City Council Meeting November 7, 2011

0:00:41foreign can we begin please with the Roll Call councilmember benicini here councilmember Lyman here councilmember Abelson here mayor Pro tem Jones here mayor Chang here and we now have the pledge of the allegiance led by mayor Pro tem Jones please join me to the flag of the United States of

0:01:26America and to the Republic for which I stand one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all right at this time we have uh Council and staff Communications staff Communications first thank you your honor I just wanted to announce to the public and to the city

0:01:57council that the city has redesigned its website at www.el.cerido.org and we're really excited about not only the redesign that it's been upgraded for the first time in about 10 years but we're also going to have some great new features on it including a lot of ability for citizens

0:02:16to interact with us not just to make requests of us when they see something like a pothole or you know a downed tree or Branch or something like that but also Avail much more available to interact with staff on all sorts of different levels and so we're really excited about it and if you have any

0:02:33questions about it or any comments or suggestions we welcome them from the public and we hope the public enjoys it and coming soon there will be an app for that so stay tuned thank you no I noticed it went off with without a hitch and what I'm really excited about is that the calendar of

0:02:51events now go beyond just the current month so you can plan ahead and see what's in store any Council Communications at this point yes I just have one and I wanted to uh thank the public for those of you who attended the movie baggot at the Cerrito theaters which was sponsored by among

0:03:14others the um Environmental Quality Committee of the city and we had a very nice attendance at the event and it's a movie about the problems with using plastic bags and as you may remember the cities of West County are working together on a draft ordinance through the res

0:03:37recycle more to develop a common ordinance that we might all adopt so it was particularly timely because of that but it was also um uh humor there was a lot of humor in the movie which is always a nice element and I must say I took my nine-year-old granddaughter and they had just had some

0:04:01stuff on it at her school and it was amazing how into it she was and she got ordered uh popcorn in and a soda and she was not willing to give up the containers on the way out because she said that would be throwing them away and that was not good so um I think it's nice to know that any

0:04:21age can benefit by going to such a movie and that we're offering those kinds of movies and I would like to thank everybody who was responsible for the movies for being there and for putting it together foreign I just have a couple thanks mayor first I wanted to thank Mr gravel's 7th and

0:04:438th grade history class at Manzanita Charter Middle School they came and visited city hall and council member Abelson and I uh provided them with some information about local government and other levels of government so I appreciated that they walked over here and viewed our city Chambers and had

0:04:58some good questions for us um and just just one announcement on November 14th wanted to remind folks who are interested in the tradeway site and the City playing that's going on with that there's going to be an open house where um you can meet with hear from the

0:05:13designers and The Architects and City staff from 11 A.M to 12 p.m on November 14th at the uh the senior house the senior center this one um I I was in Albany and noticed along the uh Bart path and if anybody would like to see what's going to happen in El Cerrito in the near future of the BART

0:05:38retrofit of its structure you might want to go and take a look at it they're working on it in Albany now and it's it's quite a process you'll see why they need a lot of that uh Greenway in which to do their work they're doing it now it's they're currently right across from their

0:05:58Community Center Library so if you want to take a look and see what we're in store for us Go On by thank you that we had one of our first bicycle Town Hall meetings very successful over 30 folks from from town checking out all the different kind of great um improvements coming and plans exactly

0:06:25as mayor Pro tem Jones mentioned that the Ohlone Greenway retrofit updates and schedule for that and I also wanted to um so thanks thanks to staff and Community for coming out to that and giving great feedback and asking great questions the secondly just you know I know

0:06:45it's been probably hard to avoid but just the the big issue of occupy Oakland and Occupy Wall Street around the nation um I know um those of you who may not have heard but one of one of our local business owners of elevation 66 one of the three owners was brutally beaten by the

0:07:06Oakland Police Department and just wanted to extend my personal support for his right to to be where he was without provocation as a war veteran of the of Afghanistan and I believe Iraq um it's just really unfortunate that we've cannot support more I guess um diplomatic ways to control some of the

0:07:32more outlier elements that have been out in Oakland I personally work above the frankugawa plaza overlooking Oakland City Hall I know it's it's a lot of you know lots of great peaceful um and amazing I guess I guess coordination discoveries of folks out there and

0:07:52um and just wanted to lend my my support to that movement so thank you so at this point we have oral Communications from the public for items that are not on the agenda are there any tonight yes we have nine speakers for items on not on the agenda the first is Dave Mandel

0:08:16and so just remind folks who have not spoken before that we have a three-minute time limit and uh there's the the there's a a light indicator up in front you'll see when you have one minute you'll have the yellow light and when your time's up you'll have a red light very good thank you

0:08:32okay um my name is Dave Mandel I live at [address removed] in El Cerrito I'm an El Cerrito registered business owner a retired senior city planner a landscape architecture and Contracting practitioner and teacher and I can abbreviate the written comments that I

0:08:52submitted earlier to you that you all have first of all I want to thank you personally all of our staff um city city manager Hannan for the excellent work you've been doing in managing our budget prioritizing City needs and sustaining and beautifying our city for the people as well as all the

0:09:15businesses it's not just about San Pablo Avenue and I see that you're cognizant of that and I thank you for it in that Spirit please do re-examine the proposed tradeway project and your treatment of 10848 San Pablo Avenue the former Contra Costa Flora shop and muchi house I share

0:09:36Governor Brown's concerns over the philosophical conflict of interest between good governance and Redevelopment agencies as promoters of profitable business and generators of tax dollars as you know the health and safety code establishes Redevelopment agencies and since I can't find anything

0:09:57to the contrary of the municipal code I assume that you set as the Redevelopment agency as well as city council so I address you in both capacities development is not a constitutional right it's not a mandated National policy by its very nature development diminishes natural functions and

0:10:17ecosystems at the close of the Civil War under orders of President Grant Major John Wesley Powell undertook an incredible mind-boggling survey of the entire United States funded by the U.S Congress major Powell ultimately warned Congress that the national Mania for development

0:10:39known as the Manifest Destiny policy would ultimately lay waste to our natural resources and treasures I want to keep this really short you've got my written statement all I'm asking you here to do is consider that the trade way building project should Encompass

0:10:56the mabuchi house not do away with it it is part of the treasures of El Cerrito I'll leave it at that thank you very much thanks for your comment next speaker Sandy Gensler Mack good evening city council mayor Chang my name is Sandy against her Mack I live in Richmond but was raised in El Cerrito

0:11:23and some of you know that I'm a long time member of Richmond's historic preservation commission but tonight I'm speaking to you as an individual and someone who is pretty much involved in local history I remember the Contra Costa floors building from when I was a child it's

0:11:41like you know right out of Snow White it wasn't until later and I started learning about the history of our area that I began to understand that this building has real significance and some of you may recall that I spoke to you last year about the importance of

0:11:58preserving this Last Remnant of the Japanese flower industry which was still widespread here even into the 80s and 90s I have learned more about the nature and extent of the Japanese flower growing community over the last decade as the Mira Flores projects started to move

0:12:18forward in Richmond I was really grateful to the El Cerrito historical society when it put on the original exhibit about the El Cerrito and Richmond flower growers in 2009 because so many people were exposed at that time to something in their backyard that they had never

0:12:37realized existed it was a wonderful day for both communities when that exhibit was nominated for and then received a Richmond historic preservation award in 2010 now that the supplemental historic resources report has found that the Contra Costa florist building is indeed

0:12:58a bona fide historic resource California law requires that the building get very special treatment I encourage you as the Redevelopment agency and Eden Housing to work with the Japanese community and the Historical Society to be sure that this building is incorporated into the new project

0:13:19sensitively and appropriately integrates this very important cultural artifact into the overall project this is a really important topic for the history of Richmond and of El Cerrito I appreciate your time this evening and I appreciate your attention in the coming

0:13:35months thank you next speaker Tom Yamashita good evening Madam mayor members of El Cerrito city council thank you for giving me a few minutes to address this body once again my name is Tom yamashta I had the privilege of addressing you back in April regarding the preservation of the

0:14:07Contra Costa florist building as I mentioned at that time I was born in the topaz internment camp during World War II while my father fought with the 4-4 second regimental combat team after the war mom and dad became members of the coral industry here in the area

0:14:25Mom working for adachi florist and nursery for over 40 years Dad working for Nevada Nursery in El Cerrito and in Richmond for just as long floral industry was a big part of the Japanese American community at that time the nurseries and the floors provided jobs for many of the families returning

0:14:47from camp and was an economic foundation for this area at that time during the past two weeks two Monumental events happened the first was the awarding of the Congressional gold medal to the 442 100th and Mis regimental combat teams this is the highest civilian award

0:15:09bestowed by Congress and the brave Soldiers of the regiment joined the ranks of Nance doctor Nelson Mandela excuse me Dr Martin Luther King Mother Teresa and Winston Churchill quite an honor for all of them on a more local level the Contra Costa floral building was declared a

0:15:35historical resource and a quote for its association with Japanese immigration and settlement in Western Contra Costa County especially for its association with internment of Japanese Americans during World War II the building is a testament to the Japanese-American community that helped

0:15:55make El Cerrito what it is today the fact that the mobuchi family was able to return from camp and continue their business is also a testament to one of the few Caucasian families who stood by the Japanese Americans during World War II preserve their building and prevented

0:16:13it from vandalism and destruction while they were away in Camp we owe a deep debt of gratitude to this Council to the city of El Cerrito and Eden Housing for issuing the supplemental report that will help preserve the legacy of this building while both of these events are causes

0:16:34for celebration they also brought to my mind that time is running out for us of the over 13 000 Japanese American nises who served with the 442 317 survived today and only a handful of those were able to attend the ceremonies in Washington DC last week wouldn't it be great if more of the

0:16:57veterans would have been would have been around to take pride in the honor bestowed upon them by their country and again at the local level we're quickly losing our Pioneers who helped found this industry just last year we lost Mrs shigeko Sakai of Sakai Brothers

0:17:14Nursery one of the remaining founders of this industry wouldn't it be great if our surviving members could celebrate and be honored by this new Senior Center development preserving the mubuchi building as its Cornerstone I asked this Council to take whatever actions in your purview to make this a

0:17:36reality as soon as possible and lastly on a more personal note I'm anxious to see how this building will incorporate the history of the felt flower industry both agriculturally and culturally and as you can tell from my white hair and wrinkles I may be a resident there

0:17:53soon thank you thank you next speaker please Tom panna's thank you good evening mayor Chang members of the Council on City staff my name is Tom panis and I live at [address removed] El Cerrito first of all I'd like to Echo the comments of our assistant city manager

0:18:25this evening the new website looks great and I haven't been all over it but it's a vast Improvement I'd like to thank everyone who was involved in that I'd also like to thank and commend the city and Eden Housing for commissioning the additional historic resource report

0:18:40on the former Contra Costa building Contra Costa florist building the report this truly amazing report that was produced should be required for reading should be required reading for everyone in El Cerrito it describes in remarkable detail the evolution of this

0:18:56building and makes an unassailable case for why this building now has an important new status a historic resource that appears eligible for listing on the California register of historical resources this report certainly so significant that I'm volunteering to print or email a copy of this report to

0:19:11anyone who wants one I've already seen two at the two copies are on deposit at the El Cerrito library and of course I put one up at the Dorothy on Sunday Sunday historical room the question that now faces us is how do we incorporate this historic resource into the senior

0:19:26how new has Senior Housing Development last April the Historical Society suggested Eden housing's Architects needed to see the building not as an impediment that should be removed but as an inspiration whose Aesthetics should be echoed in the rest of the street

0:19:38facing design given secret requirements that address the lawful treatment of historic resources it seems clear this is no longer a suggestion it's now closer to a requirement I'm looking forward to the day that when next door to City Hall here we have a beautiful new Senior Center that's

0:19:54sensitively and respectfully reflects the heritage of our Japanese Community as embodied in the former Contra Costa Forest building thank you very much for your time this evening thank you next speaker please Barbara Hill thank you mayor Chang and members of the

0:20:16city council my name is Barbara Hill and excuse me I have a cold I live at [address removed] in El Cerrito I would like to thank everyone who was involved with the discovery and designation of a historic resource in El Cerrito this city has an unusually diverse history as well as a colorful

0:20:40past yet hardly anything survives perhaps the best thing El Cerrito ever had the Castro Adobe was sadly neglected until it was torched over 50 years ago our character as a community begs for an example of why so many of us residents are so proud of our city now we have one I pray that it will not

0:21:06be demolished by neglect the mamucci building is not only a relic of the local Japanese-American flower growing industry it's very survival testifies to the kind of community El Cerrito was and is excuse me when the mobuchi family was sent our way to an internment camp during

0:21:34World War II their property was looked after and safeguarded by the Conwell family that owned tradeway and was subsequently restored to the mabuchi family when they were able to return to El Cerrito and re resume their lives such neighborly care and Goodwill was

0:21:56not unique to El Cerrito but it was rare enough that this funny-looking little building should be celebrated as a monument which tells a story about what is so right and good about El Cerrito's diversity it is therefore fitting that the trade way in wabuchi properties will be

0:22:20developed together the challenge to the developers is how to incorporate this important historical artifact into the overall design in such a way that enhances all parts of the project I hope there is an architect involved somewhere who has the Creative Vision to

0:22:43draw from the richness of our past while planning for the needs of the future I trust that the developers will come to recognize the mubuchi building as an opportunity not an obstacle thank you thank you next speaker please Kimmy Honda thank you good evening bear Chang and City Council Members my

0:23:17name is Kimmy Honda and I have lived in El Cerrito for over 30 years at [address removed] I have had the pleasure of being your El Cerrito women of the Year this year but I'm not here this evening in my capacity as a member of the committee on Aging nor board president of sakurakai

0:23:43the Japanese speaking Senior Center which is one of the largest senior centers in the area I am here this evening to speak to you as a member of the local Japanese American community 11 months ago we were proud that our city council chose to pass a resolution proclaiming Fred Corey Matsu Day in El

0:24:09Cerrito thereby distinguishing yourself and our city by recognizing the historic stat taken by Fred coromatsu against the internment during World War II six months ago the solicitor general of the U.S formally acknowledged and apologized for the actions that resulted

0:24:33in the illegal incarceration of more than a hundred and twenty thousand Japanese during World War II last month the Japanese American community was happy to learn that the former Contra Costa florist building received important his new historic status and legitimacy as a result of the report

0:24:59that was released on October 26th r e say forefathers were among the earliest settlers in El Cerrito and an important factor in our City's development and evolution conserving this building lets us retain an appropriate physical reminder of our City's Japanese American heritage

0:25:25now we have a designated site that future Generations can use to properly relate the story of our Japanese history here in El Cerrito this official identification and recognition is an important step forward in ensuring that El Cerrito remains a diverse and compassionate community that

0:25:51values its ethnic Heritage thank you thank you next speaker please Al Miller good evening mayor children council members I'm Al Miller I live at [address removed] before I start on my main comments I'd like to follow on uh council member abelson's remarks on baguette

