City Council Meeting February 21, 2012

0:00:28foreign thank you all for coming tonight and I call the meeting to order the Tuesday February 15 2000 or February 21st excuse me 2012 meeting uh I'd like to have the record show that all members accept uh council member Chang who had an emergency family situation come up are here and prepared

0:00:54to do the business of the city and I'd like to ask the council member benazini to give us a lead us in the pledge please stand and join me I pledge allegiance to the flag foreign we have uh oral communication in our staff excuse me staff and Council communication I'd like to start off by

0:01:33saying that the council met in closed session uh pursuant to government code section 54956.9 B anticipated legislation we received a fairly lengthy report from staff and there was no Direction given at this time are there any oral Communications from the public

0:02:00no speaker slips anybody wish to address the oh I'm sorry I'm sorry go ahead so go ahead okay I just needed to announce uh for a b 1234 reasons that I attended the league of California cities policy committee meetings on January 20th and uh night in January 19th I attended the

0:02:28administrative services policy committee meeting and also the community services policy committee meeting and one of the things that we discussed in a group session at both of them both days was the state budget and the Redevelopment briefing because as you remember at that point in

0:02:45time that was less than a month after the ruling by the the state supreme court on Redevelopment so everybody was really uh concerned and interested as in fact we still are about what was happening then on in the community services policy committee meeting we discussed various

0:03:09things one of the things that we discussed was ab1312 which is a child care exemption from licensure for public Recreations programs so that was particularly interesting of course to us because we are a city and we do have programs we also discussed heels which is healthy

0:03:31eating active living campaign and then on the administrative services policy committee meeting we discussed a variety of topics regarding elections and local government and we in a review of the California forward initiative um let's see that's all I want to say

0:03:53about those and then I think that may be all I think that's that's the only thing I have to mention other than we also um took a tour of the league of California City's building which is actually a remodeled building uh built to a rebuilt I guess you could say to

0:04:16lead standard and one of the things that they got points for in their lead certification was having a brochure and doing tours of their buildings so that other people could find out about it and I thought it was pretty interesting I brought back the brochure and I don't

0:04:31know if any staff member wants it but it perhaps could be something that we could copy nothing wrong with that I don't know who I'll give it to the city clerk maybe she could make copies and distribute it I just I just have this excuse me I just have this one copy but anyway the

0:04:51concept is spreading the uh the word to others about what we're doing and also of course bragging about the work that we've done you know and certainly we in our own personal case have done a lot of that too so I thought I'd mention that thank you thanks councilmember renzini

0:05:11thank you mayor just one announcement to make this coming Saturday uh February 25th for from 2 to 4 pm there will be a reception for the city hall Gallery space upstairs and if you go upstairs and view some of the art that's up there there's some great a great photography

0:05:27display and the artist's name is Evie grosh so there will be a reception for her from two to four pm this coming Saturday thank you now we'll go to oral Communications from the public uh we have no slippers no speaker slips anybody would like to address the Council on members on items not on the

0:05:47agenda or on the consent calendar okay seeing that uh we don't have that could we have the next agenda item please the next agenda I'm an item is presentations for a proclamation and recognition of pumpsy green great uh it's my honor tonight to introduce the proclamation for Mr pomsey

0:06:11Green who along with his wife who's also here tonight Marie have lived in El Cerrito for over 37 years and they raised their family here in El Cerrito um uh both both Mr Green and I had played baseball and graduated from El Cerrito Mr Green in 1952 and myself in 1968. so

0:06:34it's a pleasure from one Gaucho to another to be part of this presentation uh for those of you that follow the subculture of baseball which I'm sure there's a lot um you'll know that we're in the last days of what they call the Hot Stove league and for those of you not familiar

0:06:53with that term Hot Stove league um was created I guess would be a good thing um by people during the winter time uh when it was cold and they would gather around either the the store General Store had a hot stove or at their house or at their work and they would talk

0:07:13baseball and be in the wintertime there was always hope for the spring and always hope for your team no matter how good or how not so good they were the past year so we're going to do a little of our own Hot Stove league and talk a little baseball for the next few minutes and uh

0:07:33like to talk a little bit though about history and a lot of us the vast majority of us we really live through history we observe we even participate at some extent in the major events of History but few of us are history few of us are history and um so tonight we'll go over the fact that history

0:08:02found uh Elijah Green in Minneapolis in 1959 took him to Chicago put them in a Boston Red Sox Major League uniform and when he entered the game pumsy green became history he was not only the first African-American to play for the Boston Red Sox he ended segregation in the

0:08:27Major League Baseball for the Boston Red Sox as we all know was the last team to integrate in Major League Baseball and we'll have more on that in a moment but there really is more to the story and that is after Mr Green's career with baseball had ended he came back home and

0:08:50for the next 25 years he devoted himself to his community Greater Community he became baseball coach at Berkeley High School and held that position for 25 years he was also a student supervisor at the school and he taught so in effect in that 25 years he affected hundreds of ball players

0:09:15developing their skills and taking hopefully those people take those skills and go forward with their adult life but he also touched thousands of other students at Berkeley High helping them navigate through the complex ordeals of high school and prepare them for adulthood

0:09:35so we are honoring more than a baseball player tonight we're honoring a very good person by all accounts and that uh his contribution to the Greater Community long past his major league baseball career I'd like to um give some some perspective to what it was like in 1959 when pumsy

0:10:03um broke through and uh became a member of the Boston Red Sox in 1959 there was only 16 major league teams in the whole United States 16 we now have 30.

0:10:18there were only 400 roster positions in Major League Baseball just 400 in the whole uh country that were playing baseball at one time in in the majors therefore you had to be really really good a really good ball player to be playing at that time and in 1959 if you were African-American

0:10:44you had to be an exceptionally good and pumpsy green was as far as the social perspective I'd just like to I over the weekend I viewed a movie and I I wish I wish I could tell you where we copied it off of we copied it off of the uh television I don't know what channel but

0:11:05it was called The Loving Story and it was about Richard and Mildred loving who were interracial couple who married in the state of Virginia in the late 50s once they were married they were arrested and convicted of uh of a crime which was interracial marriage their punishment their their sentence

0:11:31was waived as long as they would leave the state of Virginia and not come back as an interracial couple so we're here we are land of the free home of the brave and we just kick somebody out of a state and told them not to come back nine years later they had gone to Court Supreme Court ruled

0:11:53that this was unconstitutional they were allowed back in the state of Virginia put that into context it took the Boston Red Sox a 12 full 12 years to integrate in baseball we're not talking about a state we're not talking about uh we're talking about baseball and yet it

0:12:15took them 12 years to get to integrate so with this in mind I'd like to to read the proclamation that we're presenting tonight it's actually a story so I uh bear with me here whereas Elijah Jerry pomsey green grew up in Richmond and attended El Cerrito High School graduating in 1952.

