Concurrent City Council and Redevelopment Agency Meeting December 5, 2011

0:00:03good evening everyone thanks for coming tonight on the first meeting of December our reorganization meeting uh first item tonight will be the Pledge of Allegiance led by council member Lyman [Music] which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for

0:00:33all oh and I totally I missed the roll call we'll go back to that if we can well nobody know that all of you are here okay visual visual roll call complete um second item Council and staff Communications Eddie from staff to from staff okay we'll do staff and then follow by Council

0:00:59thank you brought too many papers hi I'm Jerry Bradshaw Public Works director um in 2006 the Metropolitan Transportation Commission issued their streets and highways report and listed out the payment condition into indices for all the cities and counties in the Bay Area

0:01:22in that report we were in the bottom 10 cities at the time since that time we've done a lot of work and and put a lot of effort into improving our streets and as I reported out last October we we have a new pavement condition index much higher than we did it had been 53

0:01:40back in 2006 and now it's 85. second best in the Bay area so I was as you can imagine looking forward to the recent edition of the pothole report which came out in June of this year when I was reminded that between 2006 and now they've changed their reporting format to report not the single year

0:02:01payment condition index but a three-year rolling average so because of that we weren't in the top 10 like I had really hoped we would be so we were at a mediocre 62 score if you average our last three years together so I was a little disappointed but in that report they did single out El Cerrito's

0:02:18achievement and show some of the statistics in the pothole report so that was a pretty good consolation prize Well two weeks ago I got a call from the MTC and they said during their annual conference they'll be giving out awards for various achievements and they

0:02:34were hoping that someone from the city could be there to receive the most improved roads award so I was happy to go and collect this trophy on behalf of the city and the city council for their annual award most improved roads we were among some pretty good company with the

0:02:52city of Brentwood and city of Dublin who have very excellent scores they also have much newer roadway systems so I'm proud to be in in that sort of company so I just want to come and report on that and share with you that we have on another trophy for the trophy case

0:03:06so much yeah yeah the great news [Applause] a second report from the mayor members of the Council on Lance May Foster fire chief I just come to you to remind you that the holiday toy drive for the fire department is in full swing uh this last weekend we had our annual pasta toy

0:03:34drive up at station 65 had a great turnout and Saturday will be another opportunity to come out to the pancake breakfast and donate a toy and be involved Believe It or Not donations look good this year and so we're really excited about the program Captain Kelleher and Captain Pace have been busy

0:03:50little elves on their days off putting Barrels in businesses and making sure everything gets back to the toy Warehouse so I just to the viewing public it's still in full swing if you feel like making a donation feel free to come to the pancake breakfast this Saturday at the community center in El

0:04:05Cerrito and stop at any of the fire stations in Richmond or El Cerrito to drop off a toy thank you very much thanks for that announcement council member announcements at this time any other none okay none at this time we can move on to item number three oral Communications from the public are there

0:04:30any um public comments on items not on the agenda yes Al Miller good evening mayor chairman council members and staff members I'm uh here because Jane Barky isn't I'm here to remind everyone that on Saturday December 17th the Sunder I mean the shoddy holiday display will be installed

0:04:55once again on the hillside of Moser near Sea View anyone that wishes to come and help with the assembly was welcome I'm sure the fire department personnel that are usually there won't mind if anybody uh wants to bring a box of donuts along to help refueled us as we go seriously

0:05:21though uh since our holiday display is truly one of the unique features of El Cerrito that makes El Cerrito known continue to be known throughout the bay and my observation in the years of helping up there is that the people except for the firefighters seem to be getting more and more my age

0:05:45rather than their age and it's time that we get our sons and daughters and our grandsons and daughters out there working on a hillside investing some of their energy in the wonderful feeling you get as you see uh Mr shoddy's magical town uh appear out of The Mists of El Cerrito

0:06:07especially when the weather isn't is fine but Jane promises me they're going to have a sunshiny nice Saturday to work and hope everybody will come out and help us thank you what time was that nine o'clock on the Moser Hill at Seaview thank you thanks for that announcement and

0:06:30reminder other comments at this time no other comments no other comments okay with that we can move to item four presentation by our esteemed police chief Sylvia Moyer on updating us on on the El Cerrito Police Department activities and priorities good evening mayor Chang and city

0:06:54council and our city manager Mr Hannan our community I'm Sylvie Moyer your police chief and tonight I'm going to present a brief update on the police department and comparing some key measurements between 2011 pardon me 2010 and 2011. I will also update you on some

0:07:13things that we have done and present you with some things that we are doing in perhaps some future items if we could dim the lights so one of the things that we did in 2010 was we created a new mission statement we recognize that the El Cerrito Police Department had been doing some great

0:07:35work but we wanted to create a new mission statement that reflected really why we exist and what we do each day it was created by members of every level of our department and as you can see it says that we are committed to service Safety and enhancing the public trust

