Concurrent City Council and Redevelopment Agency Meeting October 18, 2010

0:00:01good evening everyone welcome to the El Cerrito city council meeting um we just met in a closed session and there are no announcements to make um with that uh can we have roll call please councilmember Lyman here councilmember Jones here councilmember Potter here and

0:00:29mayor Abelson here mayor Pro tem Chang is absent thank you with that please join council member Bill Jones in the Pledge of Allegiance will you join me I pledge allegiance to them to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all

0:01:03um the next item on the agenda is Council and staff Communications no I don't have anything tonight soon no I got one too no I'm okay all right all right there's a couple things since we met last um I attended the El Cerrito High School health day um which was a promotion to have well

0:01:34anybody but in particular um High School students uh check for a nominal fee check their heart through a heart-coded cardiogram and echogram and this was brought on because last year there was a student who was playing basketball had collapsed in almost died if it wasn't for the the work of

0:01:58paramedics and earlier in the year we had a presentation that that identified that but the upshot was that they thought if they brought in some testing at anomalous price that athletes and young people and anybody in the community could get their heart checked out and there was a a doctor there that

0:02:18evaluated the the test so it was very good and and well attended over 300 people that morning received this testing so it was well done uh also that afternoon was the El Cerrito High School archives celebration and very nice but one thing I did find out uh didn't know it is the only

0:02:42Museum that is located in an active high school in the United States so um for whatever that is uh it's a pretty good designation apparently there are high there are school facilities that are now turned into museums once they're not schools but this is the only

0:03:01one that's active in a high school uh I tended the taste of El Cerrito and the mayor was there we had a good time nice Opera presentation it was a fun time attended the splash park very nice especially for kids under five if you have them uh it's great especially if you want to get

0:03:21them soaking wet that's that's the way to do it and finally I was invited by local 12 30 of the firefighters Association and the counter cost of fire district to attend their first ever fire operations orientation and this was several cities sent representatives to this and basically it

0:03:44covered the areas of fire codes inspections Paramedic Services vehicle accidents and use of the jaws of life building interior what it is to fight a fire on the interior and probably the fun thing of all was to go into the uh the Fire trailer and uh fight a live fire with with fire hose

0:04:11and one thing there you're it really hits you when you start suiting up but here it is the the trailer got to 500 degrees inside and and actually that's kind of cool for a actual fire but 500 Degrees and you're suited up and all that's protecting you is a piece of material

0:04:30that's supposed to be fire retardant on your back and keep you cool and it's quite a sensation that you're there trying to put out a fire knowing that if you take your mask off or Flip Your Collar up uh it's going to be a a fairly hot situation so anyway my point is it

0:04:50was it was well done and if you have a chance to go through it any anybody whether you're on the council or not it's well worth it it gives you a great understanding of what's needed to uh to have fire protection in your community thank you thank you the only thing I

0:05:11want forward is working on our climate action plan and there will be a series of three Community meetings the first one is on October the 26th Tuesday from 5 to 7 PM the second one will be on November the 13th Saturday from 10 a.m to 12 noon and the third one will be on December the

0:05:362nd a Thursday from 7 to 9 p.m some of the topics being discussed would include strategies on how El Cerrito can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions topics will include Transit oriented development biking and walking in El Cerrito energy and water efficiency renewable energy Recycling and waste

0:05:58reduction and urban Greening and if you're interested in more information please call 510-215-4351 [Music] thank you now with that we'll move on to oral Communications from the public on items not on the agenda and there's three minutes allowed in the city clerk

0:06:21will call names um the green light is when you begin the yellow is you have how much more time I'm one minute one minute left and then uh red means you're out of three minutes thank you Tom pandas good evening Madam mayor member of the council and City staff my name is Tom

0:06:54pandas I live at [address removed] in El Cerrito I'd like to thank the city in particular thank Karen Pinkus and the arts and culture commission for inviting the Historical Society to display at City Hall or photo exhibition on the Japanese Nursery community that once

0:07:08thrived here I think everyone would agree that the exhibit was remarkable in several senses if you ask the staff they'll tell you that they received many inquiries about the exhibit people continue to contact me and express their amazement at how this significant part

0:07:21of our local history could have been so thoroughly ignored for so long since I first stumbled across as part of our history eight or nine years ago there's been a rising awareness of our Japanese history here in California when Historical Society put up this show last

0:07:34year at the senior center we had no idea of the impact it would have on the community but in case any of you aren't aware of it I'd like to point out that there's a wonderful art and historical exhibit going on right now at the Richmond Arts Center called blossoms and

0:07:45thorns it runs through November 13th the art show has generated an enormous amount of community involvement enormous and continues to spawn more in addition there's a related exhibit about our nurseries open through this upcoming weekend at the Richmond Museum of History

0:08:01just a few weeks ago Governor Schwarzenegger signed a bill declaring that henceforth here in California January 30th will be known as Fred karamatsu day Fred caramatsu as an American citizen of Japanese descent who would not accept the government's contention that he was

0:08:14dangerous because his parents were Japanese he was chat he challenged in court the U.S government's right to order all 125 120 000 Japanese on the west coast out of their homes and businesses and into internment camp he lost his case but 40 years later his conviction was overturned as a result of

0:08:31the discovery that the U.S government had illegally withheld and even destroyed crucial evidence during his first trial Mr kormatsu was awarded the presidential medal of freedom in 1998. I hope the city council will consider recognizing the special nature of January 30th as

0:08:47that day draws closer I don't wish to be suggesting the Japanese Heritage is the most important history here in our town rather it's a part of it as Charles Burris the editor of velcro patches wrote on his on his site yesterday our community identity is strengthened and enriched by a knowledge

0:09:03of our history even simple experience like going to El Cerrito Plaza becomes much more meaningful and resonant for me when I know it used to be a drive-in theater a greyhound Racetrack and a home of the first non-native American Settler thank you for your time this evening

0:09:18thank you Harry Cerritos good evening my name is Harry ceridis and I live in El Cerrito I wrote an article in favor of measure r and it was published October 1st the article said this the fireball in San broom destroyed 37 homes and caused the death of loved ones

0:09:50I Hope This Disaster never happens in El Cerrito that's why I'm here you know to explain it also we must realize this we do live in a constant danger we do need fire trucks and firefighters we need an ambulance full speed to save people's life we do need police cars and policemen to

0:10:10calm the city streets and day and night to protect each one of us and our families do you want to layer one person who has been protecting us for 10 years we do need measure R it's very clear to all of us I think I also wrote in the article we have very little crime in El

0:10:31Cerrito and our homes are safe because our excellent city council the city manager and the very brave police officers which I know many of them and firefighters who endanger their lives day and night to protect us the people in the police department in the fire department the city hall the

0:10:53community center in the pool we all have families and expenses to pay we all work to make a living to take care of our families so the money is important every year the state takes away money from El Cerrito's budget this year the city council has devised the measure r and I'm sure other

0:11:13cities will do the same it will only increase the sales tax by half cent and all the money will stay in El Cerrito the state cannot take a penny from measure R major as money now or ever I think it's a wise decision decision to keep our homes and families safe and

0:11:33secure I urge all the people in El Cerrito to please vote for measure r measure R is for a beautiful city on the Hills by the bay which you all love very much and we want to protect it thank you very much l Miller [address removed] good evening Mary ibelson and council members

0:12:01I'm here to address sorry uh consent calendar item 5f you'll be asked to approve the spending of asset seizure funds and vehicle abatement funds and in the process of doing that I ask that each of you individually and collectively remember what you're spending here and

0:12:26support Chief Moyers uh plans as they develop to you be sure that after the mainline police officer support items are purchased out of there that some as much of you can be committed to drug and alcohol information and abatement programs in our middle school and our high school

