City Council Meeting September 20, 2010

0:00:00number is this on yes okay we're missing one council member so I think we could go ahead and get started though um is that okay yes please okay um so then let's um welcome everyone tonight to the El Cerrito city council meeting and we will start with roll call please

0:00:23councilmember Jones councilmember Lyman here councilmember Potter here mayor Pro tem Chang absent mayor ABS Abelson here thank you thank you and now we'll go to the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation

0:00:52under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all foreign next item on the agenda is Council and staff Communications are there any Council Communications yes I would like to acknowledge and and really thank our Public Safety uh for showing up at tri-safety days it was this last

0:01:22Saturday 11 to 3 at the El Cerrito Plaza and police and fire were there and the crime prevention committee was there and we had a lot of young families come out and really share with the different types of jurisdictions that they were there so I want to you know acknowledge

0:01:44our partners in tri-safety day which were the city of Albany and Kensington and also there was the city of Richmond had a engine there East Bay Regional Park District had a fire engine there the county had their animal control unit there and the U.S army was there as well

0:02:03so so there was a lot of different jurisdictions there and and I want to really thank the police chief of our chief for their support of tri-safety day it was a wonderful success thank you any other Council of communications thank you yes um normally I'd say this

0:02:24for the end of the meeting but uh I thought it was kind of interesting maybe uh people here would like to hear it at the waste management meeting this last week we had a report on our food scrap recycling program and the recycler is calling it a success they're still

0:02:43tweaking some some things but basically they said that things went off very well and I don't know I don't know how this is evaluated but he says we have good recycling uh material coming out so no idea what that means but anyway um but the reason why I wanted to bring it

0:03:08up now is our our uh employee Garth Schultz made her presentation and Garth is kind of The Unofficial coordinator of the food scrap program with El Cerrito in Richmond and and some of the other cities are getting ready to do that and he he made an excellent representation of El Cerrito and an

0:03:31excellent report and he really knows his stuff and I had actually I had members of the board come up afterwards and say what a great job he did so I just wanted to pass that on and just want to remind people the taste of El Cerrito is this Saturday night and tickets can be purchased at the El

0:03:51Cerrito Chamber of Commerce office I believe they are also selling them at the door thank you any other oh I just wanted to announce that um El cerrito.patch.com is definitely live and up and running and invite folks to take a look at it it's really refreshing to

0:04:10see lots of interesting stories about all kinds of facets of El Cerrito that normally are not anywhere so I just gotta look at that and this is really fun to look at so that's it thank you if you think Sandy yeah I just wanted to add a little bit to what councilmember Jones said about

0:04:30Garth in his comment about our the product that comes out of our Recycling and um our composting systems I think that's what they were talking about perhaps the comp yes the composting I think what that comment means is that it's um quality product meaning that it's not

0:04:49got a lot of things in it that are not supposed to be there which means that they're able to use it in the way that's intended easily and I think that's something that our community should be proud of uh because it means our community members are in fact following the instructions that are

0:05:10we're given to them by Garth and his crew and I think we're it's something to be proud of um I was busy this last week attending the league of California cities it was a very um I would almost call it dramatic week one of the um more significant issues before the group

0:05:36was a request from what were called The Desert High Desert Cities to ask the governor to suspend ab-32 which is the Environmental legislation that uh we are operating under right now and then in fact our city is very set up to do and that we've really been working hard in a number of ways to

0:06:05implement and so um it was a very difficult thing and I happened to be on on a number of the Committees that actually um made recommendations on that piece of uh on that request and um as it kind of went up the channels it the vote kept changing a little bit you

0:06:28know depending on who was voting on it and the event itself being in Southern California it was a little bit hard to tell how it was all going to turn out until the last day but what I'm proud to say happened on the last day is that the league of California cities came out in

0:06:48a clear way the vote was very decided in favor of not asking the governor to suspend ab-32 which is to stay to stay on the same course that we're currently on and I was very glad I was there to help do it so anyway that was the most notable thing I think that happened

0:07:09there and actually quite dramatic so anyway um with that are there any staff Communications or announcements okay um we have one yes and then give one just to take the opportunity since you've just talked about the compost um actually the green waste that else readings have been collected has

0:07:30actually turned into compost and we'll be giving away some of that compost on October 10th as a part of a global day of action for climate action change so every El Cerrito resident will be able to get three five gallon buckets of compost up at the recycling center on

0:07:43October 10th from nine to five or as long as supplies last and we have also heard that the quality of the compost is excellent yeah that at the meeting that's that's a new development at the meeting they didn't know if it was going to be ready or not but I guess it is there's 16 uh

0:07:5916 piles so out there to pick from so there's plenty of plenty of that a new pile a week it sounds like just about okay now we'll move on to item number on the agenda which is an opportunity for members of the public to speak on items that are not on the agenda or on

0:08:21consent calendar items are there any such requests yes we have four speaker slips thank you um Al Miller good evening Madam mayor and City Council Members Al Miller [address removed] as I was getting ready for the meeting this evening I reviewed the agenda and

0:08:43was somewhat surprised to see city council position on November ballot initiatives item 5V on the consent calendar without indicating what the positions are so then I went to the packet to look at it and I was faced with in a PDF document 147 pages and I started looking for the supporting

0:09:09papers for item 5e and I found it on page 100 after paging through one by one because I didn't want to miss it or I'm not clever enough to know how to sequence through a a schedule on that I mean uh index so anyway I now have two requests one is you pull Adam 5e or announce your

0:09:36positions before you vote on it so we at least know which side of which issues the city is taking and the other if my inability to find that item in the agenda packet is because I don't know how to use a PDF document then you don't need to pay any attention to my next

0:09:54request my next request is to see if there's some way you can make that agenda packet document more transparent so that if somebody wants to go and look at Agenda item 7A they can just go to the right page without having to page through 147. I hope it's the former that I just don't

0:10:15know how to use it than the latter but thank you but online as to the side so you can see the index of the items and click on that individual item and print it that way in addition we've been thinking about that too and on the agenda that's posted the HTML agenda

0:10:38there's also individual links to the individual staff reports that are now easy to find so what is the answer to his question of the was it just he didn't know what to do or well the individual staff ports are a new feature that we've carried with the last two agendas and was kind of

0:10:59experimenting with that to see that it worked properly but the the e-packets have been indexed since 2007 or so data to show you my city clerk has offered to show you and then then perhaps you can let us know what you think okay even better okay um next because our next speaker is

0:11:27Dwayne Wong good evening I'm Dwayne Wong and I operate along with my wife Joanne I operate music works here in El Cerrito we're at 11225 San Pablo Avenue and um my wife and I came to a council meeting earlier when we had heard that were plans to plant trees along our block of San Pablo

0:11:52Avenue and in between then and now the trees have been planted and I have some pictures I'd like to leave with you that we're taking today and I kind of express some of why we're unhappy with the tree particularly the one that's closest to our front door um so I'd like to discuss these new trees

0:12:18that um have been planted particularly the one that's nearest our front door I'm not anti-tree at all but this particular tree is causing problems um several problems uh one is that when the tree gets larger it's going to block potential customers from being able to

0:12:34see our store including the sign and we're of course hoping to generate more business and not uh make us less visible to uh customers coming up and down the Avenue so we are concerned about that we're also cons concerned because now it's much more difficult for FedEx and

0:12:53UPS drivers to make deliveries because of the trees there and also for our own customers and our own staff while trying to load or unload uh large musical instruments into our front door it's much more difficult to do so because of that presence of the tree there

0:13:10the biggest issue to me is a safety issue because um there's now reduced amount of sidewalk space for pedestrians to walk up and down in front of our store and consequently what was already a problem has become worse of a worse problem because sometimes kids on bicycles at

0:13:31fairly High rate of speed will go up and down the sidewalk and yes we all know that they shouldn't be riding bicycles on the sidewalk but they do anyway and so they're not aware that people could be coming out of our front door and so uh I've been hit before by bicycles

0:13:45doing that and that was even before the trees were planted but but before at least there was more room for bicycle stores four miles away but we've reduced the amount of usable pedestrians based on the sidewalk such that um the bicycle won't have any room to swerve and I think it'll be only a

0:14:03matter of time before there's a another accident so I'd really invite the council to um assess the situation and we would really love to see the tree moved to a different location and if you would even just take some time during your busy schedules to come out and spend a few

0:14:21minutes in front of our store uh Joanne and I are there almost every day and if you came particularly after school when kids are out of school you'll see how many bicycles go up and down that sidewalk and how dangerous it is so I hope you would uh consider moving that

0:14:36tree Peter lobot good evening I'm Peter lobola cerido a lot of people are concerned about the gas explosion in San Bruno and this obviously led to an article by in the El Cerrito patch that councilwoman Chang mentioned and editor reporter is here and based on that article that came out four days ago

0:15:04he interviewed the Public Works director Jerry Bradshaw I don't think he's here and was told we are not aware of any large gas Mains in the city and then he also said PGE PG e is pretty light tight-lipped with any information now he didn't mention the uh you know just saying

0:15:27we're not aware of any isn't the same as saying we don't have any and he didn't mention anything about about you know how what state they're in and anything more so I looked into this situation and there's something called Pima the pipeline Integrity management mapping

