City Council Meeting February 16, 2010

0:00:15good evening everyone welcome to the El Cerrito city council meeting thank you for joining us we'll begin with the pledge of allegiance to the flag led by councilmember Jones oh excuse me I what was that first to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it

0:00:40stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you could we do roll call now please council member Lyman here councilmember Jones here councilmember Potter mayor Pro tem Chang here Amira Abelson here thank you um next on the agenda is Council and

0:01:05staff Communications I've got um I just wanted to uh Council make notice that how should I say this usually the federal federal issues are left to Federal issues but Health Care is something that affects everybody in the community whether you're employed unemployed retired or or have children

0:01:34and there is increased pressures on public health services and institutions now and I just wanted to note two things last week Anthem Blue Cross announced increases in single-payer premiums of 39 percent these are the people who need affordable coverage the most and yet it's been

0:01:55raised by 39 percent also I can just talk about my co-payment plan with Kaiser and medicine co-payment for each went up from ten dollars to 13.95 which is a 39.5 percent increase in in that sort of thing as we've seen on the national debate the insurance industry is spent over a half

0:02:22a billion dollars half a billion in promoting their views on health care and telling the country that they provide the best health care coverage in the world half a billion the industry in my opinion needs true competition single-payers underemployed small businesses need health plans that

0:02:41are affordable to buy and to invest in the state of Hawaii can do it our neighboring countries to the South and the north can do it there's many European countries that do it and the United States should be able to do it if it has the will to create Affordable Health Care programs for its residents

0:03:02so that's my Spiel on health care and I think we should keep an eye on it because it help it affects not only everybody in El Cerrito but the governments who support and service the residents of El Cerrito on a brighter note um our our Police Department is again

0:03:21taking the initiative and coordinating with other West County departments to raise money for the Special Olympics with a bike event and I you know I forgot to bring that date but um um June 6th June 6th good so I want to commend them to again doing something special for the community

0:03:43thank you excuse me I just want to call to the Public's attention um a Announcement by first five about uh Bond funding that's available um up to five thousand dollars in Grants are available uh to people who are providing services for clean neighborhoods Healthy Lifestyles

0:04:09playground improvements uh training to caregivers and the like so there are um some some grants available and If you would like to follow up on that the website is www dot first five CC and that's spelled out f-i-v-e first five dot org and uh or call them at 925

0:04:36-771-7343 attended along with councilmember Jones uh the honoring of by the Richmond Elks Lodge number 1251 what was called law enforcement night for West County and they choose an officer from each of the jurisdictions involved and in the case of El Cerrito it was John Malika who was honored for

0:05:14his service and so we both attended that and it was very enlightening and rewarding to hear about all of the good things that are happening in our community that way I also attended the 50 year event I guess you would say for the Contra Costa Civic Theater the play that

0:05:42they were showing was over the tavern which was a really good production I thought and um so it's that theater has been around now for 50 years since the flynns began at that long ago and it's still going quite strong then continuing on in the art world I wanted to mention that on February 20th

0:06:09the Berkeley Opera begins its first season in El Cerrito at the El Cerrito High Performing Arts Theater and I would encourage you all to look into it and consider attending some of their performances and you can do so I think by going on to Berkeley Opera Dot uh

0:06:31I think it's org and um then last I want to mention that on Friday of this week there will be a Oak Town House excuse me a town hall for John Garamendi and it will be noticed as a council meeting as a majority of the council members will be present and that will be held in this room the council

0:06:58chambers from 6 to 7 30 p.m if you're interested in attending all are welcome and I would encourage you to attend and it will be an opportunity to ask questions if you're interested in doing so um uh the next item within that part of the agenda is the California Society a

0:07:19municipal Finance officers excellent in budgeting award you do that Mary good evening mayor members of the council I'm Mary Dodge administrative Services director and I'm here tonight to report on our fifth year of consecutively winning the award for excellence

0:07:34Excellence from csmfo the California Society Municipal Finance officers and we really are proud of this award not just because we have gotten this professional peer review but because over the last five years our score has gotten considerably higher every year and all of the input that we've gotten

0:07:52from the council from from our readers from all of our staff and we have really worked hard to make it progress and I think it really has great congratulations thank you thank you very good are there any other staff announcements oh there's one more okay I would like to

0:08:12introduce Dakari beshears she is new the the new employee services manager she comes to us from Solano County was there for a few years and before that it was a 12 or 15 years of consequence 15 years in Contra Costa County welcome welcome thank you okay with that we'll move on

0:08:30to oral Communications from the public l Miller Al Miller [address removed] good evening mayor Abelson and council members uh I wanted to come tonight as a citizen of El Cerrito and acknowledge and express my thanks to Maria Sanders for her success in bringing five hundred

0:08:56thousand dollar Grant from I believe the stimulus fund to the city and not only enabling the city to do some of its own environmental work but to be the lead activity working with I believe at San Pablo Albany and Piedmont and delivering a product that small cities everywhere

0:09:17can use I have several friends uh from around the state that always chide me for living in a hick town like El Cerrito since this appeared in our paper Sunday I don't know how they knew about it but I got emails from two of them saying must be some mistake things like that

0:09:33don't happen to El Cerrito do they well it seems that more and more often now they are the other thing I wanted to mention after Mr Jones made his opening remarks he used the term single-payer in his comments a couple of times I just wanted to be sure that at least I believe that

0:09:54the Single Payer he's talking about is not the single-payer Health Care Program that's SB 81 that's Mark Leno is trying to is now sponsored in California but it's the individual who has to buy his health or her health care as a single person they are not having any employee

0:10:15provided it or any agency providing it but they're going as a single person an individual to buy the health care and that's one of the reasons why it's so expensive thank you and I agree with you Bill the obvious answer is single-payer thank you thank you Tom panis

0:10:41good evening Madam mayor members of the Council on City staff my name is Tom panis I live at [address removed] El Cerrito I'm here tonight to give you a brief report as one of your Commissioners at the Contra Costa County Library Commission um just a quick report here we continue

0:10:57to see that visitation and circulation at all the libraries are up um we have uh recently had a wonderful opening at Lafayette I don't know if anyone were able to make it but it's a wonderful library and the staff and the volunteers that are just overwhelmed by

0:11:13the response they continue to get from the community there's a new library opening in Walnut Creek you might want to check your calendars for July 17th because that's going to be another Beauty and hopefully we'll have one like that here one of these days um I wanted to come and give you a little

0:11:31more information about possible cuts and hours at the El Cerrito and other County Libraries As We Know County budget continues to go down down and down and the County librarian has been warned that cuts may be necessary Stephen pulos sent you guys all a note about that the County librarian has

0:11:52informed us that she will know for sure at a special meeting we're holding on Thursday regarding the budget what that's going to be and um we hope that there aren't Cuts there may be cuts and along that line I just wanted to remind you know there had been an agreement with the county about the

0:12:11city funding hours you know that agreement has now lapsed but it had been that the county provided 29 hours of service and then the Board of Supervisors passed uh a million dollars or so that said if cities will match three hours we'll provide three hours and that's why we have 35 hours now but

0:12:28as of actually I'm not sure if it was 2009 or now 2010 but with the city cities taking over all the maintenance for the libraries that time the the county provides 35 hours to everyone now and the city provides the building and all the maintenance so I just also like to say that if the

0:12:46council would like it sometime in the future Steve and poulos and I would be happy to give you a little more complete presentation as part of the formal agenda thank you thank you Millie and I apologize I can't read your last Millie Cleveland 5B consent yes that's fine now

0:13:13the green Curb Market um this is more of a question my name is Millie Cleveland I'm the union rep for the SEIU workers I noticed that although it's very minimal that there's an outside contract to do painting on the curbs but my concern is and I would like to uh pose the question to the council

0:13:38to at least discuss this with staff why would you furlough public workers and then hire an outside contractor to do work that they could do it's a concept that I don't get and so I'm encouraging you to rethink those type of plans the plan is to paint curbs which our public workers are equipped to

0:14:01do but yet while on furlough you know missing days of work you contract with an outside contractor to do the work that you hired people here in this city to do so I'm asking you to reconsider that type of concept where you would have an outside contractor doing the

0:14:20same job duties as a furloughed worker Michael do it great ly I will try to be succinct uh I'm a good standing citizen in El Cerrito my name is Michael DeWitt on February 7th I had a car with expired tags toad uh I want to look at cost benefit of this and other things going forward

0:14:53so two statements one is the individual at this time nearly eight years unemployed this represents More Than A month's salary this represents more than half the car's value that was over 300 in fees I just like to get the city's attention on a punitive fees that were a hundred

0:15:18dollars by police and then look at uh the cost benefits for uh I'd like to lead this with you I prefer a reply thank you no other speakers at this for this part okay thank you um with that we'll we'll now move on on our agenda to item number five adoption of the

0:15:47consent calendar um I'm wondering if there are other council members interested in light of the public comment if having a brief discussion on item 5B I would be interested yes yes I propose we pull that from the consent county is there a motion for the remaining item I

0:16:11move approval of item 5A second there's been a motion and a second to approve item 5A which is the minutes all in favor please say aye in the opposition or abstention motion carries unanimously we'll now move on to item 5B is our staff report good evening council members

0:16:39yes um at item 5B is requesting council's approval for the marking of 40 feet of green curb on Stockton Avenue in front of three businesses between norvel and average streets that item the painting of the green curb will be done by our maintenance forces and will come out of that budget

0:17:05so um I guess my question was do we normally paint the curbs with El Cerritos Public Works staff is that normally how Street markings and painting of the curbs occur normal maintenance requests normal traffic orders are done by our maintenance Crews the recent curb

0:17:25markings that have been installed around town as part of the pavement resurfacing contract excuse me have been done by a subcontractor to the prime contractor working on the cape seal payment resurfacing project okay but the curb marketing is going to be done by our staff this item is

0:17:49yes move to adopt item 5B would it be possible to use furloughed workers to do that work are there any is there any more of that to do in the future maybe we should ask that question first I'm sorry could you ask that again the question is um has to do with um the concern I should start maybe with

0:18:21is that is using furloughed workers to do some work when we're using contractors when there are furloughed workers who could do the work and so what I believe we were told is that on the um major a project that's what we're talking about right this major a project

0:18:40is that um we were using contractors to do painting of curbs um no the street payment of this on the streets not the curb not the curbs yeah okay just oh it's the street in the street okay that that's a slightly different topic is that does that use of go ahead

0:19:05the staff normally do that well the question came up actually for the cape seal project the subcontractor was painting the striping on the pavement as well as the curbs they were refreshing all um a green and red yellow crib markings that were out there and that was part of

0:19:23the cape seal project I guess mayor abelson's question is whether or not in the future that type of work can stay within the city but at least to the extent that there are horses um especially with to the extent that there are furloughed workers um I really don't know what that answer

0:19:50would be I think we'd have to look into how to bring furloughed workers back in to do specific tasks as we talked about this last year we were painting huge quantities of curb along with huge quantities of Street and that was just included in the contract from the very get-go when we awarded

0:20:06that almost a year ago now well that that's retro I mean that's looking at something we already did but looking at the future um it'd be different typically what we would what we would be doing is every time we do a Paving project program we would freshen up all the painting on the

0:20:24streets that we work on we've typically let that with the contractor um we could look into altering that practice in the future if it happens to coincide with the furloughs in the meantime All the Small work orders like this one for you tonight are done typically with in-house Crews

0:20:43almost without exception okay are we ready for a vote okay all in favor please say aye aye aye any opposition an abstention okay with that we move on um to item 7A which is the San Pablo Avenue streetscape project art in public places program thank you your honor

0:21:17I am Karen Pinkus I'm the assistant city manager as well as the very proud staff liaison to the arts and culture Commission and tonight I'm here to present a very exciting project for the city of El Cerrito which is the city's first Commission of public art on city property through the

0:21:35art in public places program before you tonight is a resolution asking to authorize the city manager to enter into a contract with the artist team to develop artwork for the San Pablo Avenue streetscape project the art and public places program was enacted by city ordinance in 2005. it

0:21:51requires all private and Municipal developments to devote an amount not less than one percent of construction costs for acquisition or installation of public art on the development site the San Pablo Avenue streetscape project which we were able to proudly feature

0:22:05today at a press conference with some council members and the EPA and various agencies to highlight some of our wonderful grant opportunities that have been going on is beginning its last phase of construction and it is subject to the art and public places program requirements a budget of