0:12:51I think that I don't know what the figure is but for every dollar you can put in there with these programs to educate and form and make the young people aware of the problems they face with these substances it will save an awful lot of police work in the future

0:13:09and a lot of incarceration funds thank you very much Erin Canon Kennedy hi my name is Aaron Kennedy at Erin Kennedy floor is at [address removed] hello council members and mayor I'm here for two two reasons I would like to urge this the city council to adopt what's called just cause for our city that's

0:13:43where um tenants rights are protected especially if there's a foreclosure situation and you're currently renting um our Cities next to us the city of Richmond has has adopted just cause they've had it now for a year city of Berkeley has San Francisco has I've been

0:14:03a resident for more than 20 years here and raised my family I've been a renter and a property owner and I'm now faced with another foreclosure as a renter which means If I'm renting a home here in El Cerrito I have to and the bank forecloses I have 60 days and I have to move out even if I

0:14:22have a lease just cause costs nothing to the city it definitely protects homes and keeps them intact where renters then could continue to rent from the bank and the banks would protect those leases if you're currently in a lease and then it keeps homes from being vacant in our

0:14:43neighborhoods which is really awesome and again this is the second time now in just a year that I've been in a situation as a renter where I've had to go through the 4K closed captioning not available that there are many more people in our city as renters that would benefit from

0:15:57tenants or some sort of tenant hotline where they could call in voluntarily and say we need some help here because the the owners of the properties are not doing what they're supposed to do and that's just a red flag seems to me and I think that that would really help attend

0:16:12the tenants right situation thank you thank you I have no other speaker slips for this portion okay thank you um the next item on the agenda is item number four presentations the first item on that list is the El Cerrito preschool cooperatives 70th Anniversary Proclamation and we do

0:16:39have a proclamation but before we presented I want to mention that I attended that event yesterday and it was an amazing event there were an enormous number of people there I'm not quite sure how to even begin to count them but um the uh there was uh uh nor you know there are lots and lots

0:17:03and lots of children and there were um any number of adults and I think everyone had a fantastic time it was a very well organized event um and um I also want to mention that one of the people getting a an award at that event was the mother of the Fogerty brothers

0:17:25that you may if you're old enough remember were Credence Clearwater Revival and um they um their mother actually was one of the instrumental people in the beginning years of the El Cerrito preschool cooperative and so um what I would ask the council to do at this point is to approve a proclamation

0:17:55congratulating and honoring the Espirito preschool cooperative for its 70 years a valuable services to our community and to the children and parents who live here and who come here and extending those to those parents the city council's best wishes for a bright

0:18:12future second all in favor please say aye aye aye any opposition in the obstination ocean carries unanimously so with that if um we could have a presentation of the plaque [Music] um you wouldn't want to come down oh thank you going back down [Music] here thank you and may your next 70 years

0:19:27I brought a little pocketbook thank you very much um hello to all of you and the city council my name is Ann Clements and I'm the director and teacher at El Cerrito preschool I'm pleased to accept this Proclamation on behalf of the current and past members of and staff of the El Cerrito

0:19:52preschool cooperative we had a wonderful celebration yesterday as you've just heard of our school 70 years the party was hosted by the present members and some of the most recent alums many Alum families came and enjoyed the music and the food and the puppet show and reconnecting with past

0:20:10friends we even had an Alum from the first Year's class and one from the second Year's class that's 69 and 70 years ago ecpc is a place where literally thousands of parents and children have come together to grow strong healthy families the parents go on to be involved in

0:20:29their children's schools and educations because it because of their experiences at ecpc the school starts children on a path of becoming happy healthy productive adults who love to learn I've been teaching at the school for 30 years now and am continually awed by the

0:20:45impact that the school has on both the parents and the children and the teachers as well this school started in 1940 with 22 moms who had big things who helped make big things happen and the tradition has been carried on by those who followed them buildings and play equipment have been

0:21:05constructed roofs replaced fundraisers and parties organized Gardens planted walls painted and painted and painted again always the teachers and parents have felt a part of a bigger thing that came before them and will continue along after they leave because of the sweat

0:21:23labor contributions and genuine love of the ecpc members we're very grateful to the city of El Cerrito for the support over these many years and depend on it for our future thank you for the acknowledgment of the good things that have been happening at 7200 Mosier Lane in El Cerrito thank you

0:21:43very much for coming yesterday too thank you and I think they deserve a round of applause myself [Applause] thank you Item B under that section of our agenda is the California law enforcement challenge award and that's going to be presented by Stephen benini who's the

0:22:07police lieutenant in our department good evening Madam mayor city council members I'm proud to be back again this year it's the fourth year in a row at the El Cerrito police department has won this award from the state of California I'm also happy to report that this was

0:22:28the first year that we'll be receiving an award from the International Association of chiefs of police we finished very well and we'll be obtaining that award in the next month or so one of the things I always like to mention is the dedicated work that our men and women at the police department

0:22:42do and these traffic officers that we have as well as our Patrol officers go about each day trying to make a difference in people's lives one of the ways that we've done that have been very successful in providing that service is reducing collisions in the city of El Cerrito

0:22:56we've reduced injury collisions we reduced collisions as a whole we reduce pedestrian involved collisions and when you measure a traffic safety unit that's one of the things that we have to take a look at is the safety of the motoring and pedestrian public being enhanced by

0:23:10what we do and for the El Cerrito police department and our men and women that work for the Department we've done a fantastic job of that five years in a row now we reduce collisions and I'm not talking one or two collisions at a time sometimes we've seen reductions of 15 16

0:23:24per year beginning with 2005.

0:23:27so our program isn't simply going out and issuing a citation let's face it nobody's happy when they get a traffic citation however that citation helps modify the behavior that motorist or that pedestrian or that bicyclist in the future we'll all be safer so with with that I'd like to thank you

0:23:43all for your support the traffic safety unit and officer John Mullica Sid Hubbs and Chris Purdy have done a lot we've been assigned a lot of different tasks such as child safety seat commercial enforcement and the list go on and on part of that aspect is our partnership

0:24:02with other City departments without Public Works and event Ortiz and Jerry Bradshaw some of the things that we've been able to do would we wouldn't have been realized in this short year they've allowed us to present some problems to them they've allowed us to come out on pedestrian walks throughout

0:24:18the city and we're able to increase some visibility with the help of their engineering so I'd like to thank you all and thank the city departments as a whole in allowing us to be here tonight thank you thank you if you want to stay up we'll we'll have a little photo up this is an

0:24:34absolutely gorgeous plaque I must say I think it maybe it's perhaps the the nicest one I've ever seen if you could I don't know if anyone can see the colors but they're absolutely beautiful and I would like to thank you on behalf of all the residents here for all of the work

0:24:50that the department has been doing in the other departments uh in the city working as a team with you have been doing on this it really makes this the kind of place we want to be so thank you for all of that work and then if you want to thank you a little photo up

0:25:10getting our exercise here that's good captain Chief oh thank you sure congratulations thank you thank you very much [Applause] Mary Wilson could I uh just make a comment on uh I'd like to where is he anyway I'd like to thank Steve for uh taking this on in 2006 when it first

0:26:38started uh I think the department will tell you the the biggest complaints they had and comments they had was on traffic and I I know the you know it's probably not the most glamorous uh assignment to go out and monitor traffic and and see that those laws are are obeyed but they've

0:27:00done a fantastic job not only uh putting the program together but but taking on a problem that the citizens wanted some action on and it's real tough to be in more than one place at once but in in the in the places that they're at they're strong they're asking people to obey the law and the results

0:27:21are in the statistics and and out on the street so I'd just like to thank you for taking on that challenge and continuing uh to the point that we're Award winners year after year thank you very much I just want to say what um visionary people you were to take this on back in

0:27:422006 because back then the potholes were slowing us down and we're about to hear about pavement and I'm you know if we hadn't changed all that behavior we'd have a lot more speeders in town with the good pavement we've got so thank you very much impress the Apple