0:15:43Authority and local governments have a right to get this information uh in theory and I am sure there's other agencies concerned with uh terrorism and so on that may be want them to be titled about it but in the aftermath of this explosion I'm sure PG e will be under

0:16:02a lot of pressure to be forthcoming it would be good to get more information of what what is available I also want to know what the terrorists can get hold of there's a report just a year old in connection with the San Pablo Avenue beautification program and there's an eight inch pipeline it's

0:16:22not 30 inches but it's wide enough to cause damage and it goes on this side of San Pablo Avenue from up north to Manila and then it turns into 10 inch and goes beyond now I don't know usually these uh lines are towards the streets maybe the sidewalk I don't know and but

0:16:42hopefully they're not underneath the St John's school hopefully they're not underneath here and but they could be very close to the uh to the public safety building so there's something to to look into that like Jack like Jerry to Simply hit on the ball and find out more about it living at Del

0:17:02Norte I did notice a large relatively large vent pipe going out from the ground or not on the Mayfair site practically underneath the bath rack now it could be something that's I think it it went gas it could be an old gas line which is not there anymore but uh Janet I know has a lot of

0:17:23connections with bot maybe we could get bot on the ball because bath could be very vulnerable it's sort of logical that some lines are along old railroad tracks and so on and if anything happened in this part of town it would really affect you know they're not that it would affect tens of

0:17:40thousands of commuters and so on I don't think there's any full trains there but a full bathroom by the way has 10 Bargains 100 passengers each a thousand people so it it's I think it's something that needs to be looked at and hopefully we'll find out more about it and I might as well have

0:18:00put into the minutes of the information okay thank you Joanne Wong I'd like to thank the mayor of the city council for allowing another three minutes regarding the tree planting concerns at the last city council meeting I enumerated 11 points about the problems our store music works could

0:18:29face if trees were planted in front now that the trees are planted we have an update about our concerns as well as why the one tree in particular almost in front of our door should never have been planted there's a School for the Blind near our store where students are being

0:18:43taught to use their canes once again the bikes versus pedestrian issue becomes the main focal point of the issues because the trees reduce the size of the sidewalk and collisions become more possible leaves and debris are collecting around all of our storefronts

0:18:58on our block and in our store while annoying this garbage could cause a more serious problem this debris will end up in the storm drainage system and there's a real possibility of causing a backup leading to flooding the city seems to be more in a reactive mode as opposed to

0:19:14preventative mode more than one person accidentally walked through the mud surrounding the new tree the city responded by putting one A-frame stand around the tree after the incidents already occurred I'm still waiting to hear from Jerry Bradshaw about bike rack

0:19:32designs that might make bike riders Drive farther away from our storefront this issue should have been addressed before the trees were planted and we're still waiting for the parking space lines to be painted so that the trees don't interfere with passengers getting

0:19:45in and out of their cars and since Mr Bradshaw has been less than responsive in finding a solution to this very grave issue I'm hoping the city will help me pick up the expense of putting out an A-frame sign near our door with our store name on it we would also like to

0:19:59paint possibly a crosswalk using paint or one of the textured crosswalks to alert bicyclists to pedestrians leaving our store finally we think that planting either a mannequin or some kind of graphic of a person appearing to leave our store would cause a bicyclist to

0:20:13slow down or drive farther away from our door we had an elderly customer trip over the dirt and mud surrounding the tree my husband saw her get out of the driver's side walk to the passenger side to get her instrument step backwards into the mud and lose her footing she

0:20:27was able to ride herself before falling but obviously by looking at the pictures that we gave you there are many Footprints in that mud more than one person has had similar problems we've had several near misses of people leaving our store with bicyclists since

0:20:40the trees were planted it's just a matter of time before a collision occurs I extended invitations to all the city council members by email and the mayor to come to our store to see for themselves I'm hoping you will accept my invitation no other speaker slips okay thank you

0:21:00with that we'll move on to the next item on the agenda which is a presentation for a on Falls prevention awareness week and we do have a resolution on that so what I think will have is a presentation and then we'll take a vote and then assuming it's passed we'll do a presentation

0:21:21so um I believe we have some speakers good evening I'm Joanne Lebo with American Medical Response I'm Laurel zion an elder care coach and I'm also the East Bay Senior Care examiner for examiner.com everything should we do the proclamation first or would you like to hear me say a little

0:21:49something about I think we'd like to hear you speak first okay that's perfect um on behalf of the fall prevention program of Contra Costa County and the fall prevention Coalition we thank you for this Proclamation for fall prevention awareness week and for Illuminating the issue and need for

0:22:04Falls prevention the fall prevention program is working to reduce preventable injuries loss of Independence and costs associated with Falls of seniors and persons with disabilities the program increases fall prevention awareness among seniors and providers by providing

0:22:19educational support and home safety repairs in partnership with over 70 agencies the fall prevention Coalition meets on a quarterly basis to share resources and create materials and events to raise awareness about fall prevention we need your help on September 25th we

0:22:35will hold our first walk for fall prevention the walk will be held at 500 Ellenwood in Pleasant Hill and will be fun for the entire family prizes will be awarded to the largest team best theme and golden Walker the first 100 registered Walkers will get a free sit

0:22:50and be fit video with registration for information or questions about the walk or to register and to form a team please visit our website at www.fallpreventionwalk.org or call 925-937-8311 that's 925-937-8311 thanks for your support and we look forward to working together on

0:23:14this issue that's it yes I just wanted to say that we hope that we're grateful for for your consideration of this Proclamation and we wanted to thank the mayor and the city council members for acknowledging and we hope for acknowledging the importance of fall prevention in your

0:23:33community and we hope that you'll continue to support us as we explore the role of place in healthy aging and the need for for the promotion of walking as a public health strategy thank you can I ask you thank you a question here this is your first walk I guess right

0:23:56but last year we had you did have a fall prevention week it was that your first one or the fall prevention awareness week has been going on for for some years the fall prevention program of Contra Costa county is relatively new and so this is the third year I think

0:24:15that we've supported the fall prevention awareness week which is a Statewide program which was begun by an organization called the stop falls organization in the fall prevention center for excellence which is in Southern California could you just briefly just give us what

0:24:31kind of services or resources does fall prevention awareness provide whether it's the Institute or or the conservation program is part of Meals on Wheels senior Outreach Services based in Walnut Creek and the the fall prevention program itself is staffed by two full-time

0:24:52employees and then they're the members of the fall prevention program comprise 70 cbo's throughout Contra Costa County and literally dozens and dozens of volunteers and we work in various areas in terms including training and education balance and mobility and exercises home

0:25:15modification programs and we're beginning a new um a new study now called the fall prevention program walkability pilot program and we're going to be hoping to encourage both neighborhood groups Community residences and cities to participate in the prevent the promotion

0:25:36of walking in safe neighborhoods so how does somebody contact your organization to get an evaluation or Services provided we have we have had grants in the past that were available to residents of Contra Costa County who met certain criteria and the grants that were available were for home

0:25:59modifications so grab bars ramps lighting anything else and so the yeah and that so and we also work with we also have a program called myvialoflife.org which is supporting medication safety and because medication um management issues are very crucial in fall prevention you can be over

0:26:20medicated in a fall you can be a lot of medications that seniors receive uh are hypertensive medications so if they stand up too quickly they could fall they cause dehydration many medications that seniors take cause cause dehydration so there are lots of medication issues

0:26:39around Falls as well so we started a program called myvio of life.org which enables individuals to fill out a medication list and then put it on the refrigerator so that the EMTs from AMR when they come know exactly where to look for the medications that you're on

0:26:54in your other medical information and that um so that's at myvialoflife.org and the other information is available at the phone number which we gave you before which is 925-937-8311 and that's the fall prevention program of Contra Costa County thank you okay any other questions

0:27:16okay thank you okay we do have a um resolution of course agenda item 4A sure I'll make a resolution um of the city council of El Cerrito uh hereby proclaiming the week of September 19th through 20 September 25 2010 as fall prevention awareness week in the city of El Cerrito and call upon all

0:27:45residents and interested groups to observe the week with appropriate activities that promote awareness of fall prevention second all in favor aye aye any opposition or abstention motion cares unanimously with that we'll I'll come down and uh thank you very much thank you

0:28:33so much thank you okay with that we'll go on to the next item on the agenda which is the climate action plan which is another um presentation good evening mayor Abelson and City Council Members I'm Melanie Mintz the city's environmental services division manager

0:29:24the division is here tonight to give you an update on our progress to date on the climate action plan and an update on our overall climate planning efforts I'm going to give you a quick summary on the background of our climate efforts and then pass it along to environmental

0:29:39analyst Maria Sanders who is deeply engaged in leading our climate climate action efforts as you know the city council has been proactive about climate protection issues in 2006 Council passed a resolution joining the conference of U.S mayor's climate protection agreement

0:30:00directing staff to begin a climate planning process that same year assembly Bill 32 the state's global warming Solutions Act was signed into law Council Pastor I could interrupt just a second is the one that we were just defending this week at the league of California cities it's the very same

0:30:18legislation exactly and one that you've already actually passed a resolution or proposition 23 is trying to rescind it thank you um again which was signed into law and is now being challenged and Council passed a resolution endorsing the ambitious goals of reducing greenhouse

0:30:34gas emissions set forward by both this assembly Bill and other efforts by 2020.