0:22:21one hundred thousand dollars was established from the streetscape project budget and I'd like to note that as the council knows this is from grant funding as well as Redevelopment agency funding so some of the budget items that we may just be discussing later this is not

0:22:36applicable to um to our discussion as this uses no general fund money the arts and culture commission is responsible for the oversight review and recommendation of all public art acquired by the city and installed on city property and the commission is also authorized as the sole reviewing

0:22:52Authority for public art projects through this program the commission worked with staff on the Fulfillment of the public art requirement for the streetscape project and in a few moments I'll introduce the chair of the arts and culture commission who will present the

0:23:04commission's recommendation to you the commission developed a process with staff for the commissioning of this project beginning with the commission developing its vision for what type of public art that they would like to see in this project the commission essentially had three options they would

0:23:18do a project they could do a project that could be focused on one or more Monumental pieces that would go on a specific site along the project or they could do a more Elemental in nature um project that would go along the length of the Avenue or they could accept the

0:23:36one hundred thousand dollars as an in-lou contribution put it in the public art fund and do another project at another time the commission determined that they would like the focus of this public art project to be Elemental in nature which would be consistent site-specific Works along the entire

0:23:50length of the Avenue the commission worked with staff to develop a call to artists for this project inviting artists to propose artwork within this Vision the city received 17 proposals from across the country a selection panel which consisted of arts and culture Commissioners local

0:24:06artists and other City Board and commission members and project staff reviewed all of the proposals and selected eight finalists for review by the arts and culture commission from there the commission reviewed the finalists and selected and interviewed the top two at their October meeting the

0:24:20commission voted to select the artist team of Jonathan Russell and sayori ede who are local artists who live in Berkeley Mr Russell and Miss eday's proposal is to install what we're calling icons on street light poles along the length of San Pablo Avenue this that you see on

0:24:44the screen is just an example of what these icons might look like the artwork would be installed similar in height and scale to the banner program that the city has previously installed along the Avenue however this would be more of a permanent themed approach as opposed to

0:24:59a banner that's temporary in nature the artists in the arts and culture commission discussed some preliminary ideas for installation including maybe grouping sets of these icons in certain main of the main nodes along the Avenue this way the city can still utilize

0:25:14banners and other parts of the Avenue and so that we would have the ability to have some a temporary or more timely Banner programs such as the holiday banners or The Spare the Air banners that come on certain times of the year as well as the permanent artworks

0:25:31the artists are here tonight as well and I will introduce them in a few moments as well and they're welcome to elaborate on their Vision but the idea that they proposed the commission felt fulfilled several different Visions with that the project the street state project itself

0:25:45was trying to achieve first it shows a consistency that differentiates San Pablo Avenue in El Cerrito from other cities as one travels as they drive along or as they walk along the Avenue it is a colorful artwork experience that pedestrians Transit users and Auto

0:26:00Travelers alike can enjoy and last but not least it creates a long lasting continuous set of landmarks that will require very little maintenance and due to the elevation on the poles hopefully little risk of vandalism and again what you see here is just an example the final design of all of the

0:26:18icons will be made with public input the next steps that are anticipated would be that the artist would develop some preliminary design ideas for the public and the arts and culture commission to review at the March 17th meeting of the arts and culture commission they plan on

0:26:33discussing the placement of the icons on the available street light poles including whether or not they might group certain sets or maybe create certain themes for certain blocks along the Avenue then the commission would host a public Workshop to review all of the

0:26:48preliminary designs and seek input on further design options and at this point I'd also like to note that the artists have been really great to work with so far and have indicated that they're willing to do whatever it takes to incorporate the public the council and

0:27:01staff's vision within the design process so that community members are part of actually telling the story of El Cerrito and the public process will continue until the commission is comfortable that they have the information necessary to make a final approval decision and that

0:27:15includes as many public meetings as may be necessary then the commission would make their final approval again at a public meeting and the artist could then begin the fabrication process it's our hope that the installation process would be completed hopefully by early fall

0:27:30hopefully by late summer I'd like to notice that I'd also like to note that the artists have also met with City engineering staff and they've completed all of the appropriate engineering calculations to determine the safety of the proposed artwork and staff is comfortable that the artwork

0:27:43should have no practical impact on the structural Integrity of the street light poles the proposed material would be a light gauge steel and the colors would be powder coated needing very little maintenance so at this time I would like to introduce Diana bhandari who is the

0:27:57chair of the arts and culture commission and she is here to present the commission's recommendation to you good evening Council my name is Diana bhandari I'm the current chairperson of the arts and culture commission I'm representing the Commission in supporting the approval of the

0:28:14resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into an agreement for the artist Services of Jonathan Russell and sayori E day for a San Pablo Avenue streetscapes public art project Pueblo Avenue's streetscapes project is the first time that the arts and culture

0:28:32commission has been charged with the responsibilities of overseeing a public art project funded by the city of El Cerritos percent for art program I believe you've all been provided a detailed report that I prepared on the commission's activities the selection process and a lot of our reasons for

0:28:54supporting the recommendation the commission was asked first to establish a procedure to select artists to create public art for the three mile length of San Pablo Avenue then to recommend the selected artist to city council and finally to work with the selected artists throughout the project

0:29:15after discussion at commission meetings it was decided to follow the selection process described by Karen pincos in her staff report all members of the arts and culture commission took seriously the responsibilities of artist selection facilitating Community input and

0:29:34participation during the design phase of the project and working with the artists to finalize placements and choices of icons many hours of Commissioners efforts have been spent to thoughtfully and diligently ensure that El Cerrito's first city commission public art not

0:29:54only enhances the appearance and identity of El Cerrito but also provides both residents and visitors visual enjoyment and a greater appreciation of the many facets and diversity that make up the city of El Cerrito what distinguished Jonathan's Harry's proposal from other submissions and

0:30:17impressed the arts and culture commission was that they had gone the extra mile they had put in a great deal of effort studying San Pablo Avenue El Cerrito's history and current culture and then creating a proposed public art piece that would best meet the goals that the

0:30:37commission had set in their call for artists and be uniquely suited to El Cerrito's main thoroughfare and the city's diversity as evidenced by the work already done on this project the commission is committed to the success of the San Pablo Avenue streetscapes public art project

0:30:59all Commissioners look forward to City council's approval and the opportunity to work with this artist team the commission believes that Jonathan and sayori will create a public art piece that El Cerrito will be proud to have as the first public artwork commissioned by the city

0:31:23and at this time I would like to introduce the artist Jonathan Russell and sayori eday if you'd like to say a few words well it's just I wanted to thank you for the opportunity to be able to to present our ideas but we were talking about this on the way here and I guess the reason

0:31:43why we're so excited is that our piece is really a trying to tell the story of El Cerrito but as well we are part of that story of El Cerrito meaning we probably spend more time here than we do in Berkeley because our kids play soccer here they do Japanese lessons here they take piano lessons

0:32:03here we go shopping here we it is it's great so for us this is just a very exciting exciting project because it's we do public art but this project is personal as well as public so thank you [Laughter] and with that if you have any questions um any of us would be happy to answer

0:32:31thank you Bill I just had one what's the life of the icons lifespan the materials we're using are virtually indestructible so as long as they don't get you know hit by lightning or you know crushed by something they'll last for a very very long time even the colors the colors of color fast the

0:33:04powder coating is proven in that respect great thank you the on the same token because we'll be replacing light poles probably before your art wears out the fastening device is can be adjusted to different light pole designs totally great thank you but other questions

0:33:29are you taking comments on the just the overall concept now or just questions right now okay um well I appreciate that you guys are local I think it's just really adds that extra touch um that you'll be sensitive in in knowing what the community is about I think that's probably the the greatest

0:33:51challenge I just want to let people know like the these are just conceptual icons here and that I'm really excited that you're you know not only being part of the community you'll help you know really get the word out to our community about this exciting opportunity to

0:34:04really you know contribute and see how to engage with our local government to beautify our community and I want to thank the prior council members who had the foresight to put this together I think um we're lucky to have this you know fund set aside to um really draw attention to all the

0:34:24coming improvements and really build energy and Community around this great thing so thank you perfect I just also wanted to add that if the city council members have any ideas for icons themselves please let me know so I can pass it along to the commission you want your input too okay why don't

0:34:43we move to see if there's any um speakers no speakers okay are there any um comments from the council sorry I have uh oh go ahead I just have some of my um was proud to be part of the uh Council when this was approved uh I art in the public places code and at the time we

0:35:08were considering that many cities were considering the same thing so I it probably now is uh probably one of the Mainstays in funding of public art the thing I liked about it is that it provides dedicated funding for the sole purpose of Art and I think that's that's

0:35:26important although it looks like we funded ourselves on this one it's okay uh I just wanted to mention though that there there's more public input and committee review and final designs required before implementation and the council does have the authority to approve funding

0:35:46and given the nature of it of the project and the first time that we have dealt with this I'd feel more comfortable if we approve the agreement and the expenditure of twenty five thousand dollars for the pre-design bid and then have a final presentation and report to council

0:36:06before releasing the balance of the 75 000. my my purpose for this is not to evaluate and approve the design itself what I'm more concerned about is that we assure the existing budget will cover the whole project the timeline is confirmed and committed and to confirm that all state and local

0:36:29code requirements have been identified and completed and that as we know every time we try to do something on San Pablo Avenue it seems to take three times as long and three times the work then what is really required so I think a check and balance on that especially seeing that

0:36:48our money is tight that I would like to see that I don't I also want to State and this is more of a business statement than a a statement on the project itself is there's no there's going to be no additional funding on this Pro I can't see additional funding being available

0:37:07for this project and um so I think we have to keep in mind that the hundred thousand dollars is the budget and I have been part of some projects in the last uh last five or six years where there seems to be this uh I don't know if it's an attitude but the expectation that

0:37:32if a project goes over the owner comes up with the money and I'm not talking just City bills I'm not talking city of El Cerrito I'm talking about public and private and I just think we have to be careful because there is no money to add to this budget this is already a hundred

0:37:48thousand dollars of the city money uh going towards this and so I think a good check and balance at the end would be a good way to finalize the project to go forward I I guess my comments are more to do with the process and I guess I'm I'm really interested in seeing if there's

0:38:13opportunity to vary the heights I think um council member Potter asks us to think about the you know just the relevance or just how the artwork would integrate with The Pedestrian realm you know being that it's high up and you know hearing that there's concerns about

0:38:29graffiti and damage um I think I would love to see if there's a way to work in variations and Heights and maybe do some pilot test cases because I think there's something to be said for bringing them down to The Pedestrian realm um and potentially working with you know

0:38:49an art class at the high school to really you know get the word out amongst youth that there's a potent you know that this is part of you know their you know future and Heritage and that they get it you know they they should have a stake in it potentially and maybe that

0:39:02would really could contribute to deterrence so maybe I'm just being naive and Wishful but you know bringing them in as stakeholders to the project I think would be a great opportunity um and um another thing I was just thinking about is you know in looking at what

0:39:20there's so many great unique pieces of our community that can you know come alive in these icons and thinking um very versatility in terms of the design like you know I have here my Jenny K elsewhere you know El Cerrito uh water bottle that I just love touting around and you know I think people are

0:39:41really proud residents of our community and you know looking forward and you know El Cerrito gear or something you know I just I think I just wanted to throw that out there as a design perspective Sandy um so I am really looking forward to seeing the project develop with the

0:40:00public input I did I have had um an interest in how the banner program will relate to this project and we worked quite hard to get the banner program going in El Cerrito and it's been very successful and really appreciated by the public so I would ask for if staff could work together with

0:40:19the artists in the community to parallel with this really develop um on paper as structure for what our Banner program will be and how it will integrate with this project we can discuss in that context both San Pablo Avenue Mosher and Fairmont and other areas that we have begun to put the

0:40:36banners the themes the time of year and those kind of topics um I want to Echo what councilmember Chang said about The Pedestrian level artwork and if not in this project I just want to be really clear that um I don't see El Cerrito as being the place where all the art has to be assumed to

0:40:57be vandalized and graffitied I believe that we're a community who can bring public art into public places and be respectful of it and I want that to be what we strive for and so that's just like at a policy level as we continue to work with the arts and culture

0:41:13commission with the one percent for public art and as the economy begins to turn around we're going to see more and more projects come through under the program and lastly as others have mentioned the icons should be durable and during the imagery should be relevant over long

0:41:30periods of time and not to cater to specific businesses that may be ephemeral and that those images we work through the public process so that they are representative of the real diversity here in El Cerrito so those those are my comments I encourage others on the