0:12:38he played three years of varsity basketball and baseball making all league and baseball and attended counter Costa College in San Pablo where he also played baseball Mr Green was inducted into the El Cerrito High School wall of fame he raised his family and continued to

0:12:55live in El Cerrito was with his wife of over 50 years Marie he retired from Major League Baseball in 1965 and thereafter coach-based faults for 25 years at Berkeley High School Mr Green was a student supervisor and also taught mathematics at Berkeley High School

0:13:14he also worked as a part-time Recreation leader for the city of Berkeley whereas Mr Green's dream to play for the Oakland Oaks in the Pacific coast League became a reality when he was 19 years old and after and and after two years of playing with the Oaks Farm Club in Washington he

0:13:32moved up to Stockton The Oaks top farm club in the California League whereas the Boston Red Sox purchased Mr Green's contract during the 1955 season and with the intention of sending him to Montgomery Alabama this was in 1955 Montgomery Alabama however Mr Green convinced the

0:13:54organization to let him finish the year in Stockton where he's named the most valuable player in the California state League ending with a 319 batting average 12 homers 83 RBIs in 1956 Mr green headed for spring training for the Boston Red Sox in Florida and encountered problems of segregation and

0:14:16racism in Florida and began making his climb up Boston's minor league ladder and whereas at the end of the 1957 season Mr Green earned a promotion and returned home to play for the San Francisco Seals where he helped them win their last pennant in San Francisco that year

0:14:37Mr Green later played with the Minneapolis miners a minor league affiliate of the Red Sox and then headed to the highly segregated town of Scottsdale Arizona for spring training in 1959 with a chance to be Boston's starting shortstop Mr Green was continually reminded that

0:14:58the Red Sox was the only team in all of baseball that was still segregated and whereas despite a tremendous spring Mr Green was sent back to Minneapolis which caused an uproar throughout Boston and baseball on July 21st 1959 he was asked to return to Chicago where he joined the team and

0:15:20pinch ran for Vic Wertz making his first start against Hall of Fame pitcher early wind when he passed those white sock Dugout at Kaminsky Park an old baseball team my Jim Landis yelled hey El Cerrito have a good season on August 4th at Fenway Park in Boston pumpsy green received a rousing standing

0:15:45ovation when he came up to the came up to the plate to bat and I got to say it's not in the the proclamation but not only did he get up and he got a standing ovation but then he hit a green a triple off the famed green uh wall his first time up so it was quite an evening and

0:16:05Ashley and exclamation point on finally being uh finally having African-Americans play ball in Boston so now therefore although Mr Green would like and quotes would like to be remembered in Red Sox history as just another ball player aside from being the last of the first

0:16:28unquote the city council of the city of El Cerrito hereby proclaims its recognition of Mr Elijah pumpley green for his distinguished stature in baseball history as the first African-American ever play for the Boston Red Sox the last team in the major leagues to integrate

0:16:50thank you Mr Green [Applause] I'd like to say a few words yes thank you this is a beautiful thank God the chief of police know you wonderful people that are here tonight and uh I would see you around town because I live right down the street and happy to be here

0:18:13[Applause] thank you all right just an interesting side light I don't know if you saw it but the chief of police has is a she didn't let me back up she didn't let us know until after she was hired and maybe that was smart since you're in uh Giant and A's territory here but the chief of

0:18:48police is a big Boston Red Sox fan and if you go by her you may want to ask her to show you her cell phone it's got Boston Red Sox on the back all over the place so uh anyway it was great all right could we have the next uh agenda item please item 4B the El Cerrito citizen Street oversight

0:19:12committee annual report to the city council with Al Miller as chair it's the toughest act to follow I've had in my memory thank you for it though good evening mayor Jones and council members as chair of the El Cerrito citizen Street oversight committee I'm pleased to present our required annual

0:19:36report for 2011.

0:19:38to you and the citizens of El Cerrito the committee consisting of myself Vice chair Lynn Kessler Thomas N Miller and Aurelia Schultz I met Monday night January 23rd with the public works director Jerry Bradshaw and administrative Services director Mary Dodge Committee Member Elizabeth oselchuk who

0:20:03was absent that night Miss Amy Meyer a partner of the city's audit firm Mays and associates also was present at this meeting and at our September 2011 meeting the committee reviewed the measure a sales tax receipts from the state and various invoices from Street

0:20:22contractors working on Council approved projects to satisfy ourselves that all receipts and expenditures met the measure a requirements and were properly accounted for with Ms Meyer's help we also reviewed a draft version of The Maze and Associates independent accountants agreed upon

0:20:42procedures report for the city of El Cerrito Master installment sale agreement compliance with Bond covenants for the 2008 sales tax revenue bonds after these reviews were completed and the staff answered all of our questions the committee by unanimous vote agreed

0:21:01that all measure a sales tax receipts and expenditures met the measure a requirements and were properly accounted for the committee would like to acknowledge and commend the professionalism of Staff support for the committee we would also like to thank Ms Myers for her help and

0:21:19participation a meaningful review of the financial aspects of the city streets Improvement projects would not be possible without their continued support and assistance thank you and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have or try to any questions no it was pretty good report maybe if we

0:21:42just leave it that bad thank you good for me thanks yeah and thanks to thank you to the committee for their work foreign Doctors Hospital stroke outreach program with sushila Patel thank you very much for inviting me here this evening to speak about uh The Stroke Program we have available at

0:22:12Doctors Medical Center in San Pablo uh first of all on behalf of the hospital I would like to thank the community for their support with measure J and for the support that this community has lended us throughout the last several years we would not be there if it had not been

0:22:31for the support of our surrounding communities um in September of 2011 The Joint accreditation which accredits hospitals for I guess outstanding programs gave us certification as a primary stroke center in Contra Costa County now you may ask what does this mean for our community

0:23:01well let me start by saying that in 2010 there were about 795 000 cases of Strokes reported in this country eighty percent of those uh Strokes could have been prevented so our goal in reaching out to the various communities is to educate the public about uh preventative measures

0:23:29uh and they're you know things that we may take for granted and also there are things that we have heard about for years managing blood pressure uh managing cholesterol levels diet which is especially important in diabetics since they're at high risk for strokes

0:23:51exercise and follow up with the physician also signs and symptoms of Strokes uh facial droop difficulty with speech weakness especially on one side of the body confusion um uh drooling not recognizing people that you're around and contacting 9-1-1 so they can get you to the hospital as soon as

0:24:24possible um Studies have shown that for patients who exhibit signs of stroke if they get to the hospital within the first three hours of the symptoms they have a better outcome nowadays there are medications that can be given which are very effective and for those

0:24:49who do not meet the criteria for medications so there are other therapies involved as well our program at Doctors Medical Center involves having a neurologist available 24 7.

0:25:03we have lab services available around the clock we have x-ray EKG and SCT scan that functions Around the Clock as well and these are all essential things that are needed to be a primary stroke center we have seen very good outcomes with the patients we have treated not a hundred

0:25:24percent uh you know it's impossible to have everybody come in and then walk out of a hospital and you know there are different factors involved but overall I would say we have seen very good results with the treatments we have provided so the main thing I want to leave with

0:25:45everyone today is that the sooner you get to the hospital the better you know if you see a friend or a relative or a neighbor exhibiting signs and symptoms which you think might be stroke even though you're not sure please call 9-1-1 educate your family members educate

0:26:05other people in your community uh again eighty percent of Strokes are preventable and stroke is the third leading cause of death in this country and the number one cause of disability does anyone have any questions and just one question thank you Miss Patel um so in terms of your service area when

0:26:30somebody does call 9-1-1 and a victim is thought to have a stroke are they brought from all over the county or I'm sorry is it all West contrast accounting that you all are serving well we have uh Kaiser Richmond is also a primary stroke center and then we are the next one closest to them we're

0:26:50really 10 minutes apart essentially Kaiser patients would tend to go to a Kaiser facility if you know of course if they came to our facility we would treat as well we have no problem with that okay uh we see a good number of people because of the community that we serve