0:30:39in 2008 staff presented the results of an inventory on greenhouse gas emissions from both community-wide meaning residential and business emissions as well as Municipal activities which the council accepted at that time the council directed staff to develop a climate action plan

0:30:55and most recently the council as mayor Abelson just mentioned reiterated its support for assembly Bill 32 in response to proposition 23 sometimes known as the dirty Energy bill being put on the ballot when the city council created the Environmental Services Division staff

0:31:11applied for a grant from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to help build our internal capacity on energy and climate protection issues with help from that Grant the city was able to hire Maria Sanders the city's environmental analyst who comes to us with many years of experience working on

0:31:26community Energy Efficiency and climate action efforts now with funding from the recently awarded U.S EPA climate showcase Grant the division is currently doing the research and Analysis necessary to put together a thoughtful and hopefully effective climate action plan

0:31:42since the passage of ab-32 Statewide and Regional approaches and strategies towards climate protection have been changing at a rapid pace with Maria's proactive leadership we are collaborating with the agencies in the Bay area that are tasked with implementing these initiatives such as

0:31:57the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and MTC to make sure that we are poised to take advantage of the incentives such as a potentially streamlined SQL review of greenhouse gas impacts of projects and increased funding for transportation and transport Transit oriented development or Tod

0:32:13projects that are built into the legislation I'm going to now after that quick background pass it along to Maria Sanders who will be providing a more detailed information about our climate efforts good evening mayor Abelson and council members as Melanie mentioned we are

0:32:37developing the climate action plan in the context of the changing approaches to global warming on the state and Regional level while ab-32 did not directly require local governments to reduce emissions it did set the stage for spin-off legislation that does require local government action this has

0:32:58affected the way that we're approaching our climate action plan also known as the cap and some of the strategies that get included in the cap for instance the scoping plan for ab-32 did recommend a 15 reduction goal for local governments and I'll be discussing that in Greater detail a little later

0:33:19and it also laid the groundwork for two new strategies for reducing greenhouse gases that requires local government implementation these are the California yes these are the California Green Building standards also known as calgreen and the new mandatory construction waste commercial and

0:33:40multi-family recycling requirements both of which you'll be hearing a little bit more about from staff in months to come foreign following the SB 375 process which requires Regional planning agencies to develop a sustainable Community strategy this would align Regional Transportation

0:34:03Planning and funding with land use planning that calls for more compact Transit oriented development in built-out areas such as El Cerrito as well as good other portions of California and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission just this month released their draft Regional reduction targets

0:34:23for transportation emissions so we're following this to make sure that our calf is on point with that process and finally and most importantly for the cap process the new requirements for including greenhouse gas emissions as part of the SQL review has significantly informed our approach to

0:34:45uh to the to developing the plan mainly we do have the option to qualify our climate action plans so that we can streamline greenhouse gas impact analysis of new developments that are that would be consistent with the climate action plan and this is providing that we develop the climate

0:35:05action plan using a defensible methodology and show that there's clear steps towards implementing it the Bay Area Air Quality Management District just this summer adopted the thresholds of significance for greenhouse gas emissions and a guidance for local governments in developing what

0:35:24they call qualified action plans or qualified ghg reduction strategies so we are also making sure that we're following that and that our climate plan is um is consistent with that so given that background today I'll be covering what will be in the climate action plan our progress to date and our

0:35:47process from here on out first the main purpose of our climate action plan is to provide the framework and roadmap for pursuing greenhouse gas reductions in El Cerrito over time we hope that the climate action plan will be used to inform if not Inspire both Municipal and community-wide

0:36:07climate action and as I've mentioned if we choose it would also provide us the option to streamline sqa review for of ghg implant impacts for consistent projects in terms of the scope um the cloud the climate action plan will be focused on emissions over which El Cerrito has some type of influence

0:36:30and which can be reliably measured over time and that these emissions will be from both our Municipal plant and from our the community as a whole the objectives of the plan are to evaluate where we are where we want to be and how we could get there in terms of our contributions to greenhouse gas

0:36:52emissions the climate action plan will provide information on El Cerrito's Baseline and how emissions might grow absent any mitigation possible reduction targets for Council to consider um uh how much policies programs and projects would can contribute towards reductions and implementation steps

0:37:19for those of you who are familiar with ickley's local local governments for sustainabilities they have a climate action planning process and in that process the first three steps are to create a baseline inventory adopt a reduction Target and then figure out ways to get to the Target through the

0:37:38climate action plan um we're doing a slight variation on that process to Quantum and we'll be quantifying a menu of possible reductions first in order to see if we can meet beat or exceed the recommended State goal of 15 below 20 2005 Levels by 2010 and we're doing this for several

0:38:00reasons for some of the cities that have gone through this process have found that their recommendations have fallen short of their adopted goals and second if we do decide to use the climate action plan to streamline sequa ghg analysis on back mid prescribes reduction targets that

0:38:20are consistent or at least consistent with the state's recommended goals for local government so we can obviously go over it but we can't really go under it um uh so the um so for planning purposes only we'll be using the state Target as a benchmark for possible targets that

0:38:40council could adopt and I'll talk about when we'll be doing that at the end of this presentation now um we'll be using the following planning Horizons 2005 is our Baseline 2020 is our first reduction Target year and that's consistent with ab32 and for our second reduction Target year we're

0:39:02going to be looking at emissions in 2035 and that's consistent with SB 375 sustainable Community strategy and the regional transportation plan so now I'd like to go over how the plan is going to be organized first the cap will be providing a brief background on

0:39:26climate change and its potential impacts in El Cerrito for instance um these uh um the these diminishing colors here show the Sierra snowpack over time and it's showing that the CR snowpack is our our primary source of water and it will show that it will be decreasing

0:39:48significantly by the end of the century and while inaction brings with it threats action to protect climate the climate brings many co-benefits which are things such as more livable and healthy communities that are resilient to threats like drought wildfires and shocks and energy and fuel

0:40:10prices second the climate action plan will provide an analysis of our emissions both now and into the future this is a chart of our 2005 inventory it will be the foundation on which we're building all our reduction strategies and as you can see oops as you can see

0:40:35um right here that's transportation and that's our biggest chunk of emissions and that's uh from from um uh you know Auto traffic in El Cerrito and then this right here is combined um energy use that's from uh so that's our second biggest source of emissions and that's at 44 percent

0:40:57staff presented a version of this Baseline to Council in 2008 as Melanie mentioned for us to be consistent with back mids new guidance we've revised it slightly we're using a new formula for computing our contributions to County highway vehicle miles traveled and we've also added

0:41:19missions related to water use and treatment and wastewater treatment here's the Baseline in Greater detail you'll see that oops I keep on doing that here's the um transportation again and it just shows you where the emissions are occurring and um you know it's just a greater detail of where

0:41:44Transportation emissions are occurring and um this right here is the energy sector again and I just want to draw your attention again to the second biggest single source of emissions in in El Cerrito which is a residential natural gas use um it's tempting to go into this in more

0:42:05detail about this chart but since we don't have time for it today I wanted to let people know that we will be having a more detailed discussion about the emissions inventory um this upcoming September 28th at a eqc meeting so the bulk of our plan will concentrate

0:42:28on reduction strategies at the community level we'll be evaluating land use transportation and land use and transportation strategies strategies that are aimed at making El Cerrito and more walkable and bikeable City energy use strategies that are aimed at Greening and increasing the efficiency

0:42:47of our buildings and waste reduction strategies and to a certain extent many of these strategies will not be new to El Cerrito since both staff and Council have been been doing so much in these Realms particularly in terms of Lana groundwork for livable communities and

0:43:04we have a long and successful history in waste reduction but what we are doing in the cap is linking each of these strategies to reduction goals quantifying these reductions and recommending further policy and programmatic strategies and action steps that can get us to further reductions

0:43:26and of course we'll be using this opportunity this has an opportunity to create a climate action plan for our own Municipal operations our aim in this chapter is not only to provide the city with a road map for reducing costs and improving efficiencies in our own

0:43:41operations but it's also meant to demonstrate the city's leadership in making real greenhouse gas reductions listed here are some of the strategies that we're quantifying and looking at and many of these strategies are similar to the ones that could be used by other

0:44:00institutions and businesses in El Cerrito so we are hoping that it can be used as an example foreign ly we want to provide information for the community on ways to take personal action to protect the climate we're doing this because first most of the strategies discussed in the plan can

0:44:22only be successful as citizens participate this chapter will make the connection between personal actions people can make on a daily basis and the city's reduction goals and second as I'll discuss on September 28th there will be many sources of emissions or there are

0:44:41many sources of emissions that are not counted in an inventory these emissions are things like emissions resulting from the production of goods and food and from air travel these fall outside of the um the influence of local government and are never included in local government

0:44:59inventories we've estimated that these other sources pretty much double the carbon footprint of the average El Cerrito household from the inventory that we've compiled so other actions like growing some of your own food or choosing to buy local to Foster the local economy will have a big

