Concurrent City Council and Redevelopment Agency Meeting October 3, 2011

0:00:56um with that could we please have the Roll Call councilmember banasini here councilmember Lyman here remember Abelson here mayor Pro tem Jones here mayor Chang here thank you um at this time we'll have the Pledge of Allegiance led by councilmember Lyman [Music]

0:01:22public for which it stands [Music] for all okay at this point in the um staff in Council Communications I have a couple of communications uh first of all I wanted to announce that I attended the league of California cities conference which was held in San Francisco this year on September 21st to

0:01:5523rd and I also um um had policy committee meetings at that time for the administrative services policy committee and I was represented that committee at the general resolutions committee and there were a few resolutions that um did go all the way to the full assembly and were voted on and

0:02:23um I won't go into the the details of those but they were um there's a lot of debate on them and then they in most cases ended up not doing a whole lot but anyway the um the thing that I um was wanting to mention was that um there were a couple of sessions that I

0:02:49went to that I thought were particularly interesting and um one of them was on how to get through difficult times which I think we could you know think that this is and um one of the things I also did at this conference was to try to use my iPad to take notes so

0:03:11um I hope this goes well this is my first attempt and um so the one one of the things that was suggested is that council members limit their requests of staff so that staff is able to spend what limited uh time that they do have getting their the essential tasks done so the more times that we ask

0:03:36for uh you know special requests be they good bad or indifferent the more staff time it takes so we should as council members be cognizant of that as we think about what we're saying um and another interesting thing is that we often celebrate things that go well

0:03:59but we should also feel secure enough to celebrate the things that don't go so well because it's only when you take those kinds of risks so that you actually make progress and get ahead so um I think in the future if maybe if we have a few flops that just means that

0:04:18we're making progress because we've learned something I think that's the real point there and I thought that was a really interesting way of approaching it um let's see some of the um another suggestion that was made during the session uh even though we have limited resources that we should not try

0:04:42to eliminate training because training training is very essential and one of the key things that we need to continue with then I know into another session that had some interesting that thoughts that I wrote down about that one um were it was about talked a lot about

0:05:06bike parking and on how to create an interesting and Innovative bike parking so the several takeaways that I got from that one was to use parking spaces and then um sort of make them um an integral part of the sidewalk so that you know it'd be the same same level and

0:05:31then convert them into bike parking with um features such as trees or whatever sort of protecting them from the traffic so that it was really obvious what was going on there another one that I particularly liked was to create bike racks that are in fact works of art

0:05:59so that actually that idea I think would be in sync a lot with our um one percent for art uh program that we have in our city so that we could um do it in a you know in a way that makes us stand out as a city and they showed examples of cities that were doing that currently uh

0:06:20when I mentioned it to Melanie I don't know if she's here today I guess not anyway she suggested that they need to also remain functional and and I would agree with her comment that we it isn't just a work of art it needs to totally be functional um and um so with that I'll I'll skip on to

0:06:43um another thing that I did on September the 29th I participated in a tour of the uh New Recycling Center in progress and it's beginning to take shape there's a frame around what will be the roof for the shed and you can begin to see the outline of the circle driveway where

0:07:07um people will come to drop off their various uh recycling and um other things and um so I got really excited and ready for it to open and I am they're making really good progress in getting us to that goal so I think you'll all be pleased and just to remind everyone

0:07:28um the recycling center is open during this construction so everything can can still be recycled and we're very fortunate that our staff has been able to keep that going and um then I have a couple of and items to announce in the future um the next one is that the fall citywide

0:07:55garage sale will be held on October the 15th from 9 to 3 P.M nine in the morning till 3 P.M and um also on November the 11th which I'm sure you all know is Veterans Day holiday the recycling center will be closed all day which is a very unusual activity for that however the curbside collection a

0:08:22recycling green waste and also garbage will proceed as normal so those are my comments okay thank you I just wanted to report I also went to the league for two days uh the league California City's conference over in San Francisco and attended several uh sessions some of which Janet had

0:08:48outlined so I'll I'll leave it at that um I just for those of us who know or maybe you don't know that uh the council member and San Pablo Are Tour Crews has is recovering from a serious stroke and what's unfortunate about it is he's uh he is he's still going and they expect

0:09:16the full recovery but he's 37 years old and one of the one of the younger people on the San Pablo Council and a pleasure to get along with and he's very energetic so we hope that he makes a recovery and we can again start interacting with one of our neighbors there in San Pablo

0:09:37I attended very interesting and I uh suggest if you have a chance to attend or at least look into one of the recitals and performances but we were invited to attend the freedom Performing Arts Center which is on San Pablo Avenue it's just down south of the Cerrito theater and this is a private

0:10:03organization a non-profit that is providing opportunity for music and Performing Arts for for the young people for young people in the community and it's open to everyone and they had a recital with their instructors which I thought was really it was really good

0:10:22but it it is it is a very good and if you get a chance you'd be surprised that uh the level of play that some of these six seven and eight-year-olds are are performing it's really nice side uh encourage you to take a look if you have a chance and by the way at PG e was

0:10:45there they they donated donated twenty five hundred dollars to this organization for the promotion of the youth programs so uh they're off to a good start down there I attended the golf the annual golf tournament put on by the city the recreation and Community Services

0:11:05Department it's was it's a fundraiser for the David Hunter memorial fund and it was especially gratifying to see this year because uh two things the tournament was held a month later and at Tilden Park Golf Course up at Tilden Park this year because Mary Vista Country Club is under

0:11:29repair and wasn't available for tournament play so I was glad to see we our attendance was a little down from previous years but to be expected but also a strong showing by our sponsors that had previously sponsored and helped the project help the program there even

0:11:53in this economic time we still have people that are generous and try to help out with something like the David Hunter Memorial fun so that was good and lastly I just asked those of you we have county-wide there's going to be a tax measure measure or J I believe it is

0:12:13to support the Brooklyn I want to say Brookside hustle is Doctors Hospital in San Pablo formerly was Brookside Hospital a while ago uh as you know if if you've had the opportunity and maybe The Misfortune of having to utilize an emergency facility in an emergency hospital you know how

0:12:39valuable it is to the community to us personally but also to the community they're in danger of closing according to the officials the and and the county which would mean we would have one emergency hospital kaiserno in Richmond so I just encourage you you vote the way

0:13:03you're the way you should but please look at that issue closely and study the situation and vote the way you feel we should for the future so thank you if I may I just want to make sure that everyone knows that yes on that measure Jay is actually going to be a vote by

0:13:26mail mail before November 15th so look for that look for that in your in your mailbox that's going to be your opportunity to vote on that um I want to remind everyone that tomorrow night October 4th uh here at City Hall we are having a new senior housing in El Cerrito open house

0:13:50community meeting between seven and eight it's a brief presentation that will be offered several times during that hour so it is an open house to drop in and ask your questions so we really would encourage you guys to come and express your opinions again that's uh

0:14:06tomorrow night for uh October 4th between seven and eight um I've been following in our El Cerrito Garden Club newsletter I've been I've been following the uh the the Thursday event the Thursday event that is occurs at 6 30 on Thursdays it's the south end of Fairmont Park which is the corner of

0:14:33Lexington and Eureka and they call it the veg mob produce and it's a vegetable exchange there's between six and ten people that show up and they always have extra food too so if you have something that from your garden or your citrus trees that you'd like to share or or

0:14:52even if you don't some herbs please come by and uh check it out see what how that's doing that'll go probably continue through October and then resume next spring and that's it for me uh just two quick announcements also going on tomorrow unfortunately at the same

0:15:13time as our um open house on the tradeway site is The Siege sanitary District's East Bay Regional plan sorry Regional private Sewer Lateral program um and at 7 pm tomorrow at the community center there will be a discussion about how that those improvements are intended

0:15:30to take place if you want to learn more about that and we have a great Synergy going on on October 15th there's a lot of events uh the community the city-wide garage sale was already mentioned and we also are having a do-it-yourself arts fair that's going to take place

0:15:45route at the same time of the garage sale so you can go to the garage sale 9 30 pick up some great Little Gems or jewels and then you can head over to the community center starting at 2PM and perhaps put together some sort of do it yourself art piece with those little

0:15:58gems but it looks like there's going to be some great workshops including metal art junk sketching improv for teens so there's a lot of events between 2 and 5 30 at the community center for all ages of children and and adults interested in doing their own art and adorning their

0:16:14walls with their own items thank you and so I also wanted to report I attended the the league of cities annual fall conference in San Francisco for the first time and enjoyed meeting all the electeds from around the state and got some great tips um in the the sessions

0:16:35um and the second thing or the just to add to the the slew of events um and also all of this is on the city website under events um the calendar for the month is all laid out so everything you can you've heard about you should be able to find a link to it um one way or another

0:16:53um bicycling town hall on October 20th um from 6 30 to 8 P.M there's been a a bunch of comments that I've been getting and I'm sure our Council our Council has also around the Loney Greenway and the the the design that's being implemented as a result of the Looney Greenway

0:17:14master plan that has been crafted as as early as 2004 and has been developed over time and is now at the stage of being implemented upon um uh Bart carrying out all the seismic retrofits needed for the above ground portion of the the BART uh rails and so folks to to hear

0:17:38um I've heard a lot of concern about all of the two paths being collapsed into one but it's there's much more Nuance than that so I invite everyone to find out in detail how each block will be treated um because it's not a flat you know consolidation up and down it's very case

0:17:56specific and need specific and definitely balancing a lot of of needs and interests um but definitely welcome everyone to come hear about it and also give your your very useful feedback to make it the best transitions process as possible but there will also of course be kind of

0:18:15a larger discussion overall about the city's circulation element update and um and in light of the big interest over their uh biked work day lots of folks are interested in have have expressed interest in getting more involved so we're excited to to engage everybody's

0:18:33thoughts on that um that's that's it for me or other folks thanks for for chiming in on the great events so I didn't have to do them myself um so I think that's it for Council any staff staff Communications there's one item good evening I'm Lori Trevino the Redevelopment manager and I wanted to

0:18:56provide you an update um as well as anyone in the audience who may have arrived early for the municipal Services Corporation meeting um an update regarding the tri-party agreement Amendment with uh Safeway which is on that agenda we've been working with Safeway since the agenda

0:19:12and reports were published on Thursday to do some final wordsmithing and Safeway has requested a change that would require consideration by the city council and so while none of the changes are materially different from what you received in what the MSC board received

0:19:30in the packet we wanted to bring the agreement back to both bodies in the same evening so we're going to come back this evening and to the MSC board and ask that we carry the item forward to October 17th um I think that's it okay so item three is we're now doing

0:19:52oral Communications from the public on items not on the agenda we have a number of speakers first okayness foreign good evening mayor Chang members of the council and City staff my name is Tom panis I live at [address removed] I'm not here this evening on behalf of the

0:20:23Historical Society of the County Library commission but rather assist and confirmed concerned about creeks in El Cerrito specifically the creek at 1715 Elm Street last week you received a letter from the friends of five Creeks on this subject this site was a subject of a

0:20:37historic resources report dated August 11 2006 of which I've given you a copy or it's coming around the report was conclu the report concluded that the site was eligible for listing on the California register of historical places this means that under well established and thoroughly

0:20:51litigated California law office cites a historic resource the historic resource report specifically identified as the stonewalled creek on the property as a character defining feature or in other words one of the reasons the site was deemed eligible for listing

0:21:04at the August 3rd designer view board meeting the developer who owns the property presented a preliminary plan of the drb and requested a preliminary review the drb was open to his proposal to build over the existing Creek but wanted to understand how it would be done

0:21:17one possible alternative was rerouting part of the creek I was quite surprised when I learned about all this oh first of all it directly contravenes our Creek's ordinance second obliterate part of a character defining feature of a recognized California historic resource

0:21:32could raise very serious problems with respect to both the California resources code and the California Environmental Quality act I'm wondering if our City attorney needs to be thinking about this a little bit last week I spoke with a man who wrote the historic resources report he spoke

0:21:47about that Stone stonewalled Creek using terms such as unique rare and irreplaceable there's an issue regarding whether or not the Waterway on the Elm Street site is in fact a creek our zoning ordinance has quite a strong Creek protection overlay District more commonly referred

0:22:01to as the Creek's ordinance I provided with your copy of it it's strong because when the zoning ordinance was being redrafted several years ago the citizens of El Cerrito wanted the best possible protection for our creeks the feeling in the community was that since so much of

0:22:13our riparian community has unfortunately been buried and our Creeks hidden away in underground passages we needed special protections for the open sections of Creek that remain on the copies I have distributed to you I've highlighted several sections including the ones that say it's unlawful to erect

0:22:28a building that Bridges a creek and also want to describe setbacks our venerable Public Works director did a preliminary review which suggested the water course does not a creek because it's part of an engineered system which was developed for a public agency for a

0:22:41collection of storm or flood waters I believe his review was misinformed because he didn't have enough data day that I'd like to provide my belief is based among part among other things my understanding of early land use in El Cerrito before Creeks were buried and

0:22:55subdivision development a careful reading of the Creek's ordinance plus a knowledge of why it's written the way it was and several maps including a 1916 Santa Fe mapa there right away that shows a bridge over that Creek I doubt there are any engineered systems here in those days before the

0:23:09city was founded I've also heard suggest that the water course that it may not be a creek because it enters the property from a culvert and returns to a culvert when it exits the property if one would apply these same criteria to either Cerrito Creek or Baxter Creek

0:23:23neither of those would be considered a creek and I'm hoping everybody in this room agrees that both of those water courses are creeks this cites an important test for our Creek's ordinance disregarding the Creek's ordinance disrespects all those who have spent hundreds of hours

0:23:35discussing this subject the Planning Commission and other places and who came together to create create a workable Creeks ordinance it also sets a terrible precedent I should note the number of people who wanted the Creek's ordinance that was even stronger and I believe

0:23:48that people are expecting us to observe the obtain of their Creek's ordinance so I provided you with some additional reference material there including that 1916 Santa Fe map a 1950 map and also a copy of an early site plan for the site where the developer actually marked that

0:24:01Waterway as a creek thanks very much for your time this evening thank you other speakers Frank storno [Applause] good evening my name is Frank stornall I was born in El Cerrito on January 1917 except for the time in the service I have reside in the city for most of my

0:24:47life I'd like to speak for a moment about the creek that runs flows through the property of Mr rodini I believe that the Public Works director was misled when he said that wasn't a creek I beg to disagree with him this Creek begins at the canyon above Blake and Naval Air it runs

0:25:10westwardly through two dairies a florists and the rodinis on its course to the East Shore Park the creek was on the crossing the Patrol Avenue during heavy rains Seasons it would flood to the whole area we kids that lived on the east side of San Pablo had to had to weed through water to get

0:25:34home we were students at Steve's School Alfredo was a city of many good-sized creeks and surely this Creek was one of them as kids we would have fun catching tadpoles and frogs at the rodini's creek we should be glad that part of the creek still runs free let's keep it that way