0:28:04of work that we're doing and I was really pleased to be able to read through that in the packet and so I'm happy for everyone for the award so thank you so much for your efforts thank you with that we will move on to item C in this section which is the 2010 street condition report presented by

0:28:24Jerry Bradshaw who's been working hard and Furious in making this happen and I don't know Jerry if when you came to our city this is what you thought you would be doing but you've sort of done a fantastic job thank you thank you madam mayor and Council well this is my third street condition

0:28:46report I presented during my tenure here first one was in 2006 I did another one in 2008 and this one in 2010 I'm thinking it's going to have a little different tenure than the past ones the pavement Management program is a lot of things it's it's actually required by federal

0:29:11agencies for us to receive federal fundings we must have a maintenance payment Management program in use and updated every two years we currently use the one that was developed by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission the MTC back in the 1980s they were the

0:29:30Pioneers in this field and have really developed a very good tool for cities and counties to use to to manage their roadways I understand they're even have marketed that out to other parts of the country in their effort to to do this program um this study you see the cover up on

0:29:49the screen is you'll see it's a it's called pavement Management program update ptap 11. the ptap 11 refers to the grant program under which this was mostly funded through MTC they have a funding program it's money they take off all the transportation dollars that come

0:30:05into the area and Dole out small amounts to help cities do their pavement up dates every two years because it's very important work a payment Management program excuse me does three does three key things for us it's a multi-year program just like our financial planning we do our financial

0:30:39planning over a long multi-year Arc we do the same thing with our streets it's a five-year look ahead window to help us understand not only where our streets are today but where they're going it also focuses heavily on preventive maintenance clearly if you can get your

0:30:54streets in good shape preventive maintenance is the key just like changing oil in your car painting your house just before you need to things like that it really does pay off it also helps us to select the most effective repairs on our streets and as you've probably heard over the years

0:31:11there are a lot of different ways to tackle Street Maintenance and this really helps us to identify the most cost effective ways to do it depending on what stage a street is in here are some of the basic facts we find in the report still 68 Center Line miles of Road

0:31:29and the current replacement value calculates out to almost 52 million dollars that's if we were to have to build these streets Anew right now the table at the bottom is similar to what you saw the last couple times we have a couple more Street segments we've resubdivided a few we have 390 Street

0:31:48segments and you can see how this 68 miles is divided between the arterials the collectors and the residential local streets PCI here have heard me talk about that that's the pavement condition index and that's a number assigned to each segment of street and it's it indicates the

0:32:13condition of the of the pavement of course it ranges from zero to 100 with 100 being the best again reviewing a few other things I've shown you in the past these are the the different categories we classify depending on where it is from zero to 100 at the top from 70 to 100 is a good

0:32:33condition green is good these are the same color scheme I'll be using throughout so remember green good red bad this is a chart I showed you four years ago this is a bar showing the the average payment condition for all 109 cities and counties in the Bay Area starting with the highest cities up in

0:32:55the mid 80s ranking down to the lowest cities in the mid 40s in 2006 when I first showed this to you El Cerrito was down here with a score of 52.

0:33:06and we were in the bottom 10 at that point at the time when we started making our plans in 2007 and 2008 we thought we could work real hard if we could raise the money and our goal was to be up in 70 or maybe slightly above in respectable condition so that on average the streets would be

0:33:25in good condition I'm happy to report tonight that we have exceeded our goal dramatically our new PCI number system-wide is 85 which puts us right up at the Top Flight of all the cities in the Bay Area what I don't have is the current ranking of all the other cities MTC is will be

0:33:45compiling that this winter and in early 2011 hopefully they'll publish a report that shows once again where all the cities line out so it's hard to say exactly what we'll rank but I think it's safe to say We'll rank in the Top Flight of cities this time around this kind of shows you at the bottom of

0:34:05the average Network PCI in 2006 was 53.

0:34:09two years later it slipped a little bit to 52 and now we're at 85. what's important here is is the numbers over here very good and good they've actually subdivided that green category into two subcategories 79 16 added together is 95 percent of our streets are in the good

0:34:29category phenomenal this is the same information in bar chart form this is the familiar bar chart I've used over the years and again you see in the the numbers in 0608 and that green just really grew and nearly overtook the entire bar this time around 95 percent of the streets in fact

0:34:53I tried to roll out our familiar map and I wanted to show you which one how the streets are arrayed by color on the map it wasn't very effective because when I throw in the green streets it's pretty much the whole map as we would expect with that number if you add in the streets in fair

0:35:12condition you see a few streets drop it in let me do that again there's a half a dozen streets have fell into place there in poor category we still have a few there's about three or four again just about four streets there and we currently have two streets still in the

0:35:30in the pork very poor category incidentally the largest one of those treats balra we've just given a go ahead for the contractor to add that into this year's work we're able to negotiate with the contractor and the the East Bay mud who has just put a water main up there

0:35:46to help assist us in paying for that since they don't have to do the trench replacement themselves so we we are a go on that in the next three weeks we should have that added in that is not reflected in the numbers you see here tonight so that would be another little

0:36:00boost to to the whole system when you have MTC bring a consultant in to evaluate your payment Management program they come in the package includes Four Financial scenarios the unconstrained scenario is the dream scenario where you take you don't have no money problems you just throw all the

0:36:22money you need to to clear your backlog in the first year and then they calculate what you would need for the years afterward to hold it up with zero backlog they also run a financial scenario on what your current budget is which usually is quite a ways away from your

0:36:39unconstrained scenario they also show you two scenarios what it would take to hold your condition steady and what would take to raise your payment condition index by Five Points unfortunately or fortunately our existing budget is very close to the unconstrained in this case so these two

0:36:55scenarios really had no value in this study so we only actually did two and this is how they chart out now that looks like a pretty dramatic bumping around of numbers but when you look it only varies between 86 in a second year down to 81. so if you were to pull the chart up to the full hundred

0:37:14percent you would see that that's virtually a flat line across there and as you might expect when you've just invested a lot in your streets you've kind of buoyed the number up somewhat artificially because it has that attenuates out of our time you can never really have all your streets all

0:37:30in that good of shape all at once again so you can see where the two scenarios actually are statistically about the same the unconstrained budget would be 2.8 million dollars over the next five years our minimum budget that we are guaranteed to have is two and a half

0:37:48million so they're virtually the same very favorable position to be in again looking back I did several approaches where we've come since 2006.

0:38:01this was another chart I showed you then El Cerrito is over on the right with a pretty good amount in the green but a whole lot in the red and I compared it to some select other cities ranging in various conditions with Foster City being the best at that time so then I put our new bar chart up next

0:38:19to those and it looked pretty good even under those circumstances and One Last Arc from 2006 Ford this was the the condition we had the bar chart for that at the bottom you see a payment condition index of 53 and under that is a backlog of 21.2 million dollars I want you to

0:38:40watch the backlogger so I went through some different scenarios because that's an important part of what we did here if we looked ahead actually we did that data in 2005 so five years would have been 2010 a look ahead to 2010 under the current budget at that time our PCI

0:38:59would have dropped down to 44. and our backlog would have grown to 25 and a half million dollars at that time we were contemplating what became measure a and if we were to take what we had hoped to be a large bond fund and apply to the streets we felt like the PCI could go up to 75 and we

0:39:19would cut the backlog in half down to about an 11 million dollars of course what really happened was we put not quite that much money in only 15.6 million and we ended up with a PCI of 85 and our backlog is down to one million dollars which is statistically insignificant

0:39:40um I've told you what the the pavement Management program is it's actually a trademarked program called Street saver from MTC uh I'd like to mention a few things that it isn't it isn't a very precise modeling tool streets are have tons and tons of variables even Engineers who specialize