0:45:18effect as well as we've gone through the reduction strategies we're noticing that they begin they fall into three types there's existing policies programs and projects that are creating impressive reductions right now there's policies that are laying the groundwork for future

0:45:37reductions and there will are new mechanisms that would need to go through their own policy making and adoption processes and I'll just spend a couple moments talking about these examples for existing strategies a good example is our recycling programs oops that's

0:45:57basically creating a three percent uh reductions in waste per year and another is that we've waived solar permit fees which is encouraging greater adoption of solar systems throughout the community and um for emerging policy Frameworks all the work that the city has been doing to

0:46:21encourage more compact Transit oriented development such as the San Pablo Avenue specific plan and our designation as a priority Development Area under the regional blueprint process really lays the foundation for a community that is less reliant on the automobile

0:46:38this is also true for other policies and projects that are encouraging greater walkability and bikeability such as the greenway master plan the bike ped plan and the current improvements on San Pablo Avenue and finally we've started evaluating potential new policies and pro programs

0:46:59that can help us reach our reduction goals good examples of these are policies that encourage Greener and greater Energy Efficiency in buildings for new construction as the San Pablo Avenue Corridor begins to build out we may want to consider ways of reduce of encouraging higher

0:47:17energy performance for instance the new California Green Building standard code Cal green gives jurisdictions the choice to adopt higher tier one and tier 2 standards that go beyond the current energy code the current state energy code and for existing buildings the

0:47:37council has heard information already on property assessed clean energy financing Pace financing which provides a promising financing mechanism for property owners wishing to make energy improvements other mechanisms in the existing building sector range from public

0:47:55education and incentives to actual Green Building or Energy Efficiency ordinances and it needs to be repa repeated that these mechanisms would need to go through their own policy making funding and adoption processes I'd like to switch gears now to discuss our process since March we've been doing

0:48:18Outreach to get the word out about the climate action plan we've re we've released a residential survey on topics covered in the plan the survey has gotten over 380 responses to date and it's still open for those who want to take it it's at Green El cerrito.org

0:48:37we've also provided information about the survey and the climate action plan and City Publications and at many of our public events and I've listed these here and I'd also Millie's already done this but I'd like to give a quick plug for our upcoming compost giveaway at the

0:48:55recycling center on October 10th in at this event many of the eqc members and volunteers will be helping out and I'm making the connections between our new food waste program good soil and climate protection we've Quantified that if every El ceridan household participated in the

0:49:16food waste program they would be able to reduce their carbon footprint by 500 pounds of CO2 um from these efforts we've made a good sized email list to keep people informed about the climate action plan and today most of our work has been a fairly internal research and Analysis

0:49:43process this is the list of the kinds of analysis that we've been doing and right now we're deep into the process of identifying and quantifying our existing and potential reduction strategies foreign I'd like to think of this progress update to you as the beginning of a

0:50:05public process I won't go over the entire timeline right now but I'd like to draw your attention to a couple my Milestones first we've already mentioned that we'll be going over the actual whoops the actual inventory um and uh at our next meeting um on September 28th this um it's a Tuesday

0:50:31here at City Hall and then uh second we will be coming back to the city council to go over the quantification results and to potentially adopt an official reduction Target and finally we are aiming to come to City back to city council for a study session and consideration to adopt the

0:50:52plan by uh um sometime next summer so thank you very much for your time and I can answer answer any questions yeah I've got a couple of one that intrigues me is the 500 pounds of CO2 that a family can reduce their footprint by by composting what percentage of a household does that

0:51:17500 pounds represent um uh two percent yeah about that and if um and that's you know if you multiply that out that's if every household in El Cerrito uh participated that would be two percent of our of our entire inventory um and one of the questions I've got for

0:51:36you you presented this all in percentages and that was part of my question is it in pounds as we add potentially through the specific uh the San Pablo Avenue specific plan we add between 2000 and 3 000 residents along that Corridor doing exactly what we want higher denser living walkability living

0:51:55um how does that get factored into our carbon footprint as we add additional people uh that's a good question and it's a question that we've actually um put before back mid um in terms of there's a couple ways that we can think about it we can think about it in terms of a per capita

0:52:13reductions and that's something that I'll be penciling at over over the next couple months the other one is that the growth in emissions that are being projected and we're putting into our formula for reductions actually does project a certain amount of growth so so there's a right now

0:52:34we're at something like 146 000 tons of CO2 that was from our Baseline inventory and we're projected to go up to about a hundred and almost 170 tons of 170 000 tons of CO2 and so what we're looking at is making the reductions below that 2005 number including that section above growth from

0:53:00that will be at in 2020. so if I was listening carefully 146 000 tons is our 2005 Baseline inventory and that's what we're trying to reduce by 15 by the year 2020. correct that's what the state recommends and an additional percentage by the year 2035 right um and without any action

0:53:28um I heard that you said we were going to go up to 174 000. yeah seven almost 170 000 by 2020.

0:53:35okay so and that line would you know increase by 2035.

0:53:41but somewhere in there we're adding people hopefully those people have a much smaller per capita form because they're closer to right right so theoretically they would be having um you know the the policies that we would put in place would give them a much less a much smaller carbon

0:53:59footprint you know there'd be a more energy efficient buildings they would be you know more Transit oriented those kinds of things correct and they wouldn't be generating anyways because we're doing so good on that thank you um so just to do questions right now um

0:54:17I was curious about how in the Baseline you're accounting for current residential travel patterns either commutes to work or you know yeah we're doing um we're using a methodology that's been recommended by both ikley and by um back mid and they they recommend that you just basically

0:54:37use um uh um County VMT numbers so we've been using that from the you know the state of California has the highway monitoring system you know where they basically publish VMT numbers every year and those are the ones that we use so it's an average amount of miles driven on all

0:54:57roads in the county well it's actually every it's it's an actual number of number of VMT that is driven on roads in El Cerrito and then there was a new kind of formulation for how you would compute our percentage of contribution towards County highways I guess those numbers get updated are

0:55:21they tracked with the census Behavior or yeah another tracked yeah they're tracked with the highway monitoring system so that's one of the reasons why they use it because it is a very reliable reliably produced um set of data great well I'm just curious how you

0:55:41would quantify so for example using the landing strategies um to encourage either you know more homes for you for youth who've grown up in the community and are also finding spaces that they can move into and they live closer to home or you know that yeah that kind of those kind of

0:55:57relationships and proximity and and how does that cut down on VMT and all the impact of creating you know more destinations more things to do locally you know for we're increasing density and more residents along the Avenue that then in turn support local businesses

0:56:14how are those synergies captured I guess yeah we're right now um I'm just beginning to get into that process and one of the things that I have been doing is reading studies on how they're going about quantifying you know vehicle miles um you know trip reductions from Tod and

0:56:34things like that so so they're all going to be based on certain kinds of assumptions and we're going to be one of the things that Bachmann's been very good about is they basically said we'd like to work with you as you develop this plan so we're kind of you know have

0:56:49been tossing different methodologies and assumptions back and forth with them to get their input on it as well as you know other places like Italy so so um you know right now I'm basically reading some studies to come up to um to get some basic multipliers that I can use

0:57:11I've been admissions model that the air district is using for this yeah I have and I can't say that I um have used it it's uh there's a planning that you know there's a um but one of our Consultants would have been looking at it and so there's a potential that we can kind of

0:57:27plug in some you know development numbers and things like that and come up with a youth Urban myth to help us come up with some quantifications and of course that would be really consistent with the back mid process because I use that daily okay oh great thank you

0:57:46I just wanted to thank you all for your effort and to say that um it's really impressive the work is stemming from a Statewide policy level Direction and I want to thank mayor Abelson for representing El Cerrito and to defending our position and interests with the league of California cities but

0:58:04um we're also able to leverage the federal and state grants so that we can have a program that's going to translate to on the ground education and implementation that will really result in changes of behavior in El Cerrito and a better quality of life and I just I'm

0:58:20really impressed and think we're on the right track and I appreciate the work and I see that you have laid out a timeline for implementation of this plan and Adoption of the plan as well as setting some pretty aggressive but I think realistic goals for where we want

0:58:36to be to kind of reverse the trend and really do what's best for our quality of life and the environment so thanks thank you yes I I also like the timeline I I think it's good aggressive we get on it and we get going I just had a couple of things on that same topic are we planning a mailer or

0:59:00or something that outlines these dates in particular when Community input would be taken I think I um in which you had shown I think I identified five public meetings between Community input the committee's work and then before the city council has that been public out to people no

0:59:25the first one is is that we're gonna at the meeting on the 28th we are going to get a good sense of what the uh kind of what the feeling the community is in terms of how much we need to to um what our workshops are going to look like so we haven't kind of set how many

0:59:42workshops we want to do yet um mainly just because it's uh we want to make sure that the workshops are really tailored towards what people are kind of responding to in with the information that we're presenting so so I'm assuming that we're going to do at least you'll see up here at the

1:00:02beginning in late October we want to do some Community workshops um where we'd really be kind of talking about the reduction measures and uh so we're going to start off with one see how that that Workshop goes and from their chart out how many more workshops we want to do between there and kind of