0:25:54and I would think people would enjoy going by and looking at it thank you thank you for your comments howdy Guri hi so my name is howdy Gowdy I'm a member of the El Cerrito um Environmental Quality committee but I'm not speaking on their behalf tonight I'm just a garden variety El Cerrito

0:26:25resident who also cares about creeks and I haven't done as detailed researchers Tom or I mean the um the anecdotal evidence I think uh it's really meaningful to me to hear from residents who have been in El Cerrito long enough to have seen it a different way you know I I have a fairly

0:26:50limited uh experience of uh what El Cerrito looks like but it's fascinating to understand how it evolved over time and it's really unfortunate that so many of The Creeks were covered over in the development of our city and I would um complement the city on having drafted or

0:27:14enacted a a good strong creep ordinance and I encourage the city to be very you know rigorous and upholding and enforcing that ordinance and I think obviously it applies in this proposed development situation and it should be very uh well I I just don't see um that there's

0:27:51um the way the Creek's ordinance was written it it should be very difficult to um over the creek redirect the creek or encroach on the um the setback so um I just wanted to state that I am a El Cerrito resident who is strongly in favor of uh the creek ordinance so I hope that that

0:28:19and I have a little thing for the record but that's basically thank you for your comments speaker Robin Mitchell my name is Robin Mitchell and I live at [address removed] in El Cerrito and I have two things here one is a letter from a Resident Evil that couldn't be here and then I have my own

0:28:55comments and I'll try to keep it to three minutes so the letter from the other El Cerrito resident is well I guess he lives in El Sobrante now but he grew up Freedom so it says my name is Charles Melia I was born in November 1931 and raised in El Cerrito our family home was on Lexington

0:29:13Avenue formerly named Allen Street between Blake and Hill streets I remember vividly the creek that ran just north of Blake and navalir it went Westerly through the rodini property the bonini property on Liberty Street the pizola property on Lexington Street going under the Santa Fe tracks and

0:29:31through the peekaboo trailer park and Underground Across San Pablo Avenue this Creek was a great source of entertainment for us kids who would Dam up small sections near our homes build boats to sail catch frogs and tadpoles the creek also attracted a large variety

0:29:47of birds during the rainy season when the streets were flooded waiting in the creek water was too much of a Temptation on our way to and from stage School needless to say this did not please our mothers I don't remember the family's name but the gentleman dammed up a

0:30:00portion of the creek between Liberty and Allen Street so that he could water his horses there he had a nice Barn nearby and perhaps had other livestock as well I feel certain this Creek is a natural Creek and should be allowed to remain so sincerely Charles Melia

0:30:16and then my own comments um I'll just read from the letter that I will give to the clerk so I would like to provide my input on the proposed development at 1715 Elm Street in El Cerrito not in my capacity as a member of the Park and Recreation Commission but as a concerned citizen

0:30:34I'm particularly concerned that high density development on that site would damage the creek that runs through the property the issue of damage to Creeks due to development is why the city of El Cerrito developed the Creek's ordinance and I would hope that that ordinance

0:30:46would be followed in the planning decisions made about this property property is referenced on the city of El Cerrito's website in a document called El Cerrito Creek's map which is a map of the city with the Creeks highlighted the creek that runs through this property is

0:31:01labeled natural on this map and I included that map in my document this property is also referenced in a document that is on the city of El Cerrito's website called oldest buildings in El Cerrito which is a map of El Cerrito that highlights the 10 oldest buildings in the city

0:31:17this one is the third oldest building shown on that map with a date of 1897. and I also included that map here um from these two documents I infer that the city considers this property to be significant both historically and environmentally I would hope that if this property must

0:31:36be developed that these two aspects of the property will be carefully considered in the design keeping in mind the 30-foot setback requirements of the El Cerrito Creeks ordinance as well as the historical significance of the house and the site I would also like to propose that for a

0:31:51special property such as this tearing down the existing structure and changing the nature of the property is not necessarily the highest and best use I know that most city planners consider that densifying a property is always what should be done with it in terms of

0:32:06development but I would contend that given the plans for densification of many other areas in El Cerrito that there is an even greater need to set aside some special areas in the city such as this site which has both natural and historical significance and could

0:32:21potentially add to the Green Space of the city to be enjoyed by everyone thank you thank you for your comment other speakers Al Miller good evening mayor Chan and council members I presently hold one of the five elected board positions of the city Sanitary District and it's in that

0:32:44capacity I'd like to offer some amplifying remarks to council member benicini's announcement about the meeting tomorrow evening in the up at the community center the Steed Sanitary District provides Wastewater collection service to Residents and businesses in El Cerrito

0:33:03Kensington and the Richmond Annex our main sewers which are located in the streets and easements throughout the district collect waste water from our customers and deliver it to East Bay mud for their treatment the privately owned sewer laterals which connect each customer's drains house

0:33:22drains to the and transfer it to the Steed Sanitary District main lines those lines are owned by the property owners and their maintenance of those are the responsibility of the property owners due to recent changes in state and federal regulations to reduce pollution

0:33:44in the San Francisco Bay Prestige Sanitary District East Bay mud the U.S Environmental Protection Agency in the San Francisco Regional water quality control board are working together to inform Property Owners throughout the East Bay about new requirements to inspect test repair or replace a damaged

0:34:09sewer laterals on private property the meeting that everyone in the district is invited to attend tomorrow night at four o'clock in the El Cerrito Community Center is to inform residents and Property Owners about the regional private Sewer Lateral program within the boundaries of the stage

0:34:35Sanitary District these regulations will go into effect on October 17th of this year so everyone is encouraged to attend especially Realtors real estate agencies of people who are planning on selling their home soon or maybe not so soon and anyone interested in the requirements on their

0:35:03own sewer laterals agency officials from stage East Bay mud and East Bay mud will be available to explain the requirements and answer the questions most important thing to realize is that the focus that will hit most people the soonest is the requirement to have a

0:35:23certificate of compliance on their Sewer Lateral that they are going to sell their property up until now this has been uh planned directed managed and controlled by the Steve Sanitary District as of October 17th if the Crete don't rise as they say it will be managed and controlled by East

0:35:48Bay mud stage Sanitary District will still issue the permit for doing the work and to still work with East Bay mud to inspect the quality of the work to make sure it passes our requirements but getting the permit I mean getting the certificate planning the time for the inspections

0:36:09and the procedures to go through are controlled by East Bay mud thank you thank you for that update final speaker Kathleen McKinley good evening Madam Marin council members my name is Kathleen McKinley and I live at [address removed] I'm here also just to speak on the Creek's issue that was

0:36:46addressed earlier um my concern uh is sort of legalistic I was on the Planning Commission at the time the Creek's ordinance was drafted so I'm very familiar with what was involved in that and what the issues were and concerns were my concern is the proposed development

0:37:03we've seen so far which is tentative I understand would contravene that the Creek's ordinance and uh there really is no reason to have a Creek's ordinance if the city is going to roll over every time a developer comes in and wants to act as if the creek isn't there

0:37:19the Creek's ordinance was passed in order to address exactly this kind of situation where a person owns a Visa property and they want to develop it and they have it has certain features on it this is true of other aspects of the zoning ordinance too but but the creek

0:37:37situation had never been expressly addressed in the city zoning ordinance until the last time we amended the whole zoning ordinance and the issue of Creek protection was so important that we specifically wanted to have an entire section dedicated to it um it if this proposed development would

0:38:02not just impinge on the creek more than the creek ordinance permits it would actually obliterate the creek either in whole or in part and I just don't think that's it's not legal I don't see how the city can agree to that I've looked at the ordinance I I've actually done

0:38:17some analysis which is too detailed to go into now but I know the city is probably concerned that if they don't allow the developer to do certain things the developer may try to sue them but you have to realize that you could face litigation from the other side too

0:38:34failure to enforce the city's zoning ordinance could lead to petition for a rate of mandate and I think there's a pretty strong case to be made to require the city to actually enforce the ordinance as written I mean this is clearly a creek it's an important resource it's important natural resource

0:38:54but it also has historic aspects as Mr panis is addressed and I just think that the developer shouldn't be led down the Primrose path to be by anybody in the city thinking that he's got to have you know clear sailing to act as if this Creek isn't there most developers would

0:39:11like to act like that I mean sometimes they want to incorporate a creek into their development as a feature but by and large they sort of want to act as if the cree a creek is an inconvenience and they shouldn't have to address it but that's exactly why we have the creek

0:39:27Creeks ordinance that we do and it would really just completely eviscerate the ordinance if we act as if it doesn't exist either the creek or the ordinance itself so I really urge the city to look carefully at this proposed project when it comes formally before you thank

0:39:46you thank you for your comments any more speakers this final speaker no mayor correct okay thank you um next on our agenda is adoption of the consent calendar so no presentations tonight for item four moving on to five items number five a through 5e movement adoption of the consent

0:40:11calendar items five a through 5e second all those in favor please say aye aye bring all eyes that is unanimous um and item six no public hearings tonight so we can go on to item number seven which is policy matters um we'll be discussing General law versus Charter City at the request of

0:40:37Mayor Tim mayor Pro tem Jones and receive a presentation on the authority of a general law City versus a charter City home rule and Municipal Affairs we will be discussing the benefits and detriments of becoming a charter City and provide direction to staff after receiving

0:40:56first after asking clarifying questions receiving public comment and then coming back to a discussion by the council for a recommendation so with that we'll take the presentation from staff sure thank you mayor members of the council the City attorney and I will sort of tag team on this as you

0:41:19already mentioned this was requested by councilmember Jones and what we are trying to do here is to provide an overview of the background on General law versus Charter cities it's not meant to be in great detail there's a lot more work involved should the council direct us to

0:41:38spend more time on this um and we've relied very heavily on the league of California cities which who has done a lot of background information on this and represents both General law and Charter cities so uh with that uh before I turn it over to the City attorney what we want to

0:41:57cover tonight is an overview of where the authority comes from and a lot of that has to do with home rule and understanding home rule and it gets a little bit into jargon here between home rule and Municipal Affairs Municipal Affairs is essentially what concerns

0:42:14cities local governments there were also Statewide concerns which have come up uh over and over here in the past few years particularly as of late as it affects the Redevelopment agency we all know how much time we've spent on that on that issue we'll talk about the benefits the

0:42:34advantages and disadvantages essentially of a charter City and then turn it over to the council for discussion and possible direction we are not here to make a recommendation we're trying to just essentially provide the information and then we'll turn it over to you to

0:42:51let us know where you'd like to go next with that I'll turn it over to the City attorney who'll go through the next series of slides thank you um so the first thing that we wanted to clarify is what are the sources of the differential different powers of General

0:43:11law versus Charter cities because this is sort of at the heart of the discussion um General law cities have two basic sources of power um State statutes including the State Constitution and the inherent police powers Charter cities in contrast have all the powers of a general law City but the

0:43:35state constitution also treats a charter cities regulation of quote-unquote Municipal Affairs as equal to state law so the difference there is that if an area has been determined to be a municipal Affair then a charter cities regulation of that area is sort of of

0:43:53equal dignity with state law and it is allowed to opt to regulate in that area without interference by the state um nevertheless the power that cities exercise the charter cities exercise over Municipal Affairs is still limited by the state and federal constitutions

0:44:09and by the charter itself so what is really the nature of home rule um as I mentioned it's based in the California Constitution um and it does require um and allow the adoption of a charter and ordinances pursuant to that Charter that basically replace state laws in

0:44:30areas that are considered to be Municipal Affairs um the city again is still limited by the U.S Constitution federal laws the California Constitution and state laws regarding matters of what's called Statewide concern um Charter City Authority is um as I said bounded but also it is not

0:45:02necessary that a charter City regulate in every area that is a municipal Affair just because um the courts have ruled that for example and we will get to this in a couple of slides elections are a municipal Affair where a city could adopt its own rules and follow those

0:45:24rather than the elections code doesn't mean that it is required to it could nevertheless decide to follow state law and the elections code so then what's a municipal affair um unhelpfully it's pretty much defined on a case-by-case basis but this has been going on long enough that we know a

0:45:46fair amount about what is and is not a municipal fare at this point um it is important to point out and I'll I sort of um for the purposes of discussions and from from my own notes sort of reorganized this relative to what's on the slide um the legislature can assert that an

0:46:06issue is a matter of Statewide concern but a local government can still challenge that and ultimately if it hasn't yet been defined by the courts the courts will decide whether or not it's a matter it's a Statewide concern or a municipal affair once a court has determined that a

0:46:21matter is one of local concern the state can't unilaterally alter that determination so there is a state law limit on what is a municipal Affair but it's one that one cities have a role in determining what that actually is two it is ultimately up to the Judiciary to

0:46:40decide whether or not something is or is not a municipal fare and obviously the legislature has a role in making that determination but it's one that they can't do unilaterally so what we're going to do in the next few slides is just sort of roll through a few different subject areas that have

0:46:59been identified as Municipal Affairs where Charter cities can regulate if they choose to do so the first one is I mentioned elections um and that means that a city council can do things like um set its own qualifications for members of the city council what the

0:47:18criteria will be for vacating and terminating city offices what the funding will be for public offices and for candidates campaigns all those are again subject to constitutional issues including that a charter City can't even though elections are a municipal Affair Charter City

0:47:38cannot eliminate the power of referendum initiative or recall because those are specifically reserved by the state constitution to the voters Finance is another area that has been determined to be to in some aspects be a municipal Affair um one of the things that that means is

0:47:59that there are a couple of taxes that Charter cities can enact that General law cities cannot among those are business license taxes they can be adopted for purposes that General law cities can't adopt them for uh Charter City can adopt a payroll tax and it can adopt what's called a real

0:48:18property transfer tax as I'm sure most of the council is aware um there there is a something in effect pretty much throughout the state although perhaps not universally called a documentary transfer tax which is um set by state law and calculated as 55 cents for every 500 of the sales price

0:48:40sale price of property Charter cities can and that's set by state law Charter cities can enact subject to voter approval a real property transfer tax that is higher than the state limit um so that's one area where Charter cities have a little bit more leeway additionally they can create

0:49:02um their own rules for assessments and taxes so for example um if a charter City wanted to pursue an assessment but the state set of statutes that defined what assessment Revenue could be used for um didn't include the thing that that the charter City wanted to use the money

0:49:22for it could adopt its own ordinance laying out what assessments can be used for and go through the proposition 218 process for getting an assessment approved and then use it for that purpose so again a little bit more leeway in some areas of Finance um planning some aspects of planning and

0:49:44land use have also been determined to be in Municipal Affairs um so for example um the general regulations that are in the state planning and land use law don't apply which includes the limits and requirements on zoning will also not apply to a charter City and that