0:27:08you know we have a lot of walk-ins and a lot of ambulance traffic so yes yeah thank you we see quite a few anyone else yeah I've got a quick question um you emphasized the primary um treatment but I understand from uh stroke victims that it's actually the Intensive retraining that goes on

0:27:32afterwards that's uh contributes dramatically to their quality of life after the stroke is that built into the same program is that part of the accreditation it certainly is you know in the old days that I'm talking about maybe 20 years ago even maybe 10 years ago Physical Therapy occupational

0:27:50therapy speech they were there but they were kind of not on the Forefront now we have found that the sooner Physical Therapy gets involved speech therapy occupational therapy it's a big contributor to the overall outcome of the patient yes and we do have that built into our system thank

0:28:10you anyone else well thank you very much we really appreciate it no problem thank you for inviting me on the little table outside I have put some refrigerator magnets with that have signs and symptoms of stroke please feel free to take one take one for your family members your

0:28:30neighbors or your friends thank you again great thanks a lot next item please item number five adoption of the consent calendar items number 5A through 5f yes we are going to pull item 5f off the agenda for tonight it will be coming back as the mayor distributes some additional

0:28:52information excuse me either I don't know that you need to pull item 5B but if you'll give the chief of police an opportunity to speak to it for a second that would be great yes yes that'd be great good evening mayor council and Mr Hannan this is the best part about being a

0:29:23police chief is when I get to honor the men and women of our agency that provide such incredible service to El Cerrito thank you for pulling this and allowing me to speak because we are commending and congratulating Officer Terry Schillinger for his recognition by the Richmond Elks

0:29:41Lodge number 1251 as the police officer appreciation program our police officer of the year I'd like to read to you and anyone that's out there listening a little bit about why he is being recognized officer Schillinger has consistently proven himself to be an outstanding employee

0:29:59he's led the department in criminal apprehensions he's excelled in deterring and apprehending suspects involved in robbery and narcotics trafficking he has demonstrated his dedication to the mission and values of the El Cerrito police department the city of El Cerrito

0:30:17and his fellow department members and his performance during this past year has absolutely exceeded expectations and cannot pass without notice so there is a there's a great Navy saying that I'm sure Mr Al Miller and Terry Schillinger will appreciate and that is it's not the lofty sale but then

0:30:40seen wind that propels the ship and our ship certainly has been propelled in this past year by the efforts of Officer Schillinger and I could not be happier than to recommend him and really commend him for being our officer of the year [Applause] I'd like to thank the city council the

0:31:07Alfredo Police Department and fellow members that I work with to have the honor and opportunity to serve the citizens of El Cerrito very honored thank you thank you thank you [Applause] with that I'd like to move the consent calendars five A through five E seconds

0:31:28removed and seconded on the motion all those in favor aye opposed motion carries since calendar passes next item please there are no public hearings next item is item seven policy matters 7A city council policy matters mid-year budget review Workshop we have a presentation by the staff

0:32:01good evening mayor Jones and members of the council I'm Mary Dodge your administrative Services director and I'm here tonight to discuss our mid-year budget review thank you thank you now this is something that we do every year um it's not coming out for me we do it every year

0:32:24but this year I think we planned on doing it a little bit more thoroughly not what we always do it thoroughly but last year when we passed the budget there was so much economic turmoil that we wanted to make sure that this year's major review we really looked and made

0:32:37sure that we were still on track at mid-year and we went into preparing for next year as strong as we could so with that in mind what we did for a process to get started we did a detailed line item report that you guys have in your packet and we looked at every single line item and we

0:32:59tried to make estimates we discussed these balances with the staff and we projected where we were going to be at June 30th 2012. we took those estimates and we reviewed them with the financial Advisory board at their February 13th meeting and after all the detail was

0:33:17reviewed they basically we received some commendations to the staff on cost-cutting efforts that had been made and they had a recommendation that we continued in that manner but they did not recommend that there be any adjustments so just kind of look at how we went

0:33:35about this first off we look at the revenue kind of siphon it apart where we're going to be looking at for revenue is is number one validity of the forecast this is always a difficult situation considering sales tax property tax and and how some of the things have been

0:33:52changing as our economy has changed we'd be looking for program changes some of that in the past could have been a new daycare center legislative issues for their for this year it could be Redevelopment or vlf and and whether or not we were going to collect the money

0:34:08as in some utility user tax issues we've had in the past as we started up the East Bay mud program we took all those detailed line items we've heard the summary schedule and in the summary schedule you can see that primarily some of the big changes the ones that really have a significant

0:34:27impact are in the taxes section the taxes represents 50 percent and it uh it's it's the material portion of our Revenue for property taxes we received notification in July that we were going to be having a 1.36 reduction in our assessed valuation this was unanticipated we had not received

0:34:51any indicators in the previous year and we did not budget for it to go down we were assuming that it essentially was going to at least remain flat so this was a a bit of a surprise and when the I personally feel had a little bit to do with some of the um the the mortgage issues that were

0:35:11happening at that time and and some of the loan structures I believe that some of the houses it could have turned over may not have gone on the market because of some of the jumbo loan issues and and we're hoping that as this things level out that this does not become an

0:35:26ongoing issue we still will not be able to figure out until July once again what our assessed valuation numbers are so we are always a little bit slow to find out how those revenues go oh I'm sorry I was gonna say July is important because the state requires the

0:35:43city to pass a budget by July 1st so if our projections are unexpected and we find out in July that's the reason why it upsets the budget correct the timing does not flow well we normally bring our presentations to get out our assessed valuation and we find out in July because we call and

0:36:07request a report the letter normally does does not come out until August so we are always trying to play catch-up and we have tried to find out some of the assumptions from the county assessor's office at this time we have not been able to gain any ground in that

0:36:21and I don't think we're the only city with that issue or that question thank you and uh just one more question just to be really clear on this table uh the prior year total for property taxes we see here is 5.7 million dollars estimate for 2012 is 5.7 million dollars so flat

0:36:36so when you say the county assessor reduced property assessed value by 1.3 I think you said does that mean uh the two percent adjustment per year was made and then it was reduced from two percent by 1.3 percent the total overall assessed valuation number comparing one year to

0:36:57the other year was the was the 1.36 went down by 1.36 percent and and that two percent inflation Factor does not is not a is not an automatic inflation Factor it only is uh kicks in when the inflation is over that two point but for for specifics the First Column which was

0:37:17six million 25 000 is actually what we were passed back in June of to 2011 as our budget um the estimated column estimated 2012 is what they're currently projecting based on mid-year reviews so it's flat now um our budget is remaining flat between 5.8 million and 5.8 million but it's 240

0:37:40000 off of the Six Million 25.