0:41:49council to provide input and then look forward to launching that public process but yeah the only question I have is to work out the logistics if we're going to support council member Jones request of having a either entering into a contract that is the way I read it it's fully

0:42:09appropriated so staff is not obligated to come back to us that prior to installation um and our options I'm looking at the City attorney our options are either change the compensation Clause at this time or instruct staff to bring it back to us prior to entering the second phase

0:42:26of the contract and and so I'm just trying to figure out what the logistics are if we're going to if we're going to entertain that that proposal by councilmember Jones I do have a recommended uh yeah my comment is that I my comment is that I actually don't want to

0:42:46necessarily change the contract that I'd rather have staff you know obligate staff to bring and the artists to come back at the end of the at the close of the comment period and have that become part of their scope in in their contract right that's the intent wasn't to change

0:43:03the contract at all the the only intent is the distribution of the money and when the money is distributed and I was just going to add after now therefore at the end of the resolution add another be it further resolve that the first 25 000 be distributed uh let's see here

0:43:27uh let's see be distributed at the signing of the agreement and the balance of 75 000 be available for distribution after approval by city council so I was interested in hearing from staff and the artists about that proposal and how it might affect the plan and the schedule for the project

0:43:51well first um the compensation Clause was meant to just a little bit do what um councilmember Jones is suggesting that the first payment of twenty five thousand dollars would be made at this time or upon signing of the contract in order for them to do their Design

0:44:06Services and at that point that is sort of the you know Sky correct me if I'm wrong the the Fail-Safe um portion if if they're not fulfilling their duties if if we've determined that the relationship is not working the icons aren't whatever that that is the time that we could both either of us

0:44:24party could terminate the contract so that's sort of the reasoning for the first payment to be made and I would just like to note that um these artists are what we're asking them to do for this entire we're asking them to pretty much set out their entire summer at this point as this is an

0:44:45employment situation for them and so to be able to have the entire contract approved this evening at once with the Fail-Safe included would allow them to be able to plan their work so you know it's sort of similar to an architect contract in that respect um again the Fail-Safe is there but um I

0:45:05would you know I I would think I would I think that the artists and they can speak for themselves as well but I think they would be more comfortable if they knew that they had the the job given to them yes and this my proposal doesn't even change that I guess all it adds is

0:45:22that a final review by the city council before releasing the balance of the 75 000 to begin to implement the project okay then may I ask a clarifying question what would the council be reviewing and be reviewing to ensure that the existing budget will carry the whole project

0:45:44timeline is confirmed and committed and that um it's confirmed that all state and local code requirements have been identified and completed in other words we're just in the planning stage right now and nothing has been set on this project so we have to go through a Implement public input

0:46:07committee review and a final design before implementation so all I'm asking and that was outlined in the staff report so all I'm asking is that before we go into implementation that it comes back for the council to ensure us that it's in budget that all the requirements and everything has been

0:46:26looked at so this can go forward and on a uh on a timeline that is uh it is approved by by the ca by the city I think okay just one other note about the budget um the one hundred thousand dollars is finite and when we put the call to artists out there it was intended to be

0:46:49all-inclusive so that's their budget and that's where it stays I I know that okay but to be honest with you I I need to be assured of that before we release the money so it's my understanding that this money was set aside under the one percent for public art and it's dedicated for this

0:47:05purpose and it can't be reallocated during you know any future foreseeable budget issues so I'm just wondering if you would be comfortable delegating the checkpoint to staff for those fairly technical requirements at the 25 000 expenditure point and then to give the

0:47:23uh go ahead to move forward with the remainder of the I'd be comfortable if the staff would report the council and during a meeting that these checkpoints have been hit okay so I think that might be a compromise in order to get the check in but also let the artist know that the um

0:47:40the implementation part of the contract will move forward within a somewhat predictable time frame so that check-in point would be a report to the council at the conclusion of the public Outreach process with preliminary design at about the twenty five thousand

0:47:57dollar expenditure Mark if if I may um elaborate the scope of work for uh phase one Roman numeral four I would like to insert in the scope of work artists shall attend project meetings and make presentations to City staff ACC which is the art commission and uh city as needed

0:48:23and any other individuals and organizations as needed I would like to make that stronger and just say that at the conclusion of design that they come make a presentation presentation to us and and it's within the scope of work at this time as needed would cover it so I

0:48:38would I would like to get a presentation from them that tells us how many um because I think that's essentially that 75 000 might buy us 50 of these or it might buy us 20 of these but it's only going to buy us so many and and I think that it would be wonderful for us

0:48:56to get a presentation at the end of design that basically says what the icons are that they're going forward with and how many icons that this 75 75 000 remaining will buy us that would be an inform ative it would be yes okay so I don't believe we have an emotion

0:49:19uh first let's see I've kind of Forgotten we don't we know we have had public comment there wasn't any okay so now we're we're back to the we have not had a motion yet that's correct we perhaps ready to make a motion someone someone I moved approval of a resolution

0:49:43authorizing the city manager enter into an agreement for the artist services and the amount not to exceed in one hundred thousand dollars with Jonathan Russell and sayori Edie eday um for a San Pablo Avenue streetscape uh public art project providing that at the end of the

0:50:02planning cycle we have a presentation to Council on what the remaining contract will purchase a second okay there's the motion in a second you're ready to vote all in favor aye aye um any nose are you saying no or yeah oh I said I already you said oh I didn't hear you

0:50:28okay um and I don't think there's any abstention motion Carriage unanimously thank you the next item on the agenda is a Redevelopment agency agenda so I'm going to turn the meeting over to Redevelopment agency chair Potter thank you and good evening everyone it is with a bit of disappointment and

0:50:49sadness that we undertake the next two Redevelopment agency items item 7B and 7c that are an outgrowth of the state government's takeaway of well-managed local Redevelopment funds and the first item 7B is for the expenditure of bond funds for the low moderate income housing and we'll have a

0:51:12staff report on that hmm good evening agency chairman Potter and members of the agency board I'm Hildy miles senior project manager with Redevelopment and Housing um as chairman Potter said this item B is regarding the expenditure of bond funds to repay the low and moderate

0:51:31income housing funds that have been previously expended for property acquisition the action before you tonight uh the requested action is to adopt a Redevelopment agency author resolution authorizing the appropriation of one million 800 820 000 of proceeds from the agency's 2004

0:51:54tax exempt bonds These funds were previously held for the purchase of land for construction of a library and Senior Center and we would like to use them now to apply the proceeds towards a portion of the cost of a prior land purchase that of the tradeway property made with an

0:52:12expenditure of low and moderate income housing funds last year as background in 2004 the Redevelopment agency purchased issued 10.3 million dollars in tax-exempt bond um allocate tax allocation bonds for use on public improvements one of the intended uses of that was land

0:52:31acquisition and or development costs for a library and Senior Center in 2005 the agencies sought a location for the development of a combined library and Senior Center and offered 1.74 million to the West Contra Costa Unified School District for the property located at 6

0:52:50500 Stockton Avenue which is which was then and is now leased by the district to the city and used as the city's Senior Center District staff initiated discussions with City staff at that time and the transaction went so far as to Surplus the property uh later the district put a hold on the

0:53:11transaction and had not acted upon the agency's purchase offer for more than four years as reported at the agency's August 17th meeting the agency met in closed session on August 5th regarding real property negotiations with the district and part of this was regarding

0:53:30the recent State takeaways of agency funds in that August 5th closed session the agency decided to rescind its offer to West Contra costs that unified and to purchase rescinded the offer to purchase the senior center property so the funds could be reprogrammed for land purchase

0:53:49separately in August of 2008 the agency aboard approved the purchase of the tradeway property next door at 108.60 and 10848 San Pablo Avenue for the purpose of developing affordable housing and contemplating that such a project might also contain a mixed-use component

0:54:08such as a senior center and on May 1st of 2009 the agency closed escrow on that site um this past fall on October 19th the board gave staff Direction regarding the Redevelopment goals and time frame for the development of the property and that direction included a desire to develop a

0:54:28property as affordable housing with a mixed use component uh with that had a senior Focus staff has indicated those agency objectives in the developer solicitation that is currently being drafted for the site and that will come before you hopefully the next meeting

0:54:47um given that the eligible uses for taxes and bond proceeds include both property acquisition and development of either public facilities or housing affordable housing and that the low and moderate income housing fund monies may not be spent on non-affordable housing

0:55:02uses it makes sense that reprogramming the taxes and bond seeds for acquisition of the trade away property would be advantageous to the agency and that it would provide additional flexibility and how the tradeway property is ultimately developed below and moderate income housing fund

0:55:20would be reimbursed the monies previously expended on land to purchase the tradeway property and then could be reprogrammed back into the housing fund for use on future housing activities the unexpended bond proceeds that are currently held in the library and Senior

0:55:36Center special funds are sufficient to reimburse the low and moderate income housing fund for a reasonable portion of the acquisition costs of the tradeway property and upon agency approval of any eventual development at the tradeway property the proportion of Project funding that's

0:55:54attributable to affordable housing and or public facilities would be reviewed to ensure that it is being spent in a manner that meets all legal requirements as it pertains to the bonds and to the housing fund I'd be happy to answer any questions are there any public comments no

0:56:15comments discussion I mean I'll take on Bill you've said this before so I will take on your mantle tonight it is a great shame that we are in a situation where the state is forcing us to to do things the next agenda item you know we'll carry this more but that we are

0:56:43taking actions that are to settle a budget a state budget voiced upon us and it's certainly with that in mind that I certainly see that we should be moving this forward let's wait until that second one too get on my soapbox yeah thank you Bill you'll have your chance do we have ocean

0:57:10I will move adopt a Redevelopment agency resolution authorizing the appropriations of one million eight hundred and twenty thousand dollars of proceeds from the 2004 agency tax exempt bonds previously reserved for the purchase of land for construction of a library and Senior Center in order to

0:57:26apply the proceeds toward a portion of the cost of a prior land purchase made using an expenditure of low and moderate income housing fund Monies second so it's been moved and seconded and and sadly I will ask for the vote in favor aye aye motion carries unanimously

0:57:52we'll now move on to item 7c and have a staff report mm-hmm good evening board members I'm Lori Trevino the Redevelopment manager and staff is here this evening uh Second Time Around we did this last year and hopefully we'll have the same outcome this year um but we are asking that the agency

0:58:14authorized borrowing housing funds and appropriating those funds to pay the agency's required contribution to the 2009-2010 state Supplemental Educational Revenue augmentation fund also referred to as serif as you know the state budget for uh 2009 2010 includes a transfer of funds from

0:58:37California Redevelopment agencies to the state's serif fund totaling 1.7 billion dollars El Cerritos share of that um serif taking is one million seven hundred sixty seven thousand four hundred eighteen dollars that payment is due on May 10th and the agency must

0:58:55notify the county of how it plans to fund its serif payment by March 1st in the serif legislation the agency is allowed to pay its serif contribution from any available funds we have gone through and identified various possibilities um and the most obvious being tax

0:59:16increment revenues and any available agency fund balance unfortunately the agency's revenue during the current fiscal year are well less than what we projected coming into um when doing the budget for 2009 2010 and it's actually declined by more than seven percent from the prior fiscal year

0:59:38the agency did have unreserved funds of nearly a million dollars coming into the current fiscal year however we did appropriate nearly five million dollars and now our Revenue projections are just over four million dollars the agency has made some additional commitments through

0:59:56the fiscal year so we are trying to economize on our expenditures this year but current tax increment revenues and agency unexpended funds are not going to be sufficient other sources of funds could be the city's general fund or a loan from the general fund or taking

1:00:17some other form of debt issuance however in the current environment those are really not feasible options for the agency um the last option is the agency can borrow low and moderate income housing funds as long as it does not impair the agencies any of the agency's existing

1:00:36contracts in our case um if we reserve funds for the agency's obligations on the rcd Hatland project and for funds to plan the tradeway project there remains about 2.3 million dollars in the housing fund that could be Borrowed by the agency agency to make it serif payment

1:00:57the legislation requires that if the agency does borrow housing funds to make the payment that that loan would be repaid over five years so um staff has concluded that the only source of funds available to the agencies alone from the housing fund um there are penalties in the legislation

1:01:17should the agency choose not to make its payment there it's referred to as the death penalty and I won't go through all the details of that but bottom line is that with if the agency were to um choose not to make its erf payment serif payment that the impact would actually

1:01:34be much heavier because the agency would be precluded from making many of its regular expenditures and it would be required to put on hold many projects regardless of the fact that we might have the funds um also as you know the um California Redevelopment Association has filed a

1:01:53lawsuit against the state of California for this um taking a Redevelopment agency funds um the case was heard on February 5th and Sacramento Superior Court it is the same court that heard the case last year and CRA did Prevail last year um on February 5th the judge did not render

1:02:14any decision and did ask the attorneys to prepare some additional information CRA is hopeful that the court will decide the case in April so that agencies will know whether or not they need to make their payment on May 10th and in the meantime agencies are being

1:02:28urged not to make the payment and we would not make it um until we know we have to um by March 1st the agency has to inform the county auditor how it intends to fund the payment and we would include language in our notice that would reserve the right to withhold the payment

1:02:48um if uh pending the outcome of the litigation and also to recover the funds should they already be made and the um taking B ruled unconstitutional um so um that is the presentation if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them and you have a resolution before you to

1:03:10um for the agency to borrow its housing funds to make its era payment thank you there any questions staff I did want to know what the status was of last year's repayment after we paid the state and it was found to be unconstitutional we did not make the payment it was found unconstitutional a

1:03:33month or two before the payment was due um and actually the state did appeal that ruling and then in the uh after the budget for 0910 was passed they withdrew their appeals so that litigation is settled and they've moved on to [Music] um to this to defending this litigation

1:03:56okay that uh the 1.7 million dollars and is this year's payment what is uh could you refresh us on what is the projected for next year yes um the the um state budget legislation for um 10 11 includes a um 300 300 million dollar taking from all Redevelopment agencies in the agency's

1:04:31share of that is about 350 000.