0:50:04includes the general requirement that a City Zoning be consistent with its General plan which is an odd sort of um uh consequence of of home rule Powers but and I don't know that that many cities have exercised it but it is an option for a charter City that having

0:50:25adopted a general plan and then subsequently having decided that that some zoning change should be made it is actually allowed to adopt a new zoning regulation that would not be consistent with its own General plan um as noted on this slide however um these this is sort of an area where

0:50:43there has been a fair amount of back and forth between the state and Municipal governments with the courts sort of deciding um in a number of cases that in fact some aspects of land use and Zoning are of Statewide concern and therefore subject to State regulation and that's

0:51:00what we'll see on the next slide which is that these are a list of things that have in fact been determined to be of Statewide concerns so um just to run through them briefly uh Charter cities zoning isn't required to be consistent with its General plan but the general plan still has to have all

0:51:17the required elements the zoning procedure hearing procedures are still required which kind of makes sense because those are partly derived from the requirements for due process Charter cities still have to comply with the requirements for low and moderate income housing the time limits in the

0:51:36permit streamlining actor is still going to apply as well as the other provisions of the permit streamlining Act um these standards for approving Housing Development the density bonus law the rules for interim zoning and the subdivision map act and SQL all still

0:51:52apply to Charter cities now within those there may be some areas where actually a charter City would have a little bit more leeway to do some um some things locally I've actually worked with some cities on subdivision issues along those lines but for the most part this list of

0:52:10of land use subjects are considered to be a Statewide concern and so even a charter City would be bound by them public Contracting and prevailing wages is another area that has been determined to be a municipal Affair one of the consequences of that is that for example

0:52:31um in the design build construction contract context which you have some experience with now there's actually even broader leeway for a charter City to do design build projects than is allowed for General law cities at this point um Charter cities can also basically

0:52:51exempt themselves from the public contract code and develop their own ways of of Contracting for Public Works projects that don't include uh competitive bidding they do have to expressly exempt themselves but one of the consequences of that and a number of cities have taken advantage of that is

0:53:09that they have also Exempted themselves from prevailing weight from that from the requirement that prevailing wage be paid on Public Works projects so to unpack that a little bit one of the requirements under state law for Public's work projects is that the private company that is awarded the

0:53:28contract must pay prevailing wage to its employees who are working on the project one of the aspects of a charter law City's Authority is that it can exempt itself from that requirement there is a case pending that may change some of this so that we would actually

0:53:45have to we can't give you a definitive determination about what that will look like and it's also worth pointing out that the Redevelopment agency um that is associated with a charter City must still pay prevailing wages and for projects that involve federal or

0:54:02state funding prevailing wage still applies um a couple of final points and this one is about employment and compensation um there is Charter cities enjoy a great deal more latitude in setting the rules for collective bargaining with represented labor groups um one of the

0:54:27um sort of unintended Concepts it's not really an unintended consequence that's not quite the right term one of the outgrowths of the ability of a charter City to set its own rules for collective bargaining is that in some cities where there has been a fair amount of

0:54:45contentiousness between the um the represented employees and body the unions have used the charter process to propose by initiative that the charter be amended to include a requirement for binding interest arbitration which puts the city in the position of being required to go to

0:55:09arbitration on some items that would appear in an mou which means that the final determination about the content of those Provisions will not be negotiated but rather determined by an arbitrator um other aspects of this Municipal Affair are that the rules for appointment

0:55:28employment and compensation as well as removal of city employees can be governed by local rules rather than by state law and that City Council Members can exceed the state law limit on compensation so in a charter city the city council can accept itself from the

0:55:48state law that would otherwise provide and exceed the caps on their own compensation that exist um that the process for approving a charter um we'll just want to go through that briefly so that the council sort of understands this um the statute provides two ways for

0:56:08getting a charter approved one is the use of a so-called Charter commission um and I do want to unpack this process a little bit because I think that there may be some questions about this the members of the charter commission according to state law must be elected

0:56:25by the voters of the city so the way the process works is if a city council decides it wants to pursue a charter it um initiates a process either of itself or by a petition to form a charter commission which means that it calls an election to have a charter the members

0:56:44of the commission elected so there is then first an election to select the members of the commission once that election is completed those Charter Commissioners are seated and then they go about the process of preparing the proposed Charter according to statute they have up to two

0:57:02years to complete that process and once they do it goes to the council and the council must then call an election to submit the charter to the voters and that can be either a regular or a special election and only a simple majority of those voting on the charter is required to

0:57:21cause it to be approved the other process that is outlined in state law is that the council can itself direct staff to prepare the charter and submit it to the voters um and again only a simple majority is required to approve it but it's um a sort of a one-step process which is the

0:57:43council says go prepare Charter and this is of course a very simplified version but the council says go prepare a charter staff comes back the council decides it's satisfied after some series of meetings with the content of it it decides to put it on the ballot to

0:57:56submit to the voters I can say that that although this is not out this is not one of the processes identified in state law it is possible and some cities have used an informal process where it convenes a committee of members of the public to provide advice about the content of the

0:58:13charter the city of Oakland used that process it's just not called for in state law but it's really so it's really the same as the direct Council action process it's just that the council can elect to appoint some a committee of members of the public to assist them

0:58:29with the process I do want to just emphasize though that under the charter commission approach you're really looking at two elections one to select the members of the charter commission and then a second election on the charter itself foreign and now I'm going to turn it back over

0:58:44to the city manager to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of having a city Charter uh okay I'll start with the disadvantages there is a transition period between General law and Charter which again a lot of this depends on what Charter goes forward whether I know

0:59:05how many issues the charter gets into will drive the complexity obviously depending on the process it will require some staff time and some City resources to do it and obviously based on what the City attorney just went over and that that could be a wide range depending on

0:59:23the commission and the size of the commission a number of meetings if if that were the route the council were to go down there were always some uncertainties that have already been talked about on particularly as it relates to the state and legal challenges as to the authority of cities

0:59:40and typically the state there's obviously been so much discussed over the last few years about who has authority over what and a lot of the things you've heard talked about are related to well litigation who can sue who and I don't think that's a path that we want to do do regularly but it does

1:00:01happen as the City attorney alluded to there's limited case law on this but there is certainly a lot of history uh Charter amendments do require a vote so you have the issue of amending the chartered again depending on what level of detail the charter goes into it may

1:00:17require more or less votes of the people to change it it is potential for a charter to be divisive depending on the issues that come up and the issues that are to be covered in the charter as we've already mentioned issues are like prevailing wage and the public contracts code for

1:00:35instance are certainly things that can come up uh have come up in the past if you're if you do your own research on this the things that typically come up are around Taxation and prevailing wages of late it's my understanding about 40 of the 120 cities have opted out of the public contracts

1:00:58code as a charter and I mentioned that because I we included some samples of City Charter so you can see the range in your package if you look the San Ramon Charter which is the shortest has a very specific paragraph saying that the city will decide how it does its bidding and

1:01:16procurement as opposed to the way we do it which we comply with essentially state law and public bidding and public contracts and um so it's a very it can be a very different animal depending on how the council wants to go and so we want to just raise that um nobody wants to bring up the City of

1:01:34Bell and the only reason I bring it up is because if people are looking into this issue the reason bell comes up uh is because through the process of what they went through and got themselves into the mess they got through was they did an election to become a charter

1:01:48which essentially gave them the authority to do a number of things that they did unfortunately obviously none of us believe that that's going to happen here but I just wanted to raise it as again as people do work or people look at this issue that they understand that's at least out there

1:02:06Municipal Affairs May erode over time due to State legislation and subsequent judicial review there have been a number of pieces of legislation this year particularly around land use that continue to come up in Sacramento to decide certain uh land use and Zoning

1:02:25on the local level um it seems to be a constant fight and uh I think that will continue um Charter cities have not been spared to state revenue takeaways I think we we have talked about that repeatedly over the last few years um as you all know we're in the four

1:02:41million dollar range of what we owe the state um in the last three years just for our Redevelopment agency let alone the other takeaways that has not uh Charter cities are writing the same checks that we are um however the advantages to chartering as the City attorney alluded to our

1:03:02neighboring cities do have real property transfer taxes so it is an opportunity to create more Revenue whether that's for operations or specific projects like the library or public safety building two things that we have talked a lot about over the years we as a reminder we had a transfer tax

1:03:20up until the early 2000s and then ultimately repealed it because of proposition 62.

1:03:28um but the transfer tax would generate probably in the neighborhood of a million dollars here and it's traditionally split between the buyer and seller one thing in discussing this um that we thought of and I think this is similar to something Berkeley has is that should the city ever consider a

1:03:44transfer tax you could rebate some portion of the tax back to owners to promote either seismic upgrades or Energy Efficiency upgrades so essentially on the buyer's side you would be allowing them to reinvest their portion into their properties obviously that's less revenue for the city but I

1:04:04think it would be really consistent with the city's goals particularly around sustainability and obviously Public Safety if it's seismic upgrades so it's just we don't know we think Berkeley's done seismic we don't know of other cities that have actually done the other rebates but uh it's

1:04:20something something we could consider there's more flexibility in terms of Elections right now we consolidate our elections you there's a lot of other things you can do and we could get into more detail if that's something that Council would be interested in and it may

1:04:37provide more local control you know a lot of that is in a gray area but I think that's the perception how real that is is really hard to determine and and as the city attorneys mentioned it's almost a case-by-case basis that uh on where local control starts and stops

1:04:58in terms of um we wanted to mention a short Charter we included some long charters in your package from neighboring cities Berkeley may be one extreme on how to do a charter but I had already alluded to San Ramon and other cities who have recently done Charters

1:05:15have made them very small and I believe the reason and a sky can go through this in more detail is historically going way back you would want to write into the charter everything you wanted to cover as opposed to now you really just put in your Charter what you don't want to

1:05:32cover obviously the council could go anywhere between the two extremes as if we go forward on this and again like even the Constitution a charter is not a document designed to address every issue and the counts on the residents would could focus on one issue at a time so you could be looking

1:05:51at different elections down uh down the road we've included just so you can see the 120 California Charter cities I was looking at this this afternoon trying to see if anything jumped out at me I'm not sure that there's any real pattern I mean I think you could argue that the

1:06:10cities are generally larger but there are smaller ones also the majority of the cities are are in Southern California about a quarter I think are in the Bay Area what that no idea what that means um so I don't think there's any real correlation we've had questions about

1:06:30size of cities location of cities I don't know that at least I haven't discovered any real pattern on should you be a big city and you'd be a small City I'm not sure that that that necessarily um makes a difference in terms of next steps where obviously we'll do our best on questions and

1:06:48comments that come up um we'll we obviously will answer anything we can or research it and get back to you or even research it while you're talking if we can um one option that I wanted to put out there for you to consider if you want to go forward and we do more work on this

1:07:05issue is we have done survey research in the past on a number of occasions and I think it's been incredibly helpful in shaping where we go if that is something the council would consider uh not just on the charter issue but also the transfer tax issue in our facilities it

1:07:24was always Our intention to survey this year before the Redevelopment agency explosion the public safety building library and possibly the senior center the issues where we left off after our streets just to see where the public sentiment is at this time so that would be an option

1:07:41before we came back to you would be to do more a little more survey research and see where these issues are on folks radar screen um another option that wasn't in the package that we added today is you obviously could direct us that we could come back with a more detailed work plan

1:08:00um in terms of Milestones timeline costs essentially we could peel the onion one more one more level for you uh if that's something you wanted to consider and then we're open to any other suggestions as you saw in your package we tried to include a lot of background information

1:08:17on the general law versus the charter City how to form a charter and Sample Charter so with that both of us I would be happy to take any questions okay council members if you could focus on clarifying questions first and then we'll go to public comment for feedback

1:08:36and then back to discussion on thoughts I'll start us off I have a number of questions though so if I bring up a topic that anybody else wants to comment and I let's feel free to kind of explore that one further um so kind of starting at the beginning thanks for the

1:08:53presentation um and I don't expect you to know all the answers off the top of your head to this so please feel free to let me know if you don't have have it all um uh the two options that are typically taken to bring a bring a charter to fruition I would is is it correct or is

1:09:09it your experience that most cities um do the one that requires only one election where maybe a commission is appointed for advice and then they go through the single election for the charter think that has been the more recent Trend I think that that what I have seen in the experience of folks

1:09:25around my firm is that they have um tried to use the the informal committee to get input but have not gone through the full commission process um and I we can certainly come back if it's the council's Desire with a little more information about what the breakdown is I can't off the top of my

1:09:43head think of what the last city is that I know of that actually used a formal Charter commission but we can we can get that information for you if you'd like um and with the amendment I noticed Berkeley's Charter was amended maybe every two to four years since 1909

1:10:02um so what so the process to amend is it the case that the count the council at any time could put could offer amendments and how would the public initiative process work to make amendments um the the city council can propose charter members anytime it wants I mean

1:10:19and this is one of the aspects of being a charter city is once you are one you can set your own rules for elections so you're not limited to to a particular election cycle obviously there are always going to be practical and cost um considerations but the um the the timing of it when

1:10:41um when when uh being motivated by the council itself is going to mostly be up to The Count Council unless the charter itself has something to say about that um and the same is pretty much true of voter initiative a voter initiated amendments um so absent a charter or

1:11:02a municipal code provision regarding it it would basically be the same as as the initiative process where those who wanted to amend the charter would have to gather signatures on petitions submit those to see whether or not they had gotten enough signatures and if they had

1:11:18then the city council would have to put that proposed amendment onto the ballot and could a proposed amendment be on anything I'm thinking if we did go I'm thinking of the case of cities that have very brief Charters that maybe only cover a couple of topics could then a

1:11:36voter initiated Amendment come before the voters that covered any topic uh it could obviously um the the limit on that would be you know is it are they trying to add a provision to the Charter that regulates an area of Statewide concern is it in conflict with state or federal law but

1:11:56setting those aside um if the charter said nothing about um let's say city council compensation and somebody really wanted to um set the council compensation lower and and so the city was sort of following state law but the voters wanted to ensure that that the

1:12:16compensation would be lower they could submit an amendment to the Charter to set in the charter a cap on city council compensation that would be different from state law okay um one other question in your experience is it the case that once a charter is a city becomes a charter City that there

1:12:36is sort of a greater ongoing cost for City attorneys or other types of fees because there's many questions that might come up that council members might have you know pertaining to particular amendments they might want to offer or how to even implement the chart or what's once it's

1:12:51in place I I don't think necessarily so no um I I think that you um I don't necessarily think that a charter itself is going to change the sort of the nature of the community if the community is one where um those kinds of questions are going to come up the charter is certainly going

1:13:10to provide an additional layer of analysis that's required um but I I think for example I mean I don't think I'm saying anything surprise anybody that probably Berkeley would have a lot of costs analyzing things that the city council wanted to do regardless of whether or not it was a

1:13:28charter city um the the the existence of the charter gives the city a little bit more room to experiment and try things and people can propose ideas that would not be possible for a general velocity but I think that that the costs and staff time associated with the kinds of things that you're

