Concurrent City Council and Redevelopment Agency Meeting September 19, 2011

0:00:00foreign good evening everyone so I'm just going to report out from our prior closed session of the El Cerrito Municipal Services Corporation meeting we gave direction to Council on Real Property negotiations with that we're ready to start the concurrent elsewhere to council and

0:00:22Redevelopment agency meeting can I have a roll call please yes the council member benassini here councilmember Lyman here councilmember Abelson here mayor Pro tem Jones mayor Chang with that could we have next item is Pledge of Allegiance as led by councilmember benicini please stand and

0:00:44join me I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you with that do we have next item is number two Council and staff Communications um no staff Communications any from uh

0:01:10Council I have several things uh first I'd like to announce that I attended um as did council member of anacini the taste of El Cerrito which was a a really fantastic event we had a performance by um the um Opera and we also had a performance by our very own uh

0:01:37Nathaniel I believe his name is the magician who's a 17 year old wonder he was really amazing and I think that he's one that we've seen around town over the last few years and he's grown up so it was it was really fun there looked to be a lot of people in attendance at

0:01:57the event and that event raises money for both the chamber and for scholarships for El Cerrito High students so um that was a very nice event the um next thing I attended was a 35th anniversary celebration for Windrush School and that was a very pleasant event that

0:02:24was held in their Library which has a great View and there was a nice group of people there the um next thing that I attended was called the mayor's healthy cook-off which was a competition between cities to make a healthy breakfast out with salsa and eggs and it was held in Clayton and I

0:02:58I was barely assisting that I we did have we did have a helper which I thought was truly what the event maybe should all be about and that was a 12 year old student who happened upon our table and started talking and the chef uh Incorporated him into the cooking and in

0:03:21in the end he was really with supervision doing the cooking of our booth and it was really good and he was really good so I thought it was great that we were doing this healthy cooking uh and that we were having a student help us with it because I think that was

0:03:36really what this event was all about and we do have some certificates from that event that I would like to turn over and then I would like to mention a few events that will be happening soon on um September 24th there will be a community garden event in El Cerrito from 10 to

0:04:04noon on um again that's on September 24th and um on um there's going to be a garage sale and you need to register by September 26 and the event itself will be on October the 15th so if you go onto our website I think then you can get the information on registering there will also be a Solid

0:04:38Waste Services Community engagement where residents can provide input on El Cerrito Solid Waste Services this event will um let's see I guess for information about this event you could probably looking for staff look on the website I'm not doesn't actually 215-4350

0:05:05okay thank you and um uh there will be an event on October the 4th um where they're going to be discussing a new senior housing project in El Cerrito which would the event itself will be held in the in the council chambers the location of the project would be right next door in the

0:05:30old tradeway building and uh it the purpose of the event is to discuss a proposal by Eden Housing to build a new affordable housing at that address just south of City Hall and I think I'll stop there you've done so much I'll I'll be brief um thank you for mentioning the taste of

0:05:52El Cerrito event it was excellent um a couple of other events I just wanted to um thank staff very much for the albarito street fair um our Recreation Department worked alongside with the city of Albany to put on a street fair very low cost event and there were many children and families

0:06:07out enjoying the streets that normally are reserved for cars at that time of day so they had a great time playing playing on the streets as did I also wanted to mention that I went to an East Bay mud luncheon last week uh basically where uh Andy had director Andy Katz

0:06:23who's our representative along with some of the staff from East Bay mud went over some of their Master planning for water um for their water supply of course they discuss efforts they've made to be prepared for the eventual earthquake that will befall us at some point and

0:06:40all the efforts they've made to make sure that our water supply will be secure but also to get the word out that water supply will be secure but we'll all be on our own for a couple of days so they gave a bunch of information about how you can get prepared basically

0:06:55have your water supply for three to seven days days was the was the takeaway message from that one also wanted to mention that tomorrow from 10 to 12 here in City Hall there will be a session on food wear and that's kind of targeted more towards businesses and interested

0:07:10citizens who are wanting to know about other options that the city may be discussing for the types of food where takeout containers that the restaurants are are using today and maybe what they might be using in the future so that's from 10 to noon tomorrow in City Hall

0:07:30good yes I have a few items here since we haven't met in five weeks I attended the soccer opening used soccer for El Cerrito football club and I don't know exactly how many years but I think we're up into the 30s and it was over 600 youth and over 200 volunteers are in that

0:07:55program so on a Saturday they're in full swing if you go by a canyon trail field or or Cerrito Vista Park or even down at Gilman Street Fields you'll see El Cerrito kids playing soccer so that's that's I think a good program uh we had the mayor's conference uh September 1st the mayor's probably going

0:08:17to talk about that but uh had very a lot of comments on positive comments on people attending saying great City course for the first time in three weeks the fog wasn't in so we had a good view of the San Francisco Bay and people enjoyed that the alberito was great I like that

0:08:40because there's two cities getting together although I didn't hear who won the tug of war if we even had that [Laughter] Albany cheated well we're taking on the Oakland Raider motto if we lose we they cheated right okay all right well thanks um I did it was a very uh very good

0:09:04event the police swearing in of new officers in the announcement of promotions this was significant for two reasons one it continues to show the type of experience and quality of people that are applying to work in El Cerrito for the uh for our Police Services and also uh it's a reminder that this

0:09:30the city is holding to its promise um that they will keep the public safety uh Services uh as close to normal as possible via the measure are tax measure sales tax measure uh just want to acknowledge our police force as a lot of you heard up in Pinole they had a uh it turned out to be a sad

0:09:57thing a person lost their lot people lost their lives over a failed bank robbery up there but El Cerrito did help respond on that and again it shows the cities working together in crisis this one happened to be uh one that didn't end all that well but we have plenty of them

0:10:18that working together it comes out to good good endings for people so I just wanted to mention that and some of you have heard maybe some of you haven't but the school district is working on and it's very close to being able to retire the debt to the state and if you're

0:10:39interested on that I uh encourage you to either talk to somebody down at the district office or go on the web their website and get the latest but they're very close to retiring their that debt ahead of time which means more resources going back in to the district and

0:10:58to the operation of the schools which I think we all would like to see those of us that were around long enough to remember how we got into that mess as as residents of the district and now we're getting out of it so my hats are off to the district for that one and finally

0:11:15the league of California cities having their annual conference in San Francisco this week and I'll be attending at least one day possibly two find it's a very important uh conference this year because we will get the latest on a number of issues that the states the state is doing or

0:11:37has passed legislation uh for instance the Redevelopment agency and and other things so that'll be important and uh myself and I think Janet's going to be going and our city manager will be there so we'll have a report on that so thank you yeah we we haven't met in a few times in