1:04:34so should this legislation be found constitutional we would have to make an additional payment in the upcoming year okay but that is based on a a budget for next year for the state however they're talking about redoing the whole thing what have you heard through your Grapevine about uh

1:04:56their current ideas about taking money away from us I haven't heard anything specific to Redevelopment but I think uh what I hear is that there aren't very many pockets left to go to so Redevelopment would be an obvious one again okay I think everybody's just holding their

1:05:15breath and hoping that nothing will happen but Perfect Storm thank you yep yeah agency member Jones you covered most of my comment but I wanted to make sure that the 2.3 million that you talked about that's available is in excess and I think that's what agency member Jones has done it's in

1:05:34Access of what we currently know we may owe if we don't Prevail in court I'm sorry could you repeat that the 2.3 million is larger than what we currently May owe if we don't Prevail in court yes that's right it's 1.7 plus another 300 000 for the current year so it's over 2 million what

1:05:57we may owe under that but that three three 50 000 wouldn't be due till next spring correct right that's right not until next spring okay are there any public comments any discussion of the item I'm just um you know here's another this continues to be an example of the

1:06:21rating by the state and I just want to remind people the reason why we're so upset here and people are throughout the state is this was a funding mechanism that was passed by a voter the people in 1952 a vote of the people not a legislative action and yet there's a legislative action

1:06:41that is trying to take away money [Music] um we get the death penalty if we don't pay it they have no problem not paying their obligations as we've seen uh so I guess what it is is unfortunately we have to take funding a way that was going to be seed money for a new library that has not

1:07:07been renovated in 60 years or 60 years plus or a senior center that's in World War II barracks um so it's it's unfortunate and uh but this is the only prudent way I on the other hand I do believe that we should use agency money to make the payment and uh we will be

1:07:30we'll be borrowing it and you know the technical mechanism to meet the state requirement but state law but the fact is the end result is that if the lawsuit is lost we will no longer have seed money for library and Senior Center so I just want to take a minute and

1:07:51thank all the Redevelopment agency board members for all the work on this and staff especially for sticking with it and um just that we're all part of the collateral damage of the state's struggle with their politics and the poorly managed budget and it really has

1:08:07taken a tremendous amount of time and effort and research and financing to figure out how to respond to this and it's happening year after year after year where we're not being able to be proactive with our Redevelopment program in the way that we would like to to do

1:08:21the best for our community um so with that I'll ask if there's a motion like motion I move adoption of a Redevelopment agency resolution authorizing the Redevelopment agency to borrow needed low and moderate income housing funds and to pay the agency's required

1:08:45contribution of one million 767 418 dollars to the 2009-10 Supplemental Educational Revenue augmentation fund when due to the County on May 10 2010 as well as to make the necessary related Appropriations second it's been moved and seconded all in favor aye opposed the motion carries unanimous

1:09:16mislead to borrow the money from the low and moderate income housing fund and I'll turn the meeting over now to Mayor Abelson to have a discussion of the 2009-2010 mid-year budget proposal is there a staff report yes thank you thank you technical difficulty well we why don't I get started while we

1:10:02bring up the PowerPoint presentation we are here mayor members of the council to go over our mid-year budget projections and unlike in the past we've taken an attempt uh three or four months early to try to take a look at next year's budget also and that's in light of the

1:10:22unprecedented changes to the economy worldwide and and certainly in El Cerrito up here there we go and looking back at the budget presentation I I had forgotten that we went with the recession graphic and unfortunately I think we're still we're still there and there's a really a

1:10:46lot of mixed feelings about are we out of it are we on the uptick are we treading water and a lot of that concern about the economy is reflected in the in the presentation and certainly our budget projections for the future what I want to go over tonight is a review of the city council goals for the

1:11:07year because I think that's that's really important uh to check to check in on those again go over the actions that have already happened talk a little bit about how we managed uh or thought we were going to manage to balance the budget this fiscal year look at the general

1:11:22fund and how it's performing and we're really going to focus almost solely on the general fund we've done some 10-year planning uh scenarios so you can see so what we're looking at down the road and get some feedback and Direction on the use of reserves as well as some of

1:11:43uh your priorities for how we put together next year's budget which will certainly start uh shortly I wanted to reiterate excuse me the city council's goals uh the first and foremost one was fiscal responsibility and I think we've really kept to that goal when you look at the numbers and

1:12:03see that the staff is managing to bring in the general fund budget over four hundred thousand dollars less we're projecting than what uh what you had allowed we also really it's critical to all of us to maintain a high level of services to the community that everyone here has

1:12:20come to expect and we believe that we're still doing that although in some areas The Strain is starting to show particularly related to the the vacancies which I'll certainly talk more about the the irony as is so common is the use of special funds in one hand the

1:12:37operating budget is very tight and the special funds continue to be able to do improvements to the city's infrastructure and capital measure a is the biggest example and again that money is uh earmarked exclusively for streets can't and can't help the general fund

1:12:56but also you've talked a lot about and heard a lot about San Pablo Avenue and a lot of The Pedestrian improvements and all of the millions of dollars in Grants the staff has gone out and gotten over the last few years to allow us to keep improving the city even in these

1:13:11tough times environmental stewardship a lot of people were at the presentation today by EPA on the grants for the rain Gardens on the Avenue but we have unveiled so many environmental programs over the last couple years that we really think we are leaders in spite of whatever the

1:13:31budget may bring us and economic development that we are spending a fair amount of time particularly now to try to encourage business to move to El Cerrito and keep businesses in El Cerrito and in spite of everything there still is a lot of interest in El Cerrito

1:13:46and I think over the coming year you will hopefully see some new store openings and restaurant openings which all help just a reminder and I won't hit every point but we believe that we're certainly living within our means our revenues are more Diversified which

1:14:02we've talked a lot about uh restricted funds are stable and continue to provide the Capital Improvements and two important points that uh from the beginning of the year are foreclosures and reassessments a big portion of our budget is property tax and over the last year as we've seen as

1:14:23has most places in the Bay Area a consistent significant rise in property tax that went along with property values in regard and I'll come back on that in in terms of reassessments uh unfortunately we projected a modest increase in property values in El Cerrito this year and instead we had a

1:14:44small decrease compared to what's happening in most cities it's it's small but for us it's a half a million dollars that we didn't see coming or didn't see losing additionally we made a couple a number of early what we're calling precautionary adjustments we implemented the pers buyout we did

1:15:07have furlough days for non-sworn and we have a significant number of vacancies which is really the reason we're able to stay is close to budget as we are and in times we've relied on contract help rather than filling positions uh because of the economy we wanted to include this slide

1:15:29that we got from the association of Bay Area of governments which was interesting in that this city has the sixth lowest foreclosure rate in the Bay Area that's some uh we're in some exclusive company I guess you could say and we're the lowest in Contra Costa County

1:15:46unfortunately even though the foreclosures really haven't affected us The reassessments Have and I'll I'll touch on that a little bit more even though again they're not anywhere near the the very large reassessments you've heard about in East County and some other places

1:16:06I as a reminder in terms of developing developing the budget we eliminated one management position we have also not filled a management position this year we had hoped to fill in the second quarter there are many positions vacant we've reduced seasonal and contract help we I

1:16:24mentioned the furlough days and the pers buyout and the Reliance on the special funds which is significantly important because they may not always be there and the what the state may do in terms of balancing their budget we're particularly concerned about Highway

1:16:41money and gas tax which if the state tries to take away before any ballot initiative can get there to save them uh that money the only place to backfill those Services which are everything from storm drain cleaning to Landscaping to tree trimming the only way to put those

1:17:01Services back would be the general fund and the general fund arguably doesn't have the money to do that just in terms of the vacancies we wanted to show where those vacancies occur some of these positions are offset by overtime but we basically have 20 positions unfilled they amount to about

1:17:2018 full-time equivalents some of those positions are not full-time and that is the primary reason we're we're able to be where we are the big question for tonight and the big question for staff has been over time what is the impact of all these vacancies on city services and

1:17:39uh we will certainly touch on that and there's a lot of Staff as well as all the Departments heads are here if you if you'd like some more information about that in terms of revenues I already touched on property kids you can see that big variation and that's largely associated with properties being

1:18:03proactively reassessed downward based on the Assessor's assumption that property values have gone down so therefore as assumptions therefore assessments should go down also and these are it's our understanding and we've tried to be very proactive with the assessor's office

1:18:20that use a lot of these homes are homes that were bought on the run-up that it has felt needed to come back down to where the market is today um I think as you know we watch the market in El Cerrito very closely and have some question as to whether the market really came down uh significantly

1:18:38or at all but that's something we'll continue to work on with the Assessor's Office the variance sales tax includes a hundred and sixty one thousand dollar true up by state in terms of the which I won't get into but as you recall and one of their uh budget balancing

1:19:00schemes there was swaps of sales to local sales tax and property tax revenues so the state would uh the mechanism would change the state would change the mechanism for funding in this case we didn't know about this we didn't see this coming they essentially trued up and are keeping 161

1:19:19000 we don't believe this is going to happen again but one never knows there has been a small decrease in sales tax we believe as does our sales tax Consultants who do who monitor this that we have hit the bottom and although they have told us they feel a five percent

1:19:37growth and sales tax would be reasonable we've only assumed three one of the themes in the F uh the fiscal year 11 budget as well as the out ear budget says we we are a little Shell Shocked by this year and have gotten what we believe to be very conservative in

1:19:53Revenue projections because slight changes could have significant effects on or ability to do what we do on the on the positive side other revenues are strong particularly in the building Division and Recreation and there's still a great demand for our programs and services and the hopefully

1:20:12the uptick in the building department is a reflection on how the economy in El Cerrito and hopefully it will it will stay uh stay where it has been the last seven months in terms of expenses we are estimating that we will be about 420 000 under budget uh a big pieces of that are the the uh

1:20:36the vacancies like we've talked about the furloughs as well as uh we've got a significant uh rebate or uh from ourselves we to back up we self-insure through their risk management pool they have been over collecting and you take the over collection with our insurance

1:20:56uh modifiers it resulted in a much bigger uh bigger refund than we typically see but that only happened uh a week ago but we also believe it's going to happen next year so you can see that 320 000 savings and other services 250 of that is that is that uh retroactive payment

1:21:17uh staff reductions are over a million dollars and the reason we think we didn't hit quite the level that we thought we was with uh staff retirements particularly as well as some other things like vacation BuyBacks and uh we didn't get the full effect of having a

1:21:37Year's worth of vacancies and we had some one-time payments that we had to make out subject to our Personnel rules in terms of the per service credit which we talked about in which the council authorized we assumed and we put the program in place that six employees

1:21:53would retire uh five and a half did that's uh not that a half person is still here but I have five five full-time people on One halftime person uh took the buy out we figured we were saving about a hundred and thirty thousand compared to 150 000 so and we also think in the out years we will hit