1:13:47talking about I think have more to do with the nature of of the community than with whether or not it's a charter City or general law City so from the perspective of a of a firm that might be wanting to give it services to to a city if a city is a general law City clearly

1:14:01everybody in your firm knows all of the laws that would pertain to that City whereas if you were going to give services to a charter City you would have to learn and become very familiar with that Charter that wouldn't be viewed by a firm as sort of a bump in the rates or

1:14:16no I mean I think that that I mean one of my experiences working for cities for example is um you know if it's not a community that I am highly familiar with the first question is okay is the is it a charter city is a very minimal amount of time usually necessary to obviously make that

1:14:36determination and then to determine whether or not there are Charter Provisions that apply to the question it's really only going to be time consuming if the question is a complicated one having to do with the charter itself otherwise it's it's mostly a fairly minimal amount of

1:14:51analysis to deal additional analysis required to deal with the charter okay and my last question sort of on the process and amending are you aware of um I'm sure this has happened I don't know if you happen to have an example of instances where a charter or an amendment put forth by voters actually

1:15:09curtailed City powers I feel like when I was kind of searching around for information on this myself I came across this as one potential idea that voters may put forward an amendment that would say you know the city will not delve into some particular area or um well

1:15:29um that's interesting the one one that comes to mind wasn't really it wasn't really a result of the charter but I can sort of maybe it will help sort of illuminate a little bit I was doing some work for a charter City where voters wanted to propose by initiative

1:15:47um that there would be a floor on the number of I believe it was firefighters so um the city would not be able to have fewer than let's say a hundred um now in doing the analysis about whether or not that was a proper matter for the initiative um that did require going to the Charter

1:16:10and looking at what it What that particular City had enacted as the budget process who was in control of the hiring and firing of those employees to make a determination about whether or not the subject matter was one that was appropriate for the initiative but I would say I would

1:16:29use as an example to say for example that if a city had a charter I could see in a community somebody attempting to amend the charter to say there shall be no fewer than 100 firefighters on the payroll at any given time now there'd be a separate analysis about whether or not that was something that

1:16:48could be in the charter but um but that is the and that I would view that as a limitation on the otherwise existing authority of depending on what else was in the charter of either the city council the mayor and the city manager in some combination to determine what

1:17:02the proper level of Staffing for that department was okay that's really helpful I think I'd like to yield for a little bit and I'll come back with some other questions maybe later but that's been helpful okay um I'll go next um I have a question about um holding elections in the city our city

1:17:21used to have a different election cycle okay we've never been a charter City have we I don't believe so but under the government code cities can have elections either in April or November and that's that's for a general law City because it's provided for under state

1:17:41law okay so when you say that we could have different um election Cycles you just mean some other month of the year yeah you could be set at a different time of the year you could set Council terms to two years four years six years um you could stagger them differently

1:18:01you'd have a little bit more leeway in making decisions like that okay but I because I I was just confused at the thought when you said that you could have as though you the the comment that was made earlier implied that we couldn't have elections in a general law City that are anything other than

1:18:20the way they are now and and I know that you know and I remember a time when that was different so um the next uh question I have is about the issue of the City of Bell and I'm um I'm really trying to understand what it is about Bell and um generalized cities or and or

1:18:43um Charter cities that uh related to the very uh bad things that went on in that City could you explain that that enabled it to happen or not happen or whatever well um you know I think that there's there are still ongoing investigations and law enforcement so I don't think

1:19:06that we actually know the full story of what happened but one of the things that happened was that the City of Bell became a charter City in 2005 I believe and one of the things that occurred was that they adopted different rules for city council compensation and so

1:19:23the um the since that was a huge part of the story was how much the city council members were receiving in compensation for their role on the city council I believe that there is a and this is what we were attempting to explain in the presentation is that there is I think at

1:19:42this point now a popular Association to some degree between the concept of a city being a charter City and abuses of of public funds five city council members for their own benefit or at least the potential for that to happen and as I say that is legally something

1:20:00that that can occur the city council a the city council in a charter city is not bound by the state law limitations on compensation um you now they are bound by the the will of the voters to turn them out if they believe that the city council members are being inappropriately

1:20:18compensated but it is possible to exceed the maximum limits that exist in state law and that apply to General lawsuits confused with what you just said you said that under General law cities council members uh General us there is infinite meetings where we talked about that under no

1:20:40General law cities are limited by the cities are limited limited by state law I may have misspoke Charter cities that the city council can set compensation that differs from state law okay so it's more open the compensation is more open and um therefore um there is more of a possibility of a an

1:21:05abuse if there's going to be one in a charter City I think that's a correction okay I was just trying to understand which way it went okay um and um then I'm a little confused also about a city like San Ramon that has a um really short um Charter and what happens to all the other Myriad

1:21:33of topics are they therefore covered by the same rules as general law studies or what their municipal code is still in effect right than before yeah okay so could you ever do one like San Ramon if it were a brand new city and you started out as a charter City well you'd still have so you could do a

1:21:59charter like San Ramon's that was very simple um you'd still have to enact um a municipal code um but within the municipal code the city council of this new city would have greater leeway in um writing ordinances and adopting ordinances um that deviated from state law if it

1:22:20was a matter of of local concern not every I think maybe this is one thing to clarify is um if if a an illegal area is determined to be one a municipal Affair not all of the regulation of it has to be in the charter um so it can be but as a charter city the city council can also buy ordinance

1:22:44adopt rules that would differ from um from state law okay um the next question I have has to do with elections and the cost of the election do we have an estimate on how much an election costs in El Cerrito um about thirty thousand dollars thirty thousand dollars per election is that

1:23:06regardless of if there's one or four issues say on the well there's a cost associated with printing the measure uh that's quite expensive individual measure yeah if there's a measure on about there's the cost of printing the ordinance and the and the arguments and

1:23:23the rebuttals is that within the thirty thousand well if you had more than one I would expect that since there's more ballot that needs to be printed or more sample ballot days to be printed that would cost more so for a single issue um Ballot or a single office ballot it

1:23:43would be about 30 000 but then it would be more if there were multiples I would think I would expect okay maybe 26 to 30. so that would mean that every time that um we had an election to change the charter than it and there were nothing else on the ballot at least then it would be

1:24:03thirty thousand dollars I would it depends too whether it's Consolidated with a general election or whether you have a standalone special election that's why I said if it's the only I think it would rain you know 26 to thirty thousand dollars the timing okay and that's if it was if it was

1:24:24consolidated if it was Consolidated is going to cost more than if it's Consolidated with your general election and then your cost estimate about 30 26 to 30 is if we were to put that on the ballot with along with other items on a on a full yet a Consolidated but if it was a standalone

1:24:45just for one item is that a different estimate um well I don't I'd have to look at you know the materials but I'm knowing when we had a special election for the February it was about 30 or so and then Consolidated with the uh council members it was um you know it was a little bit less

1:25:05okay my next question is kind of an interesting when I was looking at my email and it says that um yesterday Jerry Brown signed SB 922 which I don't know if anyone's familiar with that that sets minimum standards for project labor agreements having a provision initiative

1:25:26or ordinance that prevents the governing body from considering a pla on a project by project basis what's actually interesting to me here is the next word um or next couple sentences it says for the measure does not require plas be used for projects but what prohibits

1:25:50blanket bands and then it goes on to say for Charter cities with existing bands as of such and such a date withholding State funds for projects after a certain date but do not comply with the new standards so what I was wondering about actually so what you can see is that

1:26:09they've got this new law that they're trying to put I guess that they did put into effect because Governor Brown did sign it and um so they've met they've Incorporated within this new law Provisions that pertain just to Charter cities and um I think you can assume although

1:26:32it doesn't actually say that there are some that it maybe apply just to um General law cities or and there might be also some that apply to both is that frequent when there's an issue that relates to this topic and there's a law change it it is common for state laws to

1:26:54frequently um State whether or not they will apply to Charter cities and if so how and it sounds like in this case um recognizing that they may not may not be able to control um well for a number of reasons not just home rule power but they may not be able to control Charter cities who entered

1:27:14into agreements before the effective date of the statute it sounds like they're basically using the state's control over its own funding to basically Force Charter cities into a choice between either accepting the state funds or coming into like if they want the state funds

1:27:30they're going to have to come into compliance with the new law and I mean that is that that I mean I think that that is one of the themes that we were attempting to draw out in the presentation is that whatever Powers exist as of today for Charter cities um when the state finds that the

1:27:51independence of Charter cities is um inconsistent with their goals for new law they will use multiple means to attempt to get consistency throughout the state on the issue and if they can't directly regulate it they will use the techniques exactly like that where they

1:28:09tie funding to compliance the topic is one we're familiar with I think on some other subject areas um okay I I think that's I'd like to pass the Baton for the moment thanks before I forget it I want to follow up Janet but they also tie funding to General law cities too to

1:28:30comp have them comply correct if they don't if they don't if they aren't able to just require General law cities to do it in a case like that I could say you know sort of not in that that specifically but more generally where it's a contract issue where the state can't basically break existing

1:28:48contracts they might well with General law cities also use that technique of tying funding to compliance but even beyond the contract context of course where they want compliance and can't directly force it they will use funding to to bring everybody into compliance

1:29:01right they'll say if you don't comply we won't give you your funds correct correct yeah okay um thank you yeah I had a few questions here on the collective bargaining what's the difference the collective bargaining what would be the difference between what you had in the slide and with

1:29:22General law cities and I'm I'm sorry I didn't take down the number the slide number foreign can you clarify the question for me yeah what is he indicated that um the requirement a requirement for binding interest arbitration can be added through the initiative process

1:29:58um is there I guess my question was uh is there a binding interest arbitration Clause now for General law cities no no this is not something that exists for any City but it is also an area that that until there is um some judicial resolution of the issue one that is considered um a municipal

1:30:24Affair and so if by initiative um it was added to a provision was added to a charter that required a city to engage in binding interest arbitration that is one where it would be be effective only on um Charter cities but there wouldn't necessarily be the same opportunity to do that with with a

1:30:44general law city right but there isn't one now for General law Charter City could initiate that if if they wanted to correct okay is this a uh have you with the general sloth cities that you're familiar with is this common no no it is actually something that that

1:31:06primarily exists in in and it's not a large number but it does exist in a couple of um Charter cities thank you um a citizen initiative if it's on a with a charter city city initiative to change to amend the charter the cost of that is borne by the city or by the parties that

1:31:31are initiating it by the city by the city yes so the city would have to on its Charter would have to state under what conditions a uh a Citizens initiative would come forward and be placed on the ballot well this is an area where that that is um a little bit complicated because this

1:31:56is an area where a charter would run up against a power that is reserved to the voters in the Constitution so the charter can't limit um the power of the voters to use initiative to enact local law um so but there are some procedural aspects to all of this that the charter can

1:32:21um can affect so timing issues when initiative might appear on the ballot um things like that can actually be regulated through the charter so who sets the minimum amount of signatures or or whatever to to qualify I mean somebody just can't come up and say I want it on the initial on the ballot and

1:32:40we have to do it correct um that's correct the the in most cases the um signature requirements are set by the elections code and I'd actually need to probably um verify this whether or not whether or not a charter City would be able to alter the number of signatures required

1:33:01okay so there's a standard yeah I mean I would think though that there'd be a fairly compelling argument that if a city so right now the standard is if you just want to get an initiative on on a ballot you have to get 10 of registered voters I would think that it would be

1:33:17considered a limitation or there would be a good argument that it would be a limitation on the initiative power to raise that to 15 but it's something that we can follow up on if the council wants more more information on that topic okay um okay on the advise on the there's two ways of going forward

1:33:40uh to set the charter and then there is the kind of the assisted way I don't know what you call it but the assisted way so what we could do is set a committee or subcommittee or a study committee whatever the name is to look at the to look at the issue how whether how broad or or focused it

1:34:06may be and then come back to the council with advice or with a report or whatever and then the council could make the decision whether to go forward or not correct that's correct okay and uh there there would be no time limit on that correct certainly not in state law the city council could could

1:34:27set a limit for this committee to report back okay I think you on the disadvantages and the advantages one of the things though that comes out on that is that basically the city through its Charter can mold the charter and the way it does business to its own needs correct there's very

1:34:56there's very few actually there's not a whole lot limiting City Charters correct except for the state constitution laws Federal well it depends it depends on how you look at that right I mean that's actually in some ways it's not very much on I looked at another way it's quite a bit

1:35:15um a lot of I mean procedural things um the way that the council conducts its own business um things like that are are still generally Municipal Affairs and the charter can shape those kinds of things um you know beyond that I'm just sort of talking and even that's a generality

1:35:37beyond that I'm talking even more in general is if there's something specific you have in mind um no it's just that the presentation showed a lot of disadvantages and one of the advantages I think is the city um the city can mold the way it does business to the community

1:36:00um so there are some limits but I don't have a question for that other than a statement so I'll just leave it at that um okay uh we've talked a little bit about Bell um I just want to in your in your experience you've seen abuses in general law cities or no [Music]

1:36:36as on that topic I mean I I actually find that there there seems to be very little in the way of significant abuse of power um in most cities most cities period most cities are General law cities I wouldn't I don't I know I think that probably you know if you if you wrote up

1:36:53a story uh and or did a report on on um on situations in which city councils have and city council members have misused their their Authority you would certainly find General all cities have as well I mean we don't mean to imply through the presentation that somehow

1:37:11um public concerns about misuse of local government power are solely the domain of Charter cities of course they exist in um in general cities as well I think if I I think part of what we were attempting to communicate was that um if you move forward with a charter

1:37:31you're basically asking the voters to make a change in the way the city is constituted and there are already some sort of floating associations in the public mind if that can be sort of generally described with what a charter City means and one of those because it's

1:37:46relatively fresh it's only a year old is the City of Bell scandal and so I think that that it's worth the council bearing in mind as it considers what actions it wants to take whether how the public in El Cerrito might associate the effort to become a charter city with the Bell scandal

1:38:07okay thank you good evening and thank you very much um I I want to one of the things that the city of Berkeley put in front of theirs was quite Illuminating and I want to make sure that I understand it correctly um the court said accordingly the city is empowered to exercise full control over

1:38:32its Municipal Affairs unaffected by general laws on the same subject matter and subject only to the limitations found in the Constitution I think that's the State Constitution and the city Charter further down it says therefore Provisions in the charter can be unnecessary

1:38:51as long as long as they are they are not limitations and Do no harm um so the so implying that the charter really is only stipulating limitations and it goes on to say if there there are limitations they have been left alone or they're they exist because the people want that limitation

1:39:15so I'm wondering why the city of San Ramon's Charter is actually as long as it is because really shouldn't the charter essentially say nothing in this Charter is intended to restrict the city in exercising any right power or authority granted under the general laws