0:07:54through professionalism and Leadership this was selected and created carefully by the members of the department because it is the core of what we do so let's talk about statistics in El Cerrito between 2010 and 2011 violent crime is down 37 percent and we say why is this occurring we

0:08:22always want to know why because we want to repeat it if violent crime is down 37 we want to know what to what can we attribute this we think it's many things it's a holistic approach to policing Community interaction and involvement it is traditional using traditional and

0:08:42creative strategies to address crime including uniformed and non-uniformed personnel deployments we are also deploying our Personnel flexibly not relying on on Rigid time frames but we are looking at when is violence occurring and how can we deploy our people to successfully address and

0:09:04reduce crime in our city some other things that we've done and that were done long before 2010 and 2011 but we're really realizing a lot of the benefits of these decisions our improved security features along the Ohlone Greenway was significant for our city and this includes the Landscaping

0:09:25lighting and video features we attribute a lot of it to some environmental design issues and also our video surveillance ordinance that was enacted by this Council and really fought for by the police department long before my arrival a led to a what we believe is a

0:09:46reduction in violent crime because suspects know it exists in our city not only do they know that it exists but prosecutions are increased with video and our reputation is out there in the criminal world so good news is that in our city violent crime is down 37

0:10:05percent one of the big things that we want to say when we're looking at this is we want to thank public works because Public Works stepped up and environmental services stepped up to really make a lot of these things happen you'll see that thank you repeated when

0:10:20we talk about traffic in our city what about property crime a big reason that this update is coming now is because in September and October there were significant there was a spike in in residential burglaries and we said why is this occurring and there was media attention paid to the residential

0:10:42burglaries and it looked like a massive crime spree the reality is while disturbing that property crime is up it's up one percent so what are we doing about it well we're using traditional policing methods to reduce crime uniformed and non-uniform Personnel we are directing investigative

0:11:02efforts we're partnering with businesses to try and reduce or combat some of the shoplifting property type crimes that occur in our city we are having Community meetings and in those meetings we are reinforcing the standards that some call simplistic but they they are real it's lock your

0:11:23home lock your car if you have valuable items in your car don't put them where people can see them and and draw people to your vehicle it is consider an alarm consider having neighborhood watch consider calling the police department to come and do an inspection

0:11:41and giving an evaluation on what's called septed crime prevention through environmental design call us when you see suspicious acting persons trust your Police Department to come out if you see someone acting suspiciously trust your Police Department to come and investigate in a

0:11:58way that meets the standards of our community to talk to potentially suspicious people and find out what they're doing in a in a way that is within the parameters of the law and in the standards that we expect and watch out for your neighbors those are some of the simplistic things

0:12:13that we're doing and in reaction to that we've completed 21 of these septed inspections on homes we have another seven scheduled and one of the things that we said we don't have enough police officers that are trained in septed so we have committed to sending more of

0:12:31our employees to septed training so we can get out into our community and say before you're a victim these are some things that you can do to make your home unattractive to a burglar the other part of that is we partner with our community and we have people call us with tips we

0:12:51tenaciously investigate and we have hunted down and arrested several of these burglary groups which is fantastic and they know they shouldn't come to El Cerrito we are also working with City staff on creating a Tracker request for Home Inspections through our new website and

0:13:11Suzanne Arlo has been fantastic in in partnering with us on that so property crime is up one percent we're committed to ensuring that this trend upward does not continue and as I told our city manager Scott Hannon that even one burglary if it happens to your home is unacceptable in our city so

0:13:32we're committed to doing what we can to reduce this percentage so this is a stat that you look at that calls from our community that suspicious circumstances and person calls up 109 percent and some people would say wow that that's terrible and I say no it isn't

0:13:51it's fantastic if our community is calling us and calls or service are up 109 I say Bravo we're doing what we need to do because we are partnering together it reflects our Outreach efforts and that our community is truly committed as we are to reducing suspicious activity and persons from our

0:14:11city so that was the step we really wanted to bring to you to say it's okay that calls for service like this are going up here's a great one traffic collisions in El Cerrito are down 20 percent Traffic Safety in El Cerrito has been a significant concern and remains a

0:14:31significant concern this shows and reflects as you look at this data it reflects that El Cerrito is safer to the motoring cycling and pedestrian public this year it's safer than they were last year and that we were last year many measures have led to this reduction including our

0:14:52Traffic Unit significant Public Works improvements and a city-wide approach to reducing collisions and increasing traffic safety so Bravo so what have we done well we've automated dozens of functions we've recognized that we had long outgrown our physical space in our

0:15:15building and because of competing priorities for funds we had to find ways to operate within the building that we have we began by simply identifying what we needed and what we could afford so we used our existing space we did simple things like painting adding simple

0:15:33technology and we did a lot of repurposing of items our property and evidence issues were so extreme that this Council and the city manager allowed me to convert a position and get a full-time property and evidence technician and we knew we had to do more we conducted audits of our guns drugs and