0:37:43and that is a net number there's the supplemental line items and other items within that property taxes uh category so that the 240 000 is a net property tax reduction thank you I wanted to find my 1.36 and it's hard to find when we have too many numbers summarized there

0:38:02so now to the next item of confusion that would be sales taxes um our sales tax projections were one that we wanted to be very cautious about but we also wanted to make sure that we were following what we thought the trends were and and it appears as though our actual sales taxes are going to come

0:38:19in pretty close to what we anticipated but the reduction that we received was an unanticipated reduction to the sales tax in lieu amount and this gets confusing because sales tax in lieu is part of the triple flip so this is money that we get via the county and it is all

0:38:41any they give an estimate of how how much you're going to get based on the prior Year's sales taxes and then they do a true up and if you recall last year we had that huge adjustment when the Board of Equalization grabbed five years of Home Depot taxes and gave it to

0:38:58Richmond well you know that was difficult and enough and we'd already paid Richmond that portion they they were very cooperative and gave us our money back but I we did not anticipate nor did our Consultants that a year later they would do the same thing in the calculation in the true up they just

0:39:16look at what the balance is and so they did an adjustment out for 257 000 offset by Twenty Thousand to the 237. so um and that money we will be working with Richmond we talk to Richmond recent going collectively to the board and coming up with an agreement and getting

0:39:38this settled once and for all because it's just very difficult to do this back and forth so the other changes that we have we have some items that have gone up and down and we're going to go to the next slide where we kind of highlight some of the changes um here's our assessed valuation the

0:39:58charges for services that we showed on the other schedule that had an increase and it includes but it's offset by all the other departments charges for services it includes the 250 000 successor agency administrative fees and a hundred and fifty two thousand that we

0:40:16will get reimbursed from the municipal Services Corporation for their staff and other operational expenditures we also have an intergovernmental Revenue 175 thousand dollars in Grants that we're going to receive from the MSC that will be used for um to offset costs for the pilot vehicle

0:40:39program for the police and flooring for the senior center so if we go to our expenditures and kind of figure out what are we going to look at what's our Focus for that once again validity of our forecasts and unanticipated Staffing changes timing and major projects and overall effect of

0:41:00our spending climate and this was a year where we didn't have any real major projects change I think we've been kind of just in a a uh a stable mode just trying to maintain things so there have been a lot of flexibility or volatility in what we've been doing in our

0:41:17expenditures if we look at this this is the expenditures by Department and uh we end up with a in in all of my budget numbers whenever you see a bracket it's a negative variance whether it's a revenue or expenditure we try to make sure that you can you don't have to

0:41:36go back and forth so so in this one um we end up with 186 thousand dollars forecast be being less than what we had anticipated and if we go to the next slide we can determine here's some of the major findings that we had in that list of uh expenditures by department and like we

0:41:55said we do have an overall cautious spending pattern and we did have some there was some Savings in the police department they had some unanticipated staffing changes a little bit more they had their retirements then they had a couple of different positions where people were

0:42:09gone but some of those were done mid-year and some of those quite a few of those have been filled very quickly and all of them are anticipated to be filled by the end of the fiscal year and just to pause right there for a moment in the staff report you do talk about

0:42:28how the police department had six unanticipated retirements and two unanticipated departures but just to be clear they there are not six vacancies some of those have been filled already during the course of the fiscal year is that accurate yes and and most of those it was not a uh

0:42:45they were staggered throughout the year and and some of them were somewhat anticipated um that had salary savings but then there were others that that weren't and they're fully funded the council has fully funded these positions absolutely thank you and you said it but just to re-emphasize it for

0:43:04the public all of those positions will be filled by the end of the fiscal year and in fact this afternoon I'm sure that the police chief could discuss that this afternoon at 4 30 they had us swearing in and so there were positions that were filled today there and we've done some

0:43:18significant recruitments and uh there's efforts ongoing to make sure that all of these positions are filled thank you if I could just to clarify one point on that um one of the assumptions in going to full strength before the fiscal year is out is that the um uh the school resource officer

0:43:38positions the three positions would be filled and funded by the school district as has been the case in the past we have been informed by District staff that that's true and we are in the process of working out a new agreement to bring forth so but as we said at the beginning of the fiscal

0:43:56year until that agreement is ratified by both sides um we're not going to fill those three positions until we have the surety that um until we're certain that the the funding is there but every indication um right from the superintendent is that it's been included in their budget and

0:44:14now we're just working on and amending the prior agreement to include that so assuming that happens as we plan yes we would we anticipate being at full strength by July 1st thank you so continuing with the Departments the fire department ended up uh they show a

0:44:34negative variance but they got Short change to begin with because we have a one way that we budget for the OES overtime is we record a revenue in an expenditure and they we excluded the expenditure in the budget for ninety five thousand dollars and that kind of

0:44:52set them off uh a little bit under the gun and then they have had some um overtime increases um due to leaves and vacation times and the economic development increase reflects the former Redevelopment agency staff that will be being reimbursed by the MSC agreement

0:45:18so if we look at the expenditure by classification we noticed that you know as as the city manager Hannah has said we are in the people business and 80 of our budget is is personnel and the rest of it essentially is support for those personnel and so if you look at this by Department

0:45:35we have a the only negative variance we have is 329 000 and if you consider that um 127 000 of it is MSC and 95 000 of it is the OES thing we essentially out of uh a very large amount of budget we have a couple hundred thousand dollar variants um and in all of the other

0:46:02classifications you essentially it really shows the efforts it cost containment so we took all these details put them all together and try to put a summary schedule to figure out exactly what are we going to do with all this information so the purpose of this schedule is to

0:46:25highlight where we started with our budget our revenues and expenditures look at the individual variances that as they've come up and to calculate our new fund balance Reserve using those estimates and determine what our Reserve percentage is as we've discussed many times in the

0:46:43past our goal is to have 10 of operating expenditures as a reserve with actually a final goal of 15 at this time we are at 9.3 percent or seventy eight thousand dollars under 9.7 okay 9.73 um or 78 000 under and uh this is uh an item for discussion but uh at at point two seven percent of our

0:47:17Reserve with the economy in the state that it is and um a planned environment this is this is where we need to be able to discuss is this an appropriate use of our reserve and uh recognize that the high level of services have continued throughout this period of time and that

0:47:36the budget for 1213 will continue to be a challenge we are hoping that the positive economic indicators that we have been hearing uh will be able to be validated and we know that every effort will be made to achieve the reserve requirement so the next step will be back in April

0:47:57and to well probably May to bring the first budget review to be adopted by June 30th and if you have any questions I'll be happy to answer again any questions right now I don't think I I have one that I'm gonna ask you miss Dodge that I would not want to have to

0:48:19answer if I were you um so as you're going through all of these line items this is just one of those really tough questions I I I'm not sure what you're going to answer but when you're trying to project forward for these next um a couple months what as you're going

0:48:32through with the assumptions you have to make which are just really sensitive and would really you know if they turned out to not be the case from what we're trying to um forecast based on the best information we have today what are what among all of your assumptions are sort

0:48:47of the ones that are are very sensitive to changes and if they don't turn out the way we hope they turn out May kind of throw our 9.73 percent result down to a level that we wouldn't be comfortable with the whole category of expense expenditure items I don't think that

0:49:05there's a whole lot of risk there there may be a few items that people end up completing projects they were planning on billing next year that they build this year but I think that we have a pretty good handle on the Personnel costs so in the expenditure side I don't

0:49:19think that there is as much risk in that okay in the revenue side there is always some risk property taxes are pretty much so a slam dunk now now that we have this information we know what we're going to be getting some of the in Loom money we know what we're going to be getting

0:49:34sales taxes um if something were to happen if there was a some sort of like Guitar Center's gone this this time it's built into this assumption but if something else happened um we don't really have those types of crystal balls we do try to work those into what we provide our consultants and

0:49:56what we consider as we're making our projections but that there is a little bit of volatility there another one I haven't talked about is utility user tax and and we are anticipating [Music] um receiving that we didn't anticipate changing that budget even though this

0:50:13has been an interesting Year and that we finally went off the supplemental billing program from East Bay mud and we are doing a good monthly collection on this we will have to start uh soon in looking at if we have unpaid bills on that and sending notices and seeing what

