we're discussing this for a while now and I'm wondering I'm I am hearing

1:59:29people agreeing that um the time to make a decision about this would be later after or when we're doing our mid-year budget review I did think I hear your consensus on that so I believe it's a motion to continue is what is what we would be or what I would be proposing a motion to continue

1:59:49to um just be discussed at the mid-year policy setting session um you know and that would give us some time to certainly take this and talk to other people and come up with a creative language to to get to the type of policy that we should be looking for is there a second to that motion

2:00:11second any discussion okay all in favor please say aye aye any opposition any abstentions okay motion carries unanimously with that we move on to the last item on the agenda which is item eight Council assignments and reports are there any if Mr Jones would like to go first he

2:00:38can well it doesn't it okay the financial Advisory Board did meet this last week and then in that meeting they did a review and accept our fiscal year a comprehensive annual financial report so that was something that was completed and reviewed by them um they also reviewed the presentation

2:01:01the Godby presentation and they had three issues that they wanted me to report um based on the presentation materials and the testimony from members of the public that were interviewed they um were led to believe that the study questions were flawed that the questions

2:01:19used erroneous facts for example 10 staff reductions and were presented in a way at least the testimony from the public was it was through dire dire situations fewer police and fire to lead to desirables responses that the counter arguments uh you know the absence of a

2:01:40well-formed opposition argument wasn't presented and that they believed that the supporting statements for the bond measure were weak and destined the bond the people who were called about the bonds to to have poor support so they were not confident in the results of the studies that's the first

2:02:01issue the second issue was they felt the study was too narrow and that it looked at a sales tax but did not look at other potential Revenue sources such as the user utility tax as a way of potentially increasing revenues um and the third issue was that the results

2:02:19um the result was looking at a short-term sales tax for just for City operations um when they believed the city should be moving towards uh funding measures to replace the over 50-year old public safety building so they were um wanted to encourage the city council

2:02:37to continue um exploring ways to replace the public safety building through bonding the other item that we discussed was the employee compensation policy a member of the public brought the employee compensation policy to require requested the Fab consider the employee

2:02:58compensation policy they did develop a problem statement three problems um that one is the Public's perception the total compensation has outpaced essentially the private sector and has grown to a point that is no longer in line with public sector compensation the second problem that they identified

2:03:19is total compensation levels are not sustainable and are burden on the city's finances and the third problem statement was that the lack of private sector information is skewing the total compensations and causing an upwards file for not just our city but all cities

2:03:37compensation since all you know most of the Cities compare off of each other um so the father had a recommendation that essentially um we consider updating the 1996 survey report um in that report there was a bullet that suggested that private sector information should be used as part of

2:04:06the survey and um that uh that the policy potentially be modified in a way to um be neutral on what employers other Employers in the area are used as for comparison in the compensation the Fabs recommendation did not have a timeline questions during the consent calendar we approved

2:04:38item 5C which is a reiteration of the Fabs duties and responsibilities and I didn't yeah they yeah that the um they felt that it was their purview associated with the long-term planning of the of the city get inconsistent with uh I think that most of the number number

2:05:08two correct yep yes sure um I attended the last design review board meeting was um a conceptual review of the camp herm's uh cell tower and so the next that drb gave good feedback on what the applicant should come back with after they go through the Planning Commission

2:05:37for permits and with the economic development board um we've got a really fun session to brainstorm activities for the next year and one of some of the ideas include trying to have more synergies with other commission events such as promoting Stockton stroll and local promoting

2:05:57local businesses as well as um taking a look at a new music focused event that would highlight our our unique musical businesses and um another thing that they did was designate um on May 2nd would be the next Home Improvement uh Expo and the idea that people are going to hopefully instead of

2:06:24later in the year can start planning now sooner in the springtime for it so that's it thank you so the human rights in real Quorum and I will be attending tomorrow night the arts and culture commission at seven o'clock in the hillside conference room hi um uh The Joint Powers Authority for the

2:06:52Tom Bates Regional Sports field has a report on temporary parking it came up at one of our meetings here there is now temporary parking additional temporary parking being provided at the at the field and there'll be permanent parking developed at the time that the softball

2:07:16field is is built and if everything goes right I think we're waiting they're waiting on one more formal approval uh and then I'll go out to bid that sometime in the spring construction will start on the softball field and the parking lot actually is the first thing to be done there so that

2:07:37there should be permanent parking uh there to take the place of the temporary parking so hopefully that alleviates the uh some of the parking pressure or lack of it I guess down there that the group has been dealing with for about the past year on that second of all the Planning Commission

2:07:58meets tomorrow night and one of the issues is one that was brought up by the public last month and that is the cell tower antenna situation it'll be reviewed by the Planning Commission tomorrow okay none of the the Committees that I'm Liz onto Matt yet this month however

2:08:21I am going to be attending an abag meeting on the state of the economy uh it's one that um I've gone to a number of times before and it's provided a lot of useful information about where things are really going for the viewpoints of local government and um um I thought maybe this year I wouldn't

2:08:45go because um it was spending money and it would be good not to do that but I decided it was worth the small amount that the fee is to go to make sure I really didn't understand um the state of the economy currently and so I am going to do that and I would actually encourage anyone else to do

2:09:05that also it'll be home later this month the um in addition I I have meetings of the league of California cities policy committees later this week and I'll be attending those in both the community services and administrative Services area so I'll report back on on those after I

2:09:28attend so okay um with that I think we're finished and the meeting is adjourned to the next meeting on Monday February the 1st foreign