0:40:00in this with phds don't know all the answers to how to keep your streets as healthy as possible and this is a relatively crude program as far as modeling programs in the scientific realm and it just can't nail things quite that close you can see this is an example where we projected 16 million

0:40:19dollar investment raising a PCI to 75 we invested less than that and raised it up to 85. so some of that is some of the flaws in the program but I think a lot of it was due to some of the aggressive treatments we took and some of the actual design when you go away from this

0:40:35planning tool and actually start putting together each Year's program on an engineering basis you take a completely different look at the streets than what this does as far as Street by Street and we we had we were forced to do that of course when you always do when you go

0:40:50out and pave your streets and I think we may some smart moves and some good Investments and it was uh came up with a very good result here's what we spent on it and where the money came from the actual Bond proceeds were 10 and a half million we did have two million dollars worth of

0:41:11annual revenues in the past three years to put towards these projects we had 1.8 million dollars in Grants we had 1.2 million actually that would predated measure a from the 2007 Paving program and we had a hundred thousand dollars of miscellaneous revenues that were added

0:41:30to this for a total of 15.6 million I'd like to point out no general fund monies were spent on this when we first laid this out we had projected to get a million dollars per year in in pay-as-you-go annual maintenance that we would be contributing a modest amount of

0:41:47general fund money towards that one million unfortunately with the downturn we haven't been able to do that and we've also had to pull out some of the local Return To Source money from the but we made up for that to a pretty good extent with grants and other other financing tools we have applied

0:42:07here and we were able to come up with a pretty good amount over these three years for four years actually without any general fund contribution this is one uh one more chart one last chart I'll show you uh again you've seen this before um this is the uh declining curve on the

0:42:28street condition over time it declines from good condition down to bad condition and if you uh catch your street early enough it can only cost you two to three dollars a square yard to repair it if you wait a little longer it's going to cost you more 14 to 20 dollars per square yard

0:42:46way way long is going to be quite a bit more and of course if you wait even longer it's going to be very expensive going on almost 70 dollars per square yard to repair your streets this is a chart you've seen before I've updated the numbers for current pricing but what we try and do what actually

0:43:04happens and what we look forward to being able to do now that we have the streets in very good condition almost all of them up around in this area between 70 and 100 is you would typically have a street decline from 100 when it starts new down to 70. ideally you would repair it then and bring it

0:43:22back up to 100 and then it would decline some more then you would bring it back up to 100 and on and on and on these Cycles range from 8 to 12 years depending on the treatment depending on other factors latent defects and stuff structural repairs you might have to do

0:43:41and it's for this very reason you would leave a street alone until it gets to around 70. you wouldn't paint your house every year you would wait 10 years or whatever you should to paint your house we do that with streets too so as all the streets the 390 segments around town

0:43:56are scattered out over their own individual conditions they're anywhere from 70 to 100 in an ideal condition so for an average score to be 85 which is halfway between 70 and 100 is really about as good a score as you can ever get I had some staff in and said let's go for a hundred let's go for

0:44:14more well you really can't when you have this many Street segments 85 is really about as high as you can get uh just one last summary from the report the actual backlog at this point is 1.0 for million dollars after the backlog is cleared you need varying amounts in a year ranging from

0:44:39four to five hundred thousand dollars per year that would be in the in the unconstrained scenario our existing annual budget is at least five hundred thousand that's the amount of revenues we get from measure a after we pay our debt service and holding a little aside

0:44:54for curb ramps and other things that would have to be done outside of the actual payment itself would be five hundred thousand dollars a year and with that money and the condition we're in the city is positioned very well to maintain this street condition this is much better than we thought we

0:45:10would be when we launched major a we thought we'd have a fair to good condition and hopefully be able to maintain it up at that level but with it as high as it is I think we can we can we're in very good position to do that as you recall when we passed measure rate we debated different scenarios and

0:45:29we chose to focus primarily on satisfying our annual needs Downstream and not so much in upfront bond funds and because of that we didn't expand all of our bond funds bonding capacity at once and I'm I'm looking back upon that I think that was a very wise decision on

0:45:47your part to to take us in that direction um because of that I think we have a a substantial budget going out in forward in an annual basis so I think that that was very wisely worked out um so for that I'd like to thank you for the direction you gave us on that and I

0:46:06also like to thank the citizens of El Cerrito for supporting you and the measure a and really really coming to bat and and giving us the opportunity to to do this work that we managed to do I'd also like to thank a couple other people that really were key in getting

0:46:22this program as successful as it was number one would be Avila project management and particularly Gerardo Avila he's here tonight I'd like to thank him for the hard work he's done he's not only put together all the bid packages and dealt with all the contractors and the daily headaches and

0:46:41brought in Consultants to do special testing and special reports but he's really been there from the the first day when we started to strategize about and dream about what we could do if we had enough money what if we could really turn this thing around and bring

0:46:58this thing up and he really was key in helping me to strategize this he had a lot of good experience with payment I didn't know that when I first hired him for the from the earlier projects but turned out I had the right person here I think and he really was key and

0:47:12essential in helping helping us bring this good outcome that we have here the other person is by the way Gerardo he's back here um the other person is Susannah erla our public information person here at the city uh she's actually sweated through some of the daily headaches too as far

0:47:32as scheduling and getting the information out she not only has helped us put out the annual mailer and some of the early informational material on the paving program but she's helped keep us honest and notifying residents of the work that's coming and getting the

0:47:47Letters Out the notifications out and and really helped us a lot in keeping the public and the citizens of El Cerrito informed as to what we're doing the last slide here is a bit of a cautionary note although I think nothing to be concerned about but the street saver program as I mentioned

0:48:08it's a lot of things and there's some things that it isn't it actually has a little weakness when it comes to application to our program here we invested a lot in Asphalt rubber Cape seal last year almost a third of our streets have this treatment on it well Street saver doesn't have established

0:48:25performance criteria for that type of treatment Cape seal just a standard Cape seal has been around a long time and I do have that programmed in so they pretty much use that criteria for asphalt rubber but I think asphalt rubber Cape seal really does a lot more particularly on many of

0:48:42the streets we have that were cracked but not because of structural failure we actually have a very good structure under a lot of these streets believe it or not I think having two Quarries in town might have had something to do with that as they furnish the rock underneath

0:48:54our streets but so we were able to decide which ones were structurally unsound and do the structure repairs but the other ones with all the cracks the air Cape seal is really tailor-made for that sort of thing so we did invest aggressively in that and bring bring

0:49:08that in but Street saver is having trouble keeping us up with that the other thing we did is we did a lot of structure repairs in 2008 we've done a lot more in 2009 2010 as we get down to the final treatments on the streets and that type of structural repairs is

0:49:27hard for Street saver to keep up with that to the extent that we did it so those are two weaknesses well that showed up when we when we tried to model the streets AR keepseal in Street Savers modeled to bring a 25 PCI Street up to a score of about 60.