0:15:53currency committed our full-time property and evidence specialist technician with creating a modern system in an old building without a general fund impact and she stepped up to the challenge she created a significant shift in the way that we do business in El Cerrito this

0:16:13is what it used to look like our property and evidence was in the basement it was overflowing no significant purging had been done so we challenged her and said do something about it she met with a district attorney the detective sergeant and identified parameters within the

0:16:32standards of the law and the standards of of reason to begin destroying what was being stored unnecessarily you can see it was overflowing there was evidence sitting on the ground there was lack of space and we were we were pretty much hoarders we could have done a show on on hoarding our evidence

0:16:52but we wanted to keep it and she challenged that she got the authorization through Captain Regan to destroy over 100 guns and 200 pounds of drugs that were all long ago identified as approved for Destruction it went from that clutter to clear with almost no general fund impact

0:17:19we took what we had and said we've got to do better we are better we can reflect better evidence must be processed and stored in a manner that does not cause cross-contamination potentially compromised successful prosecution she created a space this the photograph on your left with the Clutter

0:17:41um is our old evidence processing room upstairs and our our officers didn't have a space in which to process evidence and with just repurposing moving some things painting a few things we created a space that was that is uh it's efficient and it creates the the

0:18:04kind of evidence processing that really is demanded in police work so this reflexes teamwork reflects our theme amount around many of the system changes another thing is recognition we have long well we have not formally recognized a lot of the talent that we have in our

0:18:22agency great talent and officers that are committed to doing a job so we celebrate that in a different way and these are just small examples of how we display some of that celebratory recognition in the agency so service you saw it as the key component to what we do in our mission

0:18:43statement well our cop said services on duty and it's off duty and this is just one photo that that reflects that we continue our commitment to service that we've had for Generations and this is just one that's reflected in our efforts for Special Olympics so recently Special Olympics International

0:19:02invited Lieutenant Benin and Sergeant Sean Maples up to Canada at no cost to the city to thank them for raising almost a hundred thousand dollars last year for to spec send special Olympians to the Special Olympics it's fantastic what what they have done at no cost of the city but truly in line

0:19:21with our values as an agency their values as men and truly committed to service and the entire police department has stepped up to support Special Olympics it's great for El Cerrito and my Shameless plug is that at furthering this this Thursday from five to nine at

0:19:38Macaroni Grill in El Cerrito we'll be doing another typical event so the police department will be volunteering our time to serve those people that want to go to Macaroni Grill and all of the proceeds will go to Special Olympics so we do a lot on duty and this is just some of our off-duty

0:19:55stuff so this is a little bit about service so what we are doing we're continuing to hire we're continuing hiring to fill vacancies we have five service retirements this year we're losing a lot of wisdom we're continuing to expand job duties to ready Personnel at all levels for

0:20:19increased responsibilities we review actions and Pursuits use of force and collisions to increase our professionalism and accountability we're examining our beat structure and Staffing norms to provide better service and reduce crime we're expanding SEPTA that crime

0:20:37prevention through environmental design that expertise among our officers and we are further integrating problem-oriented policing in our philosophy of how we do business the other thing that we're doing we have tons that we're doing but one big one is we are exploring starting a volunteer

0:20:54and Police Service program of VIPs program so that we can recruit volunteers into the police department to help further our commitment to service so at this point I will pause before closing I'm open to any questions that you may have foreign thank you so much all these stats are so

0:21:20helpful when we think about crime so many times we focus on our personal experience or something we've observed and it's always good to have the year-end kind of look back on what actually happened as opposed to what we what we perceive happened um one of the statistics about

0:21:34collisions was was particularly interesting and you mentioned um some of the changes that Public Works have put in to make things a little bit more safe safer uh can you talk about what what some of those examples are and also when you look at the Collision statistics is

0:21:47it moving object versus moving object or is it also moving object versus stationary object or person it's all dressed the first one The Pedestrian illuminated flashing I there's probably a technical term that Jerry Bradshaw will tell me later but the flashing crosswalks have

0:22:07significantly reduced our collisions against pedestrians enhance the safety the other is some are some of the improvements along San Pablo Avenue with the center medians and those are two of the big ones that come to mind to the second part of your question it's moving versus moving or stationary

0:22:26can tell you that injury collisions are down 20 non-injury collisions are down 19 percent so those are both real important for our driving public great thank you I have a question about our uh police dog because I think he went into service about a year ago if I remember

0:22:48correctly is that yes true and I'm just wondering what that impact has been well in terms of impact I don't think we can we cannotistical as far as the impact could tell you that that it is known that he is present he is not only a great tool for us in terms of apprehending people but he

0:23:12actually found a gentleman that was missing so he has tracking ability and we are soon going to send him at almost no cost to us to a narcotic detection School so I hope that answers your question help yeah thank you thanks Chief uh going back to the hiring we have five or five open now or those