0:26:17I would like to acknowledge and thank the F continuing ongoing efforts of our environmental equality commission committee for sponsoring features like this for other activities there are green teams that give all of us an opportunity to increase our awareness of

0:26:37the environmental needs in our city and to participate in actions that help make it better okay on October 16th I attended the ACLU Berkeley Northeast Bay chapters annual meeting which happened to be held in Albany the main program was a panel discussion by the police Chiefs of Berkeley

0:26:59Richmond and El Cerrito and two ACL lawyers one who prosecutes their cases and one who's a policy maker the panel members highlighted their Mutual concerns and explored ways the communities can work together all of the Chiefs talked about community policing in one form or another and how

0:27:22essential it was to build Community Trust as an important indeed the most important part of those community policing programs one of the ACLU lawyers talked about how federal agencies such as the ice and the DEA routinely depend on local law enforcement agencies our police forces

0:27:44to assist in enforcing federal laws what caught my attention was his comments about the 10th Amendment to the U.S Constitution and how it prohibits the federal the feds from forcing local agencies to enforce federal law or words to that effect you all know I'm not a

0:28:05lawyer and I don't mean to put words in his mouth but that's the message I took away my main takeaway thoughts from that panel discussion were two one local police assisting federal agencies enforcing federal law ice is the immigration issue primarily in our Hispanic Community but any of the

0:28:29undocumenteds that live in our community and the DEA is drug enforcement issues which we all have too much of that how the local police assisting federal agencies and Implement enforcing those federal laws destroys Community Trust that our police had developed in their community

0:28:48policing efforts the other one was is up to local officials in our case you and our city council to ensure that they have said clear policy for their police chief regarding the desired level of cooperation with federal agencies in enforcing federal laws now I could be wrong but in the years I've

0:29:13been attending the City Council meetings I don't recall ever hearing that issue discussed so that I ask you to review this issue and satisfy yourselves and the people of El Cerrito that you have established clear policy on this issue and that your policy does not threaten our community's

0:29:33trust in our police force and their community policing programs thank you thank you next speaker please Josh Whitmer hello mayor and council members and support staff and general public thank you for showing up this evening this is a minor compared to what I've heard uh

0:29:56I'm Josh Whitmer my wife uh Rebecca Butler we both reside at [address removed] in El Cerrito and we moved there in 1999 and um since that period of time we've had a car hit and totaled by a hit-and-run driver and probably five of our vehicle five of two vehicles

0:30:20sideswiped by hit and run drivers basically our complaint is that um traffic between Terrace in the north and Fairmont Avenue fat apples in the south is travels way to unimpeded and and can gain too much speed and um I think you know uh uh personal property damage on our part

0:30:48is evidence of that and the fact that when we first moved into the neighborhood the majority of the people on that section of Street on collusive between Terrace and Fairmont parked on sidewalks and my wife is a physical therapist who deals with uh rehabilitating brain

0:31:08injured individuals and so we uh notified the police department and the neighbors who parked on the sidewalks that you know it's actually easier to get a car fixed than to rehabilitate a brain uh and so we most people nowadays don't park on the sidewalks because we sort of

0:31:28have encouraged and reported and left notes but still traffic is a major issue on our street and um it's been a major issue for probably the 10 years since we've lived there and um just a quick fact I only have three minutes it's the longest stretch of blacktop with no stop signs or speed

0:31:51bumps uh take what does the yellow light mean oh you have one minute okay so you take into consideration Ashbury Richmond and San Pablo those all have more stop signs and speed bumps and uh uh speed impeding factors to slow down traffic I put to I've been to a council meeting before at

0:32:11the um swim swim council meeting area on Moser and then I went to a couple couple traffic remediation meetings uh meetings put together by uh the traffic engineer lead traffic engineer over there our department of traffic and uh then I put together and noticed that you guys had a

0:32:33whole uh way to handle this traffic stuff and I put together a survey got the results I actually emailed it to everyone Yvette um Ortiz I think who's the assistant of this gentleman back here emailed me back and said you know I'm on the waiting list but you know what it's basically

0:32:52come down to oh red lights up we're just you know I wanting the wheels of the city to move a little faster and in conclusion I'm a real estate broker I travel in nine counties of the greater Bay Area and it's been reported to me that stop signs and traffic impediments are

0:33:15the lead cause of litigation in the city I've asked for those reports and statistics they've never been delivered to me that was reported to me by a a an official in the city of El Cerrito in all my travels in nine counties I know I'm going to stop right here there are many examples of cities

0:33:36that have greater control of traffic that are much more comfortable and easy to drive in and people drive a safe speed and thank you very much for your consideration and I'll try to get this on onto an agenda because I know I'm sort of AD living here with public

0:33:56remarks thank you um next speaker please George McRae good evening um if I had any idea that I'd be on camera I would have shaved so I apologize my name is George McRae I live at [address removed] in El Cerrito and I also want to applaud the new website it's terrific it's really

0:34:24great I mean not just for a City website but for any website it's very very easy to navigate it's really a superb job um I'd like to applaud the present Council and staff for bringing the pace car program to El Cerrito as some of you know I've been advocating um for this and for other traffic

0:34:46calming controls since coming to El Cerrito City Council in December of 1997. in the meantime our families lost automobiles to this sounds a little familiar doesn't it this has lost automobiles to speeding and recklessness right in front of our home and so as our

0:35:02across the street neighbor within a few blocks of our house there have been head-on collisions in a myriad of traffic mayhem's resulting in injuries many of them serious I myself live with continuous pain from the neck injury and head trauma that I experienced a year and a half ago when I

0:35:18was rear-ended while parked across the street from our house by a driver exceeding the speed limit it's great that speed limit signs have been added as well as painted markings showing very clearly that the speed limit is 25 miles an hour on Barrett Avenue but it's all up to us to make the

0:35:33streets safe and I hope the pace car program will help in encouraging people to take their impatience and Reckless disregard for safety somewhere other than our community on another note I would uh like to commend our mayor for the comments that she made about the Occupy movements and

0:35:51I would like to encourage my fellow residents who haven't already done so to take the step of moving your financial assets into an institution like a credit union or a Community Bank and I was surprised that there weren't any credit unions in El Cerrito and I would like to

0:36:06encourage the city and the city council to do all in its power to attract such institutions to our community and to discourage as much as possible having more of the problem institutions come to our city or expand their presence here thank you very much thank you

0:36:22necklace the last speaker slip for General comment is Jill shiraki thank you Mary Chang and the city council members I'm speaking on behalf of the earlier speakers regarding the mubuchi flower shop or the Contra Costa florist and um everyone said it so well so eloquently

0:36:51um I just want to stress the connection to a Statewide project that I have the honor of working on with uh cultural historian um Donna Graves who was also resource on the study and we've been working Statewide to identify pre-World War II uh historic resources in our encouraging

0:37:11preservation on the local level so I am honored as a El Cerrito resident myself to have this opportunity to speak to you about the significance of this building in El Cerrito and Richmond there were four flower shops and 14 nurseries and um in El Cerrito the only buildings left

0:37:32to tell this history is the mubuchi flower shop in the country line laundry so it would be a missed opportunity if we didn't recognize this important Landmark for us and the ways we can connect with the Statewide efforts with the property in Richmond the Miraflores

0:37:50and the greenhouses that are being restored there with the Rosie the Riveter National home front in Richmond that is willing to um share a story about the nurseries and we're working on a documentary that will be screened there so there are many opportunities where we can link up with

0:38:08cities in the Bay Area and Statewide to tell this important history so um I urge you to consider its importance and integrate that in your plans thank you very much thank you any further speakers on no not on General okay great thanks everyone for your comments

0:38:29um at this point we will move to item number five calendar their motion to adopt the items move adoption to the consent calendar items 5A through 5D second [Applause] all those in favor please say aye aye aye consent calendar is adopted unanimously mayor I'd like to make one comment about

0:38:58the consent calendar I want to thank um uh our fire department for uh giving me some good sleeping material I actually will sleep better tonight having read this because it is a um and this is item 5B uh it really is a good document that highlights all of the planning that has gone into reducing the

0:39:21risk and res and identifying good methods for response in our community so I do want to thank the fire department for providing me with um some excellent reading thank you thank you all right with that I think move on towards a couple of our main items tonight policy matters agenda item number seven

0:39:44a for the animal ordinance and so at this point is there a staff presentation up on the latest thank you foreign good evening mayor Chang members of the council Sean Moss senior planner so I'm going to go over I'm going to give you a little background on how we got to where we are

0:40:42with the uh proposed animals ordinance uh and then I'll go over the changes that have been made to the proposed ordinance since um the last time the council discussed the matter and then I will uh go over a more complete picture um of the proposed regulations for

0:41:03different types of animals I'll just clarify for the public that that after Sean's presentation I'll ask for questions clarifying questions from the council and then we'll take comments from the public and then bring it back to the council for discussion thank you

0:41:30looks like it is now is a good time to fill out our speaker slip yeah if you haven't done so difficult all right so the uh the current animals ordinance uh was adopted in 1987.

0:42:11and then in mid uh 2009 El Cerrito residents addressed the Environmental Quality committee regarding updates to the animals ordinance regarding uh sustainable animal raising and sustainable food production the Environmental Quality committee then discussed the issue and produced a memo

0:42:37uh in November of 2009 with recommendations for the council regarding revisions to the ordinance the Planning Commission then discussed the animal's ordinance in December of 2009 and they considered the um the recommendations that the Environmental Quality committee had made as well as

0:42:58comments from the public and the Planning Commission also issued a series of recommendations then uh the city held a a community meeting or I'm sorry um a staff actually produced a draft ordinance and presented that to the Environmental Quality Committee in May

0:43:20of 2010 and further public input was received at that time and then a community meeting was held in August of 2010 to hear comments from the public regarding the draft would ordinance and then in March of this year the city council conducted a study session on the

0:43:40proposed ordinance and the proposed regulations and at that study session um additional comments from the public were received and uh the council gave comments to staff regarding um the uh the proposed changes to the ordinance so we've now made changes to the draft ordinance to address the the

0:44:04comments from the council that were received at the study session and I will go over those changes more in depth so the first change and probably the the largest changed um hold on a second we're having a little technical difficulties here oh there it is okay um so

0:44:36slides are actually the next the next part of the presentation so I'll get to that in a second um so the largest change uh perhaps the largest change of the ordinance since the the council has last seen it is um the introduction of an alternative method for exceptions to certain

0:44:52standards and this process this is a an additional process which would allow SEC exceptions to certain standards in the ordinance with unanimous consent of owners of directly adjacent properties so I will um let me go over the the um specific exceptions where this would

0:45:20apply and then I'll describe the process a little bit more so this this particular process would allow five or six chickens on a single family Residential Properties of at least four thousand square feet um it would allow up to four chickens on residential properties that are smaller

0:45:41than that it would allow chicken coops to be closer than 20 feet to dwellings on adjacent properties it would allow um two beehives on properties of at least five thousand square feet and it would allow one beehive on Residential Properties less than five thousand

0:46:03square feet and it would allow beehives to be closer than 20 feet to properties on adjacent dwellings or closer than five feet to a property line so um this process would be allowed with unanimous consent of directly adjacent Property Owners so the applicant who was

0:46:22applying to keep animals who was applying for the exception would um would go and through this process they they would seek uh approval of their directly adjacent they're directly adjacent neighbors the property owners of those properties so the the city would develop a form

0:46:41um which we would give them and we would allow them to to go to each property owner and get their signature probably haven't notarized return with those forms to the city and then provided that that all those forms were submitted correctly and that we could verify that

0:46:59then that exception would be approved through that administrative process over the counter um so this another important thing to to note about this process is that it also it overlaps the the conditional use permit process so for exceptions Beyond uh what would be allowed through

0:47:22this unanimous neighbor consent process applicants could still apply for a conditional use permit and the Planning Commission would would consider those in a public hearing but also you could apply for the same exception as allowed through this unanimous neighbor consent process at

0:47:42the Planning Commission through a conditional use permit if if for one reason or another you couldn't you were not able to secure unanimous neighbor consent through that process you could still apply for a conditional use permit exception the other changed the next change to the

0:48:01ordinance since the the council has last seen it is the removal of the requirement for a conditional use permit to keep animals on properties adjacent to multi-family properties several council members at the at the last meeting felt that that distinction was was unnecessary and so that requirement

0:48:19has been removed from the ordinance entirely um the next change is um further development and detail added to the provisions regarding nuisances in the ordinance this was largely done to address comments from the council at the study session regarding the slaughter of animals

0:48:48several council members wanted staff to look into a ban on Slaughter and um so the City attorney examined this issue and looked at several options um several actions that the the council could take related to a ban on Slaughter and the recommendation from the city

0:49:09attorney was to um was to allow Slaughter but to place more restrictions on it through the nuisance language and the code so the um the City attorney felt that this was the best recommendation in order to avoid any constitutional issues and also mostly related to the um the exercise of

0:49:37First Amendment rights and also staff was concerned about any unintended um restrictions that would result from a from a complete ban on Slaughter and I've I've gone over some of those in in the agenda bill in more detail um so the uh the nuisance language has been has been increased so that it

0:50:07specifically refers to um how the um how the areas for for keeping animals must be maintained they must be maintained free of uh free of odors um free of of animal you know any sort of animal byproduct um and that they may be they must be cleaned uh on a daily basis or or more

0:50:29often as necessary to to achieve those sanitary conditions in addition um we have some additional language that um council member Abelson has has suggested regarding uh the slaughter of animals um and just get to that here so we came up with some additional language earlier this evening and I I

0:51:03believe that you have a copy of the ordinance with this with this language added um they don't okay I'm sorry you don't um so I'm I'm actually just gonna read what we came up with and I I think uh actually this the City attorney might um some additional information and Sean

0:51:20before you proceed we got um as we sat down we had supplemental reports in Communications one was revised ordinance and then we got another one just as we were starting the agenda items so which one should we refer to most recent okay so well okay thank you yes

0:51:41exactly there's a switch that's the old one this is the new one this is the new one okay all right so the language um the council member Abelson suggested would be inserted um under the general Provisions um so it would be it would be letter F if it is inserted and

0:52:00um would read any slaughtering of animals not otherwise prohibited by state law or Contra Costa County code shall occur on private property and be conducted in the area not visible outside the subject property um then I will move on to the the next change um to the ordinance since the study

0:52:25session is uh the addition of a of a section uh dealing with dogs and um this was uh this is actually something that's more or less found in the in the current animals ordinance there is a section on dogs um and um so the when we looked at that section um it contained things that uh that we

0:52:50wanted to retain such as a leash law and a requirement to clean up after your dog um but there were other things that the the City attorney felt were not consistent with uh state law and the and the county code and so um the the rest of the dogs section has more or less been revised to bring it

0:53:08into consistency with those things but the um I guess the the main points of it is is that it does retain the the leash law and the requirement to to clean up after your dog on in areas other than on your own property and then the last change is an addition for an allowance to have goats for