0:49:45but when you go out and look at the street and do the visual scoring you get a 95 PCI this is the same street so which is it 95 or 60. well because the software really didn't have a way to deal with this correctly we I talked to Nichols Consulting who's the consultant on this

0:50:04and we also talked to MTC because ultimately they're going to have to certify the the payment report we do here and we did come up with a compromise to downgrade the 95 we felt like that might be overstating it because the they're still the old streets out under that we're not sure exactly how uh

0:50:24how they'll really react over the next five to ten years and we didn't want to overstate the condition and then have it drop off too far but obviously a 60 the streets are much more than that so we did compromise and and discount the visual surveys a bit so we took what

0:50:41would have been a 95 and put it in the mid 80s and they applied that reasoning through the the 120 or so streets that we put the asphalt rubber on it's interesting the the Nichols is one of the primary consultants for MTC and helped them to develop this over the decades and help

0:51:00them to update this and keep the street saver program a top-notch program and as they've been listening to agencies talk about their street work in the last year or so they kept hearing more and more about asphalt rubber Cape seal so they did a survey last summer of all

0:51:19the agencies in the in the Bay Area and found at least 30 of them either were currently using Ark seal or plan to in the near future that's almost a third of the agencies so they realize that they'd be kind of behind the time so they're really interested to see how our streets

0:51:34behave along with the other cities that have used that so they're going to be watching and try and get the program up to date be able to do a little better job for the agencies that do that that's the end of my presentation I'll take any questions at this point this is

0:51:51a picture of Moser Lane in its brand new Sunday Best last year after we got it going and it wasn't until after I took this picture and blew it up I realized how we had some nice fall colors there on Moser Lane so a little bit of El Cerrito color for you there question

0:52:08what are you going to do with all your free time [Laughter] it's amazing accomplishment really if you think about um a relatively short amount of time and the outstanding performance we got from the program and I know there is follow-up work to keep it in good shape

0:52:24but I'm really really impressed and grateful we still have that other five percent of streets that aren't in the the green zone yet and those are first on the list that we'll tackle in the next year or two as we we move forward it shouldn't be too tough a task to

0:52:39bring those streets up for those of you who live on those streets um I haven't forgotten you the manager any other comments I think it's just tremendous that we've been able to improve our streets so dramatically in such a short period of time and that it's uh remarkable that we

0:52:56were able to do that without using any general funds so I really want to recognize what a strong program we've put together the voters put together you know six years five years ago yeah I would just like to comment following along the same lines that uh putting this together a four-year

0:53:16program in three years and then even more important being in position to take care advantage of the grant programs that came in after we approved this and you were ready to go um doing this many streets you come across a lot of different things out there and we had the team in place to be flexible

0:53:37and to move quickly to take advantage of Street conditions the bidding climate and the grant program so thank you very much it's beyond what we thought and it should serve us well for a long time thank you thank you you know it's I was reflecting on this earlier tonight that

0:53:57it really has been fun and really privileged for me to work with colleagues and my boss my all my bosses who who uh who like to work with an organization that is assertive aggressive is out in front and is prepared as you all know Chance favors the prepared mind and I think we were

0:54:16very prepared when when it was time to get measure a passed when the economy even though I had a downturn we were able to contribute and do our part take advantage of low prices and keep people to work it's just been a real joy to be able to be involved with a program that

0:54:32was able to be as prepared as we were at the right time and take advantage of all that we were also prepared to receive the federal money from the stimulus package which was another added bonus for the program so that was great well I guess there's nothing left to do

0:54:49except to once again say thank you very much you're welcome thank you maybe we could do a round of applause for the streets okay with that we are going to move on to the consent calendar adoption of the consent calendar items 5A through 5 h uh I'm uh delighted to make a motion and

0:55:18I will add my comment into the motion um I move uh the adoption of the consent calendar items five A through five H and want to bring a special attention to um item let's see where is it uh five five f is I'll leave that for you um 5D where our small investment of 125

0:55:42000 will be reaping us over a million dollars in Grant monies from other agencies so to build on top of a presentation of the comments we just had uh you know item five uh D does does that all over again so I think with that I have a motion I'll second in and I'll

0:56:01just add that item 5f we appreciate the use of those funds to um build on law enforcement's capability on the drug education and also the equipment fund appreciate that are you ready to vote all in favor please say aye aye the opposition or abstentions most encouraged unanimously with that we'll

0:56:25move on to item seven policy matters and 7A is a Redevelopment agency item so I'll turn that over to Redevelopment agency chair Sandy Potter okay tonight we'll be considering developer selection for the Redevelopment agency property located at 10860 and 10848 San

0:56:48Pablo Avenue and I believe we have a staff report to get started thank you agency chair Potter members of the agency board I'm Hildy miles senior project manager for the city um I'm here tonight to talk to you about the tradeway furniture property next door to City Hall here it's 10860 and

0:57:1010848 San Pablo Avenue um I'm before you tonight with a resolution to designate a developer eating housing as the selected developer for the tradeway site and to designate Mercy Housing California as the second ranked developer and to authorize the executive director of the agency also

0:57:29known as our city manager to enter into negotiations for an exclusive negotiating rights agreement with Eden Housing for the development of the trade away site as you know we've we met approximately a year ago and established goals for redeveloping this site which are to

0:57:47revitalize the Civic Center Midtown area to provide affordable housing and help meet community housing needs also to support mixed-use development that's appropriate to the transit oriented mixed-use Sony that's around this node and to incorporate a Civic or Community

0:58:04serving use these goals are consistent with the agency's five-year implementation plan goals the RFQ document outlined goals for the site a process for developer selection and developer selection criteria it also indicated the agency's preference for a mixed-use project with

0:58:21a senior focus on the residential component staff received 11 responses to the RFQ all of those responses are on file with the city clerk and are available for public review staff compare all 11 of the proposals against the criteria that are listed in the RFQ document to determine those

0:58:43which were most responsive we selected the top six to interview those top six were affordable housing Associates eah Eden Housing Mercy Min Peninsula housing and resources for Community Development of those staff selected eah Eden Housing and Mercy Housing as the three most

0:59:03highly qualified and responsive SAS objective is to recommend a development proposal that is financially feasible both within the context of the agencies limited ability to fund the development and the broader competitive environment for affordable housing sources

0:59:19in addition we seek to recommend a developer that has the best likelihood of delivering a strong mixed-use Community serving Housing Development Eden and mercy represent in staff's opinion the most experienced capable and responsive developers to this RFQ they appear to have the greatest chance of

0:59:37successfully developing a high quality mixed-use development in what are in certain financial times each of the proposals is thoughtful in addressing the potential site and bringing a value-added service partnership to enrich the proposed senior housing the recommendation for Eden is based on

0:59:54staff's assessment that their mixed-use component has the most conservative financing plan while still offering a valuable service partnership and therefore has the greatest likelihood of achievement I'd like to note that staff from Eden mercy and eah are here this evening in

1:00:11case you have any questions of me or them in terms of next steps with the agency's approval staff would proceed to negotiate the terms of venenra the exclusive negotiating rights agreement which would set out terms for preliminary analysis and establish procedures and standards

1:00:27for the negotiation of a disposition and development agreement also known as a DDA upon successful negotiation we would return to the agency board with the draft Andra agreement for your consideration however tonight's action does not obligate the agency to commit funds or

1:00:44to enter into an exclusive negotiating rights agreement this concludes the staff report thank you thank you are there any questions from agency board members yeah I I have one could you just reiterate for Us in the public a realistic timetable for development so

1:01:07that people don't understand people understand we're not going to see a new building next month um I think irrespective of of the developer we choose it is likely that that this project will need several rounds of funding from public sources such as the county and the state we'll

1:01:26need to apply for those sources given that four to five years is a probably a realistic timeline for this development and that not an indication that's with a capable developer on board that just takes that long to get this amount of financing together and that's a normal

1:01:42that's in the industry that's a normal that would be a normal time frame in the industry in this this current environment which is very competitive thank you can you expand on the uh the role of flower shop uh was taken into this process or or in the and explain how it

1:02:00will be included in the process going forward the flower shop yeah historic buildings potentially historic buildings bring to the what is known as the chamber building and the and the building behind that um uh the um historic preservation per se was not an element that we looked at in the RFQ

1:02:24however we are looking and did look at developer experience in terms of handling um the developers experience with the entitlement process broadly and in particular their experience with handling historical and cultural resources we're committed to the environmental review process under the

1:02:43California Environmental Quality act and we'll rely upon that to assess any impacts that this project may have such as upon traffic noise or historical cultural resources is that address your yes it does so it's safe to say that the propos that as a resident was to review a proposal or any