1:39:31of the State of California however the provisions of this Charter shall Prevail in the event of any conflict with General law so because I actually don't see any limitations in this this nice piece of paper actually has very few limitations on it including the one that you was

1:39:47highlighted about the public Contracting the public Contracting in this does not provide any limitations at all so I was just curious if we elect to have limitations about prevailing wage or if we elect to have limitations um about uh compensation you know establishing our conversation

1:40:11at a lower level those are limitations that we could choose to have in our Charter but I'm so I'm just wondering why the the San Ramon Charter which is actually almost a page and a half why it was even more than a page so I'm just curious if the Charter's limitations and they chose to

1:40:29have no limitations why it got this long I don't know that either of us has the answer to that question um I I I know do you have I the only I mean I think to maybe address the same topic um one of the things that's worth understanding is that um once a charter has been adopted

1:40:52um as I said earlier it is not required that every regulation of a municipal Affair be recorded in the charter um the city and reserving to itself through the charter the power to regulate Municipal Affairs can do that either through the charter or through the municipal code I think that where

1:41:09you see longer Charters is situations in which um there was particular issues that the council and the public wanted addressed at the time that the charter was enacted issues arose later where the public or the city council wanted to firmly set something in the charter so that it in

1:41:30every case so that it would actually require a further vote of the people to alter that local rule because it is as I said the case that the city council can regulate Municipal Affairs through the municipal code in a charter City but that basically means that that it is the

1:41:49city council is free to change those at any time and if either the council or the public wanted to lock something in they would want it recorded in the charter so that it would still be a regulation of a municipal Affair but it would be something that the city council

1:42:01itself could not change without going back to the voters so in essence and you illuminated this perfectly the charter is a set of limitations that are effectively imposed by the the will of the people the vote of the people and the ordinances the municipal code

1:42:19is something that is more malleable and can be modified in between these elections of expressing the will of the people I think that's generally correct okay um a question came up well uh councilmember Jones was asking a question if if for some reason we selected route one

1:42:43of the two routes and we uh go to the the will of the people to elect a commission commissions elected is that on a that's a done deal you can't back out at some point right you're on a freight train and it's left and it may take longer than the other option but

1:43:01you're you're going forward with Charter I guess unless unless um by petition another measure was put before the voters to cancel the process before like basically they got another measure onto the ballot to count to cancel the previous one before the charter itself appeared on the ballot

1:43:18yes you could though please do there was a two-year limit can't you just let the two-year limit run out if the if the commission failed to submit anything to the council by the end of the two years the state the statute does not say what happens but it doesn't say that the

1:43:36charter the the requirement of the voters to um to do a charter would still be an effect and I honestly don't know what would happen at that point okay thanks there was a discussion about um Financial uh choices or financial items and you rattled off a couple of taxes a property

1:43:59transfer tax business tax um there was a discussion on one of the later uh charts about uh Revenue [Music] where was it um that there's other Revenue issues that are are allowed to uh actually was under benefits there are other Revenue issues that are allowed to revenue measures allowed to

1:44:30Charter cities such as what does that mean what are some of the other Revenue measures for operations or capital projects that we can do um well so one example is um the melloroos community facilities District facilities act um it's a fairly common mechanism of

1:44:49financing some services and capital projects but it has a limited list of what um the tax within the cfd can be used for one of the things that a charter City can do is basically through local ordinance adopt a community facilities district-like procedure for the formation of districts

1:45:13and it can have allowed for the taxes that are collected within that those districts to be used for any purposes so it would basically set up a a mirror version or Shadow version of the community facilities Act but just without the limitations on what the revenue could be used for

1:45:31um so you'd be able us Charter City would be able to set up a series of community facilities districts and be able to use them for purposes that a general law City would not be able to use the revenue for and would those be subject to prop 218 yes I mean this all

1:45:44the since prop 218 is a constitutional requirement um the voter approval requirement would still be in effect but among other things once the charter City had set this up it could set its own rules for who votes in the election um it was and there'd be some other

1:45:58Nuance to it in terms of of um because I I I I guess I should explain that under the the melloroos ACT depending on the number of registered voters that live within a district the vote can either be by Property Owners or by registered voters um so and that's entirely statutory so a

1:46:19charter City could actually decide to set different rules for who would who would vote on the taxes um but that's that's one of the areas where Charter city has a little bit more leeway and the similar kind of thing for assessments and I assume that all of the uh minimum requirements for passing

1:46:36attacks apply so it would have to be two-thirds if not in a general election Etc is that correct that's correct although all of the the typically the community facilities District type financing is going to be for a special tax anyway so the two-thirds requirements going to apply

1:46:54but that would actually be you know I suppose one of the things the charter City could do is propose to form a district um that would where the tax would be a general tax um it would just be um levied within only the district and it would be used for General loss General type services

1:47:08and therefore be subject to the general attacks right simple majority um okay thank you very much all right um for for the presentation and for the prior questions um I think the only main thing I had to add to this um to the question was you mentioned we used to have a real property transfer

1:47:36tax so I guess I'm confused I thought that you had to be a charter City to be to to Levy that and so um and that yeah um the simplest version of that is that when the voters Statewide approved proposition 62 in 1986 sorry proposition 62 1986 um they prohibited General law cities

1:48:00from Levine real property transfer taxes um um Charter prop 62 did not apply to Charter cities so they can still Levy a real property transfer tax do you have a fan a couple of it do you want to follow on on that oh just overall okay okay um and so you mentioned surveying

1:48:27um what is just generally the past costs of surveying our our community about typically where they would be on the um but typically between the last proposal I'd gotten was around 22 000.

1:48:42okay to do a full statistically valid survey can I follow up on that um 22 000 but it uh is there any limit to the subject matter is that a single single uh issue survey or um it it depends I mean you could we have typically broken it down into a couple of issues when we did the streets

1:49:12manager we were looking at streets and we were looking at methods of collection it really comes down to how many how many questions can you get in and okay because you had indicated you indicated we were going to go ahead and survey before the um Redevelopment came up

1:49:31yeah but we were going to do more than just a single uh so 22 000 like you say is is driven more by questions than by uh content correct correct I mean how many ques there's a sort of a find out number of questions you can get in in a typical survey and the survey typically is 15 to 20 minutes

1:49:52and then it depends on your margin of error and how many calls you want to make but in the past um you know we have been in the 20 to 25 000 range and it's gotten us what we needed okay thank you okay other questions folks had I had a couple um so if you have a topic

1:50:18um that has that's not in the charter and there's no ordinances about it and you want to make a decision about it does that just mean you'd just sort of do it um on the fly so to speak you just did a council meeting discussed the item and then make a decision and

1:50:40you as long as it doesn't um conflict with some sort of existing state law you just do it so so you do it sort of without um standards I guess for that topic um typically if a charter city has nothing in its Charter or its Municipal Code about a topic it will be following

1:51:05state law on that now it could choose to adopt an ordinance to create a different procedure or different uh a regulation with different content but it would it would typically be the following state law in that area that's why I'm a little bit confused about the San Ramon example

1:51:21that has nothing in it could you explain do you know do you understand my confusion well um why don't I why don't I sort of take a stab at answering it and we'll see if see if that helps um San Ramon um has a very simple Charter it basically says um we have the power to do whatever we want

1:51:47with anything that is considered a municipal affair they since they have a very simple um Charter they have chosen not to put all all of their choices about how to regulate Municipal fares into the charter they also had an existing Municipal Code that was in place before

1:52:06they became a charter City so let's just and I don't know whether or not this is true but let's say you know they're going along with their municipal code Charter gets prepared submitted to the voters and approved the next day um not really much has changed they're

1:52:23still operating according to a combination of state law and what's already in the municipal code but if on day two they said you know we we really don't like um the rules in this particular area we want to establish our own rules they could go through the process of

1:52:40um of having ordinances prepared and approved that would amend the municipal code to create local rules for that area of Municipal Affairs um so the until but until they did that they would just be continuing to operate under state law and whatever is in their Municipal Code prior to that prior to

1:53:03the Charter okay um right now the economy is really bad so that's what the newspaper tells me at least and um one day hopefully in fact hopefully not in the too distant future it will be a lot better I'm wondering if there are any um impacts of that change on that would impact our decision about

1:53:31whether or not to go forward with this if you know what I'm asking I don't I don't think so yeah I mean I I guess to the extent that um you know one of the reasons that we had identified in the presentation for um for considering it would be that that there would be financing options that

1:53:58you might not have otherwise that could pay for projects that are on your list of priorities you know an improved economy might generate the same amount of Revenue without having to go through any of that process so you know but we would at that point have all of those

1:54:14um so we would have implemented that say for example property transfer tax but not need it depending on how that looked so it could set us up with um a situation that we might not like to be in permanently let's just say can I follow up on that question so when I

1:54:39asked where in the Albany Charter and the Berkeley Charter the property transfer tax was called out the reply was it's not called out in the charter it's called out in I'm assuming the Middle School ordinance so if today the ordinance is it's a half of one percent

1:54:57and tomorrow the economy is great and we want to make it zero then we change the ordinance and the property transfer taxes zero so so that it's not in the charter gives you the latitude to to set it or remove it at any point I believe that's my example was actually where it is in

1:55:19the charter though or at least I was trying to make it that way well so just one that we would want to make sure that the the the measure so the real property transfer tax would still have to go to the voters for approval um because it's a tax right as long as it was drafted to say you know the

1:55:36maximum the maximum rate is X and the city council has the authority by resolution to to set it at an amount lower than x then yes if the economy approved improved and you decided that you didn't want to collect that Revenue at that time you would then have the

1:55:53authority under the the tax ordinance to reduce the rate um down and then bring it back up once the if the economy declined again if it was a charter but if it was a charter provision yeah that that was actually what my question was if it were in the charter it could still

1:56:09say that the city council could could um reduce it to less than the maximum rate um but without a further out of the voters if as long as the they were in the charter and written that way but typically if if it weren't drafted that way if it were just in the charter and

1:56:25said there shall be a real property transfer tax set at rate X and that were the end of it then the city council would not necessarily be able to do anything it's sort of it's a little bit of a gray area in the law but there would be an argument that you would not

1:56:39have any discretion in terms of deciding whether or not to collect that tax so caring what I don't even know if that was a very good example of what my con question really has to do with but I noticed in looking at um there were things about um salary plans and so forth that I

1:56:57believe were in it one of the charters that I saw and um that would um if so if though if that kind of information were in a charter then when the economy changed and you might want to um have different rules because the economy was different and that would be the only way you for could for

1:57:25example hire or you know or not then um than the putting things like that in a charter is not a good idea I think is what I'm hearing correct that and that's why we mentioned sort of the movement towards brevity recently as opposed to calling out anything you don't want as opposed to

1:57:47listing everything you can think of so then my next question which I think is a little bit on the related side so if let's assume we had a simple Charter and um and then we start enacting um uh ordinances to cover various things are we going to start having lawsuits brought by

1:58:14um somebody who doesn't like what we did for example and arguing that in fact it's not really a proper topic for us it's rather covered by um state level concerns is that likely to happen I'm not aware of any examples of that um I suppose it is possible that um I could certainly see a situation in

1:58:44which in a particular Community um having made the transition to a charter City and city council subsequently um using and and with a with a very short Charter in place that that had very limited had few limits on the council's ability to regulate in areas of Municipal Affairs if the public were

1:59:03dissatisfied or some members of the public were dissatisfied with the way the council subsequently used that Authority you might see an increase in litigation challenging the city council's particular uses of its home rule power okay thanks just two more quick topics just to close

1:59:22the loop on the real property transfer tax um can one of you describe what it was used for during the time period it was in place sure why not um there may have been a period before this but most recently before it was repealed it was used exclusively for Capital and that was pursuant to

1:59:45when measure a got passed on the swim center and had a provision essentially linking the transfer tax proceeds to Capital only so that was essentially it so when the tax got repealed the amount of money available in that fund for Capital went to zero and and currently

2:00:02we have the documentary transfer tax but it's whatever it is 55 cents per 500 of purchase price is that that's not linked to anything in particular that just goes into our general fund tax collected by the county collect okay collected by the county and then we get you know it's fifth half of

2:00:21it's half half lesson the County's Administration okay perfect thanks for clarifying that okay one other topic we haven't talked about too much yet is a land use Karen could you go back to the slide with called planning and land use matters of Statewide concern Okay so

2:00:36we've listed here all of the areas that Charter cities are um are working under but I guess I'm I guess I'm kind of confused about what additional flexibility a charter city has with regard to land use given that these are all the areas they need to comply with

2:00:55the general law cities also need to comply with there's a lot in the Planning and Zoning law um that that is not reflected here I realize that's the thing the list is very long but if you looked at the previous slide where we said most of the content of the Planning and Zoning law

2:01:11does not apply to Charter cities a couple of things that do but then you come over here and you look and these are all the things that are sort of land use related or they are provisions of the state planning law that do apply to Charter cities but but the the entirety

2:01:26of the the Planning and Zoning law is quite large and and a lot of it does not apply to Charter cities are there any great areas you can any examples you can provide that are sort of like a major part of the code that Charter cities deviate from when they're enacting their local land use policies

2:01:45yeah I'm sorry I'm not coming up with a really useful example but something I can follow up with okay if you think of it later jump in okay with that um public comment on this topic are there any speakers Tom panis thank you good evening Madam mayor again Tom Panna

2:02:07[address removed] and El Cerrito um there was a lot of discussion about the initiative process and it seems to me that there's a lot more areas maybe that the citizens can change under Charter law than General law City but my real question and I don't know if this

2:02:24isn't a study session am I allowed to ask a brief question of the City attorney about that subject um I believe you can you make a comment um okay um it's I'll just say it's really unclear to me exactly what the differences are just in general so that they're being citizen initiatives

2:02:45in a general law City and a charter law City okay yeah if the council is interested um I mean I um it's an area that in preparing for this presentation um although it's an although I I do spend a fair amount of my non-city attorney work dealing with elections law

2:03:14issues and preparing for this I didn't actually delve that deeply into what the possible um variations would be um I mean I think if I can and I realize I may not have been entirely clear when I was discussing this topic um particularly in response to questions

2:03:31but um the power of initiative and referendum is reserved to the voters in the State Constitution and Charter law City cannot um limit that power um there are some second order um aspects to the initiative and referendum process that I think could be described as

2:03:56um part of what is um sort of the minimum level of um of of process that you can impose upon voters in attempting to engage in that process so my example um typical initiative requires 10 percent of registered voters to sign petitions I I don't know there may be

2:04:19some case law out there I have not looked at it and I would be but I would be happy to do so whether or not a charter City could alter that since it's not in the Constitution it's something that the legislature has enacted in the elections code um but for the most part I would expect

2:04:34that the the those aspects of the initiative and referendum process City could not alter on the other hand um if you qualify for a special election um you know there's you get 15 percent of registered voters to sign your petitions then the election has to occur