0:53:30temporary weed abatement purposes for a temporary period not to exceed 60 days once a year um this um this requirement also um originally in in the agenda bill it had a uh a number a ratio requirement for that would determine how many goats would be allowed on a particular

0:53:54property um in in further internal discussions among staff involving um uh planning staff and the fire department um we have decided to recommend actually removing the the ratio from the code that would determine how many goats are allowed and instead that number would be

0:54:21determined through the through the permit process so an administrative over-the-counter permit would be required to keep goats and we would just craft the permit in such a way that it would be done more or less through the recommendation of some sort of professional goat keeper or you know the

0:54:42the person that you're renting the goats from um and so the city staff would review those permits and and decide kind of on a case-by-case basis how many how many goats were necessary for what period of time for the weight abatement and then there's one other change

0:55:03um that's in the the document that you have the revised document and that is just uh an adjustment to one of the references to the county code so that's in the dogs section for the leash law the protect the correct reference is actually section 416-4.402 and so that has been changed

0:55:24in in what you have so now um I'll refer you to the slides and I'll just go through real briefly um a little bit more in depth and and what the regulations what the proposed regulations are for each kind of major type of animal so these are uh the general requirements

0:55:49these would cover all types of animals and all type of animal keeping in El Cerrito so there's a requirement that that animals shall not pose a risk to Public Health or safety and also that they not disturb neighbors with their noise there's actually two requirements here

0:56:06one is found in the county code and that stipulates I think that two um two people within 300 feet of the of the animal not be disturbed um the city what would be found in the city code is is actually the the existing language in our animal ordinance that animals not disturb

0:56:27neighbors with their noise between Sunset and one half hour after sunrise and then there's also a requirement that um areas where animals are kept to be kept sanitary and I already discussed that a bit uh in the nuisance when I was discussing nuisance Provisions

0:56:42um and then the last requirement is that animal related home businesses um would require a conditional use permit and that that includes things like boarding animals breeding animals um you know an animal daycare things like that so this is a list of the animals that

0:57:02would be allowed by right um this is basically animals that would be allowed um either with no permits or with a permit that that a a license that the the county would issue um or or um I think in some instances a simple over-the-counter permit from the city and those animals would be dogs and cats

0:57:28domestic groans domestic rabbits fish and other types of aquatic animals domestic reptiles and amphibians birds that are kept indoors only and um insects other than bees and other types of similar animals like that so next is chickens um so the proposed requirements for

0:57:53chickens uh are that an over over-the-counter permit would be required to keep chickens and that would just be a simple over-the-counter check to make make sure that uh the applicant met all of the the requirements stated in the code up to four hens would be would be

0:58:09allowed by right on uh lots that are at least four thousand square feet in size roosters would be prohibited so only female hens would be allowed um chickens would need to be kept in an enclosed area that was sufficient to to hold them um and chicken coops would need to be 20

0:58:32feet from homes on adjacent properties on yeah 20 feet from homes on adjacent Lots then I'm gonna go over the exceptions the two different processes for exceptions for chickens so through the unanimous neighbor consent process that I described uh you could have five or six chickens on a

0:58:57four thousand on a or larger square foot lot you could have up to four chickens on a lot less than four thousand square feet or you could have a coupe closer than uh 20 feet to homes on adjacent properties so the conditional use permit process for exceptions would allow any of those

0:59:17exceptions and in addition would allow you to have more than six chickens on a four thousand square foot lot more than four chickens on a a lot less than four thousand square feet um or it would allow keeping of of any chickens on properties other than those containing single-family dwelling units

0:59:44the proposed requirements for honeybees are that an over-the-counter permit would be required to keep bees and as part of the the permit process for bees all of the directly adjacent Property Owners would be notified of the the application up to one beehive would be permitted on

1:00:01um Lots at least five thousand square feet and beehives would have to be located at least 20 feet from homes on adjacent properties and at least five feet from all property lines so the process for exceptions for honeybees would be that through the unanimous neighbor consent process

1:00:21two beehives would be allowed on on properties of at least five thousand square feet one beehive would be allowed on properties less than five thousand square feet and hive's exceptions would also be allowed to allow hives closer than 20 feet to homes on adjacent Properties or

1:00:40closer than five feet to a property line then through the conditional use permit process any of those exceptions will be allowed and in addition more than two beehives on Lots at least five thousand square feet would be allowed or more than one beehive on Lots less than five thousand

1:00:58square feet or keeping of bees on properties other than those containing single-family dwelling units goats um what is proposed is that uh goats would be allowed with an administrative use permit on Lots at least ten thousand square feet and with a conditional use

1:01:20permit on Lots smaller than ten thousand square feet pigs um what's proposed is that two pigs uh under 150 pounds which again is um is referring basically to pot-bellied pigs um would be permitted on properties at least five thousand square feet with an administrative use permit uh pigs would

1:01:45need to be kept in enclosed areas that are sufficient to hold hold the pigs um in the enclosures those enclosed areas would need to be a minimum of 20 feet from homes on adjacent lots and a minimum of five feet from all property lines and basically a conditional use permit

1:02:05would be required for any exceptions to those standards so that uh brings me to the end of the presentation on the proposed regulations um and I can answer any questions that the council may have questions I'll start till I write and a couple of I think simple questions

1:02:27how do you define adjacent uh adjacent is um I think actually in the code it says uh properties that directly abut the subject property so it's it's properties that touch the uh the subject property is the one across the street uh you know from the front of the house

1:02:48is that adjacent across the street would would not be adjacent okay so it's next to and behind correct okay and then the other question which I apologize I I think I mentioned it maybe to the city manager but I forgot to mention it when I was talking to you um we

1:03:05in the not too many um distant years we passed in the state a proposition about eggs being uh um about hens producing eggs in a quote cage-free manner but I don't remember the details of that and I'm just wondering if um we know that what we're doing is consistent with that yeah

1:03:31um yes I think that was preposition two actually that that passed that um and we did we looked into that earlier and um discussed it with the city attorney and the language of that um in in state law I believe um specifically um refers to Farms but any state law that

1:03:55did apply to the raising of chickens would would apply in El Cerrito and would not be preempted by by this code say that again the so any any requirements um in in state law from that proposition or or otherwise um would not be um preempted by this code so they would

1:04:18be in effect um in El Cerrito and um and uh you know we could we could ensure that that people knew those requirements and met those requirements when they came into to get a permit as well so what I was kind of wondering about was the use of the term cage that do we think that that would be

1:04:38consistent you just use the word cage towards the end of what you just said the cage needs to be a certain distance from the property oh I said I actually I said um I said the coop okay Okay so I'm just wanting to verify that in fact that's consistent with that or that we could verify it before

1:05:03we in fact would implement it yes it that does not contradict anything in state law okay thank you questions any other questions yeah I've got a couple questions um specifically I just want to make sure that I heard you correctly uh chickens by right you cannot have any chickens if your lot

1:05:28size is less than 4 000 square feet that that's correct um but through the unanimous neighbor consent process you could have up to four correct but the the actual ordinance is none less than four thousand which is which is more restrictive than our current ordinance

1:05:47um currently the current ordinance allows up to threes if they're less than three pounds on any size lot right if uh if they're less than half a pound right um if they're bantam chickens they could be on any property not by size So in theory it's more restrictive

1:06:07um that I I suppose um you could say related to bantam chickens that it is um in in our experiences and what I've actually heard from uh chicken owners is that it's it's even difficult to find fandom chickens that are that weigh less than half a pound but without consent we

1:06:25will actually have fewer properties that would have outdoor Birds on them uh that's correct great thank you um maybe I read this wrong but in uh under B's J1 it says that a conditional use permit is required for Pro for Parcels less than five thousand feet however on j4a you allow the unanimous

1:06:52consent process for uh for allowing bees on less than five thousand square foot parcels they'll strike me as being potentially contradictory statements so the the two processes overlap so exceptions um to certain standards would be allowed through the unanimous neighbor consent

1:07:19process if for some reason a property owner was not able to secure unanimous consent from all of their directly adjacent Property Owners they could still apply for a conditional use permit and the Planning Commission could still consider that exception correct that says that in

1:07:374B but if I go back to to J1 it is um very flat there is no alternative it says the following situations require a conditional use permit so we either should say there the following situations require a conditional use permit or a unanimous consent of adjacent property owners

1:08:04oh I do see what you're saying um and I think actually the cleanest thing would just be to remove that to remove that language from J1 J1 I concur thank you um similarly under uh I other birds you start out by saying a use permits required for other birds but in your

1:08:24presentation you made it very clear that parakeets and parrots that are indoor birds that are kept from flying at Large are permitted by right and do not need a use permit so I just was wondering if we could similarly strike use permit required from the start of i1

1:08:45um because it is it's not it starts out with a negative use per you know the use permits required when in reality we are allowing parakeets and parrots by right and that's what the First full sentence says yeah I think only the city attorney's input on that as to whether that would be okay to do

1:09:07that foreign [Applause] can you repeat that please I'm sure I'm tracking exactly what you're talking yeah letter i letter H for those following it from home letter H reads other foul foul other than chickens shall not be permitted without a conditional use permit letter I which is

1:09:35successive or follows that says other birds uh Arabic number one use permit required and then the First full sentence says birds that are kept from flying at large and kept indoors shall be permitted and in this case does that mean I have to get a use permit and that's not what the

1:09:53presentation said presentation made it very clear that by right you're allowed to keep parakeets or parrots as long as they're not flying at large in that case permitted meetings allowed I understand but it's following the the use permit required but can we strike use permit required

1:10:12that's the question well why don't we just change permitted to allowed that would be fine as well it but it's still you know it it the presentation it was very clear um similar to the fact that A's through G or a through f uh are just listing single things so I

1:10:31guess you know instead of I'm not going to ask for this whole thing to be turned upside down by asking other birds to be put up somewhere where it'd be more readily apparent what is allowed by right um but I was just curious can we strike use permit required for other birds when the

1:10:48second sentence clearly says birds that are permitted to fly at large or birds that are kept Outdoors shall not be permitted without a conditional use permit see it strikes me that use permit required is redundant Maybe get stated the buy right what's allowed earlier if I

1:11:09understand correctly I think that council member Lyman is just asking to to strike the title of the section so use permit required is this it's the title of the second section however the section allows some type of birds without a use permit so if we took off the title use permit required it doesn't

1:11:26change the requirement for birds that are permitted to fly at large because it does say they shall be no the titles are merely informative according to the municipal code not themselves regulatory so they it could be taken out without any change with with my fellow members consent I'd

1:11:45love to make that suggestion um and let's see uh point of discussion and and it's not that I'm a pig Lover by any stretch of the imagination um but you know we all these other other animals we're we're allowing we are allowing an exception process um I'm just curious why an exception to

1:12:08the enclosure setbacks is not also um been proposed so that these pigs that are treated potentially as dogs um would have the full run of a backyard that's fenced and enclosed properly with consent using the unanimous consent process I'm just curious why that was

1:12:31not considered as something that would be included under Arabic five exception using the unanimous consent you know you would be able to have relief from the enclosure setbacks we're allowing enclosure setback relief for bees and and others so I'm just curious why we

1:12:51didn't consider that it wasn't something that we got as much feedback from uh on from the public regarding um exceptions for pigs through through a more streamlined process um I did consult um a veterinarian uh when drafting the um the pigs section and that's kind of

1:13:13how the 150 foot weight limit came about um but I was advised that that um you know there definitely is a potential for for odor um with pigs and they you know they can be smelly and produce that and so um you know we just wanted to be uh conscious of that in in requiring the

1:13:34setbacks um and and that's kind of the reason that that process wasn't wasn't inserted there as well great thank you do you have any questions thank you I just have a couple here Sean um one is the ordinance says it's proposed to take effect April 1st 2012.

1:14:04um so what regulation is in effect till then and um are we actively enforcing at this time uh we're proposing that uh there'd be a moratorium on on the current ordinance until uh the new ordinance went into effect um so that would give us a period to um to both come up with the the process for

1:14:25uh the new permits as well as do some education um letting people know that this the new ordinance will be going into effect um and that for animals like chickens and bees regardless of whether they they currently have them um against the code that they need to

1:14:45come in and get an over-the-counter permit for those kinds of things okay I I'll probably discuss during the discussion whether we should have a moratorium for nearly six months I think that's a fairly long time to go and if a person has a legitimate complaint um

1:15:05currently there is no recourse and I don't know if it's going to satisfy him to say that we have a moratorium on it when there's a problem so maybe we'll take that up during the discussion uh second of all uh could I ask what was the rationale of allowing a full 60 days for temporary use

1:15:28seems like an awful long time to me um I love the city of this size I looked at uh what other cities did and the um the only other city that I I think that I came across that had an explicit allowance for goats for temporary weed abatement was the city of Albany and

1:15:49they um they had a 60-day period um I talked to I consulted with the fire department as well I actually today called a gentleman who rents goats for a living for weight abatement purposes and what he told me was that it's it's just how many how many goats you would

1:16:14you would want on your property as kind of a function of of how long you know how much time you have and how how long you you uh want them to accomplish the job in um so I got the the impression from him also that that uh 60 days was was a reasonable time limit

1:16:30um but like I you know like I said we are proposing to remove the um the number of goats requirements so um if you know if someone were to come in to get an over-the-counter permit to have um goats and they you know they've said with with X number of goats I can have

1:16:49the job done in two weeks then um you know we could place that condition on it that that X number of goats are allowed for a period of of two weeks or you know 20 days or or a month or whatever yeah I'm not an expert but uh 75 by 100 is 75 100 square feet and I don't know seems like a small uh area

1:17:12to take a long time and I don't know if somebody uh it came up to me if I had a lot that's next to me and uh somebody says well we're going to have 10 goats next door for two weeks I don't know I'd be too happy with that even if it is clearing off the thing so I was just wondering if

1:17:32you know which was a good answer by the way an expert would tell us how long for how many and maybe that's a good way of doing it okay and I just wanted to cover that um section 7.08.020h which is the birds flying birds that takes in pigeons correct so if I been raising pigeons in El cereal

1:17:58for 25 years out of a coop and flying them I now have to come in and get a permit for that correct under uh under our current code I believe it would require a permit um and that's not a change right I don't believe that's it I'm sorry I missed that okay thank you

1:18:13appreciate it yes Mr Moss just a couple questions um I know we're not prepared to or you're not prepared to talk about the exact types of fees that that will be faced but in our last presentation back in March we did go over sort of the range of fees so can you just repeat

1:18:31generally what types of of costs will be faced under these various permitting procedures so we'll actually be coming back to the council before the ordinance goes into effect to amend the master fee schedule to add some of these new permit types as well as revisit some of the

1:18:52existing permit types specifically for animals um but to briefly go over the the types of permits so there are administrative kind of over-the-counter administrative permits that's a that's a simple check by staff to make sure that the applicant is going to meet all of the