0:12:00a few weeks so I do also have a few things it sounds like we're also getting to be a busy busier time of the year um first I want to thank staff for uh their participation in try safety uh day uh that brought together uh Albany El Cerrito Richmond Kensington and uh

0:12:22Contra Costa brought their different types of vehicles used for policing and fire safety and fire response so I want to thank staff for participating in that it was really nice to um to see everybody come out and pluggy the fire hydrant squirting the kids on a nice warm day led to a lot of

0:12:45squealing of laughter so both adults and children alike I too have a few things to announce I'm going to try and do these in chronological order I um September 14th started the opening of our new Art Exhibit upstairs so hopefully as you leave City Hall tonight you have an opportunity to go look at

0:13:09some of the new art that's upstairs that over the next two days there is the 10th biennial conference state of the Estuary conference in Oakland uh held at the Oakland Marriott City Center and it's the next two days and they'll be talking about many things water

0:13:31quality biology than various things that people can do to improve our Bay and the the great valued asset that we have which is the Bay next door so I encourage everyone to at least look it up you can look at the agenda it's a pretty full agenda and and there might be a subject

0:13:51line that's interesting to you uh this coming Saturday a couple of things going on the freedom performance arts center is having a performance of their students and staff at three o'clock on Saturday and that they're located at one zero zero one six San Pablo Avenue

0:14:12and you they do have a website where you can uh go for uh information it's weperform.org also on Saturday is there was something else for Saturday shoot well I'm gonna Saturday skips out and go to Monday on Monday the city El Cerrito Recreation Department is hosting the their major

0:14:41fundraiser it's the Animo annual Dynamo open and it goes to fund the David Hunter memorial fund youth scholarship fund which is used by the recreation department to fund just to provide scholarships to needy children so that is something that you can participate in by calling Chris

0:15:05Jones the recreation supervisor at 510-559-7000 or emailing him at C Jones at ci.e L Dash cerrito.ca.us [Music] um and then that's it for me thank you thanks for all those announcements I'll just Echo El Burrito was a great success I did a quick calculation if we did it

0:15:37was about a quarter mile closure but because there's that right-of-way in the median um essentially got us a three acre park for a short duration and I hope where we continue to do that as it's such a great way to get neighbors to know each other and it's you know similar to nationally

0:15:53night out except it's in the middle of the day and sunny and warm and um and just a joy to see toddlers being able to to race down the street down the middle of the street without any fear of getting run over so um very excited for that and um and myself also attended the mayor's

0:16:12conference as mayor Pro tem Jones mentioned it's always an event that the count the the mayors of the entire County 19 County cities in the in the county always look forward to it's such a great location and um and got to showcase our great City and all the the lots of work that's been

0:16:33underway even in this short year with the crisis of Redevelopment we've got such Innovative Staff to to gain us uh hundreds into the millions of dollars of grant funding which we're so we're so thankful for um and personally myself just wanted to thank uh public works department and

0:16:52just all the work going on in front of Harding School um at Fairmont and ashbury's is some great what I call infrastructure reset you know essentially let's tune up what we have in investing in our existing neighborhoods you know great jobs um to to make that happen and to make

0:17:13our you know Community safer more walkable and you know saving everybody's pocketbooks by giving us safe options to get around so I really appreciate that um and yeah so Echo and all those you'll hear a report I'm also going to the league of cities first time myself

0:17:29um annual fall meeting in San Francisco where the council members from the the entire state are converging on San Francisco so um for me and with that any other announcements okay so we can go on to oral Communications from the public if there are any General comment and a comment on consent

0:17:57item 5i foreign council members Al Miller [address removed] I Rise this evening in support of agenda item 5i on the consent calendar 30 cities in California including Berkeley Richmond San Pablo San Francisco and Oakland a total of 175 cities in the United States over 4 800 cities in 151

0:18:28countries around the world have joined the mayors of Hiroshima Nagasaki in support of the Mayors for peace program their ultimate goal is a nuclear free web nuclear weapons free world for all of us putting El Cerrito on the side of peace and nuclear weapons free world for our

0:18:48children our grandchildren is something I believe all else reader residents should be proud of and will support you in doing that if you decide to approve it I would urge you then to send a letter to a representative John Garamendi as well as letters to Senators Feinstein and boxer

0:19:08advising them of your actions and asking that they exert whatever effort they can and support they will give to creating a nuclear free world on all our behalf I have another slip in should I continue now or Cheryl or should I go back and wait again if let's go ahead please uh the other

0:19:34comment I wanted to make is as a director of The Steve Sanitary District wanted to announce again that as of September 30th we will have a vacancy on the board we've decided to interview and appoint a replacement rather than go through a rather costly election to elect them

0:19:54we have posted the vacancy notices in the El Cerrito Library the Kensington Library the Richmond Annex neighborhood Council Senior Center El Cerrito City Hall and The Siege sanitary office the particulars the applications are due October 19th selection will be made by November 17th

0:20:18further information is available on the Steve Sanitary District website or you can call our office at 524-4668 any adult resident of Kensington El Cerrito or Richmond annex by adult I mean 18 or over is eligible to hold the position and they are encouraged to support apply thank you

0:20:47thank you any other speakers no more speakers okay next is item number five adoption of the consent calendar oh I'm sorry let's go back to apologies um item number four presentation tonight um Falls prevention Proclamation and with that [Music] um can I request a

0:21:16I guess yeah we have the presenter here thank you hi good evening I'm here to present on behalf of the fall prevention Coalition of Contra Costa County I'm Joanne liba the community outreach coordinator for American Medical Response and um this upcoming week is fall prevention

0:21:37awareness week so we uh very much appreciate the designation of this week and I would like to also um shamelessly plug our walk for fall prevention that we have coming up September 24th if you would like more information you're welcome to go to www.fallpreventionwalk.org

0:21:59thank you and with that um can I please have a motion to adopt our Proclamation sure excuse me I'd like to pull uh uh what is it here uh 5f so we're gonna do oh I'm sorry it's okay I'll I'll move uh I'll move a resolution of the city council to designate uh September 18th to September 24th as fall

0:22:24prevention Awareness Week in El Cerrito motion all those in favor please say aye aye was unanimous and I'll step down to present you this Proclamation [Applause] okay we can now go on to item number five I would like to recuse myself on one item item number um D I need to recuse myself

0:23:22because I am um on a member of the group that is um asking for this uh co-sponsorship so I'll leave the room and we do that okay point of order then we would pull that one from from the consent calendar that's correct thank you thank you if I could pull a 5f please

0:23:45F Okay so 5D and 5f are pulled can I have a motion for the remainder items sure I move I move the consent calendar for the city of El Cerrito tonight and items 5A 5B 5c 5e 5G 5 H and 5i second all those in favor please say aye aye um that is unanimous for those items a b