0:23:35are anticipated we we actually have uh three vacant right now with a total Service retirement of five in this calendar year in this calendar year so what um is there any type of criteria or plan you're using to to hire I'm sure you've heard it for your entire tenure on this Council it takes a long

0:23:58time to hire a police officer which I still contend is good the testing is rigorous in terms of written and oral skill the psychological medical background polygraph and all of the testing takes a long time we have a plan we have three employees that are coming in in

0:24:19December and potentially another two in January we believe January 2nd right they all new hires are they coming over from different departments or great question both we are committed to addressing our hiring by not having a an influx of all people with no experience

0:24:40and of the same age so that in 30 years they depart as we are seeing in departure we just hired a gentleman who has 25 years of experience who was facing a potential layoff because of some job changes we hired him we have new two new that are graduated from the academy and

0:25:00another that has about a dozen years of experience so it varies so we're being very thoughtful how we impact our hiring short and long term right I just want to pass on a comment that a resident Ashley told me this weekend it had to do with either response of a

0:25:20person who came to the door that looks suspicious they looked down the street found out that they had three other people called the police and within two or three minutes before the people could leave the neighborhood the police was there so they were Beyond impressed they

0:25:36were really not only impressed but thankful that the response was that quick and that thorough and the other thing is I I agree with you with a flashing crosswalks and I know um you use them in high traffic areas they're expensive but they're being used I uh I sat and watched for about a half

0:26:00hour the other day and I I do this periodically and you can just sit there for a half hour maybe I this one was at San Pablo in front of the post office and uh see the people use it and the cars stop and and that's the whole purpose of it so uh that was good and I

0:26:20know isn't one scheduled for Harding the intersection at Harding a little different but same concept right good well thank you very much certainly I was wondering if you wanted to take this opportunity to talk about some of the community partnering project programs or projects you've envisioned

0:26:45uh rolling out at some point well I I think we have we have many one is increasing the neighborhood watch that we do we have typical events that that we participate in each year one of them is our National Night Out which gets us out into the community I think those for the future would be increased

0:27:11neighborhood watch increased use of septed on the neighborhood level and then we are also exploring our data-driven approaches to Traffic Safety it is a new project that is coming out where we look at traffic safety and its ability to reduce crime so I think you'll hear about that

0:27:28as we move forward our VIPs is always something that's very important as I referred to earlier the volunteers and Police Service and as part of that a big community outreach effort is our Citizen Police Academy that will encourage citizens from El Cerrito to come into the police

0:27:46department learn about some of the specifics about policing and then they can give their input into how we can better serve the community so those are just some of them I just want to say thank you for the great report and wonderful stats and it's just a great Testament to all the

0:28:05hard work that the police department has done over the year and and cumulative work over the years we have such a great reputation and I think it's really worth reminding folks about the response times to all the initiatives happening on so many fronts um you know just simply All The

0:28:23Pedestrian improvements as you said I think as people feel more comfortable than you get the the added benefit of just more people walking around and people generally feeling safer overall and I definitely feel a huge sense of that um as the San Pablo Avenue streetscaping has matured and

0:28:42um it's it's such a great positive upward spiral that I think we're we're getting to experience and hopefully more and more of um so I just wanted to thank you for the great stats again and um I did have one question quick question about the the pace car program

0:28:59I know that's a new new one and I'm wondering if if that's are people enrolling and if we can help get more people to sign up for that I personally signed up recently and I used our handy online um request system and got the magnet in the car and it just just you know going

0:29:18out of my way to think of the you know basically five criteria that we ask people to think about before they drive you know to plan ahead to not rush to really go out of your way to slow down for for bikes and Peds and and um so I'm just curious to hear what the

0:29:33response has been so far Police Department we've received a positive response I would ask Miss Ortiz to come and talk about the overall City response because she and Lieutenant Benin are really the two that have have held up the program I I think the only feedback that I've received besides the

0:29:50positive is that vehicles have a lot less metal on them now so it's hard to find a place to put a magnet so we make it we may want to look at stickers okay but anytime we can enforce that and be part of something that'll make El Cerrito safer we're happy to do it so

0:30:04thank you for that sure thank you right okay well I think that's all the comments for the council um do we have any public comment on this item no no great okay so in closing thank you very much I think this has been a very brief update on your police department and crime in our city it does

0:30:24reflect that we have some work to do it reflects that we are never okay with the status quo and things just being the same we want to improve and while violent crime is down 37 percent traffic accidents are down 20 percent suspicious persons calls are up 109 property crime is also up one percent

0:30:46and we can do better and we are committed to doing better and we remain steadfast in our commitment to reducing crime in our city increasing service and we believe that our city not only our community demands good professional service but they also deserve it so

0:31:03thank you very much [Applause] hey with that we can move on to adoption of the consent calendar is there a motion for approval I move adoption of the consent calendar items 5A and 5B second all those in favor please say aye aye aye that was unanimous um at this point we have no public