0:50:28kind of collection efforts we have on that but it is still anticipated that we will receive that money an interesting thing that's happening in that area is um we seem to be receiving on a monthly basis less amounts from the major cell phone companies and that has to do with

0:50:47a lot of data a lot of their billing going over towards data and so this is an item that we've discussed with our Consultants on determining an audit and what happens what recourse do we have on this because we have some of them where we've had Revenue that's gone down

0:51:04by a quarter and this becomes really significant but right now the way it's going looking at it on a monthly basis we are still projecting um to come in on on budget those are some of the more volatile ones I'm trying to think um and the more significant ones yeah those are the big

0:51:23ones that I think you touched on the ones I was expecting that you might you might pull up so that that's helpful and it's good to know on the expenditure side I mean that's the side that clearly we have the control over so I you know I think that was the correct statement

0:51:35thank you the phone uh funding that you just talked about is that that's total local responsibility or is that governed by state law there is there are legal ramifications to the wording and all this this had to go if this goes back to our measure K remember when we changed it back and I think it

0:52:04was two thousand four and that was to include our city attorneys over here you could probably answer this a little bit better but uh as as these plans have evolved there's certain language that needs to be foreign sure I mean I think that um there there are a couple of things going

0:52:25on um it so and understand that part of your question it seemed to me was like whose job is it to collect this right well whose job and under what Authority right so the the taxes imposed locally um it is the obligation of the utility to collect it from the customers and it

0:52:42is a tax on the use of the utility in this case the phone um but I think as you all understand um in addition to changes at the federal level which have largely been which have largely been addressed but there are probably still additional changes as the nature of billing the the nature of the

0:53:00structure of phone service and the nature of billing changes there are probably additional changes that could be made to the municipal code but I think what you're really seeing in a significant part is something that you probably all experience yourself which is a shift away from landline to mobile

0:53:14and within mobile from timed built into bundled service and it is basically a catch-up game for all Municipal codes to to keep Pace with the way that the industry is is altering the way that it provides services and the way the customers are receiving service and that does have an effect on the

0:53:33amount of Revenue that is collected so we not only have to worry about whether we collect it or not but make sure we upgrade so would that be a goal in the next year is to make sure that our Municipal codes are upgraded well that would probably require a ballot

0:53:50measure two um to to alter the the text of the necessary provisions of the code and additionally there is also changing law at the federal level including continued extensions of prohibitions on taxing internet access and so to the extent that um as Ms Dodge said a significant

0:54:11portion of billing is now on the data side on most phone plans that that's that is that is it is still there's still some gray areas about the extent to which that's reachable but the federal government has basically made it a portion of that unreachable by local taxing

0:54:24jurisdictions at this time right correct it's it's been our best efforts to wait a few years and let a little bit of the Dust settle on this before we went and did another vote because it wasn't that long ago that we did take it to our residence and it might be confusing okay thank you

0:54:45I I just want to make sure that I get this question correct um in table 1-13 of our annual budget we projected that Revenue would exceed our expenditures by 280 000 and now the mid-year review we are projecting that our revenues will exceed our expenditures by 250 000 in in round

0:55:12terms so we are still exceeding our Revenue our expenditures our revenue is still exceeding our revenues and we in order to get to that 10 percent uh contingency we needed to have a 280 thousand dollar difference we're at 250 000 difference and so we're just not

0:55:33quite in getting to that 10 percent this year that's correct we had anticipated we anticipate to still contribute we towards the fund balance we will be planning all of our estimates Go For Us increasing our fund balance but not to the extent that we had initially

0:55:52anticipated great thank you but that's under current projections say for instance uh housing spikes in the in the yeah in the springtime it's possible that we would be able to hit that 10 it is possible and if you've tried to get a parking spot at the plaza lately you

0:56:11know we we have there are there's data that we've received from the the state that's talking about next year and average they go between six and eight percent to increase in sales tax now that's Statewide and we normally are nowhere as near as high as they are but

0:56:27this is a definite increase Statewide in their we are anticipating good sales tax results for El Cerrito okay thank you any other questions for staff thank you for your report hard work and we'll look forward to the April budget next item please Financial review of dissolution of the

0:56:56El Cerrito Redevelopment agency good evening mayor and council members um I'm here to give you a report a financial review of the dissolution of the El Cerrito Redevelopment agency as you know the agency was dissolved on September on February 1st 2012 pursuant to ab1x26 and

0:57:22um all the remaining Redevelopment agency funds are now being held in for transfer to a new fund which we which will be used by a successor agency to pay the agency's obligations um so this report is a financial review of the agency covering the fiscal year through the end of January when the

0:57:41agency was dissolved so the agency's budget was adopted prior to the state's enactment of the dissolution legislation which resulted in the agency suspension on July 1st of 2011 pursuant to that legislation the agency adopted an enforceable obligation payment schedule

0:58:01and was only able to make payments on any items that were on that schedule through the end of 2011.

0:58:10the agency did amend its eops its payment schedule to include obligations that were due through the end of this current fiscal year when it became clear that the agency would be dissolved um and so the agency uh was able to utilize its December tax increment payment to make payments on its

0:58:30obligations during the month of January prior to the dissolution and the agency subsequent to that maintained enough cash to transfer to the successor agency to pay payments that are due prior to the receipt of its next of the next tax revenue payment 80 percent of revenues to the former

0:58:52Redevelopment agency were budgeted in the capital fund for economic development and Redevelopment purposes those expenditures included Personnel a small amount for legal expenses debt payments pass-through payments and overhead paid to the city and um a grant to the municipal Services

0:59:11Corporation for implementation of projects and programs upon Amendment of the payment schedule the agency made payments on all of its um obligations in January and you can see that um excuse me and with the exception of any Personnel expenses that were budgeted

0:59:36for the year all the remaining expenses Appropriations for the Redevelopment agency are essentially moved at this point because the agency is no longer allowed to amend its budget and though those Appropriations will essentially be replaced by the payment schedule that

0:59:54the successor agency will be preparing which will be at spending Authority going forward the Personnel expenses for redevelopment staff as Mary mentioned earlier were transferred to the general fund for the rest of this fiscal year so I'd like to have healthy come up and

1:00:12talk about the housing aspects of this good evening Hildy mile housing program manager on the housing fund also is an entity of the Redevelopment agency it was also dissolved as of February 1st it was treated very similarly to the Redevelopment agency's Capital fund

1:00:32um 20 of tax increment revenue is due to the the former Redevelopment agency's low and moderate income fund the fiscal year 1112 budget included expenditures for personnel legal and project related expenses as well as the housing funds share of Debt Service payments and

1:00:49overhead paid to the city and loan disbursements for our current housing projects for Eden Housing and Ohlone Gardens those budgeted amounts were included on the payment schedule along with the Redevelopment agency's obligations to fund the city's implementation of

1:01:06affordable housings and housing projects and programs pursuant to the city cooperation agreement the Redevelopment agencies expenditures were limited to those obligations that were on the payment schedule similar to the capital Fund in January pursuant to the cooperation agreement

1:01:27um we transferred encumbered loan moderate income housing funds to a newly created City housing fund which we elected to to retain the housing functions as part of the dissolution of the agency so we created a new city fund um to allow the city to continue to implement housing activities on behalf

1:01:45of the former agency so the remaining budget that was in the agency housing fund for operational expenses was transferred to the city housing fund and it was essentially an operation of law of that dissolution act when the Redevelopment agency dissolved all those