0:24:18c e g h and I and so we'll do item D we'll just go in order we'll do D next so council member Abelson unless there's if there's going to be no discussion on the item I don't believe you need to leave the room um I think it would be fine okay okay so she'll just recuse herself if no

0:24:36if nobody has anything else to say on the item does anybody have comments on item D I move um item five D of our consent calendar co-sponsoring of El Cerrito High School archiving project application in in doing so I will make sure that everyone knows that they are having a

0:24:53fundraising event on October 8th on that Saturday at the El Cerrito Community Center I'll second the motion all of those in favor of 5D please say aye aye and abstentions one and No No's okay so we can now move on to item 5f right as you're member on Recycle more I just wanted to

0:25:24clarify and make sure we understand that the item tonight is approving the concept of the single bag ordinance it's not the ordinance itself that'll be coming shortly from the recycle more for our consideration as well as consideration for the sequa process to start on the project

0:25:48but this is just not just I think it's an important statement that we believe in the concept and that the ordinance remind the council that the ordinance will be coming forth and we can talk about it make adjustments modify whatever it is but this isn't it tonight it's just the

0:26:05concept and with that I'd like to approve item 5f what point yeah point of discussion yeah I okay we've um at the Environmental Quality committee this item has been discussed in this approach and um I'm not sure that they've taken an actual vote on it however they have

0:26:26indicated a great deal of support for the concept of a regional approach so that there's an equal playing field among all the different cities all the different retail outlets and that's what this approach would do so anyway there's been great interest in this particular

0:26:47Approach at that committee and I want to personally thank staff for reaching out to our um Authority staff and assisting them with the bag ban over the last two months but I also want to make sure that our Council knows that it's actually not unanimous not all five cities have moved

0:27:08forward to support this so um it it is I believe it's very important for us to approach this on a regional basis and move this forward so um I think councilman Jones you already moved this item that's correct I'm glad to Second it any other comments nope or please say hi hi

0:27:30so that was unanimous thank you for getting us all on the same page so with that we have no public hearings tonight so we can move on to item seven policy matters uh Joint City Council Redevelopment agency item 7A potential dissolution of the El Cerrito Redevelopment agency

0:27:53participation in the voluntary Redevelopment program and necessary and contingent actions good evening council members I'm Lori Trevino the Redevelopment manager um as you know legislation implementing the state budget this year which are entitled The dissolution Act and the continuation act

0:28:16became effective at the end of June and the Redevelopment agency is currently suspended from its activities according to the provisions of the dissolution Act the continuation act allows the agency um to adopt an ordinance into to participate in an alternative voluntary

0:28:39Redevelopment program according to the legislation that ordinance would need to be adopted by October 1st unless the agency chooses to accept dissolution in the meantime the Redevelopment Association the league of California cities and several Redevelopment agencies have challenged the legislation

0:28:58as unconstitutional and recently the California Supreme Court issued a stay of both the dissolution and continuation acts with the exception of maintaining the suspension of Redevelopment agencies while the court considers the case a decision is expected in early January so

0:29:19the agency will remain in suspension however the agency Council has advised that the city should move forward to take action the actions that are provided for in the dissolution and continuation acts in the event that the court upholds the legislation with the ability to rescind the laws if to

0:29:39rescind the ordinance and resolutions if the laws are overturned um should the dissolution Act and the continuation act be ruled constitutional and the council wished to preserve its option to continue Redevelopment the city would need to adopt a non-binding resolution of intent to participate in

0:29:59the program by September 30th and then enact an ordinance electing to participate in the program by October 31st subsequent to that the city would need to make opt-in payments in January of and may the total payments for the current fiscal year would be 1.85 million dollars and then subsequent

0:30:19years would be four hundred thousand dollars hmm under the continuation act the city is allowed to enter into an agreement with the Redevelopment agency to fund those opt-in payments and staff and agency Council are recommending approving such an agreement now so that the agreement can be

0:30:42included on the agency's statement of deadedness that's due to the county auditor by the end of this month so if you have any questions there was obviously a lot more detail in the staff report if you have any questions I'm happy to answer them and Karen Tiedeman

0:30:56the agency council is here as well um I just want to confirm for this year if we were to buy in for this year it's 1.85 million total correct they're not going to come back this year and ask for an additional 400 annual this will take care of the first year well according to the current

0:31:24legislation yes right occur located on as of today and how we understand it as we understand it today all right and in subsequent years when is the 400 000 due and is it due under one lump sum or is it two payments or has that been worked out yet I I don't know the answer to that let me

0:31:47see if it's been determined good evening um every year it's due at the same time so the payments can be made in two installments one is due on January 15th and one is due on May 15th so subsequent years would be just like this year great okay thank you and I have another

0:32:08question you you'll you'll probably have to answer this one um oh when does well let me I'll ask your question then I'll ask staff you know it's still what still gets me is the uh claws in in the legislation and I I just really I know you answered it last time I think I'm maybe it isn't penetrating

0:32:35here but the new edition the new edition the new uh projects that are added after September what is it 11th uh September 2011.

0:32:50requires us to pay the school district an additional 35 percent correct uh that's that's on top of their normal pass-through correct or is it part of the past no it is on top of the normal pass okay and and maybe the report says that there's some gray areas that still need

0:33:16to be um still needs to be ironed out or or at least explained to us about that but uh and maybe after that is I'll ask staff offline if we do the calculation uh what's left for everybody if we give the school there whatever it is 22 percent and then 35 percent that's 57 percent

0:33:42and we take our whatever our cut is uh basically that doesn't leave us with a whole lot right that's true and I'll ask Karen to confirm this but my understanding is that it's any it's the value of any obligation that we enter into and so we'd have to factor that in that 35

0:34:02percent of whatever we an obligation we enter into we're just going to have to factor that into whatever we can afford to do for that particular transaction right so it's 35 percent less we have the put into the project absolutely so um I'm thinking out loud here the way

0:34:20I'm looking at it is why would we even do a new project well there I mean there are people who there are agencies that are concerned that they will never be able to right they won't have the resources to do that yeah and that was just a comment because I know it's you know it hasn't been

0:34:35flushed out all the way um it will make it very much more difficult for many agencies to do projects right because the staff report brings up a very good point and it has to be clarified is the 35 do we have to pay 35 on our buy-in and our annual fee right I think Karen would would

0:34:57concur that we were being extra cautious right no yeah we don't know that it's the case but we wanted to be cautious about it it's a good point and I think it has oh well I'll save it my comments for comments okay thanks um and then the last thing is go back here