1:03:04one of these proposals um that what the doc The Proposal that's in those documents is not necessarily going to be the final project because we do have to go through some of these other processes correct the the submittals are based are what based on what the developers know today best of

1:03:22on the RFQ document and as we go through SQL we will know more about what mitigations might be necessary for the project it would be difficult to predict that today I think that we were really fortunate to have so many qualified proposals to come in on that site and I think it's an

1:03:47indication of how desirable Redevelopment at that site is and I want to thank you and other staff who participated in the careful review of the proposals and I did want to remind folks that it was a statement of qualifications and in though it proposes a certain mixed-use type of project that

1:04:06there remains a lot of flexibility still in development of the site plan and exploring a funding and options that could make the project even more competitive as we move forward in the funding and also wanted to remind everyone as we had discussed in earlier meetings regarding all the potential

1:04:25environmental impacts and specifically the cultural resources that we will be proceeding with the full secret process on the site in order to get a better understanding of any type of preservation or documentation that would be required as we move forward so again

1:04:40I want to thank you and I want to take this time to ask if there are any public comment yes chair Potter we have three speaker slips okay thanks the first of which is Andrea Papa nasty Sue hi I'm Andrea Papa nastasio director of real estate development at Eden Housing

1:05:04and I want to thank first of all the staff and the consultants and the city for putting together a really good um process for this RF RFQ was a pleasure of the site's incredibly exciting and we are very pleased to be recommended by staff to work out work week on this I wanted to just um reader

1:05:22a little bit what we our goals are for this we pride ourselves on working very closely with the city and agency and the community to make sure that what the project that we're delivering is exactly what you want and meets all the needs of the city and the community members we've

1:05:36been working with um just one in one instance with the elsewhere Historical Society on a project in Richmond called Miraflores at the the Richmond Nursery site and so we're well we have been in contact with them already and will be very considerate of you know any of these

1:05:52impacts and as we go through the SQL process I'm sure that those will all come up uh the second thing is we also are very careful to while we're looking at financing and feasibility of our developments to be a conservative to make sure that we're being realistic

1:06:06um about the financing likelihoods and what will happen um and we will dig for well every last dime we were talking about you know looking at the couch cushions for some money to help leveraging um with our recent tax credit projects so thank you very much we look very much forward to

1:06:21working with the other Council and the agency so you choose to confirm the staff's recommendation and I'm available if you have any other questions um we are very excited about having Samuel Merritt University partnering with us they offer a top-notch program um and it's a great way of helping them

1:06:39educate their students as well as providing a really necessary service in the community thank you thank you so much for being here tonight Tom pannus thank you good evening chairman Potter members of the agency board and City staff my name is Tom panis and I live at [address removed]

1:07:07Fairmount in El Cerrito I was interested to read that the RDA would like to designate even housing as a selected developer for the proposed tradeway residential mixed-use development at 108 601-108 48 San Pablo Avenue Eden Hausman has been working with the city of

1:07:21Richmond in a similar role on the mayor Flores project for several years and I've worked with some of the staff at Eden Housing on part of the mirror Floyd's project that involves preservation and adaptive reuse of the historic resources they are from the Japanese Nursery community

1:07:35Eden Housing is a well-known and reputable firm with a very capable staff however I doubt we would be where we are today in preserving a number of significant remnants of our Japanese Heritage enrichment if Eden hadn't received clear directions from the city of Richmond that doing so was important

1:07:52that's why I'm here this evening to ask that you the RDA board direct the staff to make preservation of 10848 San Pablo Avenue site not only the former Chamber of Commerce but also the home of Contra Costa florists and before that the Valley of the Moon quarry a requirement of this

1:08:07project the National Park Service has clearest day the Japanese flower community and its internment during World War II is a significant historic context for our area 10848 San Pablo Avenue is the last extent structure we have in El Cerrito testifying to the Japanese flower

1:08:23industry its community and its history we have a four of us an opportunity to do the right thing from day one and I respectfully ask the board RDA board to ensure that this happens thank you for your time this evening thank you thank you okawachi good Jewels Welcome to our city council I was

1:08:54going to say I'm so happy that I'm in front of friendly faces that I know Tom panis let me know about the mabucci property uh the the old florist and um I wanted to just come and say that it is important that we preserve some of our Japanese Japanese American Heritage and

1:09:21Historical Society sites in in California especially in the Bay Area I thought that I would just quickly tell you about my own family my father had a dental practice in San Francisco for many years before World War II and I don't know whether any of you listen to KGO

1:09:43but every day I hear sriven company the jewelry store advertising that they're at the corner of posts in Grand Avenue near Union Square and I think I want to scream that my father's office was also at the corner of Poston Grant Avenue and when the war broke out he was forced

1:10:03to close the his office and he never went back to that building but the people of the Howard building the owners of that building like my dad and they actually locked his dental practice up for two years without charging any rent and after two years they wrote and said

1:10:25we can no longer hold your office but they were kind enough to store all of his equipment and pay for the storage but my father by that time was really tired he worked very hard to get where he was before World War II and I lost a brother in World War II in the 442nd and

1:10:44the whole the whole thing was just too much for him and we came back and he opened a small practice in Berkeley but what I think I'm saying is I think my brother who's 92 I'm much younger of course but when when he's gone and I'm gone no one will know that my father had this pretty

1:11:06good practice in San Francisco at a very good you know area of San Francisco and there's just nothing left historically to remember our family so I think it's important that we Preserve especially a building of this kind uh to to remind us that there were hard-working Japanese Japanese Americans

1:11:31before World War II and after and that we have to preserve that memory so I know being on Albany city council for eight years in mayor for a year decisions are hard to make um it's really hard but I hope when the time comes that you will consider preserving this building thank you thank

1:11:51you thank you if I may um even though this is yes part of the consideration Jewel akawachi has served uh not only the citizens of Albany but the citizens of El Cerrito and surrounding communities in many things she was citizen of the year for Alameda County and she is Reverend uh throughout

1:12:21and so thank you Jewel for coming and sharing your experience I know that you don't do that very often you'll always like to look forward and you and your family have been very positive all these years so thank you very much so there's no more speakers I'll bring

1:12:43it back to the board for discussion on the item well I want to thank staff for writing an RFP that made it I guess easy for people to respond because we 11 proposals is fantastic and and I think that that should be recognized that that goes a long ways towards making a an RFP

1:13:06and and I that that really does lay out our goals and and makes it easy for people I'll play at 11 is hard to rank and so I really also want to appreciate how much work that you guys have put in to evaluate the 11 proposals having taken the time to look through them

1:13:25um I again I appreciate the way the RFP was formatted because it was easy for me to dive into the sections of the proposals that were most meaningful to me and and that allowed me to accelerate my review um I will say that uh you know the three that you selected for interview and

1:13:44final evaluations were certainly the top proposals through my review and uh it was probably a very difficult decision but I can see uh through looking at the financial assumptions that were put forward that this was this is probably the best developer for us to be moving

1:14:04forward with uh to develop a project that is realistic and achievable at this location and so I really want to thank staff for uh for that and I look forward to moving a project forward that is um you know it may take years to get there but I I do believe that it's uh

1:14:22foreseeable and achievable thank you um I I agree with what has just been said and I want to emphasize that I believe that our tasks tonight are actually quite limited um and um not what I had originally thought they might be um that we have a lot still to come in

1:14:44the process that will take place over a number of years um so so what is I see it we are doing tonight based on our agenda item is designating designating Eden Housing as a selected developer for the project and um designating Mercy Housing as a second rig developer for the development and then

1:15:09authorizing the executive director of the agency to enter into negotiations for an exclusive negotiating rights agreement with Eden Housing but I also understand is that this is not the project that we saw on the pictures of The Proposal May in fact not be what the

1:15:27project looks like things may change in particular uh based on financing and and in fact and other factors but the um such as the the concern for the historical element and so that what really we we have a very limited role tonight and our long-range job is to do