2:04:53a certain period of time after um the petitions have been determined to be had to have sufficient number of signatures it could for example be the case that a charter City could say well rather than between 88 and 114 days we'll say that the special election should occur 150 days it's more

2:05:11convenient for our election cycle what you know and that could very well be deter considered to be an exercise of home rule I don't know that that there that is um that that is something that's been answered in case law um but but that's the kind of thing that I could imagine

2:05:28where a charter City could um could alter without imposing additional limitations on the initiative and referendum process okay yeah but basically a Citizens Initiative for a general law City and a charter City sounds like generally is the same generally it's going to be

2:05:53the same okay but just one clarifying question a citizen a group of citizens could not in a general law City bring an initiative to the ballot that is uh that is in conflict with a Statewide a Statewide law that the general velocity is operating under correct generally true I mean there's

2:06:12there's a great there's there's some there's some complication there but for the most part even if they can bring it forward and they can get it on the ballot and they can get it approved um most likely some litigation would ensue that would have it struck down as

2:06:25being inconsistent with state law okay just thinking of this land use thing the land use example we brought up earlier if we were a charter City and we had our own laws in place that were different than those that the general velocities operate under under the state rules then

2:06:39our citizens could make a change to our Charter that are then different from the state's requirements whereas if we're a general law City our citizens could not do that yeah and I mean maybe a slightly different example of that that's that's fairly easy to address would be

2:06:54um let's say that um a group of citizens in a general law City wanted to bring forth an initiative to amend the zoning ordinance but their amendment was very clearly inconsistent with the general plan one of the bases for arguing that that initiative would be improper would be that it's

2:07:13inconsistency with the general plan in a charter City in contrast since the zoning ordinance is not required to be consistent with the general plan that would not be a basis for limiting the initiative power just falling on the same topic if if citizens do go through

2:07:30the initiative process in a general law City their their recourse is really changing the municipal code the municipal ordinance they're not changing the charter they're changing the municipal ordinance is that is that correct that's correct but in a charter City they can either go through the

2:07:44charter amendment process or they can amend the municipal code so let's say you know we went through a special election to change the ordinance on bicycles what would stop the city council from six months later changing the ordinance back I'm sorry if if we went through a

2:08:03special election initiative driven by the people to change the bicycle ordinance the bicycle code which stops the city council from reversing that six months later um in a general law city state law prohibits the city council from altering a law enacted it by initiative okay

2:08:21thank you what about in a charter City what would happen I believe it would be the same um that would be because that's part of the Constitutional power of initiative is that only once the voters have acted in an area only they can amend what they've enacted okay any other speakers

2:08:43no on this topic discussion I'd like to begin well maybe I'll start since I was the proponent of this so I appreciate all the information it was more turned out to be more of a study session probably than anything else and it was greatly needed so thank you very much

2:09:04for the information thanks for putting this on the agenda um I have the purpose of bringing this forward really I only have three reasons for wanting this the community to explore and hopefully approve for voter consideration the uh becoming a charter City and that is a greater local control

2:09:32and self-rule of Municipal Affairs as allowed as we've heard before State Federal Constitution and other laws um but also a second reason is to avoid to the greatest extent possible State intrusion into the Municipal Affairs of the city and position the city to meet the

2:09:55challenges and and changes in the future uh with the best advantage to do so and I as you probably guess I really think the charter City allows that um we do have a list of 120 but I wanted to point out and where is it uh I wanted to point out to uh to the people at at home or

2:10:21anybody who's listening here some of the local cities that we have San Francisco and Oakland As you probably imagine um they are Charter but so is Piedmont and Albany we have Richmond Berkeley Hayward San Leandro and San Ramon in the in the East Bay currently Charter

2:10:44cities if we just go a little bit out further we have San Rafael Napa Petaluma Santa Rosa and that uh and of course San Jose so we do have a a number of cities that are currently operating as Charter cities excuse me I've I've worked in two cities that are Charter cities and that's Piedmont and

2:11:14Albany and I've been a proponent actually and very interested in Charter City since the 1970s when I first started working in local government and I have seen firsthand and I I feel strongly that they provide more flexibility as well as more individual local responsibility and governance and

2:11:34operation of a city then General law entities one of the big things about Charters and I kind of think we we kind of alluded to it offline here a little bit but you look at places like Berkeley and Albany that have very involved Charters and what it what they're really doing is

2:11:56setting the framework and the organization um of the charter City to reflect the character and makeup of the community and representing how residents would like the business of the city to be conducted and I think that's the biggest advantage of a charter City we have the

2:12:16ability now whether you use it or you don't or or it lays dormant for a while or or you're active every two years changing the thing that's up to the community but it gives us that flexibility um El Cerrito as far back as I can remember um has had sincere dedicated and

2:12:38well-intended residents on the city council and the city boards and committees and the El Cerrito Community have demonstrated over the years that it can govern itself in a responsible and respective manner I do have to put a disclaimer in there though I wasn't around and therefore I

2:12:56can't remember the colorful past of El Cerrito when the city residents needed to clean up the City by removing the people in power that were responsible for the less than forthright activities in the city but the end result has been of that movement has been that we've developed a

2:13:14respectable committee that we enjoy today um therefore you won't see any slot machines and and things like that in town I would like to address it's actually three concerns that I know people in community have had it regarding uh Charter cities as a method of government and that is a local taxation

2:13:41opportunities prevailing wage and uh California public contract law which all three have been mentioned tonight uh taxes and as it's been explained tonight uh Charter cities can enact additional taxes for Revenue purposes however I think we should keep in mind that being a charter city does not

2:14:06eliminate the requirement that all taxes must be approved by the vote of the people that's a state law for General law as well as Charter cities and both General law cities and Charter cities have the ability to increase or establish new local taxes um both cities have that so that argument

2:14:34about taxes I think has been relieved uh with the with the requirement that all taxes have to have uh voter approval on the prevailing wage uh I see no reason to change that from the current state requirements that we now have regarding to the prevailing wage provision and the elimination of the

2:14:55prevailing wage requirements is one issue that I would not support in the city Charter I would not vote for a charter that had the Prevail that did not contain a prevailing wage provision and the reason is simple in my opinion I think the benefits of a prevailing wage provision

2:15:15outweigh a non-pravailing wage uh wage Charter provision for the community I think over the long haul that has a lot of benefits the public contract law and I'm satisfied the way it is now I wouldn't propose that we change it in general there are certain features of it that I

2:15:39don't necessarily like and I don't always think that the public gets the best value for their dollar by the lowest responsible bidder which is currently the law but generally uh the public contract law laws I think are are fine one of my main concerns as I've stated

2:15:59before is it appears to me that the state has become increasingly interested in setting Municipal Affairs policy and regulation that greatly affects the governance of the cities and that's been pointed out tonight in several different areas um is this is evident either through the

2:16:17use of the Statewide initiative or through the State Legislative actions and one example is that is that PG e tried to set Statewide regulation procedures and limitations on how cities can decide on what company or what delivery method can be used to provide energies to our com our community

2:16:39and that that failed as we know um and 50 million dollars later PG e got the got the message that residents didn't want that um it's a it's a great concern to me and there's other things in this State Legislative actions there was one on trying to set parking requirements for cities for developments

2:17:04I see that parking may be maybe City Charters can't control that but again as a City attorney pointed out there's many gray areas as as we explore that um so in summary I think it's it's time to solidify uh self-rule and determination for El Cerrito and take as much control

2:17:32of our city uh as state law will allow it's in my opinion it's time to fight the decrease and decrease the effects of the ever increasing efforts of the state to enter to intrude in Municipal Affairs I think our city our residents will have greater flexibility in determining how

2:17:53we govern and operate our city and in what direction we should proceed in the future this is an ever-changing world as we know and we must have the ability to effectively and efficiently meet these challenges and I uh I say that the residents of El Cerrito are fully capable of governing our own

2:18:15City uh so I think now is the time to to look at that and I think it is well worth um the efforts of City's time and the efforts by the community to explore and determine that this is a desirable change thank you I have brief comments and I might come back after I hear from everybody else

2:18:45because I'm really using this as a discussion period given you know we've had a great study session but this is a really complex topic and I'd like to hear what everybody else has to say before I'm totally done but as I um read through all the materials we have and

2:18:57did some research of my own and drafted questions that Mr Hannon answered um I completely agree that more flexibility and more ability to have uh greater control over our local policies is um something I think we'd all agree that we're we would be open to and supportive

2:19:16of achieving the thing I keep coming back to is sort of the cost-benefit analysis of what it would take to get this done and then what would the benefit be at the end of the day um and I'm still not totally clear of all the benefits and I appreciate what councilmember Jones said about being

2:19:35prepared for the future there may be some problems out there that we aren't aware of today that the charter would put us in a position to be able to solve in a in a more expedient and locally appropriate manner but I also am trying to come up with it seems like if I if we

2:19:52were to bring this through the public process um everyday citizens would want to know what are the problems we're looking to solve by by undertaking this process so what problem would this address and it and to come up with a really substantial you know sort of meat and potatoes type

2:20:10type of problem I think is something that we would need to come up with if we're going to put this before voters and invest staff time and if we were to appoint you know a commission or invest the time of our residents what what what are they looking at what sort of the the

2:20:25vision at the end of the the day that we're looking to come up with um and at this point I mean maybe this is something that that stat that I may consider asking staff to look and do further is what are the problems we have today as a generosity that is a charter

2:20:39City we may be able to better address and I'd be happy to hear other if other folks have come up with examples of these problems I'd be happy to to hear them because I I couldn't come up with a really distinct one um at this point okay um I I agree a lot with what you've said uh

2:21:01Rebecca um the the thing I keep coming back to and maybe it's just because of where I live um I live uh right next to Albany and five blocks from Berkeley and my sense of a charter City based on those experiences being near those things is they're all they're constantly

2:21:21creating um tension in the in the city about they're always it feels to me like there's always something going on where they want to change it uh things aren't working out very well um the um the local control is more do it my way or else is is what I've observed in a

2:21:43number of situations for example the height of buildings I think I don't know how it's worded but basically it's um I don't know if it's three stories or a certain height but all of their buildings are totally flat on top which to me is quite ugly um and that's a result of you know their

2:22:05uniqueness I think I'm maybe that's not even part of that I don't know but um they they were fighting over um and that's what it always feels like I guess is a person who lives in the same neighborhood they're they were fighting over um should they have a um directly

2:22:23elected mayor they were fighting over the City attorney being elected they were you know it's always fighting over something and um it doesn't seem like a really productive use of of time to me as opposed to you know uh working towards um improving the environment or

2:22:46improving um you know something that's sort of a more um a principle rather than a detail I guess in terms of of how you would transact business which is what those other things I think I mentioned really relate to um so I um I I the thing I was at thinking in my mind about this whole thing was what

2:23:15are we getting out of it what's the point um how would we be better off if it were done this way I think what we would be doing is spending more time like our sister cities in Berkeley and Albany appear to me to do as a person who often gets the literature from when they're

2:23:36doing it as they don't quite know where the boundaries are and so they deliver us to my house also and um so and then I'm concerned about the fact that we don't have a lot of extra resources right now uh we're in a recession and when I read the newspapers I think it's you know they say that

2:23:56we're going down not up in terms of the economy so it makes me wonder where we're going to what resources of the city are going to be put into this effort if we were to do it what is it we're not going to do because we are doing this so that becomes a question I ask and

2:24:16um am concerned about and um and I don't actually see an output local control um to me is not per se and output it's the output to me would be improving the environment improving the quality of life or you know anything things that are expressed in words like that not

2:24:42um who's in control of what um and so I'm a bit concerned about this and I'm concerned about the amount of money that we might put into an effort such as this and then I I'm not really sure that um we would be better off for it and when I look at the list of cities what I

2:25:06see is that most cities in fact are not Charter cities including in the Bay Area there are like um 19 cities in Contra Costa County for example but I mean that whole list is only um a hundred and something I think right right yeah and so most cities in fact are are General law cities

2:25:29um so I'm just not it's just nothing is just sort of sticking out there is the reason that we would want to invest the time effort and money into doing this I guess anyway this I beginning thought yeah the the reason we certainly this came up this has come up in the last two

2:25:52budget setting sessions um big and it's been in response to uh in state intrusion on on our revenue on our funds so the the benefit would be if we again have more control over the revenue or more Revenue um so that would be my mind if we want to do this that would be that output the

2:26:14output being Revenue to do more environmental projects more uh projects like rebuilding our public safety building that's next door that's 50 years old and falling down um so for me it it there is you know you go down the the nice table that was a I think attachment two and uh attachment

2:26:36one and and you go through this and there's no question it's either the same relatively the same between the two columns or the charter city does provide some flexibility um and and like uh councilmember Jones said on some items we can choose to limit our use of our own rule such as

2:26:58prevailing wage or Contracting um however having said that or in in um potentially sounding like I would like to explore this some more I I too um am not certain that we are in a position to start spending resources to move towards a charter city um the cost benefit analysis that uh

2:27:27council member Ben hasini brought up or I'll reflect back to council member abelson's report from the league of California cities the recommendation from the league of calisthenics is reduce the request on staff um so it there is no question that that we're struggling with our current

2:27:49resources and whether or not to employ our current resources to explore this but they're in my mind the presentation tonight in the documentation provided um Charter cities are definitely more flexible and and I would agree with uh councilmember Jones it there's

2:28:07definitely a benefit to being a charter City the question is is now the time to go through that expense so with that in mind I'd like to focus on the next steps and there was a Next Step added um to the chart to the chart that was not necessarily in our um our plan and that would be and there's

2:28:30two things one was the City attorney talked about having a committee and the second is to have staff work on a more detailed work plan um I think that there is an opportunity for us to get more public input without a lot of Staff resources expended for staff to potentially

2:28:49consider this cost benefit analysis um or as uh council member benassini said what problems do we have today that that a charter City would fix um I I do believe that um I would like to see a I don't think it's a waste of time for us to creep down this path um but I'm not prepared to run down this

2:29:13path and so I would like to get some more information understand what cost benefits there are I think in council member abelson's words what is the point the point of doing this and that I think that is worth asking that question and having staff spend a little bit of

2:29:29resources and potentially get opportunities from the public for them to say um what what is the point there's certainly no several realtors in town who who think that it's in El Cerrito's best interest it sets us apart not to have a property transfer tax um so you know there are

2:29:51real things for us to consider but it certainly creates more flexibility for us to go this route and flexibility and self-rule are certainly things that I would be interested in oh so I I think all of you have touched on on the this very similar concerns pros and cons that I also have in my mind I

2:30:13think the biggest attraction definitely is the revenue uh no doubt I mean I think that's a very concrete I mean you look at you know something on the order of of a hundred thousand between surveying um and polling as well as the election itself to leverage an ongoing potential