0:35:18when does the county make the tax revenue payments to the city for redevelopment the first is generally around December 15th okay so we'll be getting the payment from the county before these annual payments are due then yes so we get we'll get ha we usually get half of our

0:35:41tax increment in December half in April and then any supplementals positive or negative come in in June okay I just want to make sure we get our money before we pay it out that's or the agency does yeah okay thank you appreciate it none of the ACT actions we take tonight

0:36:02wave the city's right to dissolve the RDA at some point in the future um no I mean if the agency chooses not to make the payment if the city chooses not to make the payment and in January the agency would be dissolved um it's it's not a requirement that the city take an action to dissolve you can

0:36:24it's sort of the lack of action automatically dissolves the agency great thank you just just one quick question councilmember Jones's remarks about the 35 percent going to the school district brought up a question in my mind so just to clarify um is the understanding at this point

0:36:46that if we were to do like a 10 million dollar project that we would actually go out for a 13.5 million dollar project and just give them a lump sum payment and then we would just pay debt service on the 13.5 amount that's my understanding of how it would work okay

0:37:02that's good to clarify one other question um in the staff report there's the discussion of the state statement of indebtedness due to the county auditor and US needing to take those actions on that before September 30th can we can you just clarify what the statement of

0:37:15indebtedness is going to be used for sure every year an agency is required to submit a statement of indebtedness it's a list of all of the legal obligations of an agency and it's the basis for establishing um how many obligations the agency has so that you can collect tax increment

0:37:35you can't collect tax increment without documenting those obligations so that's something that the agency does today okay so under under current Redevelopment law we do this okay so we're just needing to take this action to add on to it um the the payments that the agency is

0:37:52going to make to the city in order for the city to make payments to the state exactly okay perfect thank you for that clarifying I believe that all of the questions that I have have already been asked and answered okay comments yeah any there's one speaker oh there's

0:38:15one public okay um speaker on item Linda Moss I'm Linda Moss um I addressed the [address removed] and I'm a member of the steering committee of the friends of the Cerrito theater I'd like to read a statement that was written by our chairman Dave Weinstein uh brief statement he was not able to

0:38:50come tonight Linda if I could ask you to pull the mic down so people at home can hear you okay okay there you go all right not stay down the friends of the Cerrito theater is deeply appreciative of the city's Redevelopment Agency for its use of Redevelopment financing to purchase and

0:39:10resurrect this historic theater whose Revival has helped spur growth of a burgeoning Entertainment District and helped improve the quality of life for people in the city Friends of the Cerrito theater has not analyzed the costs and opportunities of paying this opt-in Ransom to the state

0:39:32in any detail we cannot speak about the potential Financial pros and cons of retaining a Redevelopment agency or letting it die but we can point to the great success of the Cerrito theater and of Redevelopment in creating a lively entrance to the city the San Pablo Avenue streetscape

0:39:55improvements have turned this once ugly strip of Highway into a truly attractive thoroughfare and redevelopment's focus on creating affordable and senior housing both in the recent past and in the future is crucial not just for El Cerrito but for the Bay Area as a whole thank you thank

0:40:16you for your comments any other comments on this item no mayor okay now back to council for discussion sure um first I want to thank staff for preparing all the different documents that we have reviewed and will be passing or considering for passage tonight because it is it's really appreciative

0:40:38that you're keeping all of our options open at this time and and looking out for us to make sure that we're able to respond regardless of which way the Court decides so I really do appreciate that and I really do want to read actually a portion of our resolution I

0:40:57don't normally do this but there is a portion that captures at least my feelings on this quite well and it's uh in our first resolution be it further resolved that the city council does not endorse the Redevelopment restructuring Acts and is taking actions required by those acts in

0:41:14protest the acts constitute another misguided and illegal state budget rate of local government funds the voters have repeatedly sought to end most recently in November 2010 when an overwhelming 61 percent of Voters supported proposition 22 electing to stop State raids of local

0:41:36government funds including Redevelopment funds which are generated and intended to be spent locally the acts will destroy Economic Development affordable housing and revitalization efforts in El Cerrito thank you thank you had a few um appreciate that Greg because I was

0:41:58going to bring that up and uh did a good job on that uh I've said a lot last meeting so I I'm not going to go into a lot of that but some of you who take the west or the contecosta times now I guess or whatever their new marker is on their local section and I was really surprised at this but

0:42:22they ran a very positive article about the city of Pittsburgh and what Redevelopment did for the City of Pittsburgh and if you read that you'll notice that long time residents of Pittsburgh were quoted and basically saying that if it wasn't for redevelopment the city of Pittsburgh

0:42:42downtown area and adjacent areas would still be the same rundown condition that they were in the in the not too distant past so it gives an idea we're not just talking El Cerrito we're talking all cities throughout the state uh what this action does and it's been brought up a

0:43:03little bit tonight but it keeps our options open um it'll if we opt in now it keeps our options open to either continue to opt in or to opt out as staff and indicated by inaction if nothing else on the payment due so um you know I I have some questions about it

0:43:28um I there are uh some areas that aren't uh set up the courts are certainly going to be hopefully well answering some of the bigger questions and maybe even some of these gray areas um but I think the best action that we could take and to protect our assets and our right to develop for our our

0:43:51community is to opt in at this point and keep our options open whether we want to do that in the future or not if there's any humor in this subject matter if if there is humor to it it's in the title of the assembly Bill the title of the assembly bill is volunteer program Act

0:44:14and people have called it many things including myself but an action that says either pay the money we demand or we shut your operation down take all of your assets sell them for whatever we want is truly not voluntary it's probably closer to something else but it's not voluntary and I just as a

0:44:39reminder we send our Letters Out to the normal people we would do on something like this the governor our State Assembly and and Senate Representatives the Contra Costa County mayor's conferences and cities the league of California City and the California Development Association thank

0:44:55you I just like to agree first of all with um what both Greg and Bill said we find ourselves in a very difficult spot I think our staff has done a an excellent excellent job of protecting us and putting us in the best possible position that we can be in at this very

0:45:21difficult time and I really appreciate that and I think the rest of the council members do too so thank you very much everyone um for for doing your very best for our city it really um you know it's really appreciated and um I see this action that we're taking today as keeping us in the running

0:45:46and um awaiting the court decision and hopefully that will turn out well and we will be able to um go on with business as usual I mean that would be the ideal I don't know if that will happen but um it would be nice to think that if a proposition was passed by the voters of

0:46:13this state that in fact the um the state legislature would listen to that and follow that we know in this case that did not happen um but maybe the courts will say it should happen anyway and that's what we're waiting on and hoping on but meanwhile I think that our staff has

0:46:31done a really good job in preparing these documents and enabling us to stay in the game as it were um until we find out the um what's going to happen and and maybe we'll be in the game on a continuing basis um although not in the same way that we have always been because of the the