1:22:14the savings we thought we would so overall the uh purpose of the buyout was achieved and we did risk to get a fair amount of savings as a result so in summary in the general fund but you see if you look at the bottom line is revenues are off by again we're projecting revenues to be off about 635

1:22:36000 expenses to be under budget by 420 that Nets to 215 in terms of a shortfall and I just want to remind the council that during the course of the year you authorized about ninety thousand dollars of additional expenses from fund balance as you remember when we've awarded some contracts so our

1:23:00authorization was actually ninety thousand dollars below so when you true it up um the ninety thousand from the 305 you get the 215. we are essentially technically not authorized to be 215 uh out of balance so how what to do about the balance is I think why we are primarily here tonight

1:23:22uh I this is not an all-in inclusive list and I won't touch on all of them one option on one side of the spectrum is using our Reserves to close this Gap I will remind you that uh I believe it was a 2004 budget the council did authorize a deficit budget in that case though it never

1:23:45materialized and we actually ran a surplus having said that in the short term between now and the end of the fiscal year we could do things like not have the Fourth of July cut back on some purchases some some employee programs uh and then things around employment such

1:24:05as furloughs is something we could certainly consider and we would just want to make sure that those are consistent with our personal rules we have tweaked some service levels the swim center and the senior centers just tweaked but obviously those are two places where we could cut further the

1:24:24police department is not over out over its Budget on overtime but we expect it to meet its budget uh largely because of two vacancies and two people out but you know there is there is a cause and effect and the big struggle is um how to how do all of these things

1:24:42affect service I will also point out there's a fifty thousand dollar line in here about the utility user tax for the country club uh we feel we are pursuing this regardless but um as you recall last year the council authorized us to go forward with the East Bay mud to collect utility user

1:25:01taxes on uh water and they are our largest product generator in the city and they have not paid yet so we are we are pursuing that um and it's it's obviously a Big Bill as you excuse me as you can see if the council were to use the 200 use reserves to cover the 215 000

1:25:19that's about eight tenths of one percent of our fund balance and leaves us at roughly 12 percent I wanted to touch on a few staffing issues as you mull all of this over uh and remind you that um employee compensation has now crept up to roughly 80 percent of the entire

1:25:40general fund the non-public safety employees have not had a meeting adjustment and this will be five years that El Cerrito does not provide retiree medical and the reason I want to make some of these points particularly the retiring medical is when you read about

1:25:55uh public sector benefits and and being out of the mainstream or being out of the norm please remember that we are in the minority as we recruit without by not having retiree medical already and so we want to always keep in mind as we make decisions uh going forward

1:26:13the impact it will have on recruiting and retention having said that in spite of those things we have we feel that we have lost very few uh employees over the last five years so retention is not an issue and and with the exception of a few technical positions we think recruitment we're

1:26:32managing to hold our own uh the the open question is vacancies and how that will affect service in the in the Long Haul and again the department heads are here and as well as myself could touch on that a little more if you want um as I mentioned we also took a shot at

1:26:51next year's budget uh extra early and while the news is not great it's I'd also say it's not terrible particularly compared to a lot of what you're hearing about cities around us um if we honor the current collective bargaining agreements and we keep all of the 18 positions vacant

1:27:12we were projecting a shortfall of about 287 thousand dollars next year that assumes a two percent across the board Cola but that is also subject to adjustments on the CPI as well as collective bargaining and the police department is due a salary survey again we will continue to work at the

1:27:33assessor's office but additional assessments up or down really may decide whether we are over or under under budget and uh it's our hope to have a better sense before you adopt next year's budget and and maybe maybe we'll be able to know exactly what those numbers are but at this point we don't

1:27:52and has as you've all stated we don't know what the state is going to do when they try to fix their problems the other thing we have done modest increases for outside agencies and these are significant dollar amounts uh for animal control our lab dispatch Police

1:28:09Department Records management these are services that we don't feel it's efficient for us to provide ourselves so we get them from either the county or the city of Richmond what has been the history is even though expenses here generally go up by two percent we get increases in these

1:28:25contracts that often are more over double figures and that is certainly possible I think this year we'll make a more of an attempt to protest and try to drive those costs down but but there are other agencies who are going to look to balance their own budgets on our backs

1:28:42and the numbers not insignificant we don't know those numbers yet I don't want you to spend too much time trying to look at these numbers um I do want you to focus on The Bold numbers on the bottom and then we have a graph on the next page uh which might make it a lot easier this is

1:29:01the 10-year plan um the this was the 10-year plan as adopted this year as you can see we projected about a 13 and a half percent Reserve at the end and it shows all things being equal we would maintain reserves above 10 and at times higher if you go forward um tickets have happened we were

1:29:24slightly off by I believe a little less than half a percent in our fund balance last year and then uh if you go to the next slide this is where we plug in our projected budgets uh for this year and next and as you can see uh this assumes as I already said a cola no new Revenue

1:29:45measures and the fund balance settles in sort of 11 between 10 and 11 over 10 years this assumes uh uh that we keep positions vacant for two more years I mean three more years and at that point start selectively filling vacancies so um as you can see it's not awful it's

1:30:09but it's not great um the next slide you can see it a little bit graphically that uh fund balance dips down the the line because it's graphed over dollars looks much more dramatic but it really shifts from 12 to 10 although it looks like it's plummeting settles and then drops still around 10.

1:30:30you can see revenue and expenditures are roughly equal and over time expenses uh get a little bit higher but essentially we're we're roughly balanced but again it all comes down to the vacancies and the timing again and the next slide uh we change the scenario a little bit and

1:30:50say what happens if you didn't do colas next year um and and essentially uh went to the employee groups and said look things are tough we want to balance we need to balance the budget and we would start filling refilling positions in fiscal year 12 with Police Department first and then

1:31:10work our way through the what that does is it raises the reserves a little bit and gives us the ability to start hiring a couple years earlier you know again the graph on the next page uh you can see it holds the reserves up a little bit higher but the the curved line looks uh rough

1:31:31very similar to the one before it as we've discussed in the past and recently you had a presentation from uh Brian Godby about the possibility of a sales tax um what we have the way we have thought about the end is that that measure if you were to consider it would be five

1:31:49years and the sole purpose would be to try to keep the current level of service uh where it is uh this this models what that might look like we've used a quarter Cent sales tax rather than a half because we think that's more reasonable uh we have attempted to keep reserves between 10

1:32:11and 15 percent as you can see we accomplished that when the measure ends uh reserves start trending down so we may have to think twice about being able to fill all of the positions but we wanted to show what that would look like we would also be able to start filling positions in next

1:32:30not FY 10 but FY 11 I think FY 11. um and this would assume no coal is next year um because we would be waiting to find out the results of the measure if you go to the um graphical slide essentially you can see the line pops up what what the sales tax does in one way

1:32:53of putting it is it provides a level of stability for a decade it also allows us to grow our other revenues and essentially live off the measure in the interim and then hopefully we're able to maintain it in the out years um all of these uh well let me go to the next slide uh in

1:33:11terms of their Reserve policy our goal in doing the models was to be consistent with the current policy but also with an eye towards um the policy you discussed at your last meeting the in terms of reserves like we said we exceed 13 right now if you were to use reserves to balance

1:33:31the budget this year entirely we still think you would be in the 12 range and if you even went as far as to use reserves to balance next year you would be still be above 10.

1:33:44um obviously there are a lot of variables and parts in in motion use of reserves for economic reasons which these are we believe are consistent with the spirit of the Fab recommendations and because of the loss in revenue and desire to maintain the services uh I mean it's staffs feel that now is not

1:34:04the time to try to increase reserves it's a zero-sum game if we were increasing reserves we would either need additional revenue or cut additional expenses and uh oh again well I think we agreed with the the spirit and we'd love to release our reserves um we're having trouble modeling a scenario

1:34:25that gets reserves up at this time and that's why the staff is recommending the use of reserves uh this year after looking at where we are in terms of vacancies looking at how hard and how much the city has progressed over the last years we're really worried about

1:34:41taking a step back um if we don't need to in terms of us so all things considered the cost where our reserves are the amount of their Reserves we have decided to recommend and I've decided to recommend to you to seriously consider reserves and that's why what we're essentially asking you here today

1:35:01is let the budget just play itself out and we have no formal adjustments for you to make tonight in terms of the future and um fiscal year 11.

1:35:14um we're going to go back and try to start working on our budget and any direction or priorities or thoughts that you can give us we're not asking for specific Direction tonight but really high level policy thoughts we feel that we have continued to do more with the last as you recall at this time

1:35:34last year we cut a million dollars out of the budget as a result of the sales tax reductions and those are store closures and the economy and service levels have for the most part remained very high to the credit of the staff many of those in this room tonight no matter how many times we say

1:35:52don't do more they keep doing more and you see that across the board in every Department um that's what we do and we're proud to do it but uh I think the message we're sending is we we would probably prefer to do less with less than compromise on quality and if that's

1:36:11a decision we have to make this fiscal year next fiscal year we would rather than um beat the current budget down without cutting any programs or Services we would rather you cut or reduce some of the services so we can keep them at the level that we're currently at

1:36:29um so again a lot of thought has gone into that this next list is not meant to be all inclusive but in going through ways to reduce program expenses in the police department you remember we spent years trying to build up to the point where we could get what we call our care team out

1:36:51and that team not only gets out and covers special instances around the city but also it's available that if for any reason other officers are off duty we never lose sort of our full Staffing having sent that for example right now we have two vacancies as well as two

1:37:09people off uh for different reasons we lose the team we lose the flexibility and so when people when officers particularly are off duty for training or education or something they're either we take someone off traffic or we backfill so again it all affects service

1:37:28we could eliminate the fire prevention officer position you know it came out of the Oakland Hills fire you look at the amount of time every year you hear about our our uh weed prevention efforts our fire prevention efforts will what would that mean if we didn't

1:37:45do that service but but there is a savings to doing that um we could reduce Swim Center and Senior Center hours further but again uh two things I would Point well one specific thing I'd point out it's not a straight one for one I mean this is a Rec Department brings in a lot of

1:38:03Revenue so if we may lose users if we cut programs so we would cut Revenue so it's it's not a one for one and we could reduce Affairs um July 4th is really the biggest but when you add them all up you know it's it's real time it's real money um and we could significantly reduce the

1:38:25public education efforts which we've we've really feel has just been uh terrific the last couple years everything from meeting notices to postcards to the rec brochure to the newsletters to uh just the our sort of constant drive to keep our our residents uh in the know

1:38:45again the sales tax an interim Revenue measure could ensure long-term stability and as I already talked about uh the use of reserves in the future and a lot of that has to do with your decision our Direction on The Reserve policy just briefly briefly funds we're not proposing any

1:39:04changes in other funds they all seem to be uh where they where we thought they were going to be you already heard about the Redevelopment agency and we're waiting for the outcome on the court decision streets projects as Jerry uh Bradshaw's talked about numerous times are ahead of

1:39:23schedule and budget and other special funds are on or near budget and our grant Revenue continues to be strong and continues to go up so I haven't said all of that uh what we're asking for consideration and direction from you is does this all sound reasonable do you want to use

1:39:42reserves and if so how much this fiscal year uh in here the interim Revenue measure uh we did the polling we've had some discussions about it what uh we're looking for today is do you want to is there a consensus to move forward is there a consensus to move forward to

1:40:01bring it back for discussion or is that just something the council doesn't really want to consider um the sooner we know that um also as you all know from our recent successes on a ballot initiatives earlier you start the better so we would we don't want to wait too long the

1:40:19reserve policy as I've said I keep beating this up but we we've always supported um certainly the finance director and I have always supported and have said uh 15 is better than 10.