1:02:02the assets as well of the housing fund were also transferred to the city um less any any encumbered amounts were left in the housing fund and those would be transferred to the successor agency as of February 1st the housing portion of things that are on the obligation payment schedule

1:02:23include 1.196 million dollars of payments that are due to the city's housing fund for saraf and eraf repayments and for loan commitments to Eden and rcd um for the Illinois Gardens project we're not sure right now what the likelihood of receiving those payments

1:02:41are and to be conservative we did not show them in 11 12 budget we will still attempt to collect them they are on the city's fund balance sheet and we will update that if we as we know more about whether those will be collectible back to Lori I had uh one question or

1:03:03clarification when you say that funds were transferred to a newly created City housing fund that is allowed under the state law and the legislation correct this was not correct the city acting on its own no correct there's the we transfer them pursuant to the cooperation agreement to implement

1:03:25project related programs those funds were encumbered and under this under the dissolution act those encumbered funds remain part of the city's housing activities it's it's the unencumbered funds that would stay with the the Redevelopment agency and then successor agency great thank you

1:03:48just to wrap it up so the um different from the the housing the new housing fund there is a fiduciary a fund being established for the successor agency that will receive the Redevelopment agency's assets and liabilities the successor agency does not have any budget discretion

1:04:07um the city's only serving in a fiduciary role and so you're not uh the successor isn't considering a budget at this time um the um a draft of the recognized obligation payment schedule will be considered later in Your Capacity acting as the successor agency so if you have any

1:04:29questions about the financial review I'd be happy to answer them great any uh thank you very much appreciate it next item please item 7a3 appointment and approval of City appointed members to the successor agency oversight board staff report on this no staff report

1:05:00I get used to Lori going up there every on everyone um as as we've been talking about um and it and it gets confusing the city serves um as the successor agency and then there is a successor agency oversight board um pursuant to the dissolution act around Redevelopment

1:05:23the oversight board that will be created would consist of two members appointed by the County Board of Supervisors one member appointed by the County Board of Education one member by the chancellor of California community colleges the largest special taxing district agent

1:05:41District entity which in our case is East Bay Regional Parks um the mayor of the city that established the Redevelopment agency and a a staff member of the former Redevelopment agency so you have what you have before you is we are requesting uh requesting you acting as the successor

1:06:06agency or really acting as the city council to make your appointments to the oversight board we are recommending the staff appointment and it'll be it's up to you to determine um if one of you presumably one of you want to serve as the mayoral appointment with that staff or Council can take any

1:06:30questions but but essentially we're asking you to appoint the two members to the oversight board okay uh actually the mayor has two appointments correct uh I guess I would look at Council but technically this the city has two appointments um the mayor has one appointment the other

1:06:52appointment by the city is a staff I mean you're much Limited in the second appointment right okay any questions to staff okay what I'd like to do since the legislation calls for the mayor to conduct these appointments I'd like to uh appoint the existing mirror myself to be on the oversight

1:07:18board for the successor agency I'd like to take that on and that I'll concur with the staff recommendation of hilding a mile representing the former employees of the El Cerrito Redevelopment agency after talking with Staff feel there's good good reasons that Hildy would be

1:07:40the proper person but I wish to go forward on that appointment so any questions yeah I've gotten I've got a question for Council um are we or actually maybe it's for you I'll let Council make the decision which one of you is going to answer us are we um is the resolution

1:08:01appointing the office of mayor or mayor Jones as the board member mayor Jones an individual so it I mean I think mayor Jones is suggest is saying that he would like to appoint himself with the concurrence of the council to continue past his mayoral term um I would I was I'm assuming

1:08:28oh Pastor mayoral well I'm representing the I mean I'm recommending the individual rather than the position you're right yeah well that I think maybe that is council member lyman's question that is the question we could do I believe we could do it either way such that

1:08:45um come December when there's a new mayor appointed we would not have to ratify a new resolution at that time for appointees um so it it it could be the position of the mayor or it could be the individual it can be either that's the that's the conversation I'm asking yeah well if

1:09:06if the individual at the end of December uh leaves the new mayor can't appoint I mean the the law says that the mayor shall appoint so you could actually appoint any any time you want is what I would read well if I'm remembering correctly this the statute doesn't say anything about how

1:09:28long an appointee serves on the oversight board and I'll look to um to help me with this but um I my general understanding of that is of a statement like that is Whoever has the appointment Authority bearing in mind that the tradition in El Cerrito is that those appointments are made with

1:09:46the concurrence of the council that that that that also means that the power to remove that person from the board um exists at any time and so if the council wanted to make an appointment during a council member's term during a mayoral term that would be fine and then

1:10:02they'd have to appoint somebody else at either the end of that Council term or mayoral term but it's really up to you how you want to structure that unless I've misunderstood the statute no the only thing I would add is that the statute does say that if there's a vacancy in

1:10:17your appointments so you have two appointments then the mayor fills those vacancies so if the appointment is to Bill Jones as an individual if you step down in February of 2013 whoever's mayor would fill that vacancy then however we want to handle it but I would highly suggest we we appoint an

1:10:42individual rather than a position it's fine gives flexibility just one question uh so all of the oversight board members they they do not serve for a term they serve until they choose to vacate and then they their vacated seat is appointed by the appropriate entity that that's correct I

1:11:01mean the only thing in the legislation is they serve until they vacate the seat and then whoever appointed them has to fill that seat within 60 days or the governor gets to fill it and and when does the oversight board conclude 2016 when there will be a single oversight board in the county

1:11:22the city with the largest Redevelopment agency will get to make an appointment to that oversight board and I don't think it's going to be El Cerrito no so can you check your calculations so the maximum duration of this appointment would be from today through to June 30th 2016. yeah assuming the

1:11:47legislation stays as it is but yeah that's currently the thinking thank you okay is there any public comment on this no comments mayor okay so with that bring it back to council what would we like to do well I'd like to move a resolution of the city council of El Cerrito the city of El Cerrito to

1:12:13ratify the appointment by the mayor of the city of El Cerrito of two members to the oversight Board of successor Agency for the former El Cerrito Redevelopment agency pursuant to health and safety code section 34179 and the two named individuals would be hilde mayal and Bill Jones the

1:12:33second the motion it's been moved and seconded any further discussion thank you both for serving where we have to take a vote first on the motion all those in favor aye opposed motion carries thank you very much next item please next item is uh B City acting a successor agency to the else to

1:12:58read a Redevelopment agency review and authorization to submit additional draft recognized obligations payment schedule foreign just continues yes this is the third of a three-part Saga right there's more okay um okay so mayor and council members uh before you is a um resolution of the

1:13:20city council acting as the successor agency to authorize submittal of an initial draft of the recognized recognized obligations payment schedule that's required under ab1x26 as I mentioned earlier the funds that were made with the Redevelopment Agency on January 31st

1:13:41will be transferred to the successor agency um as a matter of law that fund is being established a fiduciary fund is being established to take those assets and liabilities the successor agency is not a component agency of the city and the city will not be assuming those successor assets and

1:14:01liabilities the city council's role as a successor agency is limited to taking actions that are necessary to facilitate the completion or payment of the successor agencies recognized obligations successors successor agency does not have any budget Authority it's serving

1:14:18in a fiduciary role so the payment schedule being prepared is going to serve as a spending plan for the successor agency once it's been certified approved by the oversight board um the initial draft has to be submitted to the county by March 1st it will be reviewed and certified by an external