1:00:25the end of January at the end of the year I did like how we handled the traffic programming that we had I think it was three meetings in different parts of the city and I think if you're trying to get as many people as possible out both for their input and to promote

1:00:46the plan I would suggest something like that make it convenient for people okay uh one other you said that you're allowing for some growth and we have we're under mandate from the state to create a certain amount of growth within Town what what are you using is there any criteria

1:01:07yet or standard that you're using to base the growth on yeah that again is something said use the a bag projection numbers and of course some of the ABAC projection numbers can you know some people quibble with them but we're just using those definitely for the

1:01:27forecasting growth and since it's consistent with what many of the other cities are doing so it basically kind of puts everybody on a Level Playing Field so great thank you thank you um I have a question and maybe I just missed it in what you were saying but I know that we received a an award to work

1:01:49with several other cities from the EPA this is a grant from the EPA and I was wondering are you using that Grant as part of this process that you're doing now yeah um we are using uh the grant funds for the our consultant strategic energy Innovations through the grant has

1:02:09been helping me significantly and putting together quantification stuff on the quantification numbers both in terms of our forecasting and also in terms of the actual measures and as you can imagine um just by Anne's question it's hundreds of data points that we're going to be

1:02:28you know working with and making sure that that there's a reasonable methodology between by from using these data points so so they've done climate action plan funds for other cities in the state and they are also doing a lot of kind of back and forth with back mid

1:02:47to make sure that you know that we have you know some of the best numbers now that there's like a new guidance that's been released so so we have been using that um them quite a bit so is is the direction of working um on this process of collaborating with other cities so far has that seemed

1:03:09successful to you um we're just starting out um we're all it is successful in the sense that we have several different types of working groups and each one of the cities is taking the lead on on a particular thing so for instance we're taking the lead on climate action

1:03:27planning because we're a little bit farther ahead than San Pablo and so San Pablo is basically going to be learning from our process um and uh but for instance Piedmont is taking the lead on doing an environment book environmentally preferred procurement process and so they're

1:03:46basically the one that's going to be bird dogging that through and we'll they'll be you know we'll be leading we'll be learning more from their process so that's kind of how we're beginning to to develop the work plans and have every each staff member kind of be on point on a particular issue

1:04:02just like to add that some of that EPA showcase communities grant money will also go into direct programs especially in the residential and Commercial sectors to help some with them some of the community-wide emissions reductions Maria could go into more detail but for

1:04:17example we might be able to help pay down permit fees for those that want to do Energy Efficiency upgrades so that still as Maria mentioned first they're the cities are quantifying what reduction strategies would be most effective and then we have to figure out

1:04:29how to implement them and some of the EPA money will go to help kick-start some of that I just want to tell you how much I appreciate what I'm hearing tonight and to think that we started back passing several years ago passing some resolutions talking about these topics in a general

1:04:48sort of way and now we've worked to the point where we have analysts such as Maria and um also Garth and also Melanie working on this area and how I can actually see it growing and actually coming into what up what appears to me to be a plan that we can be very proud

1:05:13of as a city working with other cities which is to me even more exciting because it means it isn't just a limited thing being done only in El Cerrito but in our surrounding Community which in fact if we're trying to make a difference is actually really important

1:05:30so I think this is um this is a great progress and I'd like to thank everyone who's been working on it for all of the word product and all of the information and um I I hope the future goes as well as it looks to me like the progress to date has gone so thank you very much thank

1:05:53you okay I think we're ready to move on um it's kind of ironic that we were fighting the battle for ab32 just this week um the next item on the agenda is the adoption of the consent calendar um with uh I wanted the council to consider removing item 5e from the consent

1:06:26calendar and I know that we have other business to take care of tonight but the ballot that we'll be voting on in November is long and it's complex and I think it's also really important and I thought we could take just a brief moment maybe mayor Ableton to summarize

1:06:42the various propositions in the Contra Costa County measures that we're going to contemplate supporting tonight okay so would you like to make a motion on the other items sure I'll move approval of the consent calendar items 5A through 5D and item 5f okay those items are the minutes uh the

1:07:02California Arts day Proclamation domestic violence Awareness Month neighborhood traffic Management program and sustainable communities planning Grant application all in favor oops all right I think we need to wait a sec no I have my eye in there had your eye in there

1:07:22okay I too in the opposition or absention okay motion carries unanimously now we'll go to item 5e and we were you thinking that um let's say I go through and just um it's interesting that to me that um there was a a difficulty reading it because the document that I have is actually pretty

1:07:46is a summary document so I'm not sure if there's a difference between what was mentioned earlier by Al Miller or or not um but anyway um prop yeah if the mayor would like I I will gladly read um by motion read our position on each proposition if that would work if that's

1:08:09acceptable [Music] item is yes for each proposition I just plan to read the proposition 21.

1:08:21um so uh I may have something though I I want to discuss two two of the pro so I don't know where that is make the motion and then do the discussion how's that okay so I I would uh make the motion that we support proposition 21 which establishes an 18 annual vehicle license surcharge to help

1:08:44fund State Parks and Wildlife programs grants uh surcharged vehicles and grants surcharged Vehicles free admission to All State Parks I would move that we support proposition state Proposition 22 which prohibits the state from borrowing or taking funds used for transportation Redevelopment or

1:09:07local government projects and services initiative consultation and and initiate initiative Constable Constitutional Amendment I apologize for butchering that I propose that we support state Proposition 25 which changes the legislative vote requirements to pass budget and budget related legislation

1:09:33legislation from two-thirds to a simple majority this retains two-thirds vote requirements for tax initiatives which is a constitutional amendment initiative Constitutional Amendment regard now I'm not going to understand what this is um I support I'm sorry I propose that we

1:09:55oppose prop state Proposition 26 which requires that certain state and local fees be approved by two-thirds votes fees include those that address adverse impacts on society or the environment caused by the fee payer's business this is an initiative Constitutional

1:10:16Amendment I propose that we support a local County measure measure M West Contra Costa Unified School District budget this is a parcel tax measure uh which would an annual tax of 7.2 cents per square foot of building area or seven dollars and 20 cents per vacant parcel for five

1:10:45years and I would propose that we support Contra Costa County measure o which is a contra costa County Transportation Authority vehicle registration fee measure to repair and maintain local streets and roads improve traffic flow by school pedestrian and driver safety and improve

1:11:11public transportation efficiency oh second okay there's been a motion second discussion bill would you like to start yeah I do uh on proposition 21 um how do I say this I I like it only because it looks like that our Parks state parks are in danger there is a provision that it actually it

1:11:37returns it back for for uh vehicles that have this surcharge on it they can get into Parks state parks for free or there isn't an additional charge besides the 18 annual uh I do I am concerned about it that it throws it back onto the vehicle license which was Ray which was restored to its

1:12:01original uh status last year and when you combine that with the ten dollars from measure o it's 28 dollars per vehicle increase um but my my big concern is that we start getting surcharge fee happy and although I support this one um I hope we um this isn't the start of the State trying

1:12:30to throw back their responsibility back on the locals as they seem to be doing with the education system and uh it's also been stated at the state legislation level that this is one strategy to reduce the state budget is by throwing the responsibilities of certain

1:12:54Services back onto the locals so um but I support that but I wanted to comment that on on Prop 26 I just wanted to state I'm 100 behind opposition on that it's another state issue that's trying to dictate to local communities how to run their cities and it's interfering it's one more measure

1:13:20that's interfering with municipal uh Affairs in my opinion and I'm talking about they're trying to put on a state mandate on certain local fees the two-thirds vote and that really should be up whether the fee is good or isn't good that should be up to the local

1:13:40communities and here we have the state once again the whole state trying to dictate to each individual City how to run its Affairs so um that's my thought on that measure oh I agree a concept I like the idea of a dedicated funding for Street repair and Street Improvement it

1:14:02falls within the reason why we passed our half cent sales tax for improvements my concern though is in the details and maybe the mayor could help me out and I can better understand let me tell you some additional I just have questions on okay in particular and that is the distribution of

1:14:24money I understand I read I read the implementation plan and it fifty percent even though the overall percentages are the same for the three areas in the county West county is uh 50 percent for improvements the others are at 80 and 85 and so I was just wondering why why 50.