0:46:54amount of money that's available for programs and projects being reduced significantly but um so I I just want to say thank you again and um and I support this and intend to vote for it I don't there's been so many comments here I don't think I'm gonna say anything new but but I feel like uh the

0:47:19landscape that we're in right now it's almost like we're tunneling through a mountain and we don't know what's in front of us and what's so nice about um all the staff documents and you've answered all of our questions before the meeting um we feel like you know you're kind of

0:47:31giving us a an overhead view of what might where we might come out of this big tunnel that we're tunneling through right now and uh we'll come out the other side maybe hopefully not as bad as we're all fearing we'll we'll be um but with all the uncertainties with

0:47:45the court decision coming up in January it's it's nice to know that we have this sort of technical analysis to make us feel as though we're making the best decision we can possibly make given the the knowledge we have today and of course there's a lot more technical

0:47:58analyzes that will have to be done to help us determine what are the various Financial outcomes for the opt-in or or the disillusion of the agency but the point that we've gotten to today I feel like we can rely on these analyzes and we and we can go forward knowing that

0:48:13we've done our due diligence and looking at all the various outcomes so I'm happy to make make motions when we once we get to the point of moving on to the resolutions and ordinances um definitely want to Echo this the same comments but I'd have to point to our

0:48:29public speaker Linda who who said it very eloquently about you know just a very demonstratable projects that the agency has undertaken as part of its work and you know very clearly demonstrated the purpose of the Redevelopment agency at least to date has been entirely by the law for the per

0:48:47for the benefit of our community improving livability reducing blight and um you know affordable housing you know the the entire length of San Pablo Avenue you know very concrete improvements as a result of the work of the Redevelopment agency and the staff so um if you know if things don't go well

0:49:07I'm considering that all we've done I think we we are one of them you know it's the guiding lights of doing Redevelopment right and I'm very proud of everything that's happened to date um so with that I will take um entertain motion to approve sure I'll make the first one number numerous sure

0:49:26this is a non-binding resolution of the city council the city of El Cerrito pursuant to the health and safety code section 34193 B to express its intent to adopt an ordinance to elect and Implement participation in the Redevelopment voluntary payment plan pursuant to part 1.9 of the

0:49:47California community redevelopment law son all those in favor please say aye aye aye aye oh oh I think she's ready yeah do you want to go next I'm happy to go next I'm happy to move adoption of an ordinance of the city council of the city of El Cerrito conditionally enacted pursuant to health

0:50:11and safety code section 34193 to elect and Implement participation by the city of El Cerrito and the El Cerrito Redevelopment agency in the alternative voluntary Redevelopment program pursuant to part 1.9 of the California community redevelopment law second I'm sorry I just want to um jump

0:50:33in but would you both accept a revision to be the introduction and wait for first reading of the ordinance rather than adoption I'm happy to um accept that Amendment second okay all those in favor with Amendment please say aye aye aye okay we are now on to the third piece I

0:51:03move a resolution of the city council of the city of El Cerrito approving and authorizing the execution of the agency transfer payment agreement with this El Cerrito Redevelopment agency pursuant to part 1.9 of the Redevelopment law the motion all those in favor please say I I

0:51:26was also unanimous and the final item resolution for this item so I'll move a resolution of the El Cerrito Redevelopment agency approving and authorizing the execution of the agency transfer payment agreement with the city of El Cerrito pursuant to part 1.9 of the Redevelopment law

0:51:51second all those in favor please say aye aye so all four items are unanimous you can now move on to next item which is um city council item 7B Contra Costa County Clean Water funding initiative with a presentation from Jerry Bradshaw Public Works director regarding the status of the

0:52:21Contra Costa clean water funding initiative thank you madam mayor Jerry Bradshaw your Public Works director and city engineer by the way the city Engineers had their monthly meeting in downtown Pittsburgh last week and it really is an amazing transformation that they've

0:52:42undergone there thank you however I'm here to talk about something different tonight just give you a brief overview of what the counties clean water program has been up to recently in one of their initiatives this is the storm water quality funding initiative that's been in the works for most of a

0:53:07year now and we have some preliminary recommendations that should actually become finalized here within the next week the Contra Costa clean water program briefly is it's a county-wide organization composed of all local municipalities was formed in 1991 to address compliance on a coordinated

0:53:31comprehensive and collaborative basis and that's compliance with the Clean Water Act and the state laws that deal with that the Clean Water program is governed by a management committee which has a representative from each of the local agencies on it and I currently sit on that for the city

0:53:50of El Cerrito starting over about a year ago we reactivated an effort that had actually begun several years before which is to look into the possibility of raising some additional funding for the program and for all the city's individual elements of those programs

0:54:10in the 90s the most of the Cities adopted storm water utility assessments which many years ago most of us have gotten to the maximum amount of that assessment I know El city of El Cerrito has been at that maximum amount my entire seven year term here so far so clearly the with the cost of

0:54:33inflation and but mostly because of the increase in requirements by the regional water quality control board the work we've had to do has just gotten more and more and more and the money just is not there to really do it properly and to stay in compliance and with this most recent permit issued

0:54:51nearly two years ago compliance really is becoming a much bigger word than it used to be the board is issuing notices of of non-compliance on a regular basis now so we started this initiative to look into how we could increase the revenue stream for the program so we issued a

0:55:11contract a three-phase contract and phase one is what you see on the slide in front of you and that is coming to culmination here this week I would draw your attention to task two after some background analysis research the the Consultants went and visited each of the 20 agencies that's the 19

0:55:32cities and the county and help determine what their costs were of what they were already doing and then determine what the cost would be to do more in order to stay in compliance with the permit that factored in really importantly to the to the needs and options report

0:55:51that's just now been issued which is Task number five task four was some scientifically valid research opinion research and surveys that were done and they did two versions of this so they could fully check out the different directions that we might go at the time

0:56:10phase two would be the next phase if we decide to move forward which is to develop the official fee report and put together an action plan to take this out to the community in the form of a vote and phase three would be the actual cam information campaign and the voting by

0:56:27the residents and property owners of the county I'll get a little more into that structure in a minute what we've kind of settled on is a rate of 22 dollars per year per average residential parcel obviously large Parcels commercial Parcels would pay different amounts but this is the

0:56:46flagship amount currently most cities are in the 40 high 30s to low 50 dollar range for how much they're collecting on Parcels this would be an additional amount to help support the program for the city of El Cerrito our needs were calculated as needing an additional

0:57:0623 dollars per year to finish out this five-year permit so that's very close to what we would need in in uh we're pleased to see that that actually received support county-wide of 51.9 percent now this is based on a mail ballot according to prop 218 that would only need a simple majority to pass so