0:31:30hearing items and so we can now move on to our one policy matter which is the reorganization of the city council and Redevelopment agency including election of city council and Redevelopment agency off officers so with that um so I now call for the reorganization of

0:31:53the city council and in doing so prior to um uh the official Declaration of the vacancy I just want to acknowledge my husband Wiley out in the audience thank him for all his great support and willingness to listen to me need to process after each council meeting deep

0:32:15into the night um also thanking family and friends at home um you know to to endure this last year of me being not too available but allowing me to be then available to my community and to help make all these decisions that um I just really appreciate all the prior generations of council members

0:32:38um sitting through and and deliberating and really giving all your best and and and and full thoughtfulness to making Equitable decisions for all members of the El Cerrito community so um and I did prepare just a quick a quick retrospective on my last year as as the mayor of El

0:33:06Cerrito and you know number one thanking the staff um you guys are an awesome staff I'm so proud of of the amazing work you've done as you'll hear as I enumerate the the laundry list it's it's in no short um it's not a short list given a year and it's quite amazing to reflect on it and

0:33:26also to thank all my co-counsel members I really appreciate all the respect and decorum um you know just a wonderful group to to be a team member of and uh having grown up in El Cerrito I I know that it's just it makes me feel so good that we have such creative thinking such

0:33:49complementary thinking it's it's wonderful that people are willing to step up and willing and family members at home willing to let their loved ones be taken away for for meetings multiple times a month so um so with that I think you know just just to recap I think we're probably one

0:34:10of the first Council mem uh councils in the area in a while to ever adopt multimodal Transportation as a council goal um and and I I definitely thank all of you for indulging that as a as a a priority in looking back we got to do so many fun things from you know the first

0:34:29ever Spring Fling on San Pablo Avenue the culmination of such hard work of historic pavers to streetscaping and hopefully soon to be an art project to go with it um we you know as Jerry Bradshaw our Public Works engineer we we did 70 of our street Paving within three years

0:34:48which was under budget and um you know ahead of schedule which you know how many communities can can have that as a bragging right um we've got your participation is first ever alvarito um Sunday streets event bringing hundreds of community members together um we've got you know what else we've

0:35:13got um we're also known as I've talked to friends as uh who lived throughout the Bay Area that we are we have a reputation for being bike friendly at all levels of our government from our Police Department to our Traffic Engineers we're really seen as as supportive and friendly and that's a

0:35:33it's a great um you know great thing that staff should know in the community should know that we how well we're reflected out there um we've got what uh so many things I mentioned that the pace guard program um we've got the what else oh the first ever bicycle town

0:35:55hall meeting and it goes on and on and I just deeply appreciate our community's willingness to to explore this area as we know climate change is 50 in the bay areas attributed to transportation and when we get people when we address transportation we get to hit so many

0:36:14multiple benefits that it just makes so much sense and I really appreciate everybody supporting that because we get not only health benefits but economic Economic Development benefits um just so so many countless ways that are that we get to address through this

0:36:32theme of Transportation um and and of course great work through our our police chief um ever increasing numbers of National Night outs you know and all of this is just to continuing the the wonderful trend of Prior leaders and prior councils and um and I'm just so proud to help carry

0:36:53the torch so and and also to pass the torch tonight so with that I think I'm done reflecting but thanks thanks again to everyone you know we truly when I go around the region at my day job doing urban planning work and actually going to other people's Council meetings and encouraging them to do the

0:37:14right thing when it comes to transportation land use policy planning um you know I I get to reflect and think about how we're lucky to have a council and a community and staff that all understand and are aligned in achieving the same vision because when we when we

0:37:30get to do that we actually get to make change uh rather than getting kind of mired in conflicts and you know not and essentially not not getting much done other than you know um fighting with each other and so it's a great luxury and it's a great um gift that we are all giving each

0:37:48other by working together and trusting each other and um and asking each other to stand up and do our best so with that um thank you very much thank you Ann and it's great um I was looking I was thinking about this the other day I can't remember um the last time El Cerrito had a mayor

0:38:16that was as young as as you and it just shows that as uh my generation of baby boomers begin to pass the uh the so-called torch of leadership down to the next Generations it's great to see leaders like yourself come forward and be able to serve um also it's great that you have this

0:38:38nice calming voice so at the end of our debates when you're wrapping things up you bring the the level down so we can vote and get going so I appreciate that so on behalf of the rest of the council I'd like to thank you for uh your years mayor and representing very well the

0:38:53city of El Cerrito regionally thank you [Applause] laughs so okay with that I'll declare the offices of Mayor and mayor Pro tem for vacant and call for for nominations for the office of Mayor I nominate Bill Jones call for further nominations we have no further nomination so I move

0:39:38the nominations be closed I'll second that all in favor of closing nominations indicate by saying I I ocean carries nominations are closed all those in favor of selecting council member Jones as mayor indicate by saying aye aye aye opposed no motion carries council member