1:14:42auditor um and um then um considered by the oversight board for approval as as discussion staff report the timing on this is very mixed up because of the suspension being delayed during the litigation prior to the dissolution so um the um it's possible that the obligation

1:15:11payment schedule will be the payments will need to be made before some of these actions by these other entities are taken my understanding from the county is that they have they fully intend to make sure that the successor has the necessary funds to make payments

1:15:24and won't be holding things up based on these inconsistencies in the timeline um so the draft drops recognized obligation payment schedule that's exhibit a to the resolution is based on the amended payment schedule from January 17th it covers the period from February through June of the current

1:15:48year and it also includes projected payments for the subsequent six months and then all the way through the end of the Redevelopment plan which would have been through 2025 um the obligations include tax allocation Bond payments payments on the Valente note payments on the cooperation agreements

1:16:11with this with the municipal Services Corporation and the city um for housing functions um loan payments on the Seraph at Erath loans and undispersed Loan commitments that the agency has for rcd and Eden for their projects and then the administrative allowance for the

1:16:30successor agency of 250 000 per year um so if you have any further questions I'm happy to answer them and uh agency Council and housing manager is here as well I have one question um so I see that you know we have a a payment schedule that goes out through the life of what would have been the

1:16:57Redevelopment agencies right had it continued without this recent event of of being terminated and so what I'm wondering about is do we have certain knowledge that in fact there will be funds to cover all of this well the the legislation requires that any funds that would have come to the

1:17:25Redevelopment agency will go to pay the obligations that are on the schedule um you know assuming that that there isn't a crash in the assessed value of the project area there's no reason to believe that there won't be sufficient funds to do so I guess when I'm a little

1:17:40okay when I'm maybe you just said what should answer my question but I'm a little bit concerned about is the state deciding to do something with the funds you know like and just past examples of other things they've done like the triple flip or the whatever you know exchange of funds and then I'm

1:18:00a little bit concerned about that and I'm just wondering if there is uh something written in anything or if there's some basic um Concept in state law that requires that to happen I'm going to speculate that proposition 22 would prevent them from noodling with this anymore

1:18:23um and also the um just based on Purely the bond covenants I may think we have to the the bond payments are not subordinated to anything any other payments that could be made out of these funds but I'm going to ask Karen to come up and address the question further

1:18:45you've seen in the last year I'm never going to say never for what the state could do but in terms of what these obligations represent on your recognized obligation payment schedule these record these represent effectively contractual commitments that the Redevelopment agency had which are

1:19:02now the successor agency's commitments to be paid with what was formerly tax increment so the state could try to do something with that but the whole scheme of this structure that they've created was to leave and place contractual commitments because the state can't

1:19:21impair contracts so they can try but then they're setting themselves up for a lot of litigation from the contract holders like your bondholders if for some reason they took the money and you would not be able to pay it so what they've tried to do is distill down

1:19:41for what's left to be paid for successor agencies is those things that they cannot interfere with and and so that's what you have on this so I think that we're down to the basics of what they think that they no longer can touch once again you know a new legislature

1:19:57may have new ideas but I think we're pretty safe at this point based on what their powers are okay if I read um the first page of exhibit a correctly the outstanding payments for the five months left in this fiscal year February through June of 2012. we're looking at

1:20:193.2 3.2 million three point almost 3.3 million dollars in payments yes um and we do have that revenue for coming from the county to meet this the way that the the revenue um the way that the legislation provides for the payments to be made is uh certain payments are made uh by the

1:20:44county directly particularly for pass-through payments and they calculate the revenues that are coming in we actually don't know at this point what those amounts would be because they're calculated by the county and they're based on whatever tax revenue collections are made what we um what we

1:21:02did in structuring this was ensuring that there was sufficient cash on hand to pay those debts that are due between now and the anticipated next payment from the account from the county of tax revenue and we don't have any way of knowing from that point forward exactly

1:21:16what the amount will be but we tried to provide for for that and also um put the maximum number of claims on that are possible in the current period that theoretically could exceed the amount that's available and could then be rescheduled in some way by the oversight board or the county right I

1:21:35mean I do notice that our overall claim is as we posted it several months ago again on page one is 190 million dollars and that the schedule here does really only account for about 66 million of that 190. right um and and that is based on our projections of what we believe the tax

1:21:59increment um that is available over the life of the project area would be um based on some conservative Financial projections we don't have any way of really knowing that other than you know to some extent it's a crystal ball yes thank you sure uh just a couple more sorry Mr Media

1:22:18okay so we see here are the action that's being requested tonight is that we authorize the initial draft drops recognize obligations payment schedule so this is an initial draft what makes it um become not an initial draft anymore when it's certified and okay by the

1:22:35county and then approves so no no we will not take any more action on this the correct me if I'm wrong Karen but I I believe that the successor has the right to amend it if uh new um obligations if the obligation amounts um change and that's possible in some cases where

1:22:56there's some sort of contingent liability that you don't have a dollar value assigned to um not necessarily true in in our case but um that it is possible to amend it oh and she pointed out we will you will do this every six months because there's a a new rops period every six months

1:23:18okay so we'll got to understand you'll be doing this again for the period from July to December shortly okay as we catch up on the timing in the legislation as the successor agency not the oversight obviously we're not the oversight board the oversight board we've only appointed two members to it

1:23:36the successor will will prepare a new reps for every reps period okay and that will then be certified and approved thank you okay and then the second question is on our drops on the schedule we have 13 items listed and they're all grouped are are they listed in some

1:23:54priority uh let me get my copy out here or or our River I don't I don't recall us being required to prioritize um anything on the payment schedule they're not priority okay so I put we put the debt service at the top just because that is typically considered the

1:24:12highest priority but other than that no okay thank you great any other questions do we have a public comment on this no speakers lips okay we'll bring it back for discussion any other comments uh go ahead well I just want to make a comment about all of the items that

1:24:33we've had tonight this is the uh fourth mid-year budget that we've gone through and as I ended on earlier we're actually have revenues that exceed our expenditures um so I want to in in it's a long way of saying our staff has done a phenomenal job both on these Redevelopment agency

1:24:53items as well as our Media review to put us in a position where we can take actions that we're taking tonight and and make good decisions and not be panicked or or chaotic about the things that we're doing and so I want to actually thank all of our staff for their hard work both in our mid-year

1:25:11budget that allows us to do some of the things that we've done tonight as well as specifically on this Redevelopment agency items um thank you very much again yeah I I'm going to second that uh those comments it's it's nice to be yeah let me back up uh Redevelopment this thing

1:25:33Redevelopment itself was not an easy uh concept the graphs than on all the intricacies turning it apart is even it is even worse and it wasn't popular I I think you know that if if you know the history of the council and the staff and what they thought of the demantling of

1:25:54the agency but it's it's gratifying to see the progressive efforts to go forward and to comply and we were prepared ahead of time as council member Lyman has alluded to we were prepared and going forward and we're in great position not only to comply with the law but to make any

1:26:17adjustments we need to as well as to work with a successor agency to see if we can work in the best interests of everybody as we get through this thing so I'd like to thank to I'd like to thank all the efforts and we'll be looking forward to the next chapter in this in this whole

1:26:38thing so with that do uh we have any proposed action tonight um I'll make a motion um to adopt a resolution excuse me to adopt a resolution um regarding the successor agency and authorizing submittal of an initial draft recognized obligations payment schedule required under ab1 X 26. second