1:19:13requirements that are that are stated in the code it's not a discretionary permit so applicants would typically submit um you know some simple drawings to demonstrate or or sign sign a statement to demonstrate that they're going to meet the requirements of the code and as

1:19:30long as they can demonstrate those things the the permit would be approved over the counter the the next type of permit proposed in the ordinance is the unanimous neighbor consent process that is also that would also be non-discretionary so if the applicant can secure consent from all of

1:19:53the property owners of directly adjacent properties and they can submit those and and the city can verify that they're that they're accurate then that permit would also be be approved over the counter the next type of permit is the administrative use permit process

1:20:12that is a discretionary permit it is decided by the zoning administrator at a staff level and once that is decided a um a notice of decision is sent to all the property owners within 300 feet they then have there's then a 10-day appeal period where where anyone can

1:20:33appeal that decision to the Planning Commission uh the uh lastly the last type of permit would be the conditional use permit um and that is just that's also a discretionary permit it's decided by the Planning Commission in a public hearing um so there's a notice sent prior 10

1:20:50days prior to that hearing a notice is mailed to all Property Owners within 300 feet of the subject property um and uh anyone is welcome to come and address the commission at the public hearing as well as the submit written comments uh prior to that um generally getting into fees

1:21:11administrative over-the-counter permits similar permits that we have now include a offense permit fence clearance permit and home occupation permit um the fees for those I believe are 56.89 respectively so that just kind of gives you a an idea of the you know the

1:21:34range of fees for for those types of permits um the unanimous neighbor consent process I I don't uh know we haven't actually done any sort of analysis on how much staff time would be involved in that or what we think the the permit fee would be the only reference I really have is um the

1:21:54city of Albany has uh has a very very similar process for keeping chickens and I contacted them I actually have their forms and I also the um the fee um their fee is uh 165 dollars for that permit um the administrative use permit and conditional use permit the fees are are

1:22:17currently much higher but like I said we'll be coming back to the council to amend the master fee schedule and I think at that time um we'll um be um be giving the council some information on on those fees um and the council at that time can evaluate those fees for exceptions to

1:22:38the animal's ordinance and decide if those fees should be lowered so um I don't have the amounts of those fees right off the top of my head but that's a that's a discussion we'll be having when we come back with that okay that that makes sense um I just wanted to get out on the open

1:22:55now and kind of remind folks from our March meeting sort of what was discussed in terms of the range of fees that might be applied um and I know that the unanimous consent um process it's interesting the way Albany is doing it and I I'll leave it to the professionals to determine how

1:23:09best to administer this type of thing but as you're going through the process of thinking about how uh a property owner would go through and get these notarized signatures just to consider if there are alternate ways um I I had suggested perhaps they could have all of their neighbors sign a form

1:23:27and then the city could receive the form and instead of having them notarized individually which might be time consuming and have additional costs associated with it perhaps the city could mail back a sort of additional additional form to that property owner that's then received at their address

1:23:42that they can verify that yes this is my signature and at that time you could um then make sure sort of serve as the notary as opposed to having the property owner uh procure notary service themselves but I'll leave it up to you to decide what is the best way to

1:23:55administer that knowing that if you were to go through that alternative process without a notary it's more staff time and potentially more costs in the permit um so I I suppose it's best to balance those and you you'll know better than I um how much how much time who should

1:24:10spend the time the notary or you all um one uh you I was happy that you went over the moratorium on the on uh councilmember Jones brought up the moratorium on enforcing the current uh the current code because as we take action tonight effectively the ordinance will be changed and

1:24:32um I guess we can discuss further in discussion how best to go forward given the six-month time delay so like those are all my questions for now I just had a couple follow-on thanks for the thoughtful questions before me um the so so the main thing is just what I

1:24:53heard and I want to verify that this is what you meant um that there's mention of conditional or what is it the chicken clearance and then there's be clearance um and from what you describe it sounds like those are administrative essentially over-the-counter go through a form type

1:25:13process but then with the bees there's it's actually um so actually so I I they both use the word clearance but when you describe the process for bees it sounded more like an administrative use permit where it's discretional and that they're but the and the reason why I say that is

1:25:31is I heard you say with the B clearance you had to do a notification so maybe if you could just clarify with the B clearance do they mean does clearance mean the same thing or do you have kind of nuances intended yeah they would both be uh administrative over-the-counter

1:25:49type permits um with an administrative over-the-counter permit the council can require notification so um for um with bees um there was uh we did receive some comments from the public who wanted to be notified if if their neighbor was going to to be keeping bees so we did

1:26:12create that that process through that the administrator through that administrative over-the-counter permit it would be very similar to um the the over-the-counter permit for chickens it's just an administrative check that the applicant is meeting all the requirements in the code however for B's

1:26:29it does require that extra step that all of the directly adjacent Property Owners would be sent to note a courtesy notice and with any of these I guess uh could they any of them be appealed to the the Planning Commission theoretically or is is it only the administrative use

1:26:48and the conditional use permits only the um the use permits would be appealable um the other the administrative over-the-counter permits are the um like I said they're not discretionary it's occur it would be more of a courtesy notice right so those activities would

1:27:06be allowed by right in the code um and so that's that's not appealable okay thank you and and I just wanted to no just roughly what your level of interest that you've received as a staff person of folks or community members who are interested in the kind of the varying

1:27:26all the different animals out there and just we get comments on the um you know support or um against the the proposed ordinance but I'm just curious as just potential um yeah community members who would want to engage this process what your sense of it is or your gauge of it I would say

1:27:48I probably receive uh about one roughly one inquiry a month um maybe you know one every six weeks about usually keeping chickens sometimes that that extends to keeping chickens and bees um so I would say bees are kind of the second most uh animal that we receive

1:28:11inquiries about keeping um and the other types of animals definitely definitely less um they're just uh like the the goats is um mostly something that's been addressed in the code because we've had inquiries in the past uh we actually have we did have a conditional use

1:28:31permit several years ago that was approved for goats um so it is something that people are interested just not nearly as many I would say not as nearly as many people as as seem to be interested in keeping chickens and bees okay great I think that's all the questions for Council for now so if we

1:28:48can go on to the public hearing comments from the public now thank you yes Carl Mason I'd like to thank you for your willingness to hear yet another comment from a citizen about chickens this has been a very long process but I think one that has with the patience has

1:29:17really paid off as has the hard work and and careful thought that has gone into it part of the Environmental Quality commission as well as Sean moss and yourselves um I think this the proposed animal ordinance is a very good one in that it allows people who are

1:29:35interested in sustainability and in promoting a local food culture to make El Cerrito Greener and a little more interesting I think the unanimous neighbor consent process is an excellent Innovation one that will also wind up being used in other areas city government and because it's a it's

1:29:57a real streamlined process for getting a good result I think with one small change this could be a really great ordinance and that small change would be to make better use of the unit of the unanimous neighbor consent process um because I think that would promote

1:30:16Community Building as things stand with regard to chickens at least the limits are set very low and this really precludes cooperation with neighbors if for example two Neighbors on contiguous properties both wanted to cooperate and have a flock of eight happy chickens living in

1:30:41one coop they really couldn't do this under this ordinance under this ordinance they have to have two flocks of four lonely chickens living in separate Coupes on separate sides of a fence and I think that that everybody including the chickens is better off if neighbors can cooperate

1:31:01like that I think the simplest way to do that would be to Simply remove the hard limit of six on the number of chickens that you can have in your backyard with the unanimous consent of your neighbors but why not trust Neighbors to let people have as many as seven

1:31:21or even eight chickens um I think if we're a little worried about it why don't we instead put a limit on the number of any amount of time have these unanimous consent Arrangements be limited to say five years and then be reassessed I think that would promote a lot more

1:31:39experimentation a lot more cooperation with relatively few consequences none that would be permanent okay um so I think with that with that change I think this could go from a great a good ordinance to a to a really great one thank you thank you next speaker please

1:31:58Ron Eggman I love the concept of happy chickens uh mayor Chang council members uh I'm Ron eggerman chair of the Environmental Quality committee uh at the dubious distinction of starting this whole process about almost three years ago um I just want to speak not only personally

1:32:29but on behalf of the eqc that I'm really thrilled that we're at this point right now and that the council has the courage to adopt an ordinance like this and I should I'm going to be really brief here um there's cities like Alameda Albany Berkeley Emeryville Lafayette Oakland Orinda San

1:33:01Jose Walnut Creek they all have animal ordinances that allow chickens and and bees I don't know about pigs and goats but I suspect they're in there someplace so I think there is a growing movement and I think it's great that El Cerrito is following suit and I'd like to

1:33:27comment on what council member Lyman talked about in terms of the four thousand square feet you know it there are a lot of smaller Lots sizes somewhat arbitrary yet getting consent from everybody you only need one person that you know your dog pooped on their lawn and even

1:33:51though you cleaned it up there hit you forever so perhaps you want to consider reducing that threshold to maybe three thousand um it's all relatively arbitrary so thank you for getting here and I hope by the end of the evening we have a revised ordinance thank you next speaker please Robin

1:34:13Mitchell my name is Robin Mitchell and I live at [address removed] and in general I'm really glad that you guys are considering the animal ordinance I think it's important that people be able to keep chickens and bees I have a question for someone I don't know who so right now do you have to

1:34:38have a city permit to have a dog or a cat yeah you have to have a County License a license but that's not a city permit so do you have to have a city permit to have a dog or a cat no so I just think that having to make people go through a formal permitting process for the sort of the standard

1:35:00minimum level of chickens um the bees is a little bit different because people are more threatened by the bees but it just seems like if you don't have to have a permit for cats and dogs I think it's a little bit heavy-handed to also have a to make people do permits for like three

1:35:16chickens I mean you don't have to agree with that but that's just my opinion and I think that dogs and cats are equally um you know an equal nuisance to people um so the other thing was this idea of getting notarized signatures from your neighbors I think is really going to be

1:35:34difficult and you know Rebecca had some alternative strategies it means individual people your individual neighbors have to go down and find a notary and pay for it I just don't I don't think it's going to be reasonable to do that and you need to figure out an alternative to that and the sanitation

1:35:50requirement you know saying that people have to clean their pens or whatever it is every single day again seems sort of overreaching by the city if you seems like it would be better that you say you want a certain result and people figure out how they get that result and if it

1:36:05means um you know they would just figure out different ways to do it and that the bottom line would be if the neighbors objected then you haven't met the result I mean that seems to be the main way that this would be enforced is if the neighbors object to what's going on then

1:36:20the people can't be doing what they're doing um so those are my comments thank you next speaker please no other speaker slips speakers okay back to council for discussion the Civil emotion yeah I've got a couple of I mean I know there's at least one topic that we wanted to talk about but

1:36:42the concept of this consent agreement having a sunset um and actually one of the other comments or quite questions that uh mayor you asked um you know once once they have whether it's the a use permit or a residential chick chicken clearance um and some and their neighbor moves out

1:37:10and and they move in and maybe it's a bee allergy that moves in is the Nate does the adjacent neighbor have to do some form of noticing that they have signed a consent agreement and the person who's now buying has to also sign that consent agreement so I actually like the idea of a consent

1:37:31agreement having time on it because properties do exchange hands over time um so just I want to toss that idea out there as something that I I thought that was a good addition from the public comment period I do want to go back to something that councilmember Jones said I looked back

1:37:53through this struck out text and it wasn't clear that um Birds weighing less than one half pound which a pigeon May easily do um isn't allowed under the current ordinance 708010 um you know because it doesn't say anything about being at large in the current ordinance so the

1:38:22um one pigeon keeper who lives at the North End of town that um you know you can see his pigeons flying around occasionally might actually be might actually be an allowable use today where it wouldn't be under the current proposed ordinance and I just wanted to make sure that I

1:38:41understood um that that might actually be a change in our ordinance and that we as council members all understood that that is a change that we're supporting so I just was curious about that and then um so I'll take I'll take a Council looks like he's ready to give us

1:39:03some guidance on that well I was just going to observe that if you go down to 708030 in the current code um it does um prohibit the keeping of birds regardless of size outside of a home or within 20 feet of a property line presumably whoever is keeping pigeons is

1:39:22likely most likely keeping them outside of the home and therefore regardless of size it's currently a prohibited activity yeah I mean they may be going out of their attic and going straight up and not you know but you're they're being kept I mean unless they are being kept in the Attic they're most

1:39:37like the coop is most likely outside of the home um okay so then going back to the concept of uh a sunset Clause I mean I I am curious what how does uh you know when somebody has the right to keep these animals is it Perpetual even if all of the neighbors who had

1:39:58signed the consent agreement have now moved on um well let me start by saying that uh use permits have to run with the land legally according to um according to law so um those types of permits um how you know if you secure a use permit um to keep a certain type of animal

1:40:26um or as an exception to a section of this code um and you know the the owner of that property sells the property um the the permit stays with that property so any any um future owner would would uh enjoy that that use permit as well um unless the um the permit I believe

1:40:48after a period of two years of of inaction the the uh the Planning Commission can revoke the permit but they would have to take an action to do that um the administrative over-the-counter type permits um Can sunset or can um they can't expire at uh you know when

1:41:07the property is sold they can expire after a certain period of time um it would just have to be stipulated on the permit and the residential chicken clearance document it says it's shall mean and over-the-counter administrative check to ensure the chickens are kept in

1:41:28compliance with this title is it up is it is that a permit is that a use permit or it's not clear to me in the definition of x it doesn't say permit so I'm just trying to figure out what what that document is and in this case the um the those over-the-counter permits are

1:41:48for animals that are allowed by right so no those those could not expire because those those animals are allowed by right in the code however the exception um through the unanimous neighbor consent process is not a discretionary permit and that could that exception

1:42:06could could expire if the permit stipulated so okay thank you question or discussion uh could I could we just discuss this one point just a little bit since we're since we have Sean's mind on it um having to do with the so when would that be determined during the

1:42:34administrative process that you're going to go through between the time that the ordinance is acted upon and April um or does this need to be decided right now and it be included in the ordinance language I believe the City attorney can correct me if I'm wrong but I believe we could

1:42:51do it either way we could include it in the ordinance language or we could include it on on the permit form if the if the council gave us Direction tonight to uh to do something to that effect so I guess I'm I'm a little confused I look at G which is chickens number two Arabic

1:43:07two limitation on numbers the title a maximum of four chickens are permitted on properties of at least four thousand square feet that contains single family residential dwelling units as long as the property owner holds a valid residential chicken clearance what is the function of that I mean that

1:43:28that first portion of that sentence is by right theoretically what is what is the purpose of the residential chicken clearance it's to ensure that the applicant is meeting all of the requirements of this code so in this case it would be the the location of the chicken coop and then well it would be a

1:43:45a check uh about the location of the chicken coop about the lot size um because the lot size determines how many how many chickens are allowed um and then um also the the number of chickens to make sure that that they were within the number of chickens that was allowed on