1:40:33it's a really tough time to be increasing revenues right now uh reserves right now and then and and sort of macro uh uh standards for next fiscal year any direction or guidance in terms of what you would like to see when we bring the budget back in terms of the levels of

1:40:54service um weighing programs versus employee compensation because there's no way getting around when the employees are 80 of the budget that that's that's the cost driver for everything we're not asking for direction to implement a furlough or Implement a cola today but

1:41:13rather should employee uh compensation be part of the discussion for next fiscal year in terms of balancing the budget and we would we would come back pursuant to the Personnel rules to get direction from you uh in the future so that's where we are tonight uh we're

1:41:32looking for comments and Direction and if necessary we'll come back with budgeted amendments uh shortly okay so we'll we'll first have um questions from Council and then we'll go to public comment and then we'll come back for comments from Council anyone like to start on the council

1:41:57foreign public comment we we do have a few speakers the first is Rich Barky thank you madam mayor members of the city council my name is Rich bartke one three one five Devonshire Court El Cerrito I'm here representing the financial Advisory Board and I have uh comments on two items both of which have

1:42:27to do with the reserves The Fabulous last meeting last week reviewed the recommendations or the options I should say that the city manager showed you tonight as to different ways that you might address the 215 000 shortfall that exists now Fab did not think it was appropriate

1:42:49that it Choose Or rank any of those options that is solely a council's call and we would leave that to your good offices however we did as a a hopeful assist to the council say that if you decided to use reserves to fund part or all of that shortfall you would still be within the

1:43:18existing policy and within the proposed policy and therefore we would have no objection if that was your choice to do the other thing I'd like to address is the proposed policy which as I understand it has not yet been adopted is that correct and it was our recommendation

1:43:37we worked really hard on this it was on our agenda every meeting for six months and we kept coming up with ideas and because of the brown Act of course we can't talk to each other between meetings so we come to the meetings we put our ideas on a table we'd mix mix

1:43:53and match and go home and say whoops that wouldn't work so we got to come back and do it again we finally and Mary Dodge was real good she got surveys of other cities so we looked at a number of policies from other cities um we have to ask first of all what are

1:44:13reserves for and there's a couple of things that you have reserves for and one you've already discussed tonight which is when you have an economic downturn to the point where revenues have gone down uh actual dollar amounts this year are less than they were last year and that would be

1:44:33a reason to use Reserves so we what we did was in our policy split the reserve fund into two so that the amount from 10 to 15 percent is usable for an economic downturn as you're now facing and and uh which is in front of you but the other is the one-time economic

1:44:57catastrophe and that could come about a number of different ways which would not be covered by insurance or other assets you can think of natural disasters such as an earthquake a wildfire airplane crash but there have been several Contra Costa cities who found out that

1:45:16serious crimes can affect your budget there's been at least three cities which have found that um on a given crime scene that the county lab itself just the lab the crime lab is over a million bucks and you've got of course police overtime and so forth so those are the kinds of things that you

1:45:39have the other reserved for which we have thought would be good between one and ten percent and we thought that those are so important that they should not be used unless they absolutely have to be because it's like driving a car without insurance you just wouldn't do that so

1:46:00we asked that in the new policy that when you use reserves for either of these purposes okay but you must at the same time come up with a plan to replace them and it can't be done overnight of course but we thought that within a period of years and you would amend your 10-year

1:46:23projections your 10-year financial plan at the same time to provide that those reserves will be replaced within a reasonable period of time I would respond to any questions if you have any no I I just say you're right we have not approved the policy but I think it's

1:46:46it's well thought of and a lot of time did go into it and it's obvious and I think we'll be one of the directions that staff wanted was a comment on that so I think there will be some discussion and and quite possibly uh looking towards uh adopting it soon well I didn't want to commit my other

1:47:11colleagues here but anyway I really appreciate it and it's well thought out and I think you've outlined uh why we need Reserves and and some of the uh non-traditional ways that you have to look at emergencies so thank you thank you other public speakers yes Lonnie poozie

1:47:48my name is Lonnie pusey matamir Council and staff I'm here tonight to represent my local 1021 I am the chapter El Cerrito chapter president I'm here tonight to talk about cola's furloughs and things that happen within the city and how we've been very supportive

1:48:11in working with the city to try and keep our our budget balanced but I also and our members would like to say and mention that we don't want to carry it on our backs by ourself we want to be able to have sworn people in just as we are have police and fire carry it with us not by ourselves and

1:48:32it's always happens when we are in negotiations or something that happens like that um I am very supportive towards Scott he's done a great job with the city I know I come from bankruptcy in Vallejo so I think you've done a great job here and he's done good in keeping people's jobs

1:48:52and I think that's very important because we all need that but I just want to let you know that we're we're supportive in in any way we can but we just want to let you know that we don't want to carry it by ourselves thank you thank you Millie Cleveland again Millie Cleveland representing the

1:49:24SEIU bargaining unit um I think I want to basically reiterate what Lonnie said that we understand these are very difficult economic situation conditions all of the cities that I represent are facing the same dilemmas uh I think we would support the use of the reserves as

1:49:46well as the possible quarter percent sales tax increase and if you uh decide to do that our members would be active participants in trying to get that passed at the same time we can't continue to just Target SEIU as the employees that are used to balance the budget

1:50:08the council has a goal of maintaining quality services and that can't be done if uh we constantly Target the miscellaneous employees as the ones that have to uh you know work two and three positions uh due to the vacancies um SEIU has compromised on raises we've

1:50:32taken furlough days again I have members constantly complaining about having to do two and three people's jobs uh so but at the same time with all due respect to all the employees in the city while our members are sacrificing the council was willing to negotiate raises

1:50:52for other bargaining units so we stand here today and basically say that as far as the road forward we think that uh more Progressive or Equitable formula needs to be used perhaps those that make the lease sacrifice the lease those that make more sacrifice more

1:51:17um but without this type of approach some sort of application of equity some sort of application towards everyone sharing the pain it's going to be very difficult for our members to voluntarily agree towards additional furloughs things the pain has to be shared across

1:51:39the city it just cannot continue to be on the back of SEIU thank you no other speaker slips okay thank you we'll bring it back to the council then yeah I'm not sure I have all my thoughts put together but I do have a few that I would like to start out with um as uh

1:52:02Fab chair bartke testified the Fab did pass a motion um that he he captured quite well and I'll reiterate what I wrote down from that meeting now the Fab having reviewed the information provided fields or felt it is reasonable to close the 215 000 Gap by utilizing the reserve

1:52:25Cuts in services and programs or a combination thereof so I just wanted to you know reiterate that testimony that was uh put out by Mr Barky this is a question and I don't know if it's to us or to the public and I'm not certain I can answer it I've spent a lot of time this is this is not a

1:52:51um a train that that hasn't been seen coming so I spent a lot of time thinking about what are essential services and and that's because at some point we potentially have to get to essential services and Define what that is and that's what we provide um hopefully we don't get there

1:53:09hopefully the economy does this is the end of it and we start seeing more revenues in the future um and I'm not certain I have an answer for what are the essential services today uh but I I do think that um that having a a budget for next year a fiscal year 2011 budget that is uh significantly

1:53:35higher than our actuals for this year about nine hundred thousand dollars higher is is something that we need to reconsider the preliminary fiscal 2011 budget is 900 000 more than our fiscal year 2010 actuals um and we've heard that that's at the cost of potentially the cost of

1:53:58stressing our labor pool with with vacancies that remain open um and so and I hear the labor pool in the staff saying we should potentially reduce some of the services we provide um so that that's that that's something that I just wanted to sort of highlight um

1:54:21I think it's important for us as an employer to keep as many of our employees employed as possible so to to continue to reduce our staff um just exacerbates the downward spiral I I'm a union employee in in San Francisco and I can tell you that the SEIU has carried

1:54:45the bulk of uh the budgets balancing in in San Francisco and it's not it's not fun to work with those people who are very stressed all day long um that are in those you know represented by SAU so I I'm I think it's that we need to see how we can maintain our current staff and

1:55:08figure out ways to reduce our costs in other ways if possible I understand staff is 80 of our overall budget but we're just looking at something on the order of one percent of the general fund so there there is um I think opportunities there uh that said that we are still in the above

1:55:3210 range and I do believe that if there is if we need to use reserves for to to smooth out this ride and maintain and keep some of the staff that we have I think that's uh that's valuable I do have a I need my memory refreshed when we renewed the fire department

1:55:54contract last summer did they forego they took the standard Cola not the Readjustment Cola is that correct they were due for a we pushed back a survey is my recollection and look at the fire chief but my recollection is we pushed back uh a survey one year a survey right so

1:56:16so there is still a standard Cola that is being considered push back the salary survey for a 12-month period in that period the CPI adjustment is set at a two percent instead of the standard two to four okay um so I do hear on I think it's one of the louder slides

1:56:40where we consider a reduction in in services do less with less and so I will ask staff to to consider to at least consider that and come up with a credible list certainly collecting resources collecting Revenue that is owed us is one that I would uh encourage and

1:57:04um in in the Fab we did consider a revenue source that I did not see mentioned again tonight and that's the user utility tax it's eight percent it's below what other communities are charging um so there is a a potential Revenue out there that is is not necessarily been

1:57:22discussed tonight and that's something that I the Fab um was very uh vocal about uh having us consider this alternative Revenue um I will touch on the reserve policy um at this point I I do believe that um I I respect staffs honoring the 10 line and that the reserve policy uh should acknowledge

1:57:53that going below 10 percent is something that we should do under under serious consideration and importantly with a repayment plan all of the 10-year plans tonight that were presented have a significant dip in the last seven to eight seven to ten years and and that

1:58:17you know I was looking at the the last one that says no colas and and you know we have it we have revenue from the interim tax and if you look at the last three years the expenditure bar is two to three percent above the revenue bar and that's that's seven years from now so if we're

1:58:36we're projecting our expenses to be way out of line of our Revenue uh seven years out that that flies in the face of of good planning and so I so what I'm trying to say is the the policy that we should be considering should make it very clear that we have a recoup of the 10 if we go below the 10

1:58:59we should try and get back to 10 within five years um so that we have that Reserve available for future um future events now that we discussed you know that the policy is uh is ties our hands you know about when to use it we can we can set that to say you know fiscal emergency there's a definition of

1:59:23fiscal emergency in paragraph 3.4 so we can insert fiscal emergency into paragraph 3.3 uh to help us you know go below that ten percent for times like this um but but I think it's important that we have uh tenure plans that you know get us above uh 10 within a reasonable time frame and

1:59:49whether that's three years as the Fab proposed or five years um or ten years um we should be looking at that and I think staff is correct and I don't think the financial Advisory Board did ask us to try and increase the reserve during this economic downturn I think the financial Advisory Board

2:00:13said get the reserve up in the future and you know this economic downturn I do not I hope it does not last five or ten years and so that a policy that says you know recover and this would be a change from what's proposed right now it says you know get to 15 in five years maybe we want to get

2:00:35to some Target 13 in 10 years which is would be consistent with with the fiscal planning future fiscal planning um and so it wouldn't necessarily be trying to increase our Reserve today um when during an economic time but I do believe it it's prudent for us to give

2:00:56staff guidance through this policy that 10-year plans should not be upside down like uh the third 10-year plan or the last 10-year plan that was presented which has the out year seven eight and nine significantly dropping like a stone because the expenditures are way above

2:01:17Revenue thank you um I so I have overall comments um thoughts on you know future budget approach and then um I guess I'm a little confused about Reserve policy I guess I'll just speak to it with regards to this current or current adjustment um and since we have the policy coming up

2:01:46as a subsequent item um okay thank you uh for clarifying um so I think I really I want to thank the financial Advisory board for taking the time to to think thoughtfully about how to structure our reserve and doing the research and I appreciate the the clear proposal

2:02:10um I think overall the the theme that I've been picking up on and I think um our Stat City staff had all at all levels I think have are doing a phenomenal job and it's evidence and just the countless programs and you know um celebrations to Services it's it's we

2:02:32have really a wealth of of services in our community and um I really I think seeing that there's such a large level of retention in the staff I think that's a testament to the the quality of life and I think um or the just the the quality of life that we can afford

2:02:54by by um employing everybody and at the the levels that are just and fair um so I thank everyone for that I think I want to honor the the 10 reserve and I'm happy that moving forward we can still fit within that that we've created that cushion over the years to

2:03:19um be able to say that even in you know the one of the worst recessions In Our Lifetime in my lifetime definitely um but overall I think it's it's true that we really want to do um try to do less with less and not push staff um to do more with less even though that's

2:03:40what has been done I don't want to see burnout and loss of Staff um so with regards to the current budget um I agree with using the reserve it's much you know it's it's less than one percent of our expenditures I think it makes sense in this extreme economic condition so I'm pleased that we we have

2:04:03that option available um so with regards to the reserve policy going into the future um I think it I wouldn't I would agree that it's something that I don't know if we're ready to adopt tonight but I think it's it's it's something that we want to deeply consider

2:04:27um and i would support moving forward with that looking at the future and how we deal with shortfalls I support exploring sales tax further um I don't know in hearing the testimony from sciu I think um it's definitely an option I want to have available um and to get that more fleshed out I think