0:57:2751.9 would actually be a passing vote if that were the vote although it's actually kind of close when you look at the scientific polling and you'd like to have a little more margin of error than that they did pull a 15 per parcel per year rate and of course the support went

0:57:45up significantly for that that's on county-wide but they also looked at each individual agency and to zero in on where the cities were this could support a higher rate where the cities were that maybe we couldn't so they've are recommending a three-tiered plan based on you know the drainage basin and

0:58:05the location in the county starting at the top the central County we had the strongest support and the 22 dollars per year would have have enough support to to Bear out there the West watersheds were El Cerrito sort of is although you notice we are actually in blue we would be part of that 22-year

0:58:27program but the rest of West county is being proposed for a 19 a year parcel or a fee and the East watersheds are being proposed for a 12 dollar per year rate that combined altogether shows that we would have about a 53 percent support rate and it looks like with the way they

0:58:49did the polling that with information we can actually affect those outcomes a little bit so we are planning to do a pretty good Information Program so real briefly the recommendations that we're looking at as we go forward later this week properly properly property property

0:59:07related fee measure I want to spend a minute on what that is most of you remember the Landscape and Lighting assessment District campaign that we did here in the city four or five years ago and that was a benefit assessment and it was done per a prop 218 mail ballot

0:59:23under that scheme every property owner got to vote an equivalent weight of what their assessment was so if you had a commercial property that had 10 times the assessment of your residential home they got to have 10 times the voting power under a properly property related fee

0:59:42it's it's not that way it is one vote per parcel regardless of what the fee would be or what's your uh well there is no benefit this is not a benefit assessment District so it's just a fee this is precisely how the authors of prop 218 intended it to be this has not

0:59:59been used very much I think it's been used eight times Statewide but it's it's not had any challenges in fact it's had support from the from the taxpayers group that authored prop 218 so it's it's a pretty solid method and this program is tailored really to fit that

1:00:18so that's a significant difference from the Landscape and Lighting District property related measure that we put out here in El Cerrito years ago the proponent will not be the individual cities or the county itself it'll be the Clean Water program however the governing board of the

1:00:36elected Board of the supervisors will be the one to actually certify that result and request that if it passes that that would be put on the on the tax rolls each year be county-wide measure with three tiered rates it's one measure all pass or fail depending on whether it meets a 50

1:00:56percent plus one majority it just has three rates so the people in East County will be voting on the rate they see on their ballot which would be twelve dollars the people in El Cerrito would be voting on the rate that they see on their ballot which would be twenty two

1:01:10dollars um right now as a stance it includes a cost of living adjustment going forward independent oversight and annual independent audits and there's a recommendation to conduct this as soon as possible so that we can have the revenues in place for next fiscal year

1:01:2812 and 13.

1:01:31and the final recommendation which came out of a recent meeting with the city managers group was to increase the budget from the 250 000 that they have for information campaign and double that to a five hundred thousand dollar budget for the information campaign I

1:01:47think we know in El Cerrito how important that information campaign can be to educate the voters on what's really in front of them I think that may be well worth it so the timeline in two days the management committee will convene a vote on the final recommendation

1:02:03if that moves forward the timeline would be this in December 15th we would mail the notice of public hearing would actually hold the first public hearing of February 1st the mail balance would go off February 15th and I believe it's a 45-day voting period so the battling would be closed

1:02:22on April 1st or thereabouts so that's the timeline it's pretty aggressive from this point on after spending nearly a year developing all the information but we have it I think we're ready to go we do have um support from every city in the county I think that's updated from the city

1:02:39managers meeting last week that all the last two cities have expressed support and that includes the staff here as we move forward through the management committee process I do have some other information more detailed if you want but at that I'll stop and entertain any questions

1:02:58one quick question Jerry um can you give us some examples of the types of improvements that would be uh this this would find in El Cerrito uh this actually doesn't fund improvements his funds compliance with the Clean Water Act so this will help us meet our mandates to to conduct public

1:03:16information educate the people to do enforcement actions uh track down polluting sources to keep our storm drains clean keep continue sweeping the streets get pollutants off so it goes to an operations and maintenance effort that we've been gradually slipping and

1:03:34falling a little further behind in our compliance we we have stayed in compliance although we we uh we've been in touch with the board on a couple of issues where we haven't quite kept up but we've got caught up and we're still there it wouldn't include things like

1:03:46rain Gardens or ways to kind of improve the the groundwater the water filtration devices or anything like that uh not really there is a mandate in the in the current permit area-wide to have 10 demonstration projects but this does not provide the funding actually it does provide some

1:04:06funding for that I'm sorry what include that yes yeah there are several elements in this one of them uh Melanie just reminded me is the trash capture which we would have to install trash capture devices in a number of our catch basins but these aren't large capital

1:04:24projects that you would really see out there uh there are as I mentioned the requirement for 10 demonstration projects there is some funding for that our rain guards may actually qualify for one of those which has already been funded and built with Grant funds so

1:04:40that may take the burden off the other nine projects in the area to maybe spread that money a little further okay thanks that helps um how would the education campaign be funded the recommendation was to double it from 250 to 500 is that coming out of the regional funds or is there an

1:04:56additional request from the cities to contribute for that campaign yeah there's currently uh contingency reserve in in the county-wide program that will will cover this so they're not putting out a request for any special funding from the cities for them I noticed that the Eastern portion of

1:05:15this County and I know this professionally as well uses the sen the Sacramento or the central um region water board is that an is there standard slightly different than ours and that's why there's a basis for the cost difference because it's a pretty significant cost difference 12 versus

1:05:3322.

1:05:34yeah no I don't think so I think that the Central Valley board is is coming on with their own Municipal Regional permit Taylor pretty much like the one we have I don't know the details because I don't answer to that board but I think the difference is that that's what the

1:05:51market will bear out there the just the type of property owners and voters I think the opinion polling showed that even at 12 percent they were at a 46 approval rating so even at that they're looking for the rest of County to help carry that a little bit so so if they're

1:06:09if they're one vote per parcel was to be dominantly no and the other two-thirds of the county one vote for parcel was to be predominantly yes it would pass correct okay thank you if I could just to be clear it's all all win or all lose it's it's three separate rates but if it I think

1:06:38to agree with what Jerry said in East County it was setting the rate at a lower threshold to try to get enough votes ultimately to not drag the whole County Down correct yep I have a question about the voting um if if um does it have to win in every jurisdiction or does it just have to win

1:07:00by 50 percent over plus one over overall the second one you said it's okay one vote the jurisdiction is everyone in the county that owns property can vote so when the money is being used to educate the public will it be spent more where there's a lot of support or more where there is