1:44:06that size lot okay so a clearance is not a permit it's a check it's like a dog license is that correct correct okay well no because dog license they don't check anything well they they're not going to check anything you can just come in and draw a photo of your lot and say my poop is 20 feet from

1:44:28the well we yeah we we wouldn't do any inspections most exactly but uh but you know similar for for a fence clearance right now you you you have to uh bring in an app you have to sign an application form um you know that I believe says that that everything you've submitted is is

1:44:46accurate and truthful and then you have to submit drawings that show the location of your fence and the height of your friends so that so that staff can check and make sure that that proposed fence meets the requirements of the code so it would be a very similar process

1:45:00you would um you know we we would we would look up your property to verify the size of it um and then perhaps the the applicant would have to to submit a drawing um so that the the location of the chicken coop could be verified and it could be a hand drawing correct

1:45:16okay so under under 5A exceptions then clearance is also issued for for both exceptions 5A and 5B which is a conditional use from it you'd still need a residential chicken clearance document issued well as part of the use permit process you would have to submit

1:45:35drawings and a project description with your application so all of those things and then also the the resolution of the use permit would would determine the the standards that that you were required to meet for that particular use permit so you you most likely wouldn't wouldn't

1:45:55also need a a residential chicken clearance because all of those things would be covered by the use permit okay no thoughts well I think it's related yeah I'm not that's if that's what you're looking for um I agree with what Rebecca said um regarding the um getting a notarized signature on on does

1:46:28this fall into that area same area I think it's related at least it does I mean I was seeking are seeking input on the concept of having a time limit on these uh I guess clearances and and I'm and I'm I'm just discussing it I'm not certain that we need one okay it was

1:46:46brought up by the public the discussion okay yeah okay then I'll I'm happy to give a comment on that I I um I liked I'm a little bit in Miss Mitchell's camp where I want this process to be as near to cats and dogs as possible but recognizing that this is a new area that

1:47:01we're breaking ground in I want to be as similar to our surrounding communities as possible and we want to make it as easy as residents as possible and given the uh process that they'd be asked to go through that is coming to City Hall and presenting a document and signing a

1:47:16form that says yes I'm going to comply with your four chicken Rule and your 20 feet from your fence I think that they should have to do that once during the time of having these animals similar to a dog owner you just get your license once um so I'm I'm not in favor of a time

1:47:32limit actually dog licenses are you can get a one year two year you know three-year license so you actually have to demonstrate that your dog is meeting all of the shots and and everything as well and so there are recurring license fees that you have to pay even with those

1:47:49pets so to to the the chickens we get a one-time payment when they come in and that's it and they they get off for for the life of the property owner where a dog you've got to pay you know 50 to 60 bucks every year um to the county so it's not it's not parallel and well it I I I don't know as

1:48:09much about dogs clearly I guess but but I would say that holding you know chickens those are only on your private property whereas dogs are allowed to be in public parks and they're allowed to be in public places and they're imposing more costs on the public whereas

1:48:19chickens are kind of confined to your private property and the reason where you go through the process is just to inform the city that um you're aware of our of our laws and our ordinances and and then we have a record of where all the chickens are okay we still on that okay on the uh the

1:48:40time limit or the time I I'm particularly concerned about if the neighbor if if we were to do this solely because if somebody moves in moves out and moves in suddenly a person who has the permit now would have to redo the whole thing I think the opposite should be I think a person who

1:49:02moves in should check and make sure that they're comfortable with the neighborhood surroundings before buying the house and I I think that the uh consent should state with the life of the owner as long as it still conforms they still conform if they don't if they try to stretch it then the

1:49:24consent can be taken away so I think on that one that's how I feel on that as far as the notary I'm I'm uh in favor of uh simplifying the that an alternative be made to verify I think it is important I think staff though brings up a good point it is important to verify that there is indeed

1:49:49unanimous consent um so something like council member benzanini said I think would be would be good to follow some of the other comments I have here um [Music] I would just Echo that I would support not having a time limit and yeah I do have one related comment though

1:50:23um somebody said something about uh we could just uh mail something to the address but the address to be mailed to would be of the owner not the that's a good point right correct and just as a check a notary the reason we came up with a notary is number one that's a

1:50:40very good and sort of third-party way to verify that each person is who they say they are that someone isn't trying to forge a signature or anything like that and secondly we do have notary service available at City Hall and I could say with confidence that we have done we've

1:50:55required notaries for other permits that we've given and we don't charge for that so I would be willing to say that we would provide a free notary service for those people if they wanted to come down to City Hall and do it here but it requires people both parties to come

1:51:10down it would but it would also be one of the things that we could offer hmm the the other thing that would concern me is it would be typically during a work day and it might be that people wouldn't really care but they don't want to come down here or go anywhere else uh to get

1:51:29a notary that that worried me to and um so I'd rather have a process where um a a neighbor who's amenable to have somebody having chickens say really doesn't have to go way out of their way in order to support it they can just sign something we do that on a many other processes

1:51:55we do for example if somebody wants a speed bump in their neighborhood we people can just go around and collect signatures we you know we don't even mail it to any anything to anybody so we've got other things where we take people's word and um seems like this would be a good one

1:52:14too and do you want to weigh on time limit real quick before I go back to council member Jones for um I I don't like the idea of a time limit because if what I what occurs to me is that if somebody had some chickens for example and um they had had them for five years and

1:52:34all of a sudden they've got a a mean neighbor who move in are they gonna have to get rid of their chickens who maybe at this point they are really attached to that doesn't seem fair to me um so that that's the downside I think of doing that is that that can always

1:52:51happen great so it sounds like we we agree on the no time limits for the permitting or for the clearance check and um and then as far as the the getting input from the neighbors whatever process that facilitates facilitates an easier than a more onerous process would be

1:53:15better so back to councilman Jones for other companies yeah yeah I have some comments but I would like since we're in the mode of taking things up and um I would like to talk about this moratorium on uh moratorium that actually maybe I missed it but I didn't see that in the

1:53:31agenda bill for one but um that we're waiting till April 1st 2012 and I'll take it on faith that the staff needs that time to produce a very good uh procedure but my concern is we're going to go almost six months without enforcement I I don't think that's right

1:53:53um if somebody has a problem we need to take care of it we don't need to tell them come back in six months with your problem so I would I would uh I would support no more tauren or if you really feel there has to be a moratorium the last month but I see no need for a moratorium if a

1:54:17person has a problem it needs to be resolved in my opinion um do you want to go ahead okay I have a question about the more dream I thought we already had one no no okay well I'll just make a comment since okay I I think it's okay to do that I I don't want to I actually thought we did have a

1:54:40moratorium so um and I know that there are people out there who have uh chickens um I haven't actually seen any that I know to be currently in town but people do tell me about it in a sort of secretive way and sometimes and um I don't want them to have to get rid

1:54:59of it just because in because in six months we're gonna allow it and um I I think that in many cases they're pets and um you know I would certainly hate to live in a situation where I had a pet and that was happening to me so I I think that a moratorium is a good

1:55:22idea and the fact that we need to wait this six months I'm I accept staff at their word and saying that we need that time but that's that's sort of to me uh our responsibility not the um animal owner's responsibility I I just see Karen wanting to make a yeah clarification it is true there it

1:55:44is true that the um idea of a moratorium was not put in our agenda bill this was actually among discussion among us today um there's there's two reasons we would suggest a moratorium first of all we would sort of want to provide as council member Abelson alluded to a bit of an

1:55:59amnesty for people that we know are out there that actually are currently um wanting to that have one of these types of animals we would try to help bring them into compliance and not punish them um within that time frame because if the city council passes this ordinance it it

1:56:16seemed to us that there's that is a clear intent that this will be enacted eventually and so we just thought that in the interim while we were trying to educate people that we could bring people into compliance if they are not into compliance now without any penalty

1:56:29to them so that was that was the main reason we we discussed suggesting a moratorium on that okay quick question actually it's not a question it's a same topic um isn't is the terminology actually accurate shouldn't if if I have a chicken in my house I actually would

1:56:47want the ordinance to take effect immediately because currently I'm illegal potentially right so if the audience goes into effect immediately then then I'm legal the only thing is I got to come and get the whatever clearance permit or whatever so shouldn't it be

1:57:05effective immediately you know 30 days after the second reading um with enforcement that's delayed right because that's essentially we want if I have if I have a check and I want the new ordinance effective immediately because then I can't you know I'm not breaking the law

1:57:24anymore but enforcement is what's is what we want to delay we were also looking at the time frame it's November right now this would go into effect sometime in December probably during our city hall closure and we because we'll be closed for the holidays as we usually are and so we

1:57:41sort of didn't want to start the new year off with a whole bunch of people here waiting in line for chicken clearances that we haven't fully fleshed out the fees and developing all of the forms and processes yet so that was also a consideration it was a public education process as well as allowing

1:57:58everyone to again it's term potentially terminology I'm saying the ordinance would go into effect on whenever the second reading is with enforcement of the new ordinance being deferred yeah that we haven't determined what the fees would be yet we need to come back to you

1:58:16on that correct that would be part of the enforcement would I'm just trying to figure out if this is just determined because because effectively if we if if we if we were to defer the effective date to April 1 as recom as put into our current agenda bill then all of these people are still

1:58:33they're illegal today legal today yes but with the moratorium we wouldn't be enforcing the current ordinance correct so so we wouldn't be we wouldn't be enforcing any ordinance right correct with an eye toward this ordinance going into effect so that we could bring

1:58:50people into compliance and be able to educate people as to what this ordinance would entail and also have time to develop the new permit processes okay so where's the relief I'm asking my colleagues so where are the where is the relief for somebody a neighbor who's

1:59:07having a problem with a neighbor over chickens over goats over ease bees whatever where where's the relief for that person you can't ju in my opinion you can't just say Okay We're Not Gonna We're not gonna have any enforcement we're not going to send our code enforcer out

1:59:29nobody's going to go out we're just going to tell the person sorry come back April 1st we'll be happy to help you I don't think that's right too maybe what I was thinking is Greg's uh if we if we keep if this takes effect well I know I I know I don't know the answer

1:59:52I think how that would fit into my thing have we been treating current I guess we've been we've been taking complaints on a case-by-case basis and what level of complaints would you say we've been getting we haven't gotten many yeah I'm not aware of many recently

2:00:09um and and people that have called recently with inquiries wanting to keep animals like chickens and bees have advised them to to wait until today see what the council adopts and then uh you know after I told I've told several people to call me tomorrow and I'll let

2:00:26you know what the what the new process is going to be I guess I'm not too concerned about numbers as much as nuisance and disruption we had at least one person at their last council meeting that we took this up was complaining uh and I don't know that he's had relief

2:00:45yet I was going to wait till after tonight's meeting and goes see but um so I know there's there's at least there was one person who made it public uh testimony and that I could remember anyway right in that aspect of the ordinance you know would is much better

2:01:04and clearer than the existing ordinance so that's why in my mind we should the effective date of the ordinance should be as soon as it goes into effect and the processes in the information campaign you know and someone comes in says Hey I want to get a permit I want to get a

2:01:21chicken clearance you say oh well guess what you can come back in a couple of months but if somebody comes as council member Jones is saying somebody comes in and says they're having noise problems we at least have a clear enforcement method in the in the ordinance where our

2:01:35current one is not as clear I think the intent maybe I can try saying this a different way is if going I think we're trying to address council member abelson's comment is if if you currently have I guess what you would describe as a non-conforming use you have chickens you have presumably

2:01:56let's say chickens our goal in not in setting the effective day back is we are not going to enforce Those portions that will be in effect when this becomes an effective date if you have a nuisance we we are not going to suspend code enforcement um and so if under

2:02:17you know either current or the current ordinance or the future ordinance if if there's if someone if a neighbor is coming in and complaining we will address those complaints as a code enforcement problem but we are not going to go out and on day one enforce because we're not

2:02:35ready the concern we had in sending the effective date back was we don't want the opposite to happen where people who may have chickens on day one want to be in compliance and we can't get them into compliance because we don't have the forms we don't have we don't know what

2:02:52to tell we don't want to send them away now and say okay it's effective but come back in two months but you're not really in compliance anyway um so I mean yes some of it involves discretion but but our new sense of amen and our health and safety codes are still in play and right now as far as I

2:03:09know I mean there's no really outstanding uh code enforcement issues related to this so what we're saying is um so it's a partial moratorium if somebody has a complaint we're going to go out we're not going to tell them wait till April 1st and I think well I took it is when you said there was a

2:03:32moratorium there's a moratorium um so we're how do we explain that one we could suggest a moratorium on the parts of the animal ordinance that don't have to do with nuisances and and or anything that is adopted by the county code which also includes nuisance language and animal noise

2:03:52language and those things that is still in effect and that actually we can't really control because if someone calls Animal Control they would come and they would seek that out so we could clarify that the portions of the ordinance the current animals ordinance that are would be not

2:04:08be subject to code enforcement would be those concerning keeping of animals only actually my only concern is that we have a method to take care of complaints and that we're consistent I'm very happy to leave it up to staff to to set whatever we're going to do so

2:04:28long as that's covered and we're consistent and we will go out okay that's fine just so long as that's covered I appreciate the direction okay I just want to say a few things uh we had a appreciate the efforts of the residential input over the last two and a half to three years uh the

2:04:50Environmental Quality Committee in the commission for holding public input sessions and hearings and passing on their comments and findings to the council and to this process and also the staff and the research of the issue and I was very impressed um with the depth in which uh staff went to

2:05:11to consult with experts and and other people in it to get and other cities so that we could have uh what is what we asked for which was a full complete ordinance and and I think we've achieved that whether we tweak it do whatever I think the uh the shell and the uh overall effort here was a it was

2:05:34a very good one because I was approaching this exercise based on the public hearings in in our session here that it was evident to me that a middle ground was warranted on this and I didn't know that I kind of thought that this was going to be one that we would come into

2:05:54and we weren't going to make anybody happy um but so long as we had something fair and workable and it gave something at least something for everyone I thought that that would be a good effort and I think that actually exceeds it a little bit here I do like the

2:06:14ordinance as a so it conforms to the county as well as the state so we're in compliance so there's no confusion Within jurisdictions um I I like the uh unanimous consent Provisions I think that was uh very good way of approaching approaching that because what I was

2:06:36looking for was a system where you would actually notify the residents uh maybe on a courtesy basis but I really feel that you cut out a lot of problems if you let people know beforehand what you're trying to do and you can address whatever concerns is there so that the

2:06:55end result is both well everyone's happy in the neighborhood and we can still live with the spirit of why this is here before I agree with you the current Ordnance is out of date is not up to uh what the the the the community wants so I I'm glad we're taking care of that and on the question

2:07:18of the animal Slaughter uh I'm not crazy about it I I think it's a um I'll go with the city attorney on this so we there are other forces involved that we we have to comply with um so I I would like that and I also like what a council member Abelson had suggested that we add to it