2:04:58is worth looking into another thing that I that I've heard that I would like to see explored is the possibility of looking at just property transfer taxes because I I've heard that what we are one of the lowest in the the East Bay and so if that could be verified and just to

2:05:17explore what you know given that there is relatively strong um Market relative Market in our area relative to the rest of the county um I think that would be a possible a stone to uncover um and you know yeah I welcome staff's recommendations to exploring you know

2:05:46where it makes sense to do um conservation and various programming but of overall I think you know we've done what we can so um it's it's definitely not a great place to be in but it's it definitely could be worse and I'm I'm glad that we've got a thoughtful staff and

2:06:08City staff and Council to get us to where we are right now I appreciate all of the input from staff as well as the commenters tonight I am I do support the use of the reserves to make up the shortfall for this year and I understand that the projections are very difficult to make

2:06:30I do think that if we can if we're not seeing the bottom and we don't see recovery that we're going to need to come back for the next budget and look at some reductions in Services because the only way that we can make our budget balance is to um either reduce the services or

2:06:49increase our revenues and we haven't seen a lot of possibilities although I will say that I do support going for the quarter Cent sales tax in the fall during the election for the city council and um I also believe that we have struggled with the issue of property transfer tax

2:07:07and it is now at zero in the city and that it requires a prop of 218. you know we have some comments on that um so and and Scott may have some additional comments on this um there's a there's a difference regarding what's sometimes called documentary transfer tax and what's sometimes called

2:07:28real property transfer tax for Charter cities and general law cities as you know El Cerrito is a general law city as a result it's limited by state law to basically picking up half of the amount that the county is allowed to charge for the documentary transfer tax so I think

2:07:43it's 55 cents for every thousand dollars 55 cents for every thousand dollars of valuation the city gets and that is on the books now but the city is prohibited by state law from going above that amount okay so then that we've exhausted that source of Revenue exactly okay

2:08:01um but having said that I think that we need to continue to focus on employee compensation and that we make no layoffs as a top priority and I have to say that with 19 vacancies in the city now nine of which are documented to be in the police and fire and with the four

2:08:19furlough days that's four per year um and maybe I could get a little clarification for folks about the way those furloughs are implemented in the city I understand that they are not the sworn officers are not on the furlough and do they occur during the holiday

2:08:38season or at any time anytime four furlough days a year okay this fiscal year and we'll be able to reconsider that during the next budget cycle um so the other thing that I wanted to mention is that there was a list of possible ways that we could save um some to lower our costs by looking at

2:09:07eliminating some of the services that we provide and I thought it might be useful also especially since we have a subcommittee now looking at the boards and commissions that some of those have direct budget and that the costs both in direct budget for boards and commissions as well as

2:09:22staff time as we begin to be loading up our staff with so many other tasks that this might be an opportunity to look at some cost savings under that category which is not listed although it's somewhat related to the fairs events and parades I also want to mention and maybe folks

2:09:43can clarify is it March 20th that the city council will hold its priority settings session Saturday March 20. and it'd be an opportunity to get policy level input on how we want to move forward if any of those priorities have shifted from last year let's see I have some thoughts on the reserve

2:10:06policy and we talked about it at length at our net our last meeting that the last time it was on the agenda I think mayor Abelson and others were concerned about splitting up the reserves into these two pots of money both the zero to ten and the 10 to 15 and I prefer to

2:10:25view and manage the reserves all as one thing with the goal to keep them around 15 percent and I have some modifications to the recommendations of the Fab here and at some point maybe we can discuss if we're interested in making revisions to it so we can improve it tonight

2:10:48just to clarify I think the preference would be that if we get direction it's not on the agenda to adopt so if we got Direction on how you want to go forward we'll bring it back at a subsequent meeting before we get into budget well through the mayor let me know the

2:11:05appropriate time to share those well it's now would be a good time to show yourself the direction it's not on the agenda so you we can get directions yeah I mean it's listed right we we can discuss it in detail is what we're saying what we just can't adopt it right

2:11:25okay well then um I'm sorry thoughts is fine direction to bring it back however you like we just didn't agendize it to actually be adopted tonight so so our ideas are what we want to hear about I think tonight that is on the agenda specific uh you know votes on it

2:11:47I as I understand the way it's presented here on the agenda are not right correct what we want to um okay well with that in mind I would like to see a revision to the proposed Reserve policy to eliminate the distinction between the zero to ten percent and the 10 to 15

2:12:06with a clear statement that we established a minimum of a 10 percent and a 10-year plan to seek a balance of 15 percent and that when the um reserves fall below 15 percent that we have a 10-year plan to bring them back to 15 percent and should the reserves fall below 10 that

2:12:30we have a five-year plan to replenish them and I also um felt that it was sufficient to say that the unreserved fund balance in the equipment and replacement fund may be transferred to the general fund only when the current year revenues have decreased from the prior year

2:12:53I felt that the term Fiscal emergency had some kind of definition there and that it wouldn't change the intent of that uh that that's fine in paragraph Just to be consistent with with your proposed language um in paragraph 9.1 is where fiscal emergency was page nine

2:13:14of ten so in the event you would need to strike fiscal emergency here um in the in the events as described in section three four so I think I think striking the definition of fiscal emergency or striking fiscal emergency is fine you just need to do it in both locations

2:13:35four also uses the thing right if you if you strike it from three four you need to strike it from 9-1 as well one time um disasters because so many of these things are reoccurring so I just think more flexible language in the event of a natural disaster or unforeseen liability is sufficient

2:14:07I'd be I'd be delighted to discuss your changes but I'd like to give council member Jones his opportunity to have his his comments on the whole the whole agenda item first of all I'd like to thank um well let me back up I I think a lot of uh of people that are outside the

2:14:34organization um probably don't know this and and actually the the city um staff and City employee groups have been actually working uh diligently with each other the last couple years as things evolved whether it's contracts or whether it's loss of Revenue and there's

2:14:55been an open dialogue and to that extent we see up to this point we have seen a lot of real good cooperation and I think we up here appreciate that because there's different ways of approaching things and it's good to try to work together to solve those so I I think I

2:15:17uh I I would hope and I and I think it will that uh we can continue as we go through these things um so to address some of the direction requests here and what we've been talking about tonight uh I would favor the use of the reserve funds for physical nine nine ten

2:15:43but not go below 10 and I think there was a request for some limits so I think our limit would be what it is as it is now is not to go below 10 percent in fiscal year 910 for the reserve funds and uh I think though there's a lot of unknowns out there and I think we have to

2:16:07recognize going forward that we have to be a little flexible in our thinking until some of these unknowns are focused in a lot of these unknowns are out of the hands of the city uh to control or even manage for the and since State takeaways County reassessments and service charges

2:16:28from other agencies and I do agree with staff that it may be time to look at some of these service charges from other agencies and see if there's other ways to accomplish these things if deeper reductions are needed I'm I'm with the rest of you that we eliminate

2:16:51services that correspond the required cuts uh doing more with less doesn't work it may be a short term and I mean inside of a year that you can use that as a bridge but history will show us over and over again that it's it is only short term at best and doesn't work in the long term

2:17:18long try to use it long term and the results are predictable decreased efficiency and poor service and wearing people out and um when I came on uh actually before I came on I was on the finance Advisory Board and one of the things is we had to interact with our finance department

2:17:38which at that time was two people plus a part-time department head and we had good people that we had worn out and you and they knew and everybody else knew that we needed more and better information more and better service out of that and um luckily we were able to

2:18:00hang on and improve that department but history like that repeats itself over and over when we go to that so um I'm with the rest of you about uh to do more of less I don't think is advantageous to the city as well as to our employees um I think the public safety personnel

2:18:24and the services should not be further reduced and I think the economic and social conditions require that we keep these uh services at vital levels and it could be that we feel as we go through and prioritize if we need to that other positions probably fall into

2:18:45that same category uh I would not like necessarily to to plan on the use of the reserves in 10 or 11 but I think we have to wait and see how things shake out and we certainly should if we need to I'm kind of an optimist even though maybe some of the indicators don't point

2:19:08this way is that we are slowly ever so slowly turning an upward Trend and As We Know our our revenues uh really reflect after the fact it's the way we're set up in other words if the economy turns we're probably not going to see real solid results of that for uh two to three quarters at best so

2:19:37um we just have to kind of hang in and and see if where we're headed and I don't know that tonight we do maybe we'll have better time when the budget comes when we have some uh updated figures of where we're heading Revenue wise I would approve the revised uh or the

2:19:56reserve policy that the FED has presented but I think we do need uh a a future agenda item to really get into the detail and finalize that I don't think we can do it tonight I share that we might need some uh refinement of terms and definitions in in that policy

2:20:18but basically I think it's a good one I would like to approve it as soon as possible but restrict that 15 not have that 15 percent goal and I think we could do it informally not have the 15 percent as a goal until at least physical year 11 12. uh to give us some

2:20:37time to work with it however I will point out this and one of my original concerns when we talked about looking at the uh the fund balance or the reserve policy is that wasn't the percentage it was the dollars and the reason why I said that is if we go to [Music]

2:20:58um percentage of expenditures when your expenditures go down your your reserve goes down and our liabilities don't go down accordingly they go up as a matter of fact or have been going up the cost of liability hasn't dropped with the cost or with our revenues or with the general

2:21:19economy so um even though I I do like the policy we've had really good people certainly probably more learned than I am when it comes to physical policies and and I I think we we could go with the policy that the Fab has recommended with uh maybe adjustments as we see fit

2:21:45as far as further consideration for temporary sales tax increase if we need it I'd like to consider it and I understand we have to probably do that fairly soon if we want to make the November ballot the one quarter is is what I would suggest and for a five-year period or

2:22:09some period I think is good and some restrictions on how that money is spent which we can get into if if we want to go forward uh let's see here I I think that though is a temporary it's a bridge to get us through the next few years until we can get uh back into some predictable

2:22:33economic growth and revenue streams and finally since it did come out just a little bit the City attorney in mentions Charter cities I I've talked uh talked to our city manager about this off and on the last five or six years at some point I would really like the

2:22:54city to look at and research whether it be feasible for us to go to a charter City I'm getting tired of the state passing things and we have no control over it and yet Charter cities have a little more control over some things and uh it may be worth looking at that this

2:23:14may be a good time to say we're no longer a general law City we're a charter City so um that isn't something that could consider in the next couple months or so but at some point it might be worth our taking a look at that so with that I think I'm that's it yes I would like gar to I guess I guess

2:23:41I'll just look at the the points and in order starting with the actually I'll start with the use of the reserves um and it would be just for a small amount and I think it is reasonable to use our reserves um to take us through the rest of this fiscal year um and I am feeling

2:24:07um you know more strongly that it would be a good idea to put a measure on our November ballot um something like a four Cent sales tax for um five years limited uh to help tie this over um so that we can get through this next period um the other part of that is do we do

2:24:35like we did last time with measure a and sort of go all out with a lot of huge educational campaign and I'm thinking that we just need to let our voters speak to us and let us know what they say that we don't want to do as much of an educational campaign and spend a lot of

2:24:57money because I'm concerned about where is that money coming from so having said that November really isn't all that far away so I think if we're going to do it we ought to you know start thinking more about it and talking about it and going forward with it sooner rather than

2:25:20later so I would like to see us [Music] um explore that [Music] um and um the idea of having the I forget now who said what but the idea of combining the reserve policy into one one piece rather than two I like and maybe lowering it to 13 say and then giving us a breather so that we

2:25:52can get through this um significant recession that we're in now before we have to all of a sudden come up with more money because um I don't we would have to do some significant reductions in costs and since most of our costs are in staff that would be staff in order to bring

2:26:14that number up to 15 percent now and I I don't think that's a um good thing to do right now but if we timed it out so that we had time to recover from the recession as I reported before indicators are that we are at the bottom and we're probably going to be at the bottom for a number

2:26:38for another year and then things should start looking better um and probably some indicators will start looking better even before then but but um in general we need to I think assume that we've got to go for it for another year at least so um that's why the idea of having uh Reserve

2:27:03money come out of our general fund for Reserves at this time means that we have to um we're going to have less money in our general fund for our regular general fund expenditures and um I that doesn't seem like a very fiscally responsible thing to do on behalf of our

2:27:26residents and our employees so um the um looking then at the next item on here priorities for fiscal year 10 and 11.