1:27:14it's been moved and seconded any further discussion okay on the motion all those in favor aye aye opposed motion carries thank you MMA Council assignments and liaison reports um I just really have one main one I wanted to mention tonight and that was like it was elected

1:27:37Vice chair of the Contra Costa Transportation Authority last week congratulations do you have any discretionary funds that you can hand out uh not on this but next month we will be bringing an item that they've been working on as has WIC attack the integrated Corridor

1:27:57Mobility project which I think you'll find really interesting well good so there should be a presentation on it I believe next month well thank you I have one report to provide um I met with the art or I was Emily is under the arts and culture commission and they met

1:28:15earlier in the month um and they there's a couple of key things going on that I want to keep you abreast of on the San Pablo Avenue streetscape public art program what that what are called the icons uh the commission did preliminarily select Carlson City Hall Potrero Del Norte and Conlin

1:28:35Avenue as preliminary inner prime those are sort of the intersections where the icons are um potentially going to be placed and uh at their meeting they the artists were also stringent or stringent they wanted to make the commission aware that they could change these that they will be

1:28:52going up on on the light poles you know and and they'll get other opportunities to discuss these but the main time that they'll have to discuss it is going to be on either March 21st or March 22nd and that time is to be determined where they'll have a public hearing here in

1:29:06city council chambers and they'll make a the artist will make a presentation of the icons and the location of the icons that will be the Publix opportunity to come and really see sort of what this project is going to look like and to provide input at that time and I think

1:29:20the commission was very interested in having members of the public provide provide input and the other items that that they're coming that are that are coming down the road are soon the city will develop an RFP for public art at the recycling center that will be a

1:29:36really exciting project the idea at this point is to do an RFP which would have functional art pieces so items that are needed at the recycling center like shelving and Gates the idea would be to have an artist come in and potentially utilize some of the materials from the

1:29:54old recycling center and fashion them into functional items with sort of you know a really nice artistic Flair to those things so that's that is something the commission will be involved in and they're all pretty pretty excited about great well I'm going to make a good attempt to

1:30:11report on the waste management board's actions it was a meeting that mayor Jones attended on my behalf but notably on there was a presentation on a video on household hazardous waste which I would encourage staff to bring forward to present at city council at a future city council

1:30:33meeting additionally there is a meeting being called for this Thursday night to take under consideration some of the Contracting that has that is ongoing at the waste management board in context of consulting services for the uh the future of our contracts with

1:30:58collection and processing great thanks yeah I uh as council member Lyman indicated I did attend the waste management as an alternate and there is an ongoing discussion uh about Consulting but uh the major let me the major point is this is all part of the process in

1:31:28analyzing whether the authority should actually exist after the 2000 after 2014.

1:31:37um so it is a it is an intense time as cities try to Grapple not only with their immediate problems but also to analyze whether it is in the best interest to keep the uh joint Powers Authority going for Integrated Waste Management so it'll be an interesting time and be anxious to hear council

1:31:58members lyman's report month after month here with that any other comments and I actually did have one other one I I forgot to mention um at the committee on Aging there was a really interesting presentation uh from a group called The Air place called The Ashby Village I don't know if anyone

1:32:22here has heard about that but it is a um I should say organization that enables seniors to provide Services it provides services to seniors everything you know from little things like changing the light bulb to um doing some sort of handyman repair to all kinds of different things and the

1:32:49concept is that a group of people form a thing called a village and I think if I remember correctly Ashby Village has about 200 people enrolled and you pay a monthly fee and then you get all these Support Services through that system done by volunteers so oftentimes the volunteers are

1:33:09themselves seniors who did whatever it is as a when they were still working so if you had somebody doing um Plum I don't know plump let's call it painting uh then that's what they would be doing as a volunteer so the idea is uh to provide a way to provide all of these

1:33:34kind of services to people in this group and it was a real interesting idea and anyway there are a few places around the country where they're using this concept I think it started back East but anyway there is this group and some of these people actually are in El Cerrito now

1:33:52they're in this particular group so it was an interesting group and I do have some information about it in particular I have a another brochure which I'll give to the city clerk to um I'm almost afraid to hand it to you here uh to make copies of and pass around

1:34:10because it is an interesting idea and um maybe there are people out there listening who might be interested in it so thank you anything else then unless there's an objection we'll adjourn the meeting of February 21st [Music] now I'd like to call to order a special

1:34:33El Cerrito Municipal Services Corporation meeting for Tuesday February 21st 2012.

1:34:41and I'd like the record to show um that I'll well I'll tell you what let's take a roll call vote on this councilmember benicini here councilmember Lyman here councilmember Abelson here um I'm sorry director for each of you director pinkas director Hannon here and noting director

1:35:02Chang is absent and chair Dr Jones is here too okay thank you very much uh is there any uh board or staff communication seeing none any oral Communications from the public no speaker slips seeing no speakers uh we'll go to item four which is the adoption of the consent calendar and

1:35:32I'm happy to move adoption of consent calendar item 4A it's been moved and seconded to approve the consent calendar any discussion on the motion all those in favor aye aye opposed motion carries um now I wasn't present so do I need to abstain no uh Robert rules water allows you to vote

1:36:01on the on the minutes even though I wasn't present that's correct okay then I'll vote I oh great thank you unanimous on that thought next item please uh item five policy matters the mid-year budget update yeah good evening chairperson Mr Johnson board members um we're here to do a

1:36:27mid-year budget update and Amendment um the corporation originally anticipated having three sources of revenue um during the current fiscal year interest earnings rent and lease income and funding from the Redevelopment Agency for the cooperation agreement overall the corporation's revenues have

1:36:46been greater than expected during the first half of the fiscal year lease revenue from the theater exceeded the budget because of greater percentage rent from Rialto Cinemas which is great news um the corporation received its funding from the Redevelopment agency

1:37:02um after the first of the year so it's not shown on this budget update and it was slightly lower than anticipated and the corporation also received an unanticipated contribution from a developer for assignment of its option on a piece of property and for to fund

1:37:19some future public improvements to be made by the city in terms of expenses the corporation limited its expenses during the first half of the fiscal year because of uncertainty in terms of funding from the Redevelopment agency um the proposed budget amendment that you

1:37:35had before you reflects a continuation and completion of projects and programs that are already planned for the current fiscal year an increase in the scope of work on the Staffing contract with the city and an award of the grant recently approved by the board for radios for the

1:37:53city as well as the cost of the tenant improvements for the Cerrito Theater which is a contractual obligation that was previously reserved but the funds were not appropriated during the current budget um so prior to the current end of this year we will be coming back with a

1:38:09recommendation regarding use of the corporations and anticipated revenues and Reserve and with the development of a grant program to fund some projects and programs that would benefit the city um the community that are keeping with the corporation's mission so the proposed amendment to the budget

1:38:28is an increase in revenue of 2.12 million dollars and an increase in the expense expense budget of 163 086 dollars if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them any questions we kind of went over this uh previously here okay thank you is there any public

1:38:51comment on this no speaker slips okay bring it back to council further discussion seeing none uh looking for some action on this I I will thank you I'll move a resolution of the board of directors of the El floridi Municipal Services Corporation amending its fiscal year 2011-12 annual budget

1:39:14second it's been moved and seconded again any further discussion on the motion all those in favor aye opposed motion carries thank you next item please which would be I think in Germany adjournment unless there is objection uh we will return this special meeting of the El

1:39:40Cerrito Municipal Services Corporation thank you I saw that yeah