1:14:48why more less on repairing more on traffic congestion first of all let me say that the overall intent of this fee in our County would be to let the local sub-regions decide what their priorities were and so the local sub-regions that is to say in our case WIC attack each

1:15:09weighed in on this topic and in our sub-region we felt that there was a real priority for Transit because Transit funding has been severely decreased and there's been a lot of cuts in bus service for example and there's about to be another one I might add so that we felt it was important to sub

1:15:33to spend more money on Transit especially because of the fact that okay so the west but the West decided that the westac decided that right okay that's that's fine the local decision making okay and then who determines second of all there was nothing in the expenditure plan that showed that each

1:15:56Community was guaranteed a certain amount of money or there there was a a formula by which the communities would get money back into their community and so my question is is there and does the cities get to determine how this money is uh spent yes on both so there are three pots of money

1:16:19the transit money the um bike ped uh money and the local streets money with local streets and the bike ped this individual cities determine how the money is spent within their jurisdiction they get a pot of money and they get to determine and is there a formula for

1:16:37that pot of money I think it's population based Yeah well yeah somewhere along the line it said uh Miles Road miles but you know what I'm not I don't know if that was that that's the tale yeah but I do know that the actual money is spent in terms of projects is determined either by the

1:16:59transit agent by Wick tack for the transit agencies share and for the local jurisdiction which means the cities or in the unincorporated area the county for the rest of the money so we in El Cerrito would be spending um our share of the money but we do get a definite share we get a definite share

1:17:21and we decide how it's spent okay a definite share and that's all I have thank you so for example none of it will be determined by the Transportation Authority even though it's the entity overseeing this yes but I'm glad because El Cerrito has substantial amount of

1:17:38money putting in there because we have a substantial amount of vehicles thank you and for summarizing the propositions and the other initiatives and I support the proposed positions on all of them but I wanted to especially highlight proposition 25 which is the um one that

1:17:59would allow passage of the state budget with a simple majority and just not that this is news but it's September 20th and we still have no state budget it was due on June 30th things are not working well and that's a really important one to get out and vote on and the other measure is

1:18:14the measure M for West Contra Costa Unified School District and I see Dr harder the superintendent is here tonight and I just wanted to reiterate my personal support for measure M and also for this city council who has traditionally supported all of the school bond measures and for this

1:18:31community so everyone needs to get out and turn out to vote in November and can I can I add just something not only is the state doesn't have the budget they have stopped Distributing money and we've got school districts and we've got cities that are kind of wondering how

1:18:48they're going to make it and there's already school districts asking for the county for loans the county doesn't have much money I don't know if if all the districts start going to the counties I don't know where they're not going to get money so it's more than just they

1:19:01haven't passed it as as a council member Potter has pointed out they've actually stopped Distributing money and vendors aren't getting money they're giving IOU so this is not just something that and yet the legislature decided to take off a month by the way and they

1:19:19were awful month anyway that's inside No thank you thanks for the other side of the room now sure I'll I'll jump on the bandwagon here and remind people to vote it's November 2nd if you vote by mail you'll be getting your ballot sometime the week between October 4th and October

1:19:3310th please vote please consider proposition 22 this is one that's near and dear to our height it our hearts here at the city council because it prohibits the state from borrowing or taking money from us so I'm hoping that uh that we can count on your support to

1:19:51protect our local budgets I supporter um I I agree with all the the obviously all the positions that we're taking so Echo the and I obviously did because I uh came up with the recommendations so um I think these are all really important uh things that relate to

1:20:11cities and um our communities measure M for example the school measure is important to our city because we need a strong school system in order to have a strong City so I think um I'm hopeful that we will once again show our support for our school system by supporting measure M and

1:20:35um with that are we ready to vote Yes I'll make a motion that this we already have one oh we do have emotion okay and it was seconded and I'm ready to vote supporting the the initial recommendations that were listed on the agenda so all in favor please say aye aye

1:20:54aye in the opposition in the abstention motion carries unanimously and um yeah that we will move on to agenda item six which is a public hearing on the abatement of fire hazard nuisances on one property pursuant to El Cerrito Municipal Code chapter 16.26 and I do believe we have a battalion

1:21:28chief here before us battalion chief Bond Madam mayor council members Michael Bond fire marshal for the city of El Cerrito and the Kensington Fire Protection District I'm here tonight to ask for your approval for the resolution sinking the cost recovery for the fire hazard abatement

1:21:44of one property here in El Cerrito unfortunately this year we were unable to achieve our goal of 100 voluntary compliance with our vegetation management standards one property was not willing to Abate their own fire hazards and we had to go out and Abate that one forcefully

1:22:07with private contractor we started off with a total of 165 properties this year that uh were sent notice of non-compliance with our vegetation management standards and posed a fire risk for the community of El Cerrito we worked with all the property owners throughout the year all the way up until

1:22:25the last day of abatement we had property owners abating their properties when the contractors were coming out that's how how late some of these folks wait to to get things done one property owner uh listed in exhibit a shows you the property and that would be the property

1:22:48up on the Fairview [Music] Street the fronts Fairview runs up along the Natural Area up below the houses on the Arlington there it was originally slated to become a subdivision that was in the process of development and has since returned to the bank so we were unable to

1:23:13get anywhere with with any of the the property owners former or the bank at this time to make that happen regardless of how we tried tonight we have a cost hearing for a total cost of three thousand and eight dollars if you look at exhibit B it breaks down the cost associated with

1:23:35doing this for the fire department the Seventeen hundred and fifty dollars of actual abatement work by a private contractor administrative fees of twelve hundred and fifty eight dollars to oversee the work inspections property line verification and in the future here in the next week

1:23:57or two uh actually submitting the lien with the county for the El Cerrito City to receive our money in the form of a special lien a letter was sent to all the prop or to all the properties to the property owner stating that they would be a cost recovery hearing tonight and they were

1:24:17encouraged to be here if they so desired we had no uh response from them whatsoever and uh be glad to entertain any uh questions that you may have at this time public hearing tonight so let me just start out by saying a couple of things that I think I probably should have said

1:24:44um so what's going to happen tonight is that we're going to be asked to adopt a resolution one confirming the cost of abatement of public nuisance conditions resulting from the presence of weeds rubbish litter or other flammable materials on the vacant lot located of

1:25:01the termination as was said of Fairview Drive two we're going to Levy the cost of abatement as a special assessment against the property three we're going to file a copy of the resolution with the county county auditor and four authorize the city manager or his designee to take steps

1:25:21necessary to record the abatement costs for the property as identified in property excuse me in exhibits A and B to the resolution so we've had some comments from Fire Chief Fire Marshal Bond and tonight we will provide an opportunity to hear testimony from the public regarding each item if

1:25:45you wish so I'm just going to ask if any member of the public wishes to speak and has not submitted a speaker slip they should do so now remarks are limited to three minutes per person after everyone has had an opportunity to speak at the public hearing I will seek a motion to close

1:26:03the public hearing do we have any speaker slops no speaker slips man okay thank you um so I think what I I moved to close the public hearing first I have to open it oh okay I thought you had oh no sorry um so now we will open the public hearing and hear comments from the

1:26:22public and US was just said we don't have any members of the public and um excuse me here um so now we can close the public sure I move again to close the public hearing please say aye conditions from the council sure I've got a quick question which property is

1:26:51actually being levied or which property are we leaning the property up on if you go up cutting so not the address property of 10835 San Pablo but the the parcel 505040067 which is the Fairview Fairview property correct okay thank you yeah I just wanted to be clear that the

1:27:18fee includes actually a total of nine Lots correct negative I'm sorry uh the the there's one large lot that is uh was scheduled to be subdivided and it's never never happened so it's one large lot at what okay that's where the nine comes in there right it's approximately

1:27:3612 or 14 acres or something it's quite a large parcel large parcel so that's why the I did have a quick thing it's just when you say uh boundary determination do we actually go out and survey or we just check the the maps we check the maps and go out and walk the property to make sure that what

1:27:55we're seeing on the maps actually coordinates or or works with what we're seeing and that all takes time that all takes time absolutely thank you comments or questions okay are we ready for a motion sure a move to adopt a resolution that first confirms this cost of abatement of

1:28:18public nuisance conditions resulting from the presence of weeds rubbish litter and other flammable material on the vacant lot located at the termination of Fairview Drive second Levy the costs of abatement as a special assessment against the property third file a certified copy of the resolution

1:28:37with the county auditor on or before October 8 2000 2010 I guess that's the way we're supposed to say it and fourth authorize the city manager or his designee to take steps necessary to record the abatement costs for the property as identified in exhibits A and

1:28:53B to the resolution with the County Recorder as a lien against the property as provided for in El Cerrito Municipal Code chapter 16.26 I'll second it okay all those in favor play please say aye aye aye email position or abstention um motion carries unanimously thank you

1:29:21and perhaps next year we'll meet that goal of 100 compliance yes I actually think it was a hundred percent I don't know what else you can do I know when they didn't even comment so anyway okay uh now we're going to go to item number seven under policy matters which

1:29:43is the East Bay Regional Communications system Authority or and let it the letters EB rcsa I don't know how to say that ibrissa Madam mayor membership I'm Lance Maples I'm your fire chief tonight I bring you an agenda item requesting adoption of a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute

1:30:07a project uh operating agreement with East Bay Regional communication Authority better known as e-bricks he Pricks got it he bricks okay bricks as you may recall the city started down this road in March of 2007. we conducted a study session on the state of the art

1:30:24system and how we would function in both Alameda and Contra Costa County subsequent to this meeting in June of 2000 City to 2007 the city council authorized the city manager to craft a letter of agreement and a letter of a tent with the e-bricks jpa September 2007 the e-bricks jpa was

1:30:46formed and currently there are 19 excuse me 29 cities four Special Districts and the University of California have signed off on the system as member agencies the current estimated cost of the system is 69 million dollars 39 million in funding has been secured through grants

1:31:05it is anticipated that another 14 million in Grant funds will be approved over the next few years leaving approximately 17 million to be financed to complete the system this is what brings us here this evening the eprix jpa has worked with both Alameda and Contra Costa County

1:31:24partner together groups of unrelated projects in those communities to take advantage of the American Recovery and reinvestment act bonds by doing this there are significant advantages to the member agencies the size of the issuance the creditworthiness of the counties will

1:31:40result in a much lower rate they will also avoid the process of the jpa having to go through the rating process to qualify for the bonds this will also reduce the issuance costs to the agencies so in general your question I'm sure is so how does this affect the city

1:32:03once we transition to the e-brick system our user field fees will be determined by the total number of users that have subscribed to the jpa this fee is made up of operation costs and maintenance costs these costs are approximately thirty dollars a month and then there will be an additional 15

1:32:20cost that applies to uh our per unit usage that covers this indebtedness that we're speaking of this evening there's a few key points that we should point out the first Debt Service payment will not take place until 2013 or 14.