2:07:40so with that I'm happy with the way it's turned out and some of the adjustments we've made here tonight first I have a question um when you were talking Sean about um this uh the permit the permit would go with the property to me that means that after the current

2:08:07owner of the property is gone and there's a new owner then it goes with then then it's still an effect right so how does that new owner find out about this that's correct that would that would be only for use permits um because that is that is required that they run with the

2:08:26land um and I I suppose the uh you know the the seller of the property would have to notify the the buyer of the property that that use permit was uh that that use permit was had been secured um a lot of time people when they're when they're buying a property will will

2:08:45come to City Hall and they will you know view the entire property file for that property or they'll print it out and take it with them and if they did that that use permit would be would be in the the property file and so they would have a record of that also well sometimes I

2:09:01mean I can I think I mean sometimes the property changes hand because the um the first owner died so they wouldn't be able to notify anybody about anything is there a way that it could be I mean what is is there a way it can be attached so that the um the new owner is more likely to find it

2:09:24out because I would certainly want them to know sooner rather than later yeah I think it would make for better um I think it just would make for a better outcome off the top of my head I can't think of much because the the city is not there's there's no notification

2:09:46required that comes to the city when a property is sold so uh most of the time uh we you know we have no idea that the property's been sold and so we wouldn't be able to to notify the new owner um so other than um you know other than the previous owner informing them or or that owner

2:10:05doing doing research on their own I I can't really think of a way to do that I don't know that I'm asking if this happened I'm just asking a question here is it attached to the the deed to the property or something I barely know what I'm talking about here um there are certain types of permits

2:10:22that are um use permits typically aren't um but even so even if it was part of the deed that would still require some some research on the the new owner's part so um I think it would be kind of this the same type of research to be required okay and um I want to associate myself with a

2:10:44council member Jones's comments on how much we appreciate the work that was done on uh this particular project it's been a very long haul and we've had a lot of people come out and I think staff has done a fantastic job and I think our community has also done a fantastic job because people have

2:11:06had varying opinions about it but everyone's presented and conducted themselves in a very professional manner I think and it makes me feel really good to be associated with this community and so I want to thank everybody involved I think I especially want to thank staff because

2:11:26they really had to do a lot of research and they had to sort of think outside the box to put it mildly to come up with a lot of these answers on a topic that we're not so used to dealing with so thank you I'd like to Echo those comments and thanks staff tremendously

2:11:43um it's certainly for your patients tonight as I tested the ordinance I just want to make sure it meets a fairness test and that we can stand up in front of all of our constituents whether they're Pro or against this topic and say we did come out with something that

2:11:59actually does benefit the community does have balancing points to it and we can demonstrate that it it probably will increase property values so thank you I'll just be brief um thank you Sean you'll be our animals expert for a little while here um if you want to continue to build your

2:12:18career around this uh and I wanted to I'm very happy with the way the ordinance turned out um Union's consent uh process I think is a really good one and I and I was listening very closely to Mr Mr Mason's comments that he made and I'm kind of of his mind where this

2:12:33is a great opportunity for community building and wouldn't it be great if you can have four happy chickens on one lot or or four lonely chickens but on you could yell neighbors together maybe you could have 16 happy chickens um but but unfortunately thinking that

2:12:47through that just would seems like you could get into a mold of concentric circles where you're constantly notifying more and more neighbors around you um so I'm really happy with what we've struck here because it seems very it's very streamlined to me and it's elegant

2:13:02and this will go into effect in April and I I would imagine that as we have more experience with producing these permits and and getting into this sort of process that will get better and better at it and we can see um what sort of creativity our community brings to us after it's an effect

2:13:19um so I'm happy to to to be in support of this and I one other thing this is this is one of those things that we've done that I feel is all about balancing and I'm very happy that you know we're balancing the rights of of one individual to not live to live next to

2:13:32something they don't want to live next to but on the other hand we have to balance the rights of those who live on a on their property wanting to do things on their property that they um that are causing minimal harm to others and are really giving them a lot of psychic joy and

2:13:46um green benefits and those sorts of things so I'm really happy with the way we've we've balanced those two those two sometimes competing rights and I think we've come down with an ordinance that we that we feel like we can enforce um and that those who are going to

2:14:00participate in this enforcement process won't feel like it's overly onerous so I appreciate that which I moved to approve by title and wave any further reading I'm sorry council member lemon there's so oh sure go ahead you want to make sure that they've got all the edits well actually

2:14:18um I wanted to go back and address councilmember abelson's Edition regarding Slaughter um I'm sorry to introduce this um late but I thought it would come up otherwise but since you seem to be on the verge of making a motion I wanted to raise it now um so and I don't want to make this

2:14:31complicated since it's already somewhat late in the evening but it is actually a kind of a complicated issue um so as you're likely aware um ritual sacrifice of animals is a recognized component of religious practice um and that's one of the things identified in the staff report that we

2:14:50struggled with trying to come up with the right policy for um so the case law which is United States Supreme Court case law is not incredibly helpful in this area to some degree because in the cases um at issue there was direct targeting of the Santeria religion where it was

2:15:09very clear that the laws that had been adopted at the local level were targeting this group and prohibiting their practices but the practices at issue were actually um and ritual animal sacrifice in public um so when I looked at council member abelson's proposed wording what partly

2:15:28jumped out at me was that it basically requires that animal Slaughter be conducted an area not visible outside the subject property which in essence requires people who maybe slaughtering animals as part of religious practice to do so in a manner that they basically

2:15:47have to hide from from the view of their neighbors um and I don't really know without more time to look at it what the implications of that are for from the first amendment perspective um you know in addition to the religious practice there's overlapping case law

2:16:05about the degree to which government can regulate what appears on television during times that our children children are more likely to be watching and unsupervised it's a these first amendment cases are are complex they have overlap with each other and they require a fair amount of analysis so

2:16:24um I I think which is only a long way of saying that if the council is inclined to introduce the ordinance with the wording that council member Abelson has proposed I would actually suggest that you defer introducing it so that we can do a little bit more analysis of it to

2:16:41ensure that the the council is not walking into potential First Amendment violation by doing this and I mean the real problem is that I just don't know how to advise you on this because I haven't had enough time to really look at it even though I've been trying to do

2:16:54some research as the meeting has gone on tonight I just haven't really been able to to narrow it down and really sort of come up with a clear conclusion about what the implications might be can can staff read the the statement again F the proposed f yes just give me one second

2:17:16any slaughtering of animals not otherwise prohibited by state law or Contra Costa County code shall occur on private property and be conducted in an area not visible outside the subject property comment could we add I don't know if it would help if we added language in there

2:17:41that um excluded religious practice from that well but then you're you're you're you're treating non-religious speak potential non-religious speech differently from religious speech if if somebody wanted to could we say freedom of speech well I'm basically yeah this

2:18:02is this is exactly why why the recommendation in the staff report from us ultimately was let's just continue to use the nuisance abatement tools that are available and take it on a case-by-case basis because this is exactly the problem that we had analyzing the issue was we we understood

2:18:18the direction from the council at the last issue you wanted to address animal Slaughter so first we start with um okay what are the what are the religious exercise implications of that and then we start trying to think about how can we write around that too to make

2:18:31clear that really all we're trying to do is ensure that any killing of animals for consumption is done in a sanitary manner while not trying to get to any sort of protected First Amendment activity and it just gets so difficult to write that you almost can't write it

2:18:45and so I actually was not not thinking of any the way it was stated in in the staff report was not what I actually was thinking about what I actually was thinking about was small children being exposed from their home say to the slaughter of animals in their you know

2:19:02in their own environment and I understand that but the other way of viewing the way it's currently written and proposed is that you're you would essentially be requiring practitioners of a certain religious Faith to on their own property do so in a way that nobody

2:19:21on the surrounding property could observe them okay I think we do need to I think maybe Circle through the council to figure out number one do we want to move it forward without this condition and if we do want to keep it then um but but I think we need to I haven't

2:19:37heard from everyone about what their thoughts are I would like to hear that and then add my thoughts as well I'm happy to I have one question that I'm happy to add some thoughts what is that what is our current law if somebody wants what what is somebody allowed to

2:19:52do at this point could somebody Slaughter an animal to eat it in their backyard today without being in an enclosure you mean under the existing code not under what's proposed exactly if I'm remembering correctly there's there's no city ordinance that addresses it um and

2:20:09so basically um if there were a problem with it it would really as we were proposing in in the ordinance it would be a nuisance abatement issue basically is it being done in a way that's unsanitary or causing noise or other factors that that um we can already address through

2:20:24existing tools that have nothing to do directly with the killing of animals okay and what's being proposed is basically echoing what is going what is currently um the law today exactly okay so if we were to pass the ordinance without Council abelson's additional language we

2:20:41would be just continuing the current law on slaughtering of animals for con for consumption or for other purposes it would yes in essence yes um to expand on that slightly um the approach would be to clarify in the ordinance that um that the the current that it that

2:20:59standards from other places in the code would apply to to the to the solder of animals the sanitation portions of and health and safety okay so the current ordinance before us without Council abelson's language would give us would would stresses even further what our current policy is or

2:21:18what our current law is um regulating health and safety and sanitation when slaughtering animals takes place correct okay um given that I am not in favor of having our City attorney do it continue to do additional work wordsmithing something that we that's that is

2:21:37bordering on First Amendment issues um especially given that what we're proposing is not really a change and it's not relaxing anything with regard to slaughtering of animals so my in my opinion at this point unless somebody brings up some other issues I'm not aware of is that we should

2:21:55move forward with the ordinance without the move forward voting on The ordinance without the additional language on the location of slaughtering well I yeah I like the idea of deferring I I do think it's an important issue and we may not ultimately we may not be able to

2:22:13work around it or satisfy um what council member abelson's concern is and I'm echoing I guess um but just because it's not in the ordinance now doesn't mean that we should take a look at it I whether it's in the ordinance or not if this ever was to happen you can bet that the

2:22:36complaints would come in and the police would be handling it and people would be here asking us for relief so I would like to um explore that question and see if we can address it or we can't address it and then I think it's clear to the public um where we stand and why we stand on

2:22:56that [Music] well I have it I've previously expressed my concerns about egregious slaughtering you know basically beheading a chicken and watching it run around that's that's unacceptable and that is that's where we were trying to approach with this particular type of Edition language not

2:23:17necessarily trying to squelch anyone's First Amendment rights or or any other type of Arrangements I could go either way obviously we are successfully um policing this matter currently with our current law that's silent on this issue um you know so making no change was the same but

2:23:43clearly um you know we all are trying to prevent um Miss appropriate uh butchering and slaughtering of of uh animals um so I can I can go either way on this because it's been working so I personally feel like we um so when I first heard the issue I was definitely

2:24:07feeling the visceral you know you know my imagination going crazy with all the the liquids involved with with this um activity but I think in further hearing what the um our City attorney has to say about First Amendment rights I I don't I don't feel like it's necessary for us to

2:24:29include it because we have a strong nuisance abatement clause and that you know essentially it's it's it's to get into that level of detail even if the cops came they would still you know there's I don't I think I don't think we'd discover anything new about what we could do to control

2:24:50um how you know the context of it other than deferring to the new sense um you know which includes noise which includes you know sanitary sanitary uh conditions so I personally feel like on that issue I'm willing to to move forward uh without deferring um and studying it further

2:25:10yeah come on first of all right now we wouldn't be experiencing this situation anyway because when we don't even allow chickens right other than the little tiny ones well somebody somebody could still go buy a chicken someplace else right bring it home and and right but we act we

2:25:29don't in fact allow them right now so I think that the concept that it's I think I think we need to remember that the other question I had though is if we did defer it would it uh change the date and assume we just assuming we just heard it less than a month or less

2:25:47um would that change the date that we would actually implement this which was uh I might just say April well if you I just want I think it's also helpful generally to sort of review this um so tonight you'd be waving the first reading and introducing the ordinance at your next meeting the

2:26:04ordinance would be adopted typical schedule as it would not go into effect 30 days until after that so basically the end of this calendar year we're talking about deferring it for three months um so it would go into effect on April 1st um so what what's important to know is that

2:26:21that once the ordinance is introduced substantive changes between in between readings requires reintroduction um now that would not ultimate now if you wanted to say introduce it with your proposed wording um I could go and do some more analysis of it at the next meeting

2:26:40um if you if the conclusion was this is actually a fairly risky thing to do from a First Amendment perspective you could delete that and then reintroduce it with the changes and then do the second reading in early December it would go in and then you'd still have the time until

2:26:57April first until it went into effect you just have an additional step in there just to lay out one possible path forward I guess yeah I I hear your concerns both of you I mean that was my my gut reaction about the just the visual visually disturbing uh potential scene

2:27:18but it's it does feel like we would come to the same conclusion and and given that we have you know it's it's just a matter of opportunity cost and time for ourselves on the council looking forward through the end of the year as well as um you know our um City attorney time as well but so why

2:27:36don't we take a straw vote see where we stand on it okay who voting on so so just right now the the idea of you before or move tonight I I would like to move this forward tonight without that language so that we can move this forward I wouldn't also like to move forward me also

2:27:56no no that's all right hmm but as long as we're going through and making sure that we're getting correct the correct uh motion moved I just want to make sure that we're striking um use permit required under letter I other birds probably It should read similar to

2:28:20H and just say other birds birds that are kept and you can get rid of the line change that line uh return there and if I remember what staff said we would be striking the second pair second sentence under honeybees one which is the sense that starts the following

2:28:40situations require a conditional use permit and ends at the very end that contains single-family resident dwelling units I believe that's what you were deleting there correct um and certainly we should all recognize that uh staff did give us a a version that does strike one goat

2:28:57shall be permitted per 7 500 square foot of property in letter M number two and that it modified the section in section 7.12.010 the current um county code that's referenced is 416 hyphen 4.402 um I don't recall any other changes that were proposed or discussed or we

2:29:26discussed all the changes but know that changes are going to be proposed in my motion want to speak to one last couple oh Carl uh the resident Mr Mason's comment about the the desire to aggregate I mean the um chicken coops amongst Neighbors From what I understand the current way

2:29:47we've proposed it to read is that you could go through a unanimous consent process and you could Aggregate and go beyond the five foot minimum buffer to the property lines as well as go you know modify the the the 20 foot minimum distance to dwelling unit so that's

2:30:08that's through the administrative or unanimous consent process so it's it's not as onerous as going through the full conditional use but at least as it sounds like we you would be able to do that I I just wanted to clarify I don't think the ordinance in its current

2:30:23language would preclude that from happening right I don't know I don't read it that way it's per property right not a combination you don't there's nothing that says that they can combine properties into one and raise as many chickens as they want if they if not not oh sorry not speaking to the

2:30:44number of chickens so it's still I'm in favor of keeping you know four maximum on uh the you know I think it's the the five thousand or um yeah five minimum five thousand square foot or or minimum four thousand and but if you had two two property owners who both wanted to put their