1:07:22less support I really don't know the details of how they're going to get that information out it'll probably be fairly County Wide there may be some on-air pieces mailers things like that um we have we have a couple several professional firms um through the consultant team to help

1:07:41us with the public information part of this and I don't know if they're playing any tracking polls I haven't got into the the details of what's yet to come but I'm sure they'll Target it to where it needs to be so this is 45 days to vote am I um that rings a bell from our landscape

1:07:59and lining district and I think that's probably what that timeline reflects okay I'm wondering about doing it at um the holiday season is that a considered to be a good time bad time indifferent considering all the holidays we have that's about our biggest lull as

1:08:16as you get so it's after the the holiday season the voting doesn't start till February 15th so the first thing to mail us just to notice that there's a there's the initial public hearing is on February 1st okay I see [Music] thank you yeah Jerry um this is a state mandated

1:08:46program correct the federals get involved with this or just this one just a state right now the federal clean water acts set the pace for the states act I think the porter cologne act which would implemented the the federal Clean Water Act EPA does get someone involved

1:09:04they're kind of behind the scenes mostly it's the regional water quality control board which is a subdivision of the State Department of Water Resources I think okay so if this the balloting does not prove to be successful uh what happens then specifically Del Cerrito what happens then

1:09:23well we we've been modeling along with the budget we have this would nearly uh increase our budget by 50 percent um that's a that's a hard question to answer I mean we would have to apply the resources we have to the to the most important parts of this and look through

1:09:44our the budget I mean when you talk to the board or third-party environmental groups who are putting pressure on the board from the other side um they just shrug the shoulders and go general fund or whatever we don't really care where you get the money from to do

1:10:00the work you just need to do the work so it falls if this Regional effort fails it falls on each individual City then however they can do it to come up with the money to comply with the uh the Water Act clean water yes each individual City Plus the county-wide program itself because right

1:10:20now the county the management committee decides the budget for this we we take in about a little over four hundred thousand or about three hundred ninety thousand dollars a year right now in our existing fee we're leaving about 80 to 100 000 of that at the county program

1:10:38level to do county-wide efforts if we have to pinch more then we'll have to trim what we do locally as well as what we do county-wide and also we send some money to the the Bay Area storm water management association basma to do some Regional efforts too for some

1:10:57public information some testing out in the bay that all the counties touch the bay so that there's another tier up above the county level and that'll just put a pinch on all three tiers of of governance that that re you know require money to do their work so it sounds like

1:11:13to me the lower rate at 12 at one dollar a month versus the 22 dollars which is almost two dollars let's say 180 it's better to do that than it is to turn this thing down and then try to come up with the money out of existing funds it sounds like to me correct so

1:11:32it's it's in the best interest of our residents to vote for this it's the cheapest way to go yes I believe so okay thank you one of the slides I didn't bring forward from the county presentation was how much the administrative fines were and how much they can be per day I mean that can add

1:11:49up too so that's the that's the hammer side of this equation that I didn't want to dwell on to but much tonight but that is out there of course we'll have a great water system clean nice Bay so it's an inexpensive way to go even in these times it sounds like to me

1:12:08thank you I am so tonight we're just hearing a presentation correct correct and will there be a further meeting where we'll be actually making a decision of some sort no this is a decision of the Clean Water program okay I sit on the committee I'm one out of 20 vote 21

1:12:26votes flood District actually gets a vote there too okay thanks any other questions any speakers on this topic no mayor okay any further closing questions from Council great that's it thank you the next item is policy matters seven C tax anticipation note presentation thanks good evening mayor

1:12:58members of council I'm Mary Dodge administrative Services director at City Treasurer I'm here tonight to talk about cash or actually cash flow and to request approval of a resolution authorizing 3.535 10 of tax participation notes um every year about this time as many

1:13:21cities can get into a little bit of a cash flow situation because we're waiting for the first property tax distribution which is 55 and it comes in December we get 40 of them in April and 5 in June but this first period of time gets really kind of difficult because

1:13:37our um we have to make our principal portions on our debt service and we run a little cash we're not the only city to do this or school district and many of them do issue Tans and we in the past have done the same thing and the last one was in fiscal year 2000. we haven't had to do

1:13:57one in the last few years and if you look at the table in the chart in the staff report you can see that the major reductions were in Redevelopment agency and in the capital projects in the capital projects part of our problem is a slower funding of the capital reimbursements and while

1:14:18we're working on that it still is taking a little bit longer time for everybody to get their money back in the table that we show on the next page we've done estimates of Revenue and expenditures for now until we would receive that funding and we well there are estimates we feel

1:14:33that they are relatively close to what we'll have and they do show that the required amount that we're asking for is necessary to get these notes we've discussed the need with a few different financial advisors and we only received two actual responses one of them from our bank Mechanics Bank who

1:14:55does not have a lot of experience in this area and another one from Brandis Tallman and they did provide the expertise and the better rate and they are the ones who I would recommend that we go with for this note um the rate at 0.75 is definitely lower than what we'd anticipated and the

1:15:15closing costs are also fairly minimal this entire transaction was discussed with the Fab at their meeting last week and they did make a recommendation to go forward with this they put it at 3.5 million but that was for principal and we've included the closing costs in that

1:15:313 million 510 000 but they did recommend the transaction and I would like happy to answer any questions you have just one question uh Mary at the financial Advisory Board one of the topics that was discussed that maybe you can just kind of expound on and share with the rest of the council was this

1:15:50the the ongoing issue of the cash flow problems and the one of the primary sources that maybe we may be able to make an impact on at some point is The Debt Service the principal Debt Service payment needing to be made at the very beginning of the fiscal year versus the

1:16:04interest payments that are made later on in the fiscal year and to what extent we may be able to restructure those pain the the timing of those payments that we don't have these cash flow issues can you just kind of talk about what what you know about that in in the future if

1:16:17that's anything any bit of a possibility that could solve this problem many of our debt issues have a July 1 principal payment date on it for for both um you know for all of our debts we make two payments a year one of them is principal and interest one of them is just

1:16:33interest and for some reason we have structured all of ours so that July 1 is the date for the big the big one to go out of for us to to really be able to change those dates we would have to refund the debt and by that is the refunding is another name for like a

1:16:48refinancing we would have to be creating a new debt and many people have done this in the last few years just to take advantage of the lower interest rates we had ours looked at probably eight months ago just to determine whether or not there was an opportunity for interest

1:17:03savings and at that time we didn't come up with with anything except for one that we might be able to do we can we can do this again but with the bonds already set in place with those in the bondholders having that we can't change those dates unless we change the debt

1:17:22thank you any other questions from Council any questions from the public or any comments speakers comments no comments any comments sure I want to thank Mary for her work on this item because it it's clearly uh prudent business I mean I just quickly calculated the finance