1:15:56it go through a number of processes that includes an eir that includes um the development of funding for the project which is a long and hopefully successful process and then one day next door to us we will see I hope a really fantastic project and I too was especially delighted to hear

1:16:24that there were 11 agencies interested in being next door to us um and so those are my comments at this time thank you as the chair had mentioned earlier there's a lot of flexibility in in this program as it goes forward and we'll have our our chance to take a look at

1:16:47that as things like financing and feasibility of certain programming particularly in the non-residential area become clear so uh I'm for this I'm glad to see it I guess I was one of the proponents to uh go forward with this at this time and of course everybody else

1:17:13supported it also so I'm happy to see this I'm happy we got this far it sounds like we have a very good company to deal with staff speaks highly of it as they did of all the the people who applied it was highly competitive and that that came out as the staff report indicated it was

1:17:36almost like splitting here they didn't use this phrase but it paraphrased and it was almost like splitting hairs and when you get down to that it isn't a question of what a decision made as good or bad it's you're down to okay we're going to make a good decision but of the

1:17:53good what's the best and I think we have that and I'm anxious to me to see how this goes and hopefully uh we can overcome some of the hurdles in this Economic Times and get a project rolling thank you very much I I think uh chair so what are we you're a member Abelson uh it summarized it

1:18:18quite well but I'll certainly be delighted to make a motion uh to adopt a Redevelopment agency resolution designating Eden Housing Inc as the selected developer for proposed trade way residential mixed use development at 10860 and 10848 samphall Avenue uh designating emergency housing

1:18:40California as the second ranked developer for the development and authorizing the executive director to enter into negotiations for an exclusive negotiating rights agreement with Eden Housing Inc I'll second that that it's been moved and seconded all in favor aye

1:19:02member absent and I'll turn it back over to the mayor for the conclusion of the agenda okay the next item on our agenda is item 7B which is the adoption with local modifications of the 2010 California building standards code including the Green Building Code building code fire code and related

1:19:24construction codes they asked staff for a presentation good evening Madam mayor council members I'm Brian Fenty city building official appearing this evening with fire marshal Michael Bond we're here tonight to introduce the new 2010 California building standards codes

1:19:44for adoption while the 2010 California codes include the fire and building codes and these should not be downplayed the real highlight of this adoption process is the new Cal Green Building Code the Cal green code is a comprehensive and uniform regulatory code for all

1:20:04residential and commercial buildings ensuring that every new building in California is built using environmentally Advanced Construction practices it is our nation's first mandatory Statewide standards code to green construction and fight climate change with these mandatory building

1:20:24regulations for all new construction we will achieve major reduction in greenhouse gas emissions energy consumption and water use staff is moving forward the mandatory portion of this code with this update these mandatory regulations go into effect on January 1st with or without

1:20:45City action there are more stringent regulations or tiers that can be adopted as part of the Cal green these tiers will be evaluated in concert with the climate action plan and other Green Building work and staff will forward these to you for your consideration at a later date

1:21:06by adopting this new code El Cerrito continues our dedication to lead the fight against climate change and protecting the environment just a couple of housekeeping issues the ordinance before you tonight is exempt from sequel because it is not considered a project under sequa

1:21:25the ordinance ordinance establishes standards for the approval of ministerial projects that aren't subject to SQL review also a substitute resolution printed on yellow paper is included for your consideration a table in that resolution tying each Amendment to the findings for local

1:21:45modification has been added to the resolution thank you for the opportunity to present the adoption of the 2010 California codes for your consideration at americ council members I'd just like to talk just for a quick second about the fire code and the local amendments

1:22:04that have been added to the California state fire code basically the local code Remains the Same as it has been for past code Cycles which we've enhanced to protect the lives of the citizens of El Cerrito but one of the things that the California fire code does in a green

1:22:22sense is it has required that all new residential buildings built in the state of California have automatic fire suppression sprinkler systems installed within them you're thinking how is this green well fires they produce thousands and thousands of tons of toxic gas every year in the state of

1:22:46California it's going to significantly reduce the amount of gas that is released into the atmosphere because the sprinklers are going to go off within minutes of a fire starting it's going to save lives thousands of lives every year within the state of or the within the United States

1:23:07the number of lives is is less than 10 percent of uh when when homes are sprinklered there is a 90 reduction in loss of life in a sprinklered home and then it's going to save water to fight a structure fire in a single family dwelling typically use well over a thousand gallons of water

1:23:30typical fire sprinkler house the fire is extinguished within 250 gallons of water usage and the runoff that goes into our storm drains so that's the significance of the fire code and I just wanted to let you know where that was and where it's going on with that thank you

1:23:49any questions I have no questions yeah I have some procedural questions uh have the contractors that are licensed in the city been notified of these changes particularly the local on the building code certainly they should have been uh notified by you know the state of

1:24:13California and and public notice there city of El Cerrito will do our public noticing for the second reading which will be November 15th as required by state law okay I I would suggest that you go ahead and mail out a notice as well as we're talking I think everybody knows and the industry

1:24:33knows that the state code is coming and it's mandatory Statewide it's more of the local uh the local modifications um second of all uh let's see here where are we on on the uh fire sprinklers is the heads different also are they are they requiring a new head that picks up heat as well as ours

1:25:06if you could explain that uh the heads that are going to be used on the fire if you look above you here this building has automatic fire sprinklers installed within it if you if you look closely at them you can see up inside the socket the pocket in there there's a colored

1:25:21glass flange bulb in there and believe it or not different fire sprinklers have different different temperature ratings in which that glass flange breaks and allows the water to escape out of the uh out of the sprinkler head it's always got water in it so in the in the homes there are 155

1:25:43degrees temperature at which that glass will break and allow the fire sprinkler to come off um if you ever have time there inclination come on by and I've got a great video that actually Compares non-sprinkler buildings to sprinkler buildings and the temperature releases within a room in

1:26:03which a person would be sleeping when they go off uh so that's that's how they work as a temperature causes the glass flange to explode and so that's what I'm getting at the the new ones uh detect by heat correct and will go off much faster than say the traditional

1:26:20ones no they're they're these yeah go ahead these these sprinklers are basically the same design that we've been using in in homes that are 5 000 square feet or greater currently or homes that are up in the hills that we don't have access to we've we've required fire sprinkler systems in those

1:26:40with the same design features that are going to be into all residences now after the the main function of the the sprinklers to knock down the the fire as quickly as possible correct it looks like a garden sprinkler uh reduce releasing about 18 gallons per minute

1:26:58over a specific site and in fact 90 I believe is 96 of all fires in a sprinkler building are extinguished or controlled by the use of one sprinkler head only only one sprinkler head has to activate in order to control that fire thank you very much I appreciate that

1:27:19I have a question about the process for the contractor because wouldn't it come Brian to the building department to get their building permit and if and they should have been aware of the code because it's Statewide and it's being adopted this year to get clarification

1:27:34just like when I'm in City Hall I often hear a conversation going about the fluorescent lights and what the requirements are and the folks who are coming for their permit are working through those details maybe you can just help me understand a little more the process and the need for advance notice

1:27:51generally to all contractors well certainly we've had a notice up at the front counter for I think a month or two now and this code would go into effect January 1st of 2011 so we'll do our best to educate the local contractors and and even out of town contractors there's also been many many

1:28:13educational seminars that have been going on and contractors have been invited to those as well as building departments and building inspectors and anybody else that's interested in going so I think the word is really getting out there and um you know it's not the the new Cal

1:28:30green is really not as complicated as some people think it's just a basic guideline of how to design and construct with green methodologies and so these requirements already apply to houses over five thousand square feet is that the fire spring the fire sprinkler currently in the city of El