2:31:06chickens together and they both you know got unanimous consent to do that from what I read you can do that if you if everybody agreed to it so it wouldn't you couldn't exceed the number but not the number like on a property line for example you could a shared agreement

2:31:27right I don't think this precludes that a land use things I mean my understanding before my understanding is that the coop could straddle the property line but only the right number of chickens could be out during the day on each person's property so even if there was I don't know enough code

2:31:47enforcement to enforce that exactly um I moved okay I moved to approve by title and waive any further reading an ordinance of the city of El Cerrito amending Title VII animals of the El Cerrito Municipal Code by amending chapter 7.04 County regulations adding a new chapter

2:32:087.06 definitions and repealing and reenacting chapter 7.08 keeping of animals and chapter 7.12 dogs second all those in favor please say aye aye sounds unanimous we have adopted our animal ordinance congratulations and thank you everyone your thoughtful comments

2:32:38so we can move on to item 7B which is 7B continued discussion of City Charter thank you so this next item is to consider possible next steps and provide Direction on the potential development of a city Charter which could include any of the following options number one

2:33:16deferring the item number two Expediting the process or three including a charter review as part of a larger strategic planning process okay we're just with I sorry I'm just waiting for the sir but I can go ahead and start before the while they get that started um and I'm going to to begin the

2:33:38presentation and the city manager will uh will follow me um just to um briefly review where we are um on October 3rd city manager and I um made a presentation to the council um with a general overview of the differences between um Charter cities and general law cities

2:33:56uh the process for becoming a charter cities some of the significant issues um that are involved in um Charter cities their nature and and public controversy uh at the conclusion of that um and the council's discussion um the council asked us to bring back a little bit more detailed information

2:34:17about the additional Revenue raising options available to Charter cities as well as their greater latitude regarding land use regulation they also the council also asked for a discussion of options for how to proceed and the timing of how that would occur and as

2:34:36well asked for some discussion about about costs so we're that's basically where what we're going to do for you tonight is cover the revenue and land use issues um that's what I'm going to cover with city managers then going to talk about the options for how to proceed if that's

2:34:55what the council would like to do and the costs for doing that and then the conclusion of that will there will of course be time for the council to discuss this item further so just to move into the first issue which was um the additional Revenue raising powers of

2:35:11Charter cities and most of this is addressed in the staff report and I don't want to the labor was already there at length but um just to give a very general overview of it General law City's power to raise revenue is mostly defined by Statute and by um it's to somewhat to some degree by

2:35:33the police Powers but it's also highly constrained by state law and in many cases in most cases requires a direct authorization from the state to act and that that state legislation defines precisely about how um though about how a general law City can proceed what it can do with the

2:35:52money um and and how to uh what the process is like um examples of that include um that the landscaping and lighting Act of 1972 the benefit Assessment Act of 1982 and the Mello ruse Community facilities act um are all sort of very common tools that that General law cities use for

2:36:16assessing property and levying taxes but each of those state laws defines a process says what the money can be used for and tells cities how to go about the process of calculating how much that can be and generosities have to follow those procedures precisely um

2:36:38in contrast Charter law cities can basically use assessment Powers taxing powers and fee Powers um with outside of those constraints by basically creating their own process to do each of those things so if it wants to Levy an assessment Charter Charter City can Define its own process for

2:37:00levying assessments and stay within that process what the money can be used for um additionally for example Charter law cities have the ability as we talked about at some length at the last meeting to Levy a uh real property transfer tax and um in an area that um many cities use

2:37:19which is business Improvement districts Charter law cities have a little bit more leeway to to Define um what those districts will be able to do with the revenue that's raised from the assessments on on business or or business licensees um however it's not as though Charter law

2:37:41cities are completely unconstrained in that area um because uh proposition 218 and the more recent proposition 26 are both Constitutional Amendments um and there's therefore those apply to Charter law cities as well so um for example regarding assessments the same substantive and procedural

2:38:01requirements that the constitution sets forth still apply to Charter cities so for example that the sort of gen the the three basic rules of special assessments are under prop 218 um you have to separate special benefit benefit from General benefit in other words

2:38:22um when you want to Levy an assessment you have to say well this is what we're going to use the money for properties will the properties who are paying the assessments will get special benefits from those Services um and but there will also be benefits to the general public from doing so

2:38:39the amount of the assessment can therefore be based only on the special benefits that properties receive and the total amount of the assessment can't exceed the cost of providing the services and all of those requirements apply to Charter law cities so to try to sort of help you understand

2:38:54what that really means is a charter city is constrained by those constitutional requirements but having gotten having gone through that process um a charter City can can use the assessment Revenue um for unrestrained purposes um at least relative to state law that

2:39:16would otherwise limit what a what a general velocity can do with it so if the state law said you can use this Assessment Act to pay for um Road improvements a charter law City could use the assessment for any purpose it would have to be defined in a locally enacted rule but it could be done for

2:39:35any purpose I think it's important to point out though that one of the real tricks here is that even that is not entirely unlimited because the requirement that um that properties be assessed only for special benefit means that even a charter City can't Levy an assessment

2:40:00for General benefits so what that means in Practical terms is um police and fire are of General benefit throughout the city you meet might be able to construct a scenario under which there is enhanced policing in a particular area and you would be able to show that the the additional increment

2:40:22of policing is of special benefit to the properties that are assessed and you would be able to Levy an assessment to pay for that but you would not be able to make Property Owners pay for the entire cost of policing in the city because there are General benefits to

2:40:36the services that are provided and that is true for Charter cities as well as general law cities um procedurally there are some additional requirements for assessments and taxes in terms of how they can be approved um and to the extent that those are set out in prop 218 they're also going to

2:40:56apply to Charter cities but there are also there's also a little bit of additional leeway for Charter cities for example if you wanted to do um if you wanted to propose a tax it could be done by mail ballot and you wouldn't be constrained by the Limited dates for mail balloting that are in the

2:41:14state law so minor differences like that do benefit Charter cities um so that's sort of a general gloss on on the differences of Revenue raising Powers um regarding land use um the the major points that I I think are worth hitting regarding the differences between Charter cities and

2:41:35general law cities is that um for a charter City the general plan and the zoning ordinance don't have to be consistent what that means in Practical terms is that when most General law cities want to update their zoning in a way that's inconsistent with the general plan they

2:41:51also have to process a general plan Amendment at the same time state law limits the number of times that a general law City can amend its its General plan the general plan amendment process takes up additional time so really for Charter City what that means is if you want to change your zoning and

2:42:07it's going to be inconsistent with the general plan it can pretty much be done immediately and you can catch up later on with bringing the general plan forward to match the the zoning process um similarly for specific plans Charter city they're they're a series of

2:42:23Provisions in the general and the government code that set out what has to be in a specific plan how a specific plan must be approved um and the requirement that it be consistent with the general plan basically none of those things apply to um a charter City Charter cities can

2:42:40still benefit from specific planning um they just get to Define for themselves what the content will be what the process will be for approving it um and again it doesn't have to be consistent with the general plan um Charter cities also have additional power to

2:42:56um use local ordinances to require additional dedications of land and exaction of fees from development projects however that's also constrained by the Constitution um there there's some case law at the state level and at the federal level sort of limiting the power of local

2:43:17government to exact land and fees from from development projects those apply to Charter cities as well um and then there are there's a very long list in your staff report of all of the state laws that Charter cities are still subject to and that includes SQL um a charter cities General plan still

2:43:39has to include all the mandatory elements uh Charter City must still have um comply with all state housing requirements the permit streamlining act applies the subdivision map act Applause and some zoning Provisions apply just to provide some examples so there's a

2:43:55little bit of additional leeway for Charter cities in the land use area but it's not as but they don't they aren't completely free of all the limitations that the state imposes on cities for land use regulation um so I hopefully that that sort of generally gives you some more information about

2:44:12about the differences between Charter cities and general law cities in that area and now the city manager is going to talk some about um some different ways for proceeding next steps and costs thank you um I want to just to make sure that it's in context of the things where where

2:44:31putting out as part of the options the the three options that it's in the context of the charter discussion it's not and they're not necessarily meant to be in and of itself and if the council depending on what action the council took on the charter we may want to tweak

2:44:48um the other items but the other point I want to make is that most of the items I I've mentioned as potential uh tasks or phases or projects um could go in and of themselves so it's it's sort of a matter of how comprehensive a look do you want to take when you're particularly talking about

2:45:07option three um obviously the council could take no action and we haven't spent any more time on on that the the other two options we looked at were we talked a little bit about the next big election which is November 2012 where there there's likely to be a lot

2:45:31of turnout based on uh well let me let me come to that in a second and the third option was to do look at a more expanded scope and to see if the charter process would fit into some of the other things we have alluded to or I've talked about and those particularly relate to a strategic plan

2:45:52um where I think the council spent a lot of time and did a great job developing a mission statement uh back in the spring and we talked a little bit at that time that we may have already entered a different phase as a city based on some of the Capital Improvements we've

2:46:09already done and some of the things we've already done operationally and it may be an opportune time to take a sort of a time out and have the council articulate a long-term vision and goals and implementation plan for the future it may also guide and help guide the general plan as

2:46:27soon as we get we hopefully get to it we also want through any number of these processes to maximize Community input and public information on what we do and what we're about so I would jump to option two and I'd essentially start from the bottom we've talked a lot about over the years as

2:46:48we've put initiatives on the ballot of needing typically at least a year in terms of our streets measure we started two years early so but if it were the council's desire to do do a look at the charter and ultimately decide to implement a charter obviously we'd be looking at um one year

2:47:10from now this week essentially the charter would typically be placed on the ballot July and August we would as we've done in the past have a public information effort we would if we were consistent with what we've done in the past and what we believe has worked in the past is we

2:47:28would do public information as to what the council is considering why they might be taking this action and then if they took the action uh we would we would really focus in on the public information how it uh the the advantages and the reason uh for why we were going

2:47:45forward with putting a charter on the ballot in November to do that you would need we talked a little bit about the different options for reviewing a charter we would put we would suggest as we have found no other examples that you would use a charter Review Committee you would need to we

2:48:04would we would immediately pass we would immediately bring back to you a resolution forming the committee and immediately begin an application process and based on our experience in looking at other cities you would probably want seven to ten meetings you're looking at four to five months

2:48:23until the committee got its thoughts together and reported back to the city council and that would help frame and help guide the council's decision and as we as we alluded to and as we've done in all of our initiatives and and other things I mean we would strongly

2:48:43recommend survey research as soon as possible to help determine um where our where our residents are on the issues of a charter and then the sub issues related to the Charter um and and again that would that would play into helping the council ultimately decide uh no go or no go in uh July and

2:49:07August to go to option three we tried to step back and take it take a larger a larger look at this and look at a lot of the things that the City attorney has referred to are are I think very relevant but uh things that us as people who focus on City business understand

2:49:30but maybe a little more esoteric to the average resident who doesn't fully understand all the ins and outs of land use and revenues that may benefit the City by going forward with the charter so we in terms of stepping back as I already mentioned we had already alluded

2:49:46to the possibility of doing a strategic plan and I just I included in your package a sample of one that I particularly liked but there are many out there just to give you a flavor I'm we have not yet um fully scope this what a strategic plan would be and if the council were to

2:50:05decide either with the charter or separate from the charter that a strategic plan made sense we would presumably go out and get proposals for that and and bring back that scope of work for your your authorization but in in either case if this city council went forward tonight and said look we want to

2:50:24do option three as we presented it or something similar we would again strongly recommend survey research and again to help frame the discussion of where we are on the charter where we are with the tax powers of going to a charter and as we have talked about for over a year we want to check back in

2:50:46with our residents on what matters to them and what are their unmet needs and what do they think we need to do and as much as we can fold into that survey and again that survey would help the council frame its next steps we would come back to you in early 2013 with

2:51:04uh proposals for strategic planning process and the next topic I brought up is the capital needs assessment as some of you might remember we did something similar uh I want to say seven or eight years ago where we looked at all of our facilities and looked at seismic

2:51:19upgrades and look at where our deficiencies were and um it largely stopped there I think when we talk about a capital needs assessment we have in one extreme we have the public safety building the library and the senior center is sort of the really big ticket visible items

2:51:38towards the middle we have uh we've talked about our play fields and what are we going to do with those play Fields Parks playgrounds and then on the other side of the capital Spectrum which we don't really talk a lot about but which really gets a lot of use are our

2:51:52clubhouses and other things and even even Station 72 aside aside from the main public safety building all of our facilities including Community Center need to we would propose looking at how much money are we spending on ongoing maintenance versus replacement versus

2:52:11Windows versus roofs I mean are we we're patching these together so we would want to identify all of our needs and then look at funding sources both related to a charter and not and and we talked a bit about the real property transfer tax and we can talk more about

2:52:27that but that is a potential funding source if we were to go forward with a charter you would then we proposed two options for a charter Review Committee one could be in this summer one could be at a later date after the council considers the Strategic plan and the

2:52:44needs assessment the similar to option two the committee would report to the council in either of these scenarios um but what we tried to do was bring all of this back with a bow on it for you prior to the budget season uh into that fiscal what would be fiscal year 2014

2:53:01but in 2013 um we would come back and to have the Strategic plan which helps describes which actually describes your framework and vision your goals your priorities your implementation effort and our implementation plan take that take the needs take the results of the charter Review Committee

2:53:24and then look at all of the options as part of our 10-year planning and our Capital needs planning that we typically do so you would have a whole package of how to go forward and if that were at that point you would you would then evaluate uh your timing and you could go

2:53:40you can then decide to put the charter on as early as that summer or even wait um as we've done in the past till right before the election but you could but by having the needs and the priorities and the framework you can we believe develop Community Support around

2:54:01why these things are important they will the public had been involved in identifying those needs and then evaluating the funding sources similar to the way we did the streets assessment and came up with the sales tax for surpass tax we would then need public information and then ultimately you

2:54:16would likely place the charter on the ballot in July and August with an election in November 2014. you potentially have the flexibility to do other dates but based on our experience in Prior elections we we would likely want to maximize turnout and that that would

2:54:37likely be the next largest turnout election so um well we tried to put together I would say this is a very educated guess I mean the survey research is based those those prices are confirmed it would be under 25 000 depending on how many questions and how what size of the survey the Strategic

2:55:02plan is based on a recent proposal submitted by The Firm that did your mission planning so we know that's that's a roughly real number the capital needs assessment is a little more of a placeholder that will depend on the scope and how much we can build off the work that's already done and I

2:55:19hope it would be less but depending on uh you could actually get into cost estimating and you know if the price could go up but so it's somewhat preliminary the public information is based on what we've done in our three uh prior cases so I think those numbers are

2:55:36pretty pretty real again to maximize our success the council to its credit has been willing to spend some money up front to to get the results we've gotten on the back end so I think all of these things are you know strongly recommended if if you were to go forward

2:55:57so finally what we're looking for today is where where would you where would you like to go next and what would you like us to do if you have additional questions for either of us is there I'm sure there are other options but either of these three work for you and are