0:39:58Jones has been selected mayor of the city of El Cerrito and I that I'll pass over the gavel [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay well thank you very much I appreciate it I have some remarks here in a few minutes um but let's see a call for the nomination uh for office of Mayor Pro Tim

0:40:34I nominate council member Greg Lyman for the office of Mayor Pro Tem second is there any further nominations if no further nominations I move that the nominations be close I second that all in favor of closing the nominations nominations are closed all those in

0:41:00favor of selecting council member Lyman as mayor Pro tem indicate by saying aye aye opposed motion carries councilman Lyman new mayor Pro Tim thank you congratulations [Applause] mm-hmm okay it says here uh remarks by the new mayor so I'll just give a few uh remarks

0:41:28and you know this past year our the council developed a a city uh mission statement and that mission statement um set some high standards in which to serve the community and I think to meet the expectations of our mission statement we must continue to be prepared to meet the challenges of

0:41:49governess in today's environment I think it's uh as I think as we all have uh indicated and recognized is vitally important that a city like El Cerrito Define of course of action that will continue to set the priorities in a sign resources in an order in order to

0:42:09effectively and efficiently manage our way with a clear sense of purpose and uh clear sense of purpose and and fiduciary prudence it I think it's important we can't slip into a reactionary mode that reflects uncertainty and a lack of meaningful Direction so this coming year shaping up to be one

0:42:35that needs our urgent attention to plan for the present and the future in a responsible and Progressive Manner and I think we've already committed ourselves to several projects that will address the planning requirement that is is needed most of these issues are

0:42:54directly under control however some are dependent about forces outside our purview so um just inside in an overview I'd like to mention some of these um in in the month of January hopefully the month of January we will be opening our new recycling center and this is a recycling center a project

0:43:17that has dedicated funding to pay for its development and operation but I think more important and this continues to be an example of el Cerrito's pioneering efforts that began in 1970 to support sustainable policy and Community practices another item that we have planned for is

0:43:39the Strategic plan and this will be a a very good effort which will provide priority Direction and goals for City operations special projects Capital Improvements and and development another issue that we have to take up and fairly soon it looks like is the future of Redevelopment in the city

0:44:02however these decisions will be largely made by the state legislature the California Supreme Court and in an indirect way the will of the people of California it'll be our job soon to set the course of action based upon the resolution of these issues now in question

0:44:25another uh another project that we've committed ourselves to is beginning to study whether a city Charter form of governance will be the best way for El Cerrito to govern itself in the future we'll also be developing a budget for the 2012-2013 physical year that reflects

0:44:46the goals of the city and yet continues to say solvent in operating the city in its day-to-day operations one of the most probably one of the most frustrating issues and not only for our present Council but in council's past is to continue to search to identify

0:45:09methods of financing to replace our aging and inefficient Library Public Safety buildings and the ever busy busy and expanding community service Senior Services Center um it's probably the most frustrating because every time we get close to trying to identify and go forward

0:45:31something jumps up to to knock us down but I think it's getting close to the time that uh we're going to have to try to make these improvements and or else they'll be forced upon us before we're ready so we'll continue to do that I think um on a on a real positive program we'll be

0:45:55continuing the multi-cities sustainability study project with the goal of making our city as well as our neighboring cities more sustainable and energy efficient and lastly this year we will begin a multi-year process of updating the general plan as required by the state

0:46:17and the Strategic plan will fold right into that as well as this specific plan for the San Pablo Avenue so we'll see a number of our efforts that we we've been doing over the past couple years fold into this this process so I look forward to being a member of a

0:46:36city council that will team with our City personnel our boards commissions and committees and our residents to make the best possible decisions and Implement actions that will live up to the mission of the city and I thank you [Applause] mayor if I may I've just got a couple of

0:46:59quick remarks just as mayor Pro tem I do look forward to this new year and closely supporting you in representing the city outside of the city as well as supporting you on some of these issues that you just brought up uh you know the Strategic plan and and close and dear to my heart is finding

0:47:20some of the financing that we can put forward for rebuilding the public safety building the library and the senior center so thank you great thanks so just one more thing before we go I've got my family here and I'd like to just recognize them they've been uh putting up with me for seven years and

0:47:41actually they're not putting up with me because they're the ones that convinced me to run and or suggested I did and I I don't know if that was just to get me out of the house or shut me up or what but at any way uh thank you very much it's my wife Gail my daughter and Haley and her husband

0:48:00James and my son Christopher so I really appreciate them being here tonight thank you by the way I have to say I'm pretty proud of this my wife Gail works for a project or a program called the read aloud volunteer program that works with they're a private organization raises

0:48:22money through various ways and works with the West Comcast West County Unified School District in a literacy program support program for kindergarten first graders and they're doing a great job so I'd like to thank her for that I also have a good uh well at least one friend showed up but