2:27:41um just looking at the sub items maintaining the current level of services I would certainly like to maintain the current level of services and do everything we can do to do that I think we've done a lot of tightening I really thank staff for all the work they have done to really try to

2:28:02eliminate anything they can it's within their power to do to reduce the um effort it takes to get us the maximum amount of service with their time and I appreciate that a lot and I and I'd like our staff to know that and I think our residents appreciate that at the same

2:28:24time so thank you very much for the hard work um but at the same time I do recognize as I think was said that we just can't just keep on going that way at some point it does have to end and we have to make a decision and go forward so um I'm hoping that you know that that year

2:28:47at the bottom as I'm thinking of it right now um you know will be you know after that we'll start planning um things getting better and um and so forth meanwhile I think that that if we pass that fourth Cent sales tax that that will um help us just get over this interim

2:29:08period help us to build up the reserves you know I think that'll kind of get us there and then get us back to a good place I don't know if it'll get us back to where we were recently because I think that was a pretty I always think of that as a high you know right before the fall down into

2:29:27the low and I don't know if we'll get back up to the high but we'll get to I think a much better place than we are certainly right now and I think that would be good for all concerns so [Music] um I um I see that as a good way to go but it'll be up to our residents to our voters to

2:29:45decide if that's what they want and I think that's the way we need to present it um you know do you want this or do you want us to reduce the services that you've told us that you want um you know I am especially concerned about the police being down the number of

2:30:05bodies that they are right now and um and how far we can take that um because we've heard a lot of concern about the crime rate in our city and so we've done a lot of work to try and reduce that crime rate and we have reduced that crime rate but the way we've done it is to add police officers

2:30:27so um it's been working and um and now we're starting to go down in numbers so that that worries me in that in that regard um so I guess what I'm um looking for coming out of this discussion is that um we've given our thoughts to staff and I'm looking I guess for staff to

2:30:52come in back to us with um various ways of dealing with the various issues that we're covering right now um I I think I'm hearing that we would have a future item on a four Cent sales tax on an agenda for consideration um I'm hearing that we would use the reserves we we seem to everyone seems to

2:31:20be interested in using reserves for um for fiscal year 09010 at the current level that was indicated and I don't know will that take a um Council action no doesn't okay so then and then on the reserve policy I actually think I am hearing that people want that to come

2:31:42back with some changes uh I think the kind of like the ones I just indicated yeah I'd love to explore that if once you've summarized your thoughts consider it another agenda item and then um the priorities for fiscal year 10 11 we've we've got our goal setting which

2:32:09is I think the proper place to start that and um I appreciate staff taking the time to come here and share their concerns um you know because it's all evening you know out of your life and that's you know you could have been doing something a lot more fun than coming here so thank

2:32:29you for coming and um you know that I think that's something so you want to add something Greg I would like to actually explore the discussion about the reserve policy a little more so that the next time we see it it potentially is closer to something that we can pass I think

2:32:46council member Potter's proposal is is most accurate but I want to make sure it's clear mayor you just said something that makes me wonder if we're not explaining this policy correctly the policy the way it's written and even the way councilmember Potter has proposed it you

2:33:03wouldn't have to be at 15 for another 10 well the way it's proposed currently you'd have to be at fifteen percent five years from now the council member Potter's proposal you wouldn't be at 15 for 10 years you could go down your plan could say we're going to go down to eight percent in the next

2:33:19two years and say we'll be at 15 10 years from now um as long as you have a plan um and and that's that's the key is that it's not trying to say you can't do what we're doing tonight which is proposing to use the reserves to close our our funding gap for this year

2:33:40even if that funding Gap took us below 10 percent we could do that as long as at some point in the near future during our normal budget setting process we had a plan that had us recovering so it doesn't say that we have to recover it this year next year um and council members Potter's proposal

2:33:58was 10 years from now so so um I thought with her plan not with what was I was agreeing with her plan okay yeah I just wanted to make sure because you said something about a breather taking a breather and some time out before we started recovering and and we we can the

2:34:15state of the economy when I said that comment got it um okay well then then that I just wanted council member Potter said these if you remember when I brought back some information that the information from the economic Forum that I went to said was that we're probably at the bottom this right now

2:34:36and we'll probably be that way for another year that's what I was referring to when I was talking about the bottom okay good thank you um so I guess I I would councilmember Potter's language and I'm not sure exactly the all of the areas that you would how you would adjust

2:34:54three point paragraph 3.2 but I think you I think that councilman Republic your proposal for those changes is consistent with the guidance we got from uh from the financial Advisory Board where you know it's a goal to be at 15 percent and we should have a plan to get us to

2:35:1510 15 percent and then if we go below 10 we should have a plan to recover that 10 faster that's really the Crux of of their guidance and your proposed text would certainly get us there um so so I definitely support the text that you were working towards and I don't know if there's a

2:35:35good way for us to elaborate on that in detail tonight but I believe that that would certainly give staff some guidance it would for example on scenario three that was presented where we have an interim tax revenue source which allows us to restaff at the rate that we all I

2:35:56think want to it would adjust those last years that I had proposed so that we would do a better job of keeping that percentage that we achieve in the short interims rate with the with the interim tax so so it would having the policy that that has been proposed tonight supports you know gives

2:36:17gives real Credence to finding additional Revenue sources that allow us to meet the policy that we're proposing um you know whether it's a quarter Cent sales tax user utility tax um you know it would it would truly support um that having said that we definitely need to

2:36:38demonstrate that we've made all of our belt tightening decepts and I think that tonight's presentation went a long way that way so thank you but but we would be likely to pass an interim measure if we said that we were using the money for Reserves because that's what I you know as I

2:37:02called taking it out of their piggyback bank and putting it into ours no I understand that I think that the the we have to specify that we are going to provide service to our community I don't think anybody's should I finish please um such as for example um uh keeping

2:37:24police officers on the street something like that I think that needs to be um a strong element of an interim Revenue measure in order to pass um you know because I you know I think people have to want they have to see something there that they want to pay for yeah I don't think anybody uh was

2:37:47suggesting that we use interim money to stock up the reserve nope I don't think that's an issue okay okay um but I do think it has to be thought out but I also know that uh on going back to the reserve fund policy we should bring it back fairly soon because staff has asked for it to so

2:38:08that they can plan for the following year so um I would I'd hope that we could and I think the proper time to discuss details isn't tonight it's when we come back to uh vote on it because I think there's a lot of us that have to get out our thoughts and and be able to

2:38:25effectively present them so that they can be considered so make a comment that we have discussed the Fab has spent a lot of time working on the reserve policy and the council's I mean forward a draft language that can be approved yet the next time it's presented so I don't know if anyone else

2:38:51feels that way or has any comments about the most effective way to get us closer to where we are actually I actually thought we were getting closer and I thought we were centering on the comments that you made um towards something would be brought back to us is what we thought that was what

2:39:11we were okay what's the time frame for that it's without looking at the calendar my I would probably say the uh second meeting in March okay thank you I think so okay um are we ready to move on then yes thank you okay the um last item on our agenda then is um Council assignments and liaison

2:39:43reports and um why don't we just wait a second and give people who don't really want to hear them a chance to leave and go home to their families okay um let's start out and um I just have two things that I want to mention one is that I attended the mayor's conference

2:40:32and we had a very interesting presentation by Annie Henderson from renewable funding she presented a um an approach to implementing uh California first ab811 program and that has to do with um Energy Efficiency improvements that you can make in your house the the expensive ones and funding

2:41:01them and a mechanism for doing so through um borrowing money against the value of your property and then it would be the that would be um attached to your um the home I hope I'm saying this right it's a little bit complicated but anyway the concept is is that it let's if you did

2:41:32that then if you sold the home then that um loan would be retained with the home it wouldn't go with you as a person so that um because the of course the benefits of those improvements would stay with the home and the idea of this program is that it um could be a city program or an even

2:41:57larger entity and um we could realize the benefits of doing so as a group rather than individually and so this is a new program uh I think it um was based on the program they started in Berkeley for solar and so it was really interesting presentation and um I would like to also I guess mention

2:42:25that councilmember Jones was there if I remember correctly correct yes okay the other thing I want to mentioned sorry sorry and um the other thing I wanted to mention is that the Environmental Quality committee met and went over the programs that they want to do for the upcoming year and

2:42:47they've got a very large list of programs and one of the really positive things about this committee is that they're doing so [Music] um themselves and because it is a committee structure it's a little bit larger so there are a lot of them now and they've divided into subcommittees and they're

2:43:06working in those subcommittees on all of these different things and Reporting back to the main committee so they went over the list of things they want to work on for the upcoming year um including the climate action plan um so it's it was a very very interesting conversation and um sounds

2:43:27like they're going to have a really productive year and so those are my reports um and you want to go next um so I unfortunately wasn't able to make the drb or the economic development board but I did get a report back from staff on is generally what occurred at the design

2:43:46review board Gateway design was approved for the camp Herms facility and at the economic development board they reported that there's about 11 folks enrolled in the business apprenticeship program that's being held at our city hall and that they made extensive plans to move

2:44:10the May 2nd home-based business expo event forward so um Bill you want to go next yeah excuse me the jpa for the Gilman's Sports fields did not meet this month in a updated report from this well from Berkeley staff whose staffs the city of Berkeley staff sat jpa

2:44:37will be forthcoming but basically we're moving they're moving along with funding and getting the final plans for the Final Phase which would include parking softball field and some other things there uh but West County Integrated Waste Management Authority a very interesting

2:44:57meeting and I will just summarize here the contract for the recycling fees will be up for review and possible approval and Mar at the March meeting and it will be a four-year agreement if it is goes as proposed through uh 2013.

2:45:17food scrap recycling program will uh it was approved by the board to be available to all member cities right now El Cerrito is doing the pilot on that and uh El Cerrito and Richmond are the ones that have shown the initial interest on this and service in these two cities are

2:45:40scheduled to begin by July 1st The Authority board also authorized to provide each City each member City with twenty thousand dollars with the exception of Richmond being in because of its size will get sixty thousand dollars to educate the residents with an educational program on the startup of

2:46:01the service this includes everything from mailers to decals that go on your on the carts the whole bit and uh wanted to say Garth did a very good job they are meeting actually staffs are meeting on this to uh to kind of prep they're doing a great job and uh and

2:46:22helping kind of summarize helping me anyway summarize what else Rito needed to go forward really helped out so I wanted to point that out and uh the other thing that's real important that becomes policy for the the council and to some extent some work for the staff

2:46:42is it the uh the the West County Integrated Waste Management Authority or what it's now called is recycled more it's it's a nickname um is is actually a jpa and it's set to expire in 2013.

2:47:02so the authority so the board asked actually directed not asked but directed staff their staff by the end of this year to have a process of evaluation uh to start with the member cities with the goals to determine if the jpa should continue past 2013.

2:47:26and the uh the board also directed staff during the process to provide possible plans to consider for future directions and roles of the authority as part of the evaluation member City councils and the staffs will be involved in the process there will be individual presentations

2:47:49to our Council and in the end the The Authority board hopes to have a decision made by the member cities in either late 2012 or early 2013.

2:48:04and in checking with the authority It Is by vote of the city councils this does not go to a vote of the people so the city councils will decide the future of the Integrated Waste Management Authority past 2013. and that process begins at the end of this year thank you

2:48:28oh I just have a brief report on I told you I think I attended the human relations commission meeting this week last week and we welcomed a new member there are now three members of that commission and we spent much more time talking about recruiting um I have two committees to report on

2:48:51um or a committee on a board a crime prevention committee and and unfortunately I didn't intend and if I had attended I would have realized that these are really announcements that should have been at the beginning of the meeting there's a neighborhood watch informational meeting on March 22nd from

2:49:076 to 7 30 PM right here in the city council chambers where people who are interested in organizing neighborhood watch uh groups in their neighborhood can come and get more information second announcement is bicycle safety Rodeo we will be holding our second or they're planning their second uh Rodeo

2:49:27event for this year May 22nd at the St John's School Kearney Street yard adjacent to the greenway and that's from 11 A.M to 3 P.M families are encouraged to bring their bikes and of course their helmets which it's a lot in elsewhere that you should wear your helmet at all

2:49:44times including adults to participate in the Ops optical courses that meeting was on Wednesday February 10th the financial Advisory Board met on Thursday February 11th this last week and their sole agenda item was our mid-year report and their action item was reported at an

2:50:06earlier agenda item reports so we're ready to adjourn and our next meeting is scheduled for Monday March the 1st thank you all for coming