2:30:35cost of a million a year is an interest and to hear that the the direct tracking of of loss of major capital projects it you know comes directly at the at the 1982 Mark so I think that is the most compelling reason that I would be interested in exploring any further um the caveat of course is you

2:30:59know as we're seeing this you know I appreciate that the sentiment of wanting to you know almost reinforce our boundaries as as relative as to the state um takeaways and um it but it definitely comes at a cost of you know deliberating on you know everything within the purview of a city

2:31:21and I I would want us to be very clear on if we were to study um this as a Next Step what would articulating what would be the scope of that because I I wouldn't want us to go down so so there's so there's a lot of to become Charter or or from a general law you would have

2:31:43I mean for example we could say tonight staff just look at you know what is what is involved with respect to property transfer tax actually loving something and going through that process and comparing contrasting what we can do now as a general I mean obviously we can't do it

2:32:02do it now but you know what are the the alternate paths to raising that kind of Revenue through other sources um that we might not have heard about tonight um and but then to bring in the the pros and cons of of every possible I guess iteration that could be considered I think that's

2:32:22that's the concern for me is like how would you Scope a um you know a detailed work plan for implementing a charter without having some more discussion about everything from elections to composition of counsel who you know there's just infinite detail that could be

2:32:43deliberated and and I think if there's some way to resolve that um or or if we can find agreement tonight to say that we're limiting we're keeping the the consideration of a charter to very narrow you know if if I if if I may be in my mind we wouldn't change the single ordinance we would

2:33:04just go from where we are to a charter City and and then once we are a charter City we can then have or discussions about ordinances that's I I know I was being flippant about how short the city of San Ramon's Charter was but in reality a one-page charter gives us then

2:33:24the opportunity to deal with this in Municipal ordinance on on an ongoing basis we don't have to change anything overnight and so in my mind the work plan would be to do a San Ramon style uh Charter that essentially left the ordinances the way they are today our

2:33:44business would not change until we went through much more considered discussion about what ordinances we went on to change whether it's a new tax that's that's available to us as a charter City or or something else I you know I would I wouldn't want to necessarily change

2:34:00anything and so for me the work plan is what do we have to do to go from where we are today to where we are today but at Charter City this is uh if okay make a quick comment um that was something I was thinking as well I appreciate sort of the way you succinctly put that put that I was also

2:34:17then thinking that to to to wage sort of a public campaign for voters if if I were somebody who were not at the study session and just received this in the mail and I didn't know very much about it the first thing in my mind would be why are you doing this and what do you

2:34:32intend to do now that you have all this increased flexibility and additional types of you know work around the edges with regard to revenue um the I feel as though to put it to the voters we'd have to with a commission and through the public process come up with yes we are going to do a very short

2:34:52um short Charter that doesn't cover everything but once the charter is in place these are the types of areas that we're interested in moving you know moving from today to tomorrow um and these are the things that may change once we have the charter in place so I do appreciate that you could come

2:35:08up with a very you could become a charter City very simply and not change a thing about your operations um but if I were a voter and I were going to give my give additional power to the council I'd want to then know what do they intend to do with that increased flexibility or power and uh I

2:35:27think we should be clear you're not giving the council additional power to do anything it's a different way of governing but the council isn't going to receive any additional Power by going to a uh over its residence by going to a charter City is that right can't we then pass

2:35:47ordinances that are different than what is currently but it's the ordinances to the municipal code and we can do that now there's nothing Stopping Us Now from doing that right now we have to operate under in some areas we have to operate under state law if we are under a

2:36:05charter we would get to pass the ordinances that are different than what residents currently experience under state law is that is that sound correct yeah I think that's generally correct so while it may be that you know residents experiences are neither Better

2:36:22or Worse they're just different it would be a good example let's say today we couldn't pass an animal ordinance and as a result of going to a charter City we could pass the animal ordinance um you know that would be potentially something that created greater flexibility that people want so just

2:36:43because we get more power doesn't mean that it's necessarily a bad thing because we might get more flexibility that people want no I didn't think I didn't I didn't mean to imply that it was a bad thing at all I just meant that if the the residents might be interested

2:36:55to know what we intend to do with our greater flexibility to impose to bring ordinances before us that are different than state law that are more appropriate for our circumstances and I believe that that at least council members yourself Abelson and I have said what you have

2:37:12asked for a cost benefit analysis and and for an explanation as to why we would consider doing this so I'm willing to to take the a step along because I can see the benefits of the flexibility that comes with this but I but I'm not certain I know how to as you say

2:37:31explain to the to our constituency why we would want need to be a charter City what's the benefit of being a charter City so although I can see there's a lot more flexibility I still would like to know more about it but frankly the work plan to answer mayor's question I think the

2:37:50work plan is to to what is it that we would need to do um to change to a charter City including this type of education that we're talking about now explaining why we would want to do it so for the public right or or potentially if if counselor would consider just

2:38:14doing that cost benefit first before we were in in just a way the pros and cons vary explicitly to our current you know abilities to run the city because I don't think that's entirely clear to me at with just given this you know this amount of analysis has been

2:38:32focused very generally you know with some examples but it's not exhaustive and and and that to me it would be more it would be important to try to gauge better what are the the you know what are the opportunity costs as far as staff time to go into you know delving

2:38:52into these details that opportunity cost is a work plan they can't give you that opportunity account without doing a work plan so I concede that there is potentially a smaller baby step than a work plan that would keep this moving forward um you know to do more thinking about

2:39:08the the benefits without necessarily getting into a work plan where you might do a cost benefit analysis um but I would like to see us continue to consider it and have staff potentially plan to come back and either two or four weeks with some of these questions and and ideas that we've

2:39:31expressed uh you know fleshed out maybe in a short report and then we can decide whether we want to have another study session or have have staff move forward with more expenditure and and I guess another question to add is is whether we want to ask staff for recommendation in all of

2:39:50that or is it just answering questions I think the decision is ours I think the staff is right in in providing information and and um providing information in the background and the analysis we're going to ask them to do but the decision is ours I I don't know that we need a

2:40:11recommendation from staff I I just wanted to remind us what's going on in this state right now um cities are their reputation has been very um tarnished by incidents like in Bell like in Hercules and um I I think to over you know to write a um a charter that is a la San Ramon say

2:40:43where that doesn't say a whole lot is to leave open the ability um for a council to be abusive of its um um of say the finances of of the city but you know via taking excessive salaries and so forth and I think this is not if there ever is a time I don't think this is the time

2:41:11to be suggesting that we should now give ourselves that ability to be flexible and you know and have um a situation where we could see that happen regardless of whether or not um this or any past Council has ever done that obviously it can happen and we don't know who will be on the

2:41:37council after us and I don't I I just don't think it's a very um sound thing to do to say the least so am I hearing what you're saying is that you wouldn't request staff to move forward to any Next Step what I'm really saying is I'm the idea that it would be a small

2:42:00thing that would um look like the San Ramon and which didn't say much we really do if we did it we can't be that in my opinion that simple we need to address the issues that um other cities have had trouble with recently such as Bell such as Hercules and only Hercules actually is not even a

2:42:26um they're not charging they're not a charter City and a good example but the Bell ish you know the Bell type issue we really do have to address those issues we have an ordinance we have an ordinance responsibility to do that I understand we also have an ordinance

2:42:44that covers our pay right now and that ordinance would be in effect I don't know you know what I don't know all of those details but what I'm saying is we I think we should take an affirmative step and just make sure that we address all those kinds of things so that the

2:43:01general public would know that in fact we are not trying to do something like that and and don't it may have sounded like I was going for a short form for purposes of the work plan for for cost benefits analysis I was asking them to consider that um I actually think that we on a couple

2:43:21issues uh some like the prevailing wage and Contracting laws and potentially our compensation we would want to establish limitations that can only be changed by the will of people so there may be some sections that we want to have a little longer but for purposes of trying to

2:43:39move forward we should be having the work plan having the the staff not try to guess as the mayor suggested every little Nuance that's going to be modified because we will have paralysis by analysis if we try to guess which sections we want to to modify so for purposes of evaluating

2:44:00why we want to do this I would want to try and evaluate why we would want to do this assuming very little change in our ordinances all right because if we can justify if we can justify going to a charter City without changing our ordinances then we should consider it

2:44:19I I think that's a what I'm trying to say is think think about it what I'm concerned about is a situation where our I don't think our salary is our salary is partially is controlled by state law that's correct isn't it it's capped by state law but currently currently we're mandated by our own

2:44:41ordinance capped by state law is the part I'm interested in yeah no let me finish Okay so you know that's the way it is I don't want to go to the general public and say we're not going to cap it anymore um but we're not going to really put any thing in there in its place to make sure

2:45:05that there are controls over um abuses like have occurred in Bell that's what my concern is and then you could sort of take that across any other topic I don't know that there would be that many of them but you you know what I'm saying so I guess I would want to

2:45:25see all of those things addressed um and I'm not saying there are a lot of them but I think it's not responsible to ignore the things that have happened recently in other cities like Bell can I um first of all I think one could say that there's no good time at all to maybe bring up certain things

2:45:54but I certainly wouldn't hesitate to bring up the issue of the charter cities now with our residents and we can we can answer the the questions that you're bringing up about abuse for the fact is we've been very transparent even tonight I imagine if we weren't transparent we

2:46:13wouldn't bring up things like Bell or bring up things like the property transfer law or abilities things like that I have no problem uh going to the public and saying we're not like that and we we can show that I'm proud of the way we've conducted our business the last several years and

2:46:34that's through a lot of hard work on everybody's behalf um I don't know about Hercules I I don't know about um you know there are reasons why they're they're in trouble I don't know what the problem is I do know about Bill and that was out now fraud by the council and the staff to the citizens

2:46:56that's and that they City attorney is has said they don't fully yet understand everything that's going on I think it's the level that they don't know and the amount that they don't know I think it's pretty clear and I've heard this stated in public work sessions at the league I mean the

2:47:17California Redevelopment Association that it was out and out fraud and and we had the uh the public accountant who is in charge of looking into that had said as much so I don't I think Bell is an isolated case I think um we could and and I think the suggestions are right and the the

2:47:39questions to be asked what are we going to benefit what is it going to cost our proper things I don't I uh with all due respect to the mayor I don't think we're talking about a hundred thousand dollar thing for instance if we went uh with a general election there's other things on

2:47:55the uh ballot it won't cost us thirty thousand dollars for this um item it might cost an additional whatever the additional money is because we are we have an election of uh City officials on that so we already have um issues that cost thirty thousand dollars it would just be the additional

2:48:15cost of adding to that as far as staff time um it does cost some staff time but on the other hand staff is here to provide um provide us that type of work so it's just a question of whether we're taking them away from other things Janet uh council member Abelson is correct one of

2:48:34the uh suggestion was to be is make sure that the city council does not burden um the staff with uh it a lot of requests I don't think we've done that I think we've been fairly good at setting our goals and setting areas of concern you don't hear our Council directing staff every meeting to do

2:49:02such and such unless the staff has asked for direction occasion once in a while we do like tonight for instance but I think it's safe to say that where that we don't ask them to do something every meeting so I agree that should be a concern I don't know that this exercise

2:49:21uh will be [Music] adding on to many more that we've asked for I could be wrong and staff can certainly Express that opinion the it's interesting and we have to make sure that a charter make sure from the get-go we let people know that a charter city does not automatically

2:49:48say we are going to have a property tax or any other tax to raise money that has to be by a vote of the people and so um it does give us the ability to to use one more tool in that and maybe the citizens would like to do that I don't know how we're going to replace a

2:50:0860 year old library it's in great need of replacement we've come very close through diligent and hard work and I don't want to keep beating on the stat on the state but there has been situations that have altered that we have a a facility for Public Safety that's

2:50:28greatly outdated according to how they operate these days and how they communicate and the type of equipment that is required to keep our uh our communities safe so we do have those things and right now I don't see a way of doing that except going to the people

2:50:47for our property assessment on some of these and I don't know if that's all that popular so we we do have to explore whether we use them or not we do have to explore other ways and being a charter City would allow us that flexibility to at least look at areas to raise revenue that we don't

2:51:06have now whether the residents want to do it or not that's up to the residents and so um I would like to go ahead and go whichever direction we want to go I'd like to keep it alive until we get more information and then maybe go forward I I can tell you I'm I'm for the I'm not

2:51:24for the electing of uh commission members uh Charter commission members I think that provision really is used when an area is trying to uh to form a city and deciding what form of City they want to go to I don't really think it's it's a form that's used for a city that wants to transfer

2:51:48over I think the Berkeley a way of having an assistant a committee assist the Council on going forward would be my suggestion on that thank you um just just a couple comments thinking about what the staff could do to help illuminate all these issues I think the

2:52:10two areas I'm really interested in I think other council members are as well is sort of having a matrix of of financing mechanisms for Capital facilities which are available to General law cities which are available which additional ones are available to Charter cities and then just kind of

2:52:25going through the list of maybe you don't want to potentially say how much one might generate but maybe sort of the magnitude of the potential Revenue source and all I might leave that to Mr hannon's um discretion on whether or not to go that route but I could kind of see a

2:52:42matrix that would be really helpful in understanding what marginal difference is there in terms of Revenue potentials under a charter City given that a vote of the people would be necessary for almost all of these um and the other area I'm interested in is is the land use um it sounds like

2:52:58according to the City attorney there's just a wide array of areas that Charter cities have more flexibility in and thinking of our local conditions particularly you know not thinking that thinking about the things that we want to work on in terms of land use and

2:53:12development particularly around San Pablo Avenue how might being a charter City allow us more flexibility in um in in setting land use policy and law those are the two areas that as you're coming up with um work plans that I'm interested in knowing how a charter how being a

2:53:31charter City would help us help us realize our local conditions here better than being a general law City okay it sounds like yeah I just want to read I just want to reiterate to to address uh Council memory evilson's concerns I'm not advocating for a short uh Charter

2:53:55what I was saying is the short Charter is what should be used for the work plan aspects I've already said I would like to see the charter limit our ability to use inappropriate Contracting methods or sidestep prevailing wage so I I am advocating that the charter should have

2:54:16some meat and bones to it but for planning purposes at this point we don't know what all those meat and bones are so it the staff should be assuming that it's a nominal where a nominal Charter for purposes of planning okay I think there's General thumbs up to move forward in the next

2:54:41excuse me can we ask staff if it was clear or is there anything they need additionally sure just to be clear on our points I hear no support for the surveying I just want to make sure I understand that because we if if the goal is to do this next November we a very very short time frame so if

2:55:05that's something that you want to consider we need to do that sooner rather than later only because if you do them if if you don't do it we have we have 14 months and until the November election the charter would have to be placed on the ballot in August if we come back in four weeks or six weeks

2:55:27and then the council decides presumably if you decide to appoint a committee to mull this over that will happen and January at the earliest January or February by the time you seat the committee it's a very short time frame yeah again I'm not Advocate I mean well on some