0:48:43uh well a good friend Don Wilson who's a a resident and we've been together since uh well when they called it Junior High School at Portola so thanks Don for for coming out all right uh is there any other remarks or shall we had go forward I would like to make one a very brief

0:49:09remark and that is uh as we sit here tonight we're really kind of on the cusp of finding out what the courts are going to say about Redevelopment and that's going to make a uh a big difference in what we do in terms of what they say in the economic development of our city so

0:49:29um I hope that you'll all keep your fingers crossed for us as as we do that because either we'll um face sometimes that are you know tougher than usual because of the economy or we're going to have a really difficult situation so um I'm very hopeful that we will be

0:49:50experiencing that lesser concern but I think we all recognize that we may be facing some worse issues in the future but at any rate I look forward to working with our newly reorganized Council and doing the best that we can for the residents of the city and I would also

0:50:11like to thank the staff of this city for the past year that you've given to us and provided all of these excellent things that we've heard about tonight I think that they really are special and I hope that you'll join me in a round of applause for them foreign [Applause]

0:50:33well with that uh I think it's time to oh I'm sorry no no problem I gave you a wink but I think you thought that meant I didn't want to speak but I did want to just say one thing in a little while since I've got a wink um I I wanted to uh thank my colleagues so much I've been on the council for one

0:50:48year now and I think I've learned so much from working with all of you and also to just acknowledge mayor Chang I know uh being in organizations oftentimes the leaders one of their strengths the organization tends tends to take on and tends to react to that strength so I appreciate one of the

0:51:03strings you brought forward was really I think being open and allowing people to have voices and give their comments and I'm looking forward to I know mayor Jones has many strengths I'm looking forward to seeing which one we're going to respond to in the coming year and

0:51:17just a quick thank you not only to the staff um who who've brought me quickly up to speed with all the council duties thank you to my husband Scott and daughter Katie who are here briefly um what an amazing year to be on the council and to have have our first child

0:51:31Midway through and I've gotten many questions about why and why and or how and or why um I I'm juggling all of these things and the answer is so simple there's not one of them that I would give up I think all of them are enriching to me and I hope that I'm able to enrich all the

0:51:48aspects of my life that I do manage to juggle raising a daughter but also giving back to the community and it makes me feel so connected to my home here and I wouldn't I wouldn't trade any of these things so so thank you and I'm looking forward to the next year

0:52:01um and working on all these issues be they difficult or or be they great successes that we're gonna we're gonna have this year so thank you thanks thank you okay with that um I'd like to call for the reorganization of the Redevelopment agency and declare the offices of chair

0:52:19and vice chair vacant and calling for nominations for office of chair I nominate an agency member Chang for office of chair well for any further nominations if no further nominations I move the nominations be closed second all in favor of closing nominations indicate by saying aye aye aye or

0:52:41opposed no motion carries unanimously nominations are closed all those in favor of selecting agency member Chang as chair indicate by saying aye aye aye opposed no motion carries agent agency member Chang has been selected chair of the Redevelopment agency all right hopefully we have a

0:53:04Redevelopment agency next year which I hope to be chair of um with that I would call for nominations for office of Vice chair I nominate agency member benicini office of Vice chair call for further nominations if no further nominations I move the nominations be closed second

0:53:29all in favor of closing nominations indicate by saying I I so um all now those in favor of selecting agency member benicini as Vice chair indicate by saying aye aye aye and so uh agency member benicini has been selected Vice chair unanimous unanimously of the agency thank you

0:53:53[Applause] thank you okay uh I guess here we have uh liaison and assignment reports any any reports along those lines um I have um a brief report um the I just wanted to let everyone know that the Environmental Quality committee is working on a number of areas but one of them is a film on

0:54:25February the 4th at the Cerrito theater if you'd like to put that on your calendar it'll be starting at around 10 in the morning and it will include a charette format session as a major part of it it's a charrette being where you have breakout sessions and then come

0:54:45together for a main session and I think anyone who's interested in the topic of development in what are called first ring cities which are the cities like ours that are immediately on the inner core of the Bay Area and what happens when they're older and then they've been all these other

0:55:07developments occur on the outer ring of of the area such as cities in what East County in our camp in our case um so there will be a discussion of that and I think it should prove to be really interesting and an opportunity for our community and anyone else who's

0:55:28interested to interact on that topic so again that's on February the 4th and I hope that you'll all put it on your calendars and I'd also like to mention that I was able to go over to the recycling center on Friday and watch as the three components of the new recycling office building were placed

0:55:53into that it was a rare opportunity to actually see pieces of a building coming in on a truck and being hoisted up on a crane and then dropped into place magically exactly accurately the first time so I have no clue how they did it but they were really good at doing it

0:56:15and it was an interesting um opportunity and I'm sure if they aren't already up that there will be lots of pictures on our website because there are many pictures taken that day I also want to announce that I was appointed I'm a presidential appointment to the community services policy committee and