1:28:50Cerrito and they would now be required for a new home of any size or do they kick in on a remodel uh not currently that may be a local Amendment that's added uh sometime in the future but okay not as today thank you can I just say we're notice is important and the reason

1:29:07I a little sensitive to it is contractors have to bid they have to give prices they have to know what's going on ahead of time and if they don't know about the change and they've given a homeowner a bid on a project that is going to be built after January 1st then they have to go back to

1:29:25the owner and say I've got to adjust my price where it's much easier now if they're if they're doing a contractor providing a proposal that they'll know the cost after January 1st so and any if any local modifications to that the state they all know people know about

1:29:43the state um green code what they don't know is any local modifications that are going to happen so that's why I was sensitive to that and I think Greg you wanted to make a comment yeah certainly if we take public comments first I assume right we have one speaker Al Miller

1:30:15good evening again several years ago when we started hearing interest in adding solar editions to the homes and the permit fees for doing that was established for some reason in El Cerrito as I recall we found that our fees were among the highest in the area and either I don't know what caused the

1:30:41change but not too long after that recommendations came forward and the council approved reduction in the fees so that they didn't get in the way they didn't discourage people from making the green modification of solar electricity on their house I would like to suggest

1:31:00that if they haven't already done so you should ensure that the staff has gone through the Green Building Code which will be new to a lot of people I think to ensure that our fee structure encourages compliance and Adoption of that rather than discourages thank you

1:31:25and that was the only public comment yes thank you okay with that will bring it back to the council and for comments do you want to start Greg sure I just want to thank staff for the revised agenda Bill ordinance or this is I guess is the resolution the revised resolution so I

1:31:43want to thank you very much for responding to comments bill yeah I just I thought the report was well put together and outlined the changes so it's readily apparent where those come from and I concur with the strategy of introducing the basic uh code first particularly on the green and

1:32:10then evaluating and and seeing how it lays out before we start layering on a local requirements and I think it'll all be good in the end and I I really appreciate it this is in my opinion this is a great step forward and I can't wait for the day where Green Design is a normal part of

1:32:34uh design just like Title 24 is a normal part of Designing for uh energy conservation and that the Architects can sign off on it it's green the inspectors can see that that is the project or the products that are going in and it will save in the long run it'll save people

1:32:55owners a lot of money that it becomes a normal part of the process rather than an extra like the leads project so thank you ready for a motion um uh let me make a comment first and then okay I actually have a question of Staff about um the fee aspect of this is anyone gone

1:33:17through and looked at the fees I know that the fees are not a part of this directly but has anyone gone through to make sure that um people are not being penalized for going green well certainly at this time there's no anticipated fee increases that are coming out of the Cal Green Building

1:33:39Code okay thank you okay so I think we are ready for a motion I moved to adopt the revised resolution which makes findings justifying changes or modifications due to local climate geologic and topographic conditions in the 2010 California building standards codes which includes the California

1:34:01green code building code fire code and related construction codes and set up public hearing for November 15 2010.

1:34:09okay all those in favor please say aye aye aye the opposed to abstentions motion cares unanimously with um a council member Chang absent um then we have a ordinance this is a lengthy one but I'll take a shot at it is there a motion to consider by title only yeah I'll move to consider

1:34:36by title only just because I know how thick the the title is lengthy but the the whole thing is lengthy too and you know I do want to find out who won the Yankees Texas game a second the motion to go by title only all in favor please say aye aye motion carries unanimously

1:34:55I moved to introduce and approve by title an ordinance at the city of El Cerrito amending title 16 of the El Cerrito municipal code to adopt with modifications to address unique local conditions the 2010 edition of the California Green Building Code including all appendices here to the 2010 edition

1:35:16of the California building code based on the 2009 international building code volumes one and two including all dependencies there too the 2010 California fire code based on the 2009 international fire code including all appendices there to the 2010 edition of the California

1:35:38Administrative Code the 2010 edition of the California residential code based on the 2009 international residential code including all dependencies and the 2010 California plumbing code based on the 2009 uniform plumbing code including all appendices thereto the 2010 California Mechanical Code

1:36:01based on the 2009 uniform Mechanical Code including all appendices thereto the 2010 California electrical code based on the 2008 National Electric Code electrical code including all appendices thereto and the California Housing law regulations the 2009 international

1:36:22property maintenance code the 2009 uniform Swimming Pool Spa and hot tub code and the 2009 uniform solar energy code from Lee Amendment you missed one there too so I just want to make sure we got the whole title uh Amendment accepted thank you okay is there a second I'll second all that okay

1:36:44thank you all in favor please say aye aye opposition abstention motion cares unanimously with that we will move on to council assignments and I will start out um see if I can find it here okay I attended the meeting in the Environmental Quality committee on October the 12th and there are a number

1:37:13of interesting things discussed one of the most interesting ones I thought was a discussion of how the food scrap collection program is going and one of the comments made was by staff is that they are looking at the um possibility in terms of cost and um preference for for residents of making

1:37:38that a weekly pickup rather than a um every other week pick up um and um based on input from residents I also attended the mayor's conference and the speaker was Jeremy Matson who's the executive director of Greenbelt Alliance and he discussed their vision for the Bay Area and how it will grow

1:38:04which was a very interesting presentation which was held in Clayton I also attended whiptack and at whiptack we discussed um the um let me say this right I always have trouble um the um the I-80 ICM project or the integrated Corridor management project and this is a project

1:38:36where there are a lot of um high-tech improvements being made to the flow of traffic as opposed to increasing Lanes and we were being asked to approve this and it will then go to the state for funding consideration again and um so we did make a couple of changes and one of the things that we

1:39:05were shown is that the improvements would be as presented more on the free that way than they would be on local streets mainly San Pablo Avenue and the corridors leading between San Pablo Avenue and the freeway um so we altered the approval to presuppose that the improvements would

1:39:30be equally distributed between those two areas that is to say the freeway on the one hand in the local corridors on the other so that we might equally benefit from what's going on in our communities in the West County as with the freeway users who may well be coming from some

1:39:50other place the other thing that we were concerned about and included in our motion was the fact that the local improvements would be needed to be funded the maintenance of them and we didn't see that the communities of West County had the money to pay for those that maintenance and so

1:40:14our emotion of approval of for that project was based on funding being found for 25 years of Maintenance of that system for the local component I hope I'm not speaking total gobblygook but uh to people but anyway that will include things like ramp not the local component

1:40:37but the project will include things ranging from ramp metering and other improvements uh signage that will tell people how things are going and whether or not they should consider an alternate travel corridor so anyway that should be really interesting and assuming that the money

1:40:59can be found for 25 years then we should be in pretty good shape and I was assured by representatives of CCTA that they had thought of some possible sources for that funding so um that that's another one and then um I think with that I will leave it I'll leave it at that for everything

1:41:24okay uh both my committees postponed their meetings so I have nothing to report I should mention this at the beginning of our meeting but we had um a really nice free Folk Festival Music Festival on October the 2nd at wimrush school and since we didn't meet on the first Monday

1:41:44of the month I wanted to announce that it was a wonderful festival and a lot of talented musicians and it was my pleasure to be there on behalf of the city council and that was coordinated by the arts and culture commission and so I also want to let you know that this

1:41:59Wednesday at City Hall is a meeting of the arts and culture Commission in the hillside room and they will be making final arrangements for a California art State program which is coming up on October 23rd and also we'll be continuing their work on the historic paver project for San Pablo Avenue

1:42:18um the abre the event celebration of the Arts here at City Hall on October 23rd on Saturday we'll start at two o'clock and they have a full program that runs through 6 p.m and I also wanted to announce that in the city hall Art Gallery it's another great employee art

1:42:36show with contributing artists from All City departments and the artist reception will begin at four o'clock also on October 23rd so everyone's welcome it'd be great great to see you there for the reports okay with that this meeting is adjourned thank you all for

1:42:57coming red wine