1:32:39the new user fees will replace the current user fees we now pay the city of Richmond for their system currently the city spends approximately seventy six thousand dollars a year on maintenance fees for our 800 radio system that we are partnered with the city of Richmond

1:32:55when we move over to the e-brick system it is estimated that our annual fee will be approximately ninety four thousand a difference of eighteen thousand you may ask what's the difference the distance the difference is basically an increase in subscriber units because our goal

1:33:10with the new system is to have every responder capable of having their own radio when they come in on our current system we have a limited number of portable radios so when police officers Public Works people firefighters come into an emergency we have to share radios do some creative

1:33:27things it's always been my goal in the police chief's goal to get to a point where all emergency responders had their own portable one key point is uh we have we have to uh be aware that in the future we will have to acquire new radios for the system this cost that I speak of tonight

1:33:48is just for the infrastructure of the system or the backbone of the system the estimated cost for these radios are 500 to 800 000 depending on the type and quantity of radios that we buy it is anticipated that member agencies of the jpa will work as a group for uh

1:34:05bulk purchasing to reduce the overall cost of these units to date the city has set aside approximately 300 000 in funding to offset this equipment purchase tonight I would request an adoption of this resolution authorizing the city manager to execute a project operating

1:34:21agreement for the e-bricks jpa and I'd be very happy to answer any questions that you may have on this topic defer to Bill if he's got questions I do have questions um or actually just would like to make some observations that will help potentially build the dialogue or the

1:34:40discussion here of of the approximately 94 500 uh annual cost only about 30 000 of that's financing and it's only for 15 years if I read the package correctly so um the the additional cost of approximately 30 000 or about a third of the ninety five thousand is financing

1:35:01and then at the end of 15 years uh the system is paid for and and we would be back to a a lower operating level for the services of dispatch Etc correct this is basically the infrastructure for the system that has a 15-year payout so at the end of 15 years that 15 per unit

1:35:19subscriber fee would drop down correct um increasing the number of radios to 175 so that every first responder has a their own radio assigned to them um has this in intangible benefit for quick responses as various catastrophes uh it hit our community whether it's a wildfire or an explosion

1:35:46or an earthquake we would be able to have Direct Communications with our First Responders regardless of where they live in in the in the community surrounding Community as they start reporting to our community yeah the way the system would work is we would have

1:36:01what they call radio banks in the station and there would be radios that are assigned to individuals that stay in a radio Bank when you respond back into the community you would then retrieve your radio and it's I mean it's yours it's like a firefighter's helmet

1:36:15turnouts a police officer's bulletproof vest firearm those type of things it is their portable radio and so it's uh there's a lot of research and a lot of data out there that says when you assign equipment electronic equipment this kind of stuff you get uh the life expectancy

1:36:31becomes extended because it's user specific it's always the same person so the the repair maintenance and the care is at a higher level so unfortunately this last one is the one that sort of I'm having a hard time um understanding and it's the one that creates the largest financial

1:36:50Gap if we're going to call it that and is the purchasing price of these units currently projected at four thousand dollars a piece and with a potential budget or cost to us of between potentially as much as 800 000 um for these 175 units uh can you please speak to that because that certainly is

1:37:15the one we I know this the report says we have 300 000 saved up for this but when we take our action tonight we are essentially telling that we are going to participate up to 175 units and um that there is a future Gap uh I was hoping that you could speak to that to

1:37:36reduce some of the concerns that might come with that decision for sure very good question and I appreciate the question um it's one I asked of the e-bricks board uh when they move forward with this the bottom line is as technology changes um the prices really fluctuate on this

1:37:51type of equipment when we started down this road in 2007 they said that Portables would be around six thousand dollars um so we've seen a remarkable reduction already uh although we've set aside 300 000 we're constantly aware of trying to do a purchasing agreement with the users

1:38:08on the system so we can go out to a vendor and purchase say 8 000 units opposed to the city of El Cerrito purchasing 175 units there also is a possibility of a lease purchase for the group that the equipment could be purchased from on that note um the estimate I put in

1:38:25there of four thousand dollars is on the uh conservative high side because I don't want to come back to you at a later date and and have misinformed the Council on where we may be that's 175 units of four thousand dollars for a 700 000 purchase um I'm very confident that when if if we

1:38:43were to go down the route that route we're not going to buy all four thousand dollar radios there'll be some models that don't have as many functions things like that um that one of the components that's necessary for the fire side of the radios is to have the capability to do

1:38:58800 megahertz 700 megahertz which in essence is the same bandwidth and high band which is a a mutual Aid State channel so those Portables will have to be dual band Portables which will be more expensive um radios for the courtyard uh for the rec uh division some of those can be

1:39:19single band which could lessen the cost so our our goal is to come in here I would say conservatively high so when we come back at purchase time you know we didn't underestimate if I could add also if my understanding Chief is regardless of whether we join the system or not are our radios are due

1:39:39for replacement that's that's 100 correct our current system if uh if this he breaks jpa hadn't been formed back in 2007 and we didn't get on board then I'd be coming to you at the end of this year requesting a purchase and an allocation to replace all of our Portables

1:39:55um we have stretched the life of our Portables intentionally to get to this point so when we make a purchase we make a purchase with the with the most modern compatible equipment for the new system thank you okay thanks I just had one question and some comments here

1:40:17um is there any new funding anticipated going our way to offset some of this remaining costs they they've once again taken a conservative approach of projecting out the next three years they know the grant funding they've been able to acquire in the last three years they're going to go

1:40:36after a lot of the same you know grant funding as it comes back available and that does Whittle it down to the 17 million um they're still going to go after every Grant that's out there and the bottom line is uh the the jpa uh CEO Bill mccam and he came out and did a presentation

1:40:55um that's 17 million dollar number could fluctuate I think a key thing to remember is uh you're looking at the foundation of of this relationship or this partnership with the partnering agencies uh this is kind of like the step that the train leaves the station

1:41:11now and you know it's becoming real it's getting close um we're very confident that other agencies will get on board and as we're estimating 11 000 users right now um they estimate that it could build two 15 000 users which then our user costs will go down our infrastructure costs

1:41:31will go down the bottom line is we won't know exactly um what our user fee will be until it goes live and they have a hard count there has been a bit of speculation that agencies may start to pull out during these hard Economic Times none have at this point and the agencies had the

1:41:50highest level of speculation have already gone to their city council and adopted and are on board as CHP signed on I know at one time they were considering joining CHP is still considering joining at a a incremental level right for this region for this area for Mutual Aid response

1:42:10okay and I have some comments um I just think one to date we have supported this and continue actually we joined it in 2007 but this idea has been around for at least five six years I know when we've had several presentations on it at the mayor's conference and at the West County mayor's

1:42:32conference I think it's money well spent and and will continue to think that way I think the we will I'm confident that the people working on it will get the absolute best price that we can get and as more users come on it will greatly reduce our costs but um if you

1:42:52uh if one reads the analytical comments of a disaster whether it's here whether it's across country it really doesn't matter in the top five actually it's probably the top three but the top five elements is a lack of communication or communication not coordinated or

1:43:15whatever you want to call it and this will put us not only will it be state of the art the best for public agencies but also will put us in the Forefront to go forward and we really need the coordination the two counties actually I'm quite surprised at some of the

1:43:35bigger jurisdictions were and maybe continue to be uh against this I don't understand that we need this uh to rely on each other I think it's one of those things where interoperability uh in an emergency is is the key there's already an interest at Solano County

1:43:54about maybe being the third complete County to come on board there's there's discussions in uh I know the e-bricks group is hoping this is the foundation for the greater Bay Area that we can you know one County to another County kind of daisy chain along and get all on the

1:44:10same system so we have you know in essence the perfect interoperable system but uh you I would agree with you it's in top three any disaster after action reports you read Communications an issue the ability not to communicate with mixed agencies and that interoperability

1:44:26failed um we made a giant step 10 years ago or 12 years ago now when we went to the 800 system and we became interoperable with the police in a click of a channel we could talk back and forth on the same system um and that's in our little West County now that's going to grow to you know

1:44:44when when we respond for example to a fire in Albany now we put down our current radio and we pick up another radio right they're not on an 800 system all that's going to go away it'll be click of a button and you'll go to the next Channel and that will be a a great

1:44:59Improvement for uh police officer safety firefighter safety and it will improve our response plus [Music] um we have the police on the same system correct and the more you read and hear the more chases that go from City to City County to County and I think the better