1:17:44charges are very um very very reasonable so I think it's fantastic that you've done the research and having served on the financial Advisory Board I want to thank them for their uh consideration and recommendation on this item we have been watching this uh change in cash flow and

1:18:00have discussed it a couple of times at the at the Fab and and we had anticipated it maybe not happening until November but getting the reimbursements from some of the other other agencies has caused it to be a little bit more imminent yeah I'd just like to say uh the backup

1:18:18you gave us there's plenty of cities and agencies that do this throughout the state as a normal course of business as well as the state yeah yeah um and school districts often do this and um it's interesting because the school districts in the past have been able to

1:18:37borrow from the county on short term uh however the county is being stretched in in all and more and more school districts are actually going to the private sector to get these short term loans in part because the state is delaying payment to the school districts and so

1:18:59um but what I think the important thing is is we're doing a prudent business we we did the homework we're going with proven methods accepted methods and um when we get the money we pay uh six million dollars in January and December to pay off three million dollars of debt

1:19:20right away that carried for what maybe six weeks seven weeks so um I I think it's real safe try to minimize the amount of time as you brought up and I would like to reiterate this does not have any effect on the on the the budget the reserves on anything this is purely a cash flow

1:19:41issue and this is only what this is dealing with thank you without any comments otherwise motion to make a Resolute I'll make a motion uh to adopt resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into an agreement with Brandis Tallman for the issuance of three million 510

1:20:02000 in tax anticipation notes known as tan including issuance costs and to appropriate seventeen thousand dollars for costs associated with the tan second all those in favor please say aye aye motion is unanimous okay last item um number eight uh Council assignments and liaison

1:20:33reports who would like to go first sure I can go first um crime prevention committee has not met it it no longer has enough members to fulfill the five-member minimum so we are looking for a crime prevention committee members um the design view board met and is

1:20:56doing an excellent job of looking at colors and coordinating signage requirements for applicants that are coming to them there's no new things to report out of the design review board except they're doing their job well foreign I was just going to say the recycling

1:21:17board that I'm on continues to look at many many things that we already voted on one the single bag ordinance but also looking into the future they're continuing their efforts to analyze and and um review the advantages and disadvantages of whether we should continue as an

1:21:41authority after the end of 2013.

1:21:45and so we that'll be coming up and they'll be periodic reports coming to council on that issue um just so you know and if somebody has an objection uh we can talk about it but I'm kind of pressing that we get a fairly early read on cities that are interested in the

1:22:07authority in cities that aren't and I don't know when that's going to come I just don't think we should wait till the end of 2013 to vote on it because the makeup of the authority would greatly decide how the authority was would be to go forward if if it would continue or would give each City they

1:22:34would have to just decide how they want to go forward knowing that maybe one or two or or none of the cities are pulling out so uh that may come up I don't think that's something that's going to come up right away but eventually we're going to have to make that decision and I've been

1:22:52pressing for it to be before we get too far into 2013.

1:22:58may I comment on this that most recent one from councilmember Jones I did attend the the last uh Integrated Waste Management board meeting or Waste Management Authority meeting and sat in the audience and listened to all the dialogue and how and would like to take

1:23:15this opportunity to pass my comments on to council member Jones as our representative um there are several members of The Authority that were echoing council member Jones's thoughts that we basically need to decide if the five member cities are going to be the five

1:23:33members that he's going forward and it was almost proceeding as if it was a this was a political decision and in reality it's not it's a it's strictly an operational decision if any City pulls out they take their waste with them and to um plan an authority not knowing what

1:23:58the waste stream is to not know what the basically the revenue stream will be is is imprudent they're trying to make decisions about whether to invest in a new structure or not and you cannot make that decision if you do not know what your waste flow is so councilmember Jones I would

1:24:16strongly strongly recommend that you take this continue this line of of pressure and take it to a technical basis and not and try to remove the politics of whether this is a you know a city can opt in or opt out at any point in time they can't we need to know what flow

1:24:38is is going to be in the authority starting January 1 2014 so that we can prudently make business decisions about what facilities we build and you know what types of contracts we we enter into and to allow the largest member to um waffle because they're dragging their

1:25:03feet on their own politics is unacceptable and I I would encourage you to continue pushing this issue forward and I think everyone I I think everyone else for indulging me to take this opportunity to speak to council member Jones on this matter but I didn't want

1:25:17to do it absent you all hearing this okay Environmental Quality committee recently discussed a number of different things the one I will leave you with has to do with the fear environmental film series and it looks like the next film that will be shown at the Cerrito theater in

1:25:40that series is um called baguette which is about plastic bags and having privated already I can I can tell you it's a real interesting and film to watch and I would encourage people to go when we finalize the date and um so stay tuned for back it the economic development board hasn't

1:26:12met since we last met uh the financial Advisory Board did meet and the bulk of our discussion had to do with what uh Miss Dodge already presented on the tax anticipation notes um we also did discuss our on the vacancy on the board and the members strongly urging anybody who's listening who has

1:26:28experience in financial auditing or other sorts of financial professional experiences to put their names forward because they are happy to welcome a new member in the near future hopefully um the two reports I have so arts and culture has not met but they're um their

1:26:48anticipated meeting on Wednesday has been proposed poned until next Wednesday where they will be receiving a new conceptual design for the streetscaping art project and um and also to get on your calendars October 14th the the committee sub commit subgroup of the committee is

1:27:09starting to organize a do-it-yourself um Art Festival at the community center Saturday October 15th from 2 30 to 5 I believe and in celebration of Hard Times encouraging people to make their own art and with free workshops I understand um and then with the human relations commission met recently

1:27:33to to start discussions about how they would like to plan for Martin Luther King Jr Day celebration as well as a possible action to recognize El Cerrito recently passed resident Ernest iyama who's been a a major figure in the Japanese-American historic Civil Rights

1:27:55Movement who's been a resident over over 50 years of El Cerrito and helped founded the Arts and the human relations commission and they're also exploring exploring a initial proposal to provide essentially a mini Grant um around 250 to the school district teachers who are interested in in

1:28:16acquiring or providing above and beyond materials around cultural diversity for for the students so that's that's it for me anything else with that all right sure I'd like to move that we adjourn the concurrent city council Redevelopment agency meeting in memory of the many

1:28:38Brave fallen heroes and innocent civilians who lost their lives in the tragic September 11 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center the Pentagon and on flight 93 in Pennsylvania and with that thank you for for that and we appreciate everyone tonight and we

1:29:07will be meeting the next time on October 3rd 7 30 so we're back to our regular first and third Monday Council meetings through the remainder of the Year thank you