City Council Meeting March 6, 2012

0:10:55uh I'd like to call the meeting the regular council meeting of March 6 2012 to order but the record reflect that all members of the city council are here and prepared to do the city's business and uh if you would all rise and join me with the Pledge of Allegiance

0:11:18I pledge allegiance to the black of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you is there any uh staff communication tonight Council I'll just make one announcement um the

0:11:48arts and culture commission's next meeting coming up on Thursday March 22nd um is going to be a public hearing where uh discussion regarding the location of the street icons will take place and uh if you're interested in this project it'll be um sort of a very real life presentation

0:12:07where the artist will be available to show the locations that are being um that have been recommended by the commission at this point and they're there to take public comment um and this will be sort of the last time to discuss this but thankfully that once the icons go up it's very easy to

0:12:22move the location depending on how they work out so this will be the first uh determination of the placement of the icons and maybe they'll be moved at some point in the future thank you want to make sure folks know about our great Economic Development boards sponsored program that's for the

0:12:41entrepreneur training for it's a 10-week program and there will be an informational session on Thursday March 8th from 10 30 to noon and go to www.discoverl cerrito.com for information great in uh earlier this morning or earlier this evening the council met a special session for the purpose of

0:13:06interviewing for commission and committee openings and we haven't we did not make a decision at that time we will continue that discussion in closed session tonight or not in closed session but we will carry on that conversation at a future meeting also I'd like to know it was announced

0:13:32publicly and in our packets but for those of you who missed it Karen pinkos assistant City administer manager has been selected by the John F Kennedy School of public government at Harvard for a special intense summer session congratulations out of uh the whole

0:13:53nation 40 were invited and Karen was one of them so thank you [Music] so long as you don't get that Massachusetts draw coming back we'll take anything else you learned from there anyway okay uh oral communication from the public good evening Mayor Johnson City council

0:14:22members uh it's a pleasure to know that the sound batter up will be heard soon in El Cerrito I've looked out my front window and enjoyed the convening of the opening day parade with all of the players and their coaches and parents and their uniforms as they prepared to

0:14:42March over the street of Vista and that's always fun to watch the main reason I'm here tonight though is to let you know that of the public meeting held by the El Cerrito police department at the general purpose room at Madera school last night uh Chief Moyer and gosh I don't know 10

0:15:02or so members of her Department were there she'd invited a lieutenant I think he was a lieutenant from the Sheriff's Office to in case there were any questions about East Richmond Heights uh supervisor joy as Chief of Staff Terence Chung was there uh Susan yarla was there

0:15:21providing technical expertise so we could hear everybody but anyway it was a really great meeting they spent some time explaining to us some of the recent events that have happened uh some of the big cases that they'd been instrumental in solving and how the lessons they

0:15:41learned from those cases can help all of us have our be safer in our homes and in our persons when we're out and about the city they spent over 20 minutes answering individual questions from the audience and then they broke up the kind of organized meeting and anyone that

0:15:59wanted to go to an individual had an event of a question on traffic or burglaries or whatever the appropriate officer from the Department was there they could meet one-on-one the chief stayed around so anyway a member of the one that was held up in the community

0:16:15the Arlington clubhouse that filled up and there were about 50 people standing around outside where they got a bigger room a general purpose room at Madera is bigger than the console Chambers and there were people standing in a hall outside uh because of the length of the

0:16:33crowd but I found it very reassuring that we have a police force with a police chief that is so committed to communicating with the public partnering with the public encouraging us to give them information that they need to keep us safer and just kind of growing on each other and it was

0:16:58a good evening it's another evening where you're proud to live in El Cerrito the other thing I'll say quickly since maybe they didn't turn the light on there it's on I wanted to thank Janet for her efforts I'm sorry council member Abelson for her efforts in organizing a

0:17:14school event that was sponsored by the legal Women Voters and others but we took about 65 or so students from the West County Unified School District high schools all members of the attending the academies in this various School took a train ride to Sacramento they met

0:17:37in the Department of Education building uh State superintendent torlixen and his chief of staff Craig cheeselov came and spoke to him telling them basically how this their office works and what they do then they rehearse their lobbying efforts that they were going to present

0:17:56to Senator du solnier Senator Hancock an assembly woman Skinner and after that we went over to the state capitol into one of the hearing rooms and Senator desaldina showed up and was there most of the time assemblywoman Skinner came for about half of the presentations and these kids