2:55:50level I am advocating for the survey because I think it's really helped us make these decisions in the past um but I think if we if because the survey I mean we don't have a survey now so we would have to develop it test it get it in the field do the whole thing I mean

2:56:06it would probably take a couple months to do that so I think if we don't do it up front we're not going to do it in all likelihood um because I'm not sure that we have the time but that's something we can go and sit down and try to work through um so that's one thing I think I think we

2:56:25we understand I mean I think we can take from all of this um that the council wants to peel the onion so to speak again further um and we can look at um Milestones timelines dates sort of the get into more detail on revenue and land use I would I would caution if our

2:56:47Consultants were here um you don't want to I I would think they would say you don't want to prejudge as it sounded like and then council member Lyman clarified what Charter you want before you go through any process because what you don't say is as powerful is what you do say I mean

2:57:06the majority of the conversation today was about Revenue so to to go and have a charter that is silent on Revenue without taking a position on it begs the question of an opposition what are they really what where councilman I think was going is what are you trying to get out of this and while

2:57:23we live home rule every day it's a little more complex than you want to raise my taxes I'm not saying we want to raise our tax I'm not saying the council is ultimately going to do it but I'm saying from a voter perspective whenever we have tested anything like this or even had focus groups

2:57:39particularly around a general tax it comes to whether you getting at and any uh any opposition or any conversation we have about it it just needs to be very upfront on and I think you have been that this is not about prevailing wage this is not about limiting the California you know public

2:57:57contracts my point is just simply I you want to have that discussion um if we go forward and well I would so I was a little concerned about that but I think you clarified that so those were merely my only sort of caveats but I think we could certainly get you a a

2:58:16next level um I'm comfortable with the recommendation for a survey my question is don't we have money budgeted for survey work um we had money budgeted um and in the Redevelopment agency so um uh no um I I have ended with what we can we had we had money for the public safety

2:58:43billing Library budgeted um when we essentially reshuffled all of the finances to make the state payment and the ongoing payments I mean I the money is probably not there from the Redevelopment agency having said that within the um I I typically have some money in my

2:58:59budget for Professional Services where we have done this kind of thing in the past that is probably not encumbered so depending on the cost I might have the money um within our budget to already do it um um because we always have some money set aside for things that are unforeseen

2:59:17during the year it's not a lot but it may be enough and I would need to go back and just confirm um costs and can we can we cover everything I alluded to in here in that cost um but I guess I'm not comfortable with moving forward with a survey because we haven't decided yet that I mean if we're

2:59:37talking about you know these very clearly needed large capital projects as one of the possible concrete outcomes that's it's a it's a secondary step from a charter becoming a charter City you know what are the other possibilities that we haven't considered that you know

2:59:55bef as you go in setting up those survey questions they're inherently tied to um a charter City questions right so well I think doesn't that preclude the discussion of looking into alternate methods that we might not have considered if that's the primary purpose

3:00:12well I don't I I don't think we would look at all I think you could only go so far to get a survey done so I don't think we would be looking at alternative methods I think I think you know when I've spoken to our Consulting team that we've used in the past who is very

3:00:26familiar with us has a lot of data on on our attitudes towards things what I was thinking was if we could do this survey in a timely manner it would help inform your decision as to if um one point I make to people is that all of our survey has shown that the our

3:00:45residents very much know the difference between the city of El Cerrito's government and the city and Sacramento and that where I do think having talked to councilmember Jones about this for months I think what does resonate with our electorate and our residents is the

3:01:03reason to do a charter is to protect us and for local control that argument we have tested repeatedly and it resonates very strongly here when you talk about the revenue issues if they're was support for a REV for whether presumably a transfer tax because that's the most common one

3:01:23um you would want to know that up front is there support for a public safety billing or not um you would want to know that up front if there is no support I mean if we go out and because of the economy or whatever reasons the the voters um just we see in our data from the past

3:01:44five six seven years that the support for these kind of projects has eroded you would want it would be helpful for you to know that in advance because we have data points over time that people don't want you don't need to worry about the tax and you could take a position in

3:02:01advance that this is something we're not going down that road um but I think you're in a difficult position if you are asked or if during a an election cycle you are asked are you going to do it you know are you gonna do it two weeks after the elections passed are then

3:02:20going to consider the transfer tax or some other Revenue measure um so that was really my you know my thinking in the survey was to try to give you more specific information on whether there's support it's going to be on a presidential election ballot it's going

3:02:39to be we already talked last week uh two weeks ago there's always going to be a clean water measure on there's it's going to be a full ballot it's going to be a lot of initiatives um it's we're going to be one of many so I just like doing our homework and we've

3:02:54been very successful when we do it and that that's I'll agreement um there's the sequence of things I haven't thought through far enough but one of the advantages of the survey is if we do it soon enough and there isn't support let's say for a city Charter then why go why why proceed and um

3:03:18I think that's another reason why we do the survey fairly soon when we're ready though when when we feel we have the direction and the focus and that'll be up to us I guess to greatly provide that along with assistance from our staff motion to extend 15 minutes

3:03:38oh second all those in favor please say aye aye if I could just add on a couple brief comments to what the city manager just said and I think it relates to what councilmember Jones said as well think bearing in mind that even though 14 months seems like a lot of time in

3:03:59election terms it's actually a very short period of time given the tasks that are in front of you what I think I've heard you say tonight is help us understand and to use the city manager's metaphor peel another layer of the onion and tell us a little more detail what are the benefits of

3:04:19um becoming a charter City because ultimately that's what you need to be able to explain to the voters who are responsible for doing this and I guess if I could add you know to address councilmember abelson's point also tell us what we can include to address the

3:04:34concerns that the public is likely to have about abuses of power that may stem from a charter City those are things that that ultimately survey data will help you understand whether or not they're resonating with voters but basically given the timeline we are kind of in a

3:04:52situation where we need to be bringing them back to you to look at at the same time that that we're out in the field surveying them so I mean in some degree I think the reason that we're I think paying attention to the survey is we need direction from you to do it so that we

3:05:10can identify what we think are likely to be the things that are going to respond to your comments tonight and that we also need to test with the voters and then bring that back to you as a package so that you can look over them and see not only what we've built into like a

3:05:25matrix like council member benicini mentioned but also bring you back data about what the what the the people who have been surveyed said about those same things and I think that will give you a much better picture of whether or not there's support in the community for

3:05:39this whole idea and what will resonate with them as important reasons to proceed if they are going to support it at all well do we have to survey with November 2012 in mine like why does that have I I guess is there agreement on the council that that's the timeline that we be

3:05:57prospectively shooting for well it's the next general like it's the next general election if we're going to do this if if we don't hit that then we wait another two years and if the charter itself doesn't have to be Consolidated with the city council election um but you know for various reasons you

3:06:17would have to consider whether or not you wanted to be off that cycle if you decided that that part of the reason to proceed is to simultaneously ask the voters whether or not they would support another Revenue measure and you decide that as a matter of transparency you want to have both of

3:06:36them go at the same time then it would most likely be either 2012 or waiting until 2014. because that would because the measure the revenue measure would need to be on a council election or we have a special election but uh I don't know that I'm in favor of that because

3:06:53of the costs involved you're uh going down the road of becoming a charter City I think you want to maximize participation and in El Cerrito on I mean we've done number numerous turnout studies and I think and again I mean as I think the City attorney tried to get at where we're not

3:07:19even remotely suggesting that Bell is the norm anywhere other than it apparently was in Bell but the the point is about Bell when people Google it or whatever comes up is that their Charter was passed I Believe by with like 400 votes out of a population of nearly

3:07:39forty thousand I mean so you want to make sure that when the charter goes forward I think you would you would want to error on maximizing voter participation that would be 2012 or 2014.

3:07:52um I think there is you know depending on how we how we phase this there's enough time to do it for 2014.

3:08:01um I mean 2012 I'm sorry but I guess that would be my sort of gut reaction would be as we all know the special elections turn out just dramatically falls off and I'm not sure that we would want something as significant as changing the form of governance to not be on a a time when we maximize our our

3:08:20involvement so I have a question about the um putting a uh doing this for example a property transfer tax what if in fact instead of trying to imply that they were not connected to acknowledge that they are connected um one in other words wanting the charter in order to

3:08:46um do the property tax um and put them together and and say this is why it's so that this is the reason for doing that but the ultimate and but the ultimate goal of um uh you know either doing whatever kind of building we think would be next in line um according to public sentiment because

3:09:13the thing that we have done um before when we put the tax measures on the ballot the first thing we asked the public was is there something you'd like remember no I that's I I totally agree I'm I'm again I don't want to prejudge it but I agree conceptually in in that I

3:09:36don't think I don't think you have enough information yet to determine whether or not you should place a tax on the ballot or not at this today in three months or six months you might maybe you do um but my point was simply we need to be careful not to pretend that the tax

3:09:58isn't or tax revenue measures is a reason that cities or let me say this differently as we've said the revenue measures are are a reason or a tool that Charter cities have certain Revenue measures that General cities don't and that is a advantage of being a charter and I don't

3:10:19think that's a bad thing and I don't think we should we I don't know that we need to hide from that I think we need to think through um whether it's doing a rebate program to give buyers money back or whether it's doing a public safety building or a library or doing nothing

3:10:39I don't think we know what the correct path is my point was simply is you don't want to prejudge it because you don't we just don't know and if there is an opposition out there that develops or even if people just it's not clear enough um you just don't want to pre-judge so I

3:10:58would agree but I think we need more homework on how how you package that because to the average voter if they're planning to live in El Cerrito they're never they're not going to pay the transfer tax um right it's only for transferring property if I can get more service or

3:11:16better my community um there may be there may not be a whole lot of resistance to it I don't know I mean I just don't know we we haven't really done any homework yet but we certainly could point to all of our cities of our neighbors immediate neighbors have have that kind of tax so

3:11:35maybe there's a strategic way to discuss it um but again I'm not trying to prejudge it and I'm certainly not trying to advocate for it I just think that as we go through this process if that's where we're going that is an issue that is going to come up as is I the the wage uh the contract

3:11:52code issue is going to come up um so that's the more the council's upfront about it or about their desire not to go down that road I think the better off we are I feel this I feel that um and I agree with uh council member Abelson to a certain point we should acknowledge the fact that if

3:12:12you become a charter City there is the opportunity to raise money through uh taxes that we don't have now uh the ability to do now to address some capital projects but I think it's another discussion to start talking about if we're going to do it and what we're going to spend it

3:12:32for when we're not even a charter City yet I I I would not be in favor of going and putting together all right we want to be a charter City and we want to pass a transfer tax and we want to build a new library with the money I and I don't know if I don't know that

3:12:53that's what's I think the charter City and the advantages and what it gives the city should be discussed under do we want to be a charter city um do we want to then turn around and say we're going to put on a transfer tax and we're going to use it to build a library

3:13:11or whatever a park or whatever that's a totally different conversation I guess in my mind that's the at the current point the biggest reason why I would support looking at a charter city um well then it will give us the opportunity to do that right so so I I feel like those are one another same

3:13:31question and to separate them out would mean that currently there are no clear benefits I mean other than kind of ceremonial the benefits especially if we're saying that we're you know we're gonna the benefit we would have is that we would have the ability to do so

3:13:48what I don't know that should be in the conversation exactly what it is we're going to do are we going to ask then turn around and ask for transfer tax to do the library or the public service building or or whatever build soccer fields for instance I I don't know that we're there yet

3:14:07[Music] um but to get the ability to go to that step I think that's what we should concentrate on I believe we've asked staff to come back with a analysis additional information on two aspects of the of a charter City one is revenue and the second is land use that we have very clearly stated

3:14:30tonight that our position on prevailing wage and and Contracting I definitely am looking at this as an additional Revenue method you know of the the Temptation for me is Charter cities give us the revenue to rebuild some of our aging infrastructure of libraries and public safety building

3:14:51there's no question that that is what's intriguing to me what's what's tempting to me I'm not prepared I think it's premature for us to have a um and I'm probably in the minority on this to have a survey that says you know a charter City allows for property transfer tax would you support

3:15:11a charter I mean I'm not I'm I'm not prepared for there to be a survey out there you know out in front of us saying yes the revenue aspects of Charter city is outweighs you know all the other things that go with the charter City so I I want to know more I want to peel

3:15:32another layer off the onion without going to a developing a survey and maybe it's two weeks from now that we're back here having this conversation because staff you know really crunches it between now and then and and we can say yeah go get the survey two weeks from

3:15:46now but I'm not prepared to say go spend 22 000 researching something that I'm not convinced yields us the the results we're thinking it does any other thoughts I I think I agree I also agree I I'm not ready to move forward on the survey but I'm okay with more information along the lines of what

3:16:11we've discussed I agree as well I have real concerns obviously because as I've stated I'm especially concerned about the lack of concern about ethics that I'm seeing as though we we don't we've never had a problem therefore we're perfect and don't need to think about it that to me

3:16:36is really um not okay I think we I think we do we agree yeah I don't think that anybody has said anything that disagreement that would preclude yeah maybe that's a problem I affirm what you've said and I agree that we personally and I think yeah in absence of anybody else I

3:16:56believe that that is sort of the center of the onion and that we aren't there yet to talk about the the um caps that we would want to put on the council and the limitations that that the charter would have in it is something that is much closer to the center of the of the onion and we're

3:17:13still stepping over the threshold whether to go this way okay I think we are at our limit and without any motions to extend we're done on that one dude thank you okay we so are we adjourning that meeting moved to adjourn second all those in favor please say aye aye aye

3:17:37and now we will commence um a special El Cerrito Municipal Services Corporation meeting and with that can I have a roll call please councilmember banacini here councilmember Lyman your council member Abelson here mayor Pro tem Jones here I'm mayor Chang I know it is here and

3:18:03board members Hannon and Pinkus Rising director Hannon okay so next is board and staff Communications any items board and stuff no no say no items we can move on to oral Communications from the public mayor um being that there's no presentations we can move on to item number four which

3:18:36is adoption of the consent calendar item four which is the minutes um from the prior meeting August 15th and move adoption to the consent calendar second all those in favor please say aye aye aye a race that sounds all unanimous and uh being that we're continuing policy item

3:18:59six to the next meeting which is the amendment to the tri-party agreement with Safeway I think we can adjourn I think we're not continuing we're carrying it over we're carrying it over okay sorry okay so we will have a held over so we're carrying it over not not

3:19:22receiving presentation at this time we'll get it next time okay I want to point a procedure don't we have to vote on that since it's on the agenda um there's no reason not to you might as well I know I'm just saying I don't want it get up okay um move to carry the item to uh what was

3:19:51the date October 17th move to Carrie second all those in favor please say aye aye and okay so we are now officially carrying the item over not continuing with that to adjourn we can second second all those in favor of adjourning Municipal Services Corporation meeting

3:20:15hi hi okay I think we're unanimous on that and we're done thank you everyone