0:56:39also the administrative services policy Committee of the league of California cities for the upcoming year and I believe that's that's it thank you just a brief update for me uh the financial Advisory Board did meet a couple weeks ago and after reviewing several of our documents as an annual on

0:57:01an annual basis they review our financial policies um minor changes were brought to those documents which I believe will come to us to Future State session but uh they did go through them very carefully and found a number of things just needed some updating and they're awaiting uh

0:57:18the mid-year numbers where they'll get a chance to look at sales tax revenues and that meeting is scheduled for January sure so the arts and culture committee update is includes um the the at the last meeting essentially the the artists have since gone in a different direction as you've

0:57:39heard probably heard and actually The Illustrated patch is a great source of saying photos of the latest iterations of the designs um now it will be roughly 10 to 15 pieces and they will be moving uh uh wind essentially not wind chimes wind uh Wind Mobile uh kind of kinetic pieces that will mainly

0:58:06be two tones kind of a chrome as well as copper so that the artists will are continuing to to work on um under direction from the latest feedback from the committee members and we hope to have um more development by the next meeting and the human Relations Committee also

0:58:29has met recently that the main thing is to put Saturday before Martin Luther King and Junior weekend there will be a movie at the Cerrito theater I believe it will be Selma Lord Selma but I will confirm after our next meeting and the HRC also created a mini grant program

0:58:49out of some of their funds to which will go towards El Cerrito High School teachers who want additional up to 250 dollars worth of teaching materials whether for movies or books to be used in the classroom to teach about diversity and equity and history of diversity and equity

0:59:10and finally the latest um kind of probably the oldest news out there about the HRC is a couple meetings back they voted to recommend uh that the city consider or actually the Eden development uh Eden Housing developers consider naming uh the the Garden Plaza that will be out in

0:59:33front of um the senior housing project Earnest in honor of Ernest Yama um who is a um resident of El Cerrito who passed away recently but who is also form um a foundational figure in uh create anchoring the Japanese-American Citizens League in I believe in Oakland and

0:59:55Berkeley and one of the core Founders and longtime El Cerrito residents so they made that recommendation and I believe it's passed on to staff to consider as well as for Eden to consider thanks fresh sure I've got two committees to report on the design review board did

1:00:12meet in November and they did provide one of our uh businesses in town about their sign ordinance sign program within their Plaza assigned update um and the crime prevention committee is continues to look for members so anybody who is interested in becoming a member

1:00:32uh we're hoping that you would consider it and come forward as soon as possible uh the last meeting they did discuss the last National Night Out the successes of it and the report that was presented to National Night Out they also discussed membership and hence the the desire to

1:00:52add members at our next meeting which hopefully we will be able to hold on December 14th we will be looking at some new policing techniques within the city maybe increasing some of the or at least looking at the successes of our surveillance program which the police

1:01:12chief touched on tonight as well as looking at ways we might be able to expand the surveillance ordinance or surveillance process so we are hoping that that that session will interest people and maybe bring out a few new members right okay I just have a couple things here

1:01:30the a Planning Commission does have an opening and hopefully we can uh there'll be people coming forward that would like to serve it's one of our more important uh commissions and it has uh quasi-judicial Powers so that we're looking for some good people to consider on that so if

1:01:53you know anybody that would be interested or has voiced uh their concerns or their appreciation for the planning process and would be a good person have them step forward appreciate it Tom Bates Regional uh Sports Field Complex which is down at Gilman I'd like to report that

1:02:14the funding for that jpa has 67 thousand dollars currently in the bank on that that is after paying the seventy five thousand dollars that the jpa has to keep in in its bank and show these Bay Regional Park and that's used for basically replacement of the Synthetic

1:02:39Turf that's down there and this is actually the second year that oh we've made that payment it also means that the city does not have to contribute to the underwriting of the operations it's been set up so that that does not happen hopefully in the future and it is going going very well uh some of

1:03:03the improvements the the committee at the last meeting was uh considering some of the improvements that need to be made down there uh one being in the parking area and the other is the development of a baseball field that's still not there so this will be taken under

1:03:20consideration by the jpa in the coming months also council member Lyman was in attendance and he represents the user groups so we have two people from El Cerrito from different aspects and different angles represented on that that group mayor do you want to give an update on

1:03:44the Integrated Waste Management Authority oh go ahead okay certainly I I was in the audience but um as an alternate I was there to uh at the last meeting of the Integrated Waste Management they did approve the 2012 rates so we will obviously be seeing new rates here in

1:04:06the near future and they are scheduling a special meeting at the beginning of January to talk about the future of how the garbage will be handled um going in going forward so there are some things that planning exercises that are going on at the um at the jpa and and we'll continue to

1:04:31bring those forward to as they as they develop great thank you so we have uh any other questions before we adjourn okay with that thank you very much for coming out tonight and I joined this meeting until December 19 2011 meeting thank you