0:18:18got up each school teams of maybe four or five and they had three minutes or so to make a pitch they were there to encourage them to figure out how to fund these academies in future years it was a wonderful experience plans for these kids one of them even suggested to

0:18:36Senator Hancock that she needs to write another law that makes it legal to have an academy in the continuation High School Gompers that's the same kind of Academy that they have in the other high schools apparently the original law said you can't have an academy like this in a

0:18:55continuation school or these kids and Gompers formed their own Academy so they're not to be denied but there were I don't know how many uh of us chaperones and others adults there but it was a great day and council member Abelson thank you for all that information and that the kids got and uh

0:19:17it's another reason why we're lucky to live in El Cerrito thank you thank you any other none for General comment we we do have Al again for the presentation number four is anybody else from the public want to speak okay thank you very much now we'll uh if you could announce the

0:19:42next agenda item please next agent item is presentations recycle more house household hazardous waste program video and presenting is Nicole Fort the program's manager for recycle more welcome hi good evening mayor and city council member City staff and members of the

0:19:59community so my name is Nicole Forte I'm with recycle more I'm a programs manager and recycle more is a joint powering Authority an El Cerrito is a member of that um and one of the one of the many jobs that I have is to provide educational Outreach to the West County Community

0:20:18could you adjust your microphone up there you go cycling a household hazardous waste and um so household hazardous wastes things like um CFLs Electronics batteries Pharmaceuticals basically a household hazardous waste is any toxic product that you no longer want it may

0:20:41be reusable to the community for somebody else like paint or maybe some um pull chemicals but when you don't want it anymore you want to get rid of it and what we try to do is keep it out of the garbage and out of the out of the water system so one of the things we

0:20:59thought we'd do is create a video and this was a video made with the efforts of West County resource recovery which operates and owns our household hazardous waste facility a permanent facility in Richmond and recycle more and Hustler and educational Productions

0:21:15so I'm going to show the video um there's no paid actors in this it was a members of the the main character here he's actually our hHw supervisor and the student that is doing the filming is a student at Contra Costa College so um I hope you enjoy it so I'm going to just hit play here

0:21:40it's a six and a half minute video so enjoy double click it hit the right button there you go wow yeah it was all set up for us I noticed a hand come up when you over the blue text Clay videos go to the blue text that says play video [Music] all right we've been saying we're gonna

0:23:07clean out the garage today's the day what are we gonna do with all this stuff especially the ones with the warning labels on them I don't know I wish I knew hello folks don't be afraid my name is Tariq but you can call me hazman I am here to show you how and where to

0:23:24dispose of your household hazardous waste items so I'll show you how to properly package them and take them to our household hazardous waste facility located in Richmond right off of Richmond Parkway we need your help why can't we just throw it in the trash it is against the law to throw certain

0:23:42materials into the trash improper disposal of batteries electronic waste and oil can be hazardous to human health and the environment proper disposal of household hazardous waste keeps unwanted chemicals out of the water and protects the marine life and our drinking water

0:24:00never dispose of household hazardous waste in the trash it is against the law if you are not certain what materials are hazardous bring them to our hHw facility and we will let you know remember the household hazardous waste facility is located at 101 Pittsburgh

0:24:18Avenue right off of Richmond Parkway all right I'm noticing we have quite an assortment of hazardous waste here we have some lighter fluid here all right which is a flammable liquid okay we have some aerosols here old batteries electronic waste okay we have an old digital camera here all these

0:24:37items can go to our facility all right we got some toxic waste here some poisons all right so again you just want to make sure that we go ahead and package these up nice and neat so they're not moving around you don't want any spills in your vehicle while you're transporting

0:24:54you want to make sure that all of your passengers are safe okay so you can use cardboard boxes you can use this plastic container here something like this for transporting your waste in and that's pretty much it thank you all right see you there all right let's go all right come on

0:25:32there you are again hi hasman it was really easy to get to the facility and look there's only one car ahead of you'll be done in no time at all so do I need to show some sort of ID yes driver's license or utility bill we only accept waste generated in West Contra

0:25:47Costa County no please stay in your vehicle for safety reasons looks like it's your turn [Music] thanks for all your help that was really easy remember to tell all your friends oh there's a drop off box for medicine I'll remember to bring that next time many items brought to our facility can

0:26:32be reused by someone else we look at items to make sure that they are safe to use and that the label is legible and place them in the ReUse area for residents to come and take for free we also have free latex paint and 5 gallon buckets that can be picked up by residents this paint is one color beige