2:56:15there changes or alterations you would make to to what we've put out here so with that we're happy to take questions or comments all right so maybe um yes please okay I'd like to extend the meeting to 10 40. I moved to do that second all those in favor please say aye

2:56:40aye all right motion is I um motion to extend is unanimous till so we've got 15 minutes to move quickly so at this point we'll take questions and then see if we have any comments and go back for discussion okay um what I remember from the previous campaigns that we've had that have led

2:57:04to measures on the ballot is that we really concentrated first on figuring out what it was um the people who live in the city wanted and um I actually contribute that very much to the success of those measures so I really like the idea of doing a strategic plan a lot

2:57:30um and I I would so I would I um and I also remember going to a class on how to run an election and hearing the same thing you know there's a real like there's like a formula for doing it and uh you kind of have to do certain things and when I talk to other people in other cities and they they in

2:57:54particular are you know really jealous of our streets measure and how we were able to go from the bottom in terms of road condition to the top um in such a small amount of time then I explained you know that we just sort of followed what I thought was a pretty uh

2:58:14you know we really did follow a formula but we did everything carefully and we didn't try to rush it so um it looks to me like the only way we can really do that and I guess this is my question is with option three where we have the time to really do the Strategic plan because and let's

2:58:36see in looking at this that's the option that has that strategic plan where we really address the question of what is it people really want is that correct yes I mean the Strategic plan is well his design would be designed to get public input into sort of the vision of

2:58:55the next 10 years but ultimately that's the council you know that would be the council's vision obviously based on all the input you get from the public and any other information we're able to obtain like that like Capital needs and just [Music] um the ability to just focus if we

2:59:13wanted to not saying that we will but just to um recommend moving forward with the strategic planning without the charter if that is the case correct okay any other questions right now real quick for clarifying I have two or maybe three clear quick clarifying questions

2:59:32um the charter would allow for you said business Improvement districts in Berkeley there's the Theater District where they did assessment on various properties around the theater I'm assuming that's comparable or that is that a charter was allowed allowed that to occur um well like I don't know

2:59:51specifically about the Berkeley example but um to expand on that briefly um there are three state laws that authorize the use of business Improvement districts and each of them has constraints about um how the funds can be used a charter City could basically say you

3:00:13know adopt an ordinance that said you know creating the such and such business improvement district and proceed entirely um based on its own rules that it had adopted rather than following state law which would mean that the the use of the the revenue could be put to any purpose

3:00:29so for example if you want like typical use of it is promotion of businesses within the district promotion of Tourism things like that so it's not like um assisting a theater within a theater district would be completely Beyond question but it would certainly be very

3:00:47clear that a charter City could create a business improvement district that could require businesses within the district to pay an annual fee or assessment and use the revenue to enhance entertainment businesses try to draw more residents into the district and they're they're that the use of the

3:01:09revenue would be the thing that would be very clear that Charter City would be able to do great second question on option three table um it says former Charter Review Committee is required while on the option two table it was recommended um if I remember correctly from our

3:01:24presentation the council can act as the charter Review Committee and so I was just curious why it was required in this particular table I that they should be consistent you are correct okay um and last question the capital needs assessment the previous one that was

3:01:42done was is affectionately known as the Mac Tech report is that correct great thank you at this point um just a quick question looking at the timing of the tasks that are outlined and then the expenditures for various items could you just go into a little bit more detail

3:02:02um I'm interested in what you mentioned earlier uh in all likelihood the funds would come from general fund reserves so how much are we talking about spending during this fiscal year and then what portion of this would then go into subsequent fiscal years under

3:02:18under option under option three under I would say we would uh under I mean this fiscal year between now and June 30th I think we would half the survey research money probably less than half of the Strategic plan uh by the time we got out to bid and scope the needs assessment my guess would be a

3:02:44small portion of the capital needs assessment uh this year I think most of that work would probably be done over the summer and later in the year uh when they're when they're actually in the buildings and rolling up their sleeves uh the public information and uh would not be

3:03:00this fiscal year okay actually wouldn't we be going over three three years if we had a 2014 election yes yeah okay thank you so at this point option the option three um as it's laid out here would cause us to dip into the reserves and not you know not knowing what our numbers are

3:03:24yet in terms of our projections from the budget compared with what our actual receipts are what's being proposed here is to dip below the 10 Reserve level I don't know yeah I I don't know yet I mean uh it's too early this fiscal year to know if we're going to be positive or

3:03:41somewhere else to offset it but we're not in I'm not as I said last time with the exception of the survey research which I can identify funding within the budget to do that the others would have to be sort of supplemental Appropriations that would affect correct it would affect general

3:03:58fund balance if we were not able to find those savings or additional Revenue somewhere else so it could impact our reserves but spread over three years you could go find it next fiscal year um from somewhere else right if that was the desire of the council but yes okay

3:04:18in contrast option two which is almost a hundred and five thousand dollars the majority of that would be in this fiscal year albeit 25 000 of it is budgeted but we would be looking at you know the majority of of an additional 75 000 um appropriation in order to go with

3:04:38option two I think the majority of the public information would be in next fiscal year and certainly the election so I would I would probably say 80 70 000 maybe would be next fiscal year okay so it would just be probably the thirty thousand under uh information

3:04:56consultant okay okay and last question with regard to the capital needs assessment um the estimated fifty thousand dollars um could you just go and do a little bit uh what what additional information we would get out of that beyond the uh existing CIP that we have

3:05:13well the existing CIP largely doesn't look at our current facilities it's it's either it's current current capital projects occasionally we get into our current buildings like the community center we've done a little bit of work but it doesn't get into um we've talked a lot particularly

3:05:31council member Jones we've talked about we don't have a sinking fund for Capital we don't we haven't looked at that um in our CIP we don't uh we really don't look at ongoing sort of Maintenance and improvements to our current facilities we could but we we typically don't

3:05:49um you I think we would we have done a lot of work on the background for the library I think we would freshen that up I think we've done a fair amount on the public safety building we need to freshen that up in terms of current current costs current bidding climate

3:06:05different options I think we would related to our all of our sustainability efforts we would it would make sense to be looking at a lot of our buildings have really old windows no insulation old floors there may be opportunities for upgrades similar to what the staff

3:06:25has done such a great job on this with every with solar with electrical upgrades so it's it's a whole Myriad of potential things that we really haven't focused on and some are really giant ticket items and others are really smaller I mean are we spending bad money

3:06:42trying to keep buildings going that we're patching together as opposed to just saying we need to be replacing roofs or knocking it down and building a new one we really don't we really haven't done that okay and I'm sorry would it include the funding plan in that that would be the goal would be

3:06:56well it would identify the the needs and then the goal of coming back as sort of in the new budget season would be to put together a funging a funding plan that would probably have a lot of a number of different options and different time periods to do it okay perfect thank you

3:07:14okay I think at this point we unless there's any other questions um we public speakers on this public comment on this item on pianists good evening again Madame mayor members of council City staff Tom Panna [address removed] in El Cerrito um I'd like to thank the staff for

3:07:37putting this together it's time to be thinking about this stuff to me option two just seems awfully rushed I can understand the council's desire for Revenue Etc but it seems very rushed from my personal perspective I'm really big on Capital planning that includes a

3:07:56new library that's included in what the city managers presented at option three here from my personal perspective I just think that option three is a way I'd prefer to see you go on than option two thank you okay back to council I want to thank I want to thank Steph and uh throw

3:08:16my weight behind option three yes um if I could just make one more Point um related to I guess it's option three the issue of doing the charter or not doing the charter I think we would just want to be careful that we don't want to get too far down the road and if we did not consider the

3:08:36charter um at some point in the strategic planning Capital needs assessment process and we ultimately came back and said the revenue that you could generate from a charter and we didn't study it um the the of all the things we can do the probably while it is time intensive it is not

3:08:57expensive to do the charter process on Parallel with these other things so whether whether we ultimately wind up doing it next spring summer or the following spring summer I I just I'm just thinking it through why you were talking I would hate to get um two-thirds of the way down the road

3:09:19and then go oops we should have had a charter Review Committee because the all of the process that we put together identifies a revenue mechanism that makes the most sense and everyone buys into and then we we didn't do that piece um but you know from a staff perspective

3:09:36it's obviously something we need to consider how we're how we're going to do it and staff it and get it going but um I think if you were going to go go forward with these other things you you probably want to make sure you do that at some point unless you just want to

3:09:49take the take it off the table entirely but that's potential Revenue sources that we may be throwing out maybe that was obvious but I didn't say that I'd move that we extend the meeting to uh 10 50.

3:10:03second all those in favor please say aye aye aye all right 10 more minutes it's okay all right yeah I I guess I'm the one who brought this up so I I just want to take a few minutes here comment I'm I'm for option three also um but I appreciate the staff coming back

3:10:24in a short period of time giving us these options given that it was possible to consider going to the 2012 2012 election but anyway uh I the staff report does a good job in answering some of the questions that we had that you had about what are the benefits to the city and so

3:10:46I'm not going to repeat them here um I I've talked in some what I consider some detailed discussions with staff on this and also their detailed research on Charter cities as well as consideration valuation of what other cities experienced and it's obvious to me that

3:11:08we need more than one year to set this up properly and to study it as the City attorney was talking you could see the complexities and some of these issues particularly uh um in setting up the charter it could be I mean it could be very simple or could be very complex but that's what the the

3:11:29job of a a charter Review Committee would would be so I I think going to 2012 was really rushing it I just wanted to share that um you know we report sometimes about uh well we attended this conference in that conference and what did we do well I I can tell you that um the late last

3:11:51League of California cities conference that was held in San Francisco that many of us attended um there were two workshops that I attended that mentioned strategic plan and there's also one that talked about uh Charter cities but in both of these they're saying if you

3:12:11have a a strategic plan it's time to update it if you haven't done one formally it's time to get one because the current economic conditions are such as you've got a plan for the future you've got to look forward to the future and so I personally think that that's one tool

3:12:30that we have to use to be prepared to go forward but I also think this and the reason why option three um caught my attention it is a unique opportunity for us to combine strategic plan and the study of the charter into one process and I I really think that both

3:12:50disciplines could that could be of value to each other as we look at them um that the Strategic plan could be our blueprint of going forward but it also could mean that a charter City and the advantages of being a charter City would provide us the mechanism to go forward

3:13:07with it and I and I think the city manager has indicate did indicate one of the advantages is a funding mechanism it's not probably not the only one that would benefit a strategic plan but it it's one of them so I just think we should keep that in mind and it it's also with both gives us

3:13:28an excellent opportunity to engage the public and for instance and and uh allies in here but Alan Al Miller and I had talked about this we could host some open houses and tours of current facilities and actually show the public firsthand what the state of our library

3:13:48our Public Safety facilities in our senior centers are the state that they're in and why we're so concerned and why we need to go forward in trying to find solutions to to get those up to speed um but I don't want to lose and I'll restate my basic reason for considering

3:14:09a charter City there's many but this is my basic reading and that's self-rule and flexibility and governing um as the City attorney if you listen uh if we as we were listening I should say um it became apparent to me once again that a general law City to the largest extent

3:14:30is run by the state legislature and it sets the procedures requirements and regulations and all through the presentation of the of the city attorneys you pick that up when we talk the general but that means the people outside of El Cerrito with little or any connection

3:14:51and responsibility tell Cerritos determining how we operate so um and yet the city Charter cities aren't aren't free they're not wild hairs they we must still operate under some popular safeguards such as voting approval of taxes and voting uh for changes in the charter itself

3:15:16and one other thing and then I'll I'll um sum it up but the current state of affairs um it worries me that the current actions by the state on the cities and counties uh will just continue and I'm talking about the realignment of State services and functions to the counties

3:15:40and they're putting responsibilities on the countings with very limited funding going forward personally I think when they're done with the counties they will start on the cities and they will start trying to send realignment of services and functions down to the local level or the

3:16:04counties will be forced to try to pass some of these down to the cities and I think as a charter City we're in better positioned to try to fight that so I don't think we can stand uh still in planning for the future I think there's a lot of advantages to option

3:16:23three and I think we should find out if um we should be a charter City will it be a benefit to us and how does it fit into a strategic plan which I think we should go forward with also thank you okay council member Abelson would you like to give your thoughts I'm

3:16:44not going to be repetitive because I think we've heard the same thing repeatedly here so um I'm going to ask actually a question um the survey research I think we're I'm hearing that people are interested in option three and I am particularly interested in that especially the aspect

3:17:05regarding the Strategic plan but the um the survey research um so in the um in option two the survey research has to be about Charter city right okay but in option three um what is the survey research about I I think it would be about both I think um for we have year over year data

3:17:34phrased a lot of different ways a lot of research um I before as we begin the strategic planning process and as we start looking down the road we had hoped to see if the library the public safety building the senior center were actually still on people's radar screens relative to where

3:17:53they were before and we we had always hoped to do that this fiscal year before the all the all the issues that came up with the Redevelopment agency so so some of that is strength of feeling art is there absolutely no stomach for paying for anything else or what what are they

3:18:10where are their priorities if if they're there so I think that feeds the Strategic plan um I think we want to set I think it would be helpful going forward to try to set some baseline understanding of for people on the charter on is there any understanding if so what do they are

3:18:28they do people understand land use do they understand taxing do they are if people understood a real property transfer tax and that other cities have it and how that could benefit us so it starts it starts a baseline And I think it helps us frame the issues and

3:18:46um uh helps us Focus I think in a number of different areas and and that's how we've that's always how we've used it in the past um and over this time I think what I've what I've suggested in here is down the road you would come back and do it again probably six months before you were

3:19:04going to put something on the ballot when you really focused on what is it you're putting on the ballot what is it you're asking and you know what are you going to highlight um but right now I think it's a broader how are we a little bit how are we doing a little bit what are you what is your

3:19:19strength of feeling and um I just and I guess I'm a little hesitant to starting these kind of processes just in the sort of in the dark particularly with the economy and everything that's been going on um as we found out when we did started early with the streets measure as you

3:19:36recall when we started there was about I I roughly two-thirds support for a parcel tax and then when we came back a year later it was 34 so I think it's important knowing what where where our residents are and and it's not a be-all and end-all but the but I think this

3:19:53survey research has certainly helped a lot so thank you I appreciate that um and um I think I've said all I need to say so okay option three all right no other comments thank you mayor mayor for Tim Jones for your comments I I particularly liked planning for the

3:20:14future and helping me having these two processes processes going together in Tandem and they're informing one another as we go and that seems like the most efficient way to do it so I'm in favor of option three as well great I am also in favor of option three and it sounds like we

3:20:28um thanks for the last question because it would then um essentially the fact that we're asking and getting an uh an indicator of people's appetite for Charter cities at the earlier stage in the process um would then help us to inform you know how much how many more steps we need to

3:20:48go down at all on the charter City front so I support option three and I think with that we are adjourned and I will ask council members to save their updates for the next meeting great thank you thank you foreign