1:45:22communication we have the better way that the police can actually uh do their work with the least amount of risk to the public as possible and so I just think it's good I think it's money well spent we're committed this is the way to go in the future and in the long run

1:45:40it's going to greatly benefit us before you move I would like to make a a comment that uh you know one of the people that were involved at this just when it was you know a thought or an idea on a piece of paper was Chief Kirkland and uh the the program in itself would not be where it is today

1:46:00um we wouldn't be involved as a city as much as we are if it wasn't for his performance in this Arena so I I won't stand before you and and take any credit for this uh police chief Kirkland laid the groundwork for this great thank you yeah I just wanted to say as we were just remembering um 911

1:46:17the importance of this project and I did want to acknowledge former Chief Kirkland for his role and I attended several meetings with him as mayor and as well as your work and I see that cheap Moyer and Captain Regan are here in support of the interoperable system

1:46:34and I really appreciate your work on trying to estimate the cost but I think it's super important to remember firstly that this is not going to work unless everybody gets involved and we already have 29 cities four Special Districts in the University of California which is

1:46:49huge support it's only going to spread and become more and more effective but secondly that we don't compare the cost into the future against a zero because we have all this cost related to continuing to upgrade and improve our police and fire services and equipment

1:47:09and our relationships with the other agencies so I just think that this has been a program that's been long in the making I thank you and chief Kirkland and I think that we really just like on the climate action front we need to move forward and take this Challenge on and

1:47:27it's only um going to improve the safety of our Public Service workers as well as the community thank you so I would just like to emphasize how important this is I was try safety day talking to one of the water tenders from East Bay Regional Park District who actually was called to respond to the

1:47:45explosion over in San Bruno and they as a result of not having Communications they actually had to space the vehicles on the road that they were they were shuttling water over to this bladder and they water trucks had to to take turns going on this road back and forth and it

1:48:05was a it was as a result of a lack of communication that they could not move the water faster to the bladder that they had set up on the ground because they they didn't have the ability to talk about who was going up or down this one way one lane road so my discussion of the fundings Mostly

1:48:24because we have time to start planning ahead for it not that we shouldn't be comparing it to Zero by any means and certainly was not trying to say that I was not for this um on wholeheartedly behind this and think we have to go forward I think we have to go forward with it we just need

1:48:42to start playing accordingly I I would also like to comment I appreciate the comments you guys have and the questions about the funding it's important and and we should have this transparent dialogue so we have a you know the history to go with what we end up with

1:48:59you yeah I was just going to say I wanted to add my comments to um via the comments made by everyone else and I think the most uh significant thing about this is that is the way in which all the different jurisdictions have worked together to make it happen and I I too remember when this started

1:49:19and um it was just it was to me a question of will everyone be able to set aside their um self-interest and work together as a team across jurisdictions and the answer to have we've been able to do that is yes and so I'd like to also thank everyone who worked on it and um would

1:49:42like to make a motion well first let me ask are there any speaker requests no speakers requests I'll make it I'd like the council to consider adopting a resolution approving a project operating in agreement with the East Bay Regional Communications system Authority and

1:50:00authorizing the execution and implementation of the same the second okay all in favor please say aye aye aye the opposition or abstentions motion carries unanimously with that we'll move on to item 8 on our agenda Council assignments and liaison reports and I'll just say a little bit

1:50:20more about having attended the league of California cities as your delegate and one of the things I did while there is attend a b 1234 training which is the ethics training that we each have to do every two years so this is perhaps a reminder if you would like one that you need to

1:50:41do that every two years and I'm not sure what year everyone's in but one of the ways you can do that is by attending a class like I did but you can also do it online personally I think the class is um you learn more but you can do it either way and satisfy the requirement

1:51:00and things do keep changing there so it is important to do that then another um thing that I worked on as a member of a number of of several policy committees and the and then the general resolutions committee as chair of one of the policy committees and and then as a voting

1:51:20delegate um so I worked on it three times some of it um is a number of resolutions were passed um one of them was to uh to support the let's move program which is um a program to reduce childhood obesity through um adopting you know a program of physical activity for children and that I think

1:51:48is really an important thing to do so we did that and um believe it or not we had discussion on it which I found rather amazing um another um thing of course we did was the ab32 SB 375 resolution that we discussed earlier moving on beyond our resolutions I wanted to also mention that I attended

1:52:13a lecture on public records act requests and ways to make those work better and one of the suggestions that was made and I didn't actually bring the website address with me but there's a website you can go to and I'm going to give that website address to City staff that lists

1:52:35a number of things you can do on your website that if you do all of these things then it makes it it puts the information in front of the public in a very visible and obvious way such that they no longer will for those things have to ask for public records act requests

1:52:57processes to occur because it's already out there on the website and so I'll be turning that over I first have to of course myself see if it's really true and I've just gotten back but um the um the idea is you know that just to have the data out there and um an agency in

1:53:18um Washington D.C has studied the issue to try to figure out what are the really important ones and they have a list so anyway we'll see if that really works um and but I think I thought it was a good idea it'll certainly and um I think that's the main thing I want

1:53:36to report on and so why don't we just go down the row starting with council member Lyman if you have anything nothing to report I went to the last Economic Development board meeting where Dwayne the economic development manager gave an overview of the scope of work coming up through the

1:53:56rest of the year for I guess next year and updated members about the restructuring and they got to hear the latest updates on all the economic development activity in the community um the second thing is thank you mayor for inviting me to to take your seat on the East Bay Green Corridor meeting last

1:54:15Tuesday it's the second annual meeting of principals essentially mayors of eight cities along the East Bay Corridor um the the whole point of it is essentially to promote green tech jobs but also just bringing everybody in very similar light is the the e-bricks

1:54:33program bringing together Regional collaboration to share resources and knowledge and just get more efficient about winning National dollars for our part of the bay um EB greenquarter.org is the website for this group and I was excited to see that we were able to kind of enhance or expand

1:54:54the discussion to include Green Transportation along the corridor specifically for San Pablo Avenue the member cities stretch from San Leandro up to Richmond and so to be able to have um you know some meaningful results from our participation that isn't just focused on probably large industrial

1:55:13Green Tech you know communities that have space for industrial growth um we essentially provide the bedrooms for a lot of the jobs and so seeing how we can get better connected to the jobs and for existing residents in the future I think lots of the at least the Mayors along

1:55:30San Pablo Avenue are really excited about so want to share that with you I just wanted to point out that when we approved the consent calendar we approved a proclamation declaring October 1st as California Arts Day in El Cerrito and as celebrating National Arts

1:55:47and Humanities month by declaring the entire month of October as Arts month in El Cerrito and to let you know that we will be having the El Cerrito art association annual Show starting October 1st and running through the weekend and there are a number of other events and

1:56:04since the assistant city manager Karen Pincus isn't here I don't have the whole calendar See I can't even function without her of all the great events that we'll be having around the city but you can check the website and I wanted to also report that I was unable to attend

1:56:20the arts and culture commission meeting that was last Wednesday but that they discussed the historic paver project along San Pablo Avenue and continued planning efforts for California Arts day sure we didn't have a Planning Commission meeting this month the commission is patiently waiting for

1:56:41Safeway to present because it'll be their final final presentation quite possibly their final presentation and we can get going on that project and I just wanted I just remembered going back to the waste management board meeting the only thing that is in the recyclable

1:57:02items that they now allow in that they're probably going to take out of there is milk cartons and the reason for it it when it was just wax that was okay but uh actually I guess apparently now the wax cartons have on either side of it a plastic film on either side I guess

1:57:25to give it strength or durability or whatever the reason is and it seems to be taking longer to break down so what they're doing is actually going to experiment how long it does take to break down and somehow then develop a strategy on how they can mesh that time

1:57:42with the current time this things break down I think they're saying it takes anywhere from nine to 12 months for everything else to break down but these containers are taking longer so it's things like that they're working on but everybody's enthusiastic there's really

1:57:59no blowback or pushback to why are we doing this and this is crazy it's let's fine tune it and get it down to a real good system thank you very much adjournment [Music] earn tonight in memory of former mayor and council member Donald West and um he was a I'm just trying to find

1:58:27my notes here he was a council member in the thank you he was a council member um who he died on August the 18th um and he was a chemical engineer at the then Standard Oil Refinery enrichment and he served on the El Cerrito city council from 1964 to 68 serving as mayor

1:58:54in 1967 to 68. during his uh term on the council the city actually raised the bond funds that resulted in the construction of the community center and swimming pool parks and the police and fire station which is quite an accomplishment in that amount of time to do all of

1:59:18those different things so it's pretty amazing after that period of time he remained active in City Affairs and causes focusing on equality and civil rights um and um as his son said the council term was just the beginning of his career he later served on the seed stage

1:59:41Sanitary District board from 1977 to 1993 and he was a member of a number of City committees and he was an active leader at Mira Vista United Church of Christ and he volunteered as treasurer of the Greater Richmond Interfaith program or grip as I think a lot of us know it so he was a pretty

2:00:08amazing person and he will be missed so I mean we could have in the meeting with a moment of silence in his honor thank you thank you foreign will be on thank you