0:26:51and is recycled and Blended from old paint that was delivered to our facility you must be 18 years or older to use the ReUse shed businesses that generate a small quantity of hazardous waste per month are also eligible to use our facility go online to recyclemore.com to find out if

0:27:11your business qualifies one of the other services that we incorporate for our seniors 60 or older or disabled as our curbside pickup program where we will come to a seniors home and pick up their household hazardous waste free of charge typically we'll go out on a Tuesday between 9 and

0:27:311 pm and provide that service we're able to spread a little bit of information about household hazardous waste and help keep our environment clean and provide a safe option for our residents to dispose of their household hazardous waste for more information about the

0:27:50senior program that we offer for our West Contra Costa County residents visit recyclemore.com and they'll have all the details as far as what we accept our hours of operation and a lot about our facility as well the household hazardous waste collection facility opened in February of 2000 with

0:28:11cooperation and funding being provided by a public-private partnership between recycle more Cal recycle and West County resource recovery Inc the use of the facility has grown from 3 000 visitors in 2002 to over 10 000 visitors today many of the nine hundred thousand pounds

0:28:29of materials collected are recycled for their valuable components as new state laws have banned hazardous materials from being landfilled recycle more has implemented new award-winning programs that promote the use of the household hazardous waste facility all right see you there

0:28:49okay no so if you have any questions oh very nice Nicole I I should say that um I was on the actually it was my last meeting I think on the board when you showed this to recycle more and we asked Nicole and her staff to visit all the cities that make up the the authority

0:29:22and so we really appreciate appreciate you coming tonight and congratulations very informative thank you thank you we'll let him know give her give it time okay next item please next item five adoption of the consent calendar items number 5A through 5D mayor can I pull item 5c for a brief

0:29:58discussion sure I'm happy to move then items five a b and d on the consent calendar a second it's been moved and seconded on the motion all those in favor aye opposed motion carries we'll go to 5c now thank you for that um this was a very informative issue I want to thank Jerry

0:30:25Bradshaw for um helping me learn a bit more about the the Delta protection and all the efforts that are going on around this issue and we've only just crossed just kind of scratched the surface on what's a really complex issue that's going to be going on over the next couple of years I had a

0:30:40lengthy discussion today with Mitch Avalon the deputy director of Contra Costa County Public Works kind of learning more about this issue and um getting a sense of what the resolution was all about and during the course of our of our discussion we did talk about the second whereas in the

0:30:58resolution and in talking to him a bit more he agreed that it may be appropriate to modify that language slightly so I wanted to just take a quick look at it and propose just a slight modification um so the the whereas in this on the second section of the resolution has to

0:31:13do with all the cities being adversely impacted by plan actions in the delta uh through reductions in water quality and health of the San Francisco Bay Delta and also having to do with storm water so what we discussed was that there are some actions which are planned or being

0:31:29discussed which would not adversely impact the cities one of the ones you brought up to me was the Department of Water Resources and some of the policy language that they've been putting forward would actually improve the situation by increasing outflows to San

0:31:44Francisco Bay so as we were talking about that I I asked him whether or not he agreed that this whereas may actually require a little bit more flexibility in language where it would read something like whereas each City in town in Contra Costa County may be adversely impacted

0:31:59by some of the planned actions and then the rest of the whereas indicates that any of the planned actions that would result in reductions in water quality and poorer health for the for the bay Delta area would then be clear that not all of the actions that are being

0:32:12discussed by these groups will actually result in a poorer outcome for for the for the cities in Contra Costa County so I wanted to propose those two word changes replace will with May and insert the phrase some of the before planned actions does anybody have any problems with

0:32:33those adjustments okay good I appreciate that yeah thank you very much for your hard work because certainly that um linkage from reduced flows or other actions that may be taken as a result of some of the things that are going on would affect us and and some of the

0:32:55items we're going to take up later in our uh agenda so thank you for your research and I can and he also said that one of the goals was just to communicate these issues and make us aware and to the extent we want to remain involved he would be a great resource he said in

0:33:09terms of keeping us up to date okay uh any further questions or clarifications ready for action if any okay I'm happy to move adoption of item 5c uh resolution of the city council the city of El Cerrito regarding water ecosystem health and other issues related to the

0:33:29San Francisco Bay in Sacramento San Joaquin River delta with the two word changes I suggested second it's been moved the second in any other discussion okay all those in favor aye aye aye opposed motion carries and what I uh what I'd like to suggest is when we send this off

0:33:50to the proper people and agencies that we point out that we have made those uh changes and that we passed our version of it not the uh suggested version yes we'll do thank you okay next agenda item please there are no public hearings next agenda item is 7A 7A is an I-80 integrated Corridor

0:34:20Mobility project memorandum of understanding good evening mayor and council members my name is Yvette Ortiz engineering manager with the public works department tonight's staff is requesting that Council adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute a memorandum

0:34:38of understanding for the I-80 integrated Corridor Mobility project which is also known as the IIT ICM project the IAD ICM project will Implement various Technologies to optimize the use of the existing transportation system including the freeway Main Line ramps

0:34:54San Pablo Avenue and connecting arterials and as well as bus transit the project has been developed through a partnership with multiple agencies including the Contra Costa Transportation advisory Transportation Authority the West Contra Costa Transportation advisory committee

0:35:11the Alameda County Transportation Commission Caltrans two Transit agencies and 10 municipalities between the Bay Bridge and the car Keynes Bridge this approximately 90 million dollar project is mostly funded by the 2006 California infrastructure Bond also known as prop 1B and includes

0:35:32approximately 20 million dollars worth of improvements along San Pablo Avenue and connecting arterials to I-80 in November of 2007 the city council passed the resolution in support of this project specifically uh for the funds for the improvements along the arterials and including San Pablo

0:35:52Avenue and the connecting arterials since then staff has worked with our partner agencies to develop the detailed design and implementation strategies for the project most recently over the past several months we have worked closely to develop a memorandum of understanding

0:36:07specifically to address the operations and maintenance of the project to ensure that it's operated and maintained in an integrated Manner and it provides benefits to all travelers along the I-80 corridor currently 45 million dollars in prop 1B funds are contingent upon the approval

0:36:25of the mou given the multi-agency collaboration on this project we have various representatives from the agencies I mentioned before here tonight um Hisham Noemi from the CCTA which is the Contra Costa Transportation Authority and John Rudolph from Wisconsin Transportation advisory

0:36:43committee will be helping me make the presentation tonight so I'm going to hand it over right now to hishon good evening mayor Jones honorable members of the El Cerrito city council I'm John Rudolph from Wake Tech the West Contra Costa Transportation advisory committee and this is sasham nawimi from

0:37:13the Contra Costa Transportation Authority I'd like to introduce the other members of the project team who are in attendance tonight so in the back row is John Hemi up from the Alameda County Transportation Commission Albert Chang from Kim Lee horn Associates Raj Murthy from the

0:37:32Alameda County Transportation Commission foreign honorable mayor and council members as Yvette mentioned the IAT ICM project has been in the development stage since late 2006. that's when CCTA the contra cost Transportation Authority working with week Tech and Alameda CTC applied

0:37:56for state Proposition 1B funds we were successful in getting a commitment from the CTC for 77 million dollars including the 20 plus million dollars that Yvette mentioned for arterial and Transit improvements along San Pablo Avenue and the Crossing arterials this project Builds on the successful

0:38:18partnership we had in 2003 in developing the San Pablo smart Corridor project I want to highlight why we need this project in the first place and you all know that IAT is the most congested freeway in the Bay Area it has been ranked first for several years now and travel rail reliability along the

0:38:42freeway is basically uh thermal one day it takes you 20 minutes to travel from San Pablo Dam Road to the maze another day it takes you an hour depending on the traffic conditions accidents are a common occurrence on I-80 on average there are about 2 200 accidents per year

0:39:03half of them can be attributed to congestion and they occur during peak hours as travel demand increase in the future with the projected growth in population and jobs the congestion will only get worse and that will cause more accidents and that will in turn cause more

0:39:23congestion and the cycle will continue leading to more delays pollution injuries and fatalities on the freeway because San Pablo Avenue runs parallel to I-80 most of its length between the carcines bridge and the Maze jurisdictions along the corridor such as yours suffer from the freeway traffic

0:39:43cutting through their streets especially during incidents this traffic try to looks for try to look for faster routes basically through your streets and at this time the traffic signals along local streets are not equipped to handle sudden surges and traffic uh resulting in gridlock in many in many

0:40:03cases at intersections as gridlock continues you will have more pollution noise and so on and once we notice that once people divert to San Pablo Avenue they end up staying on it because they don't know whether they drove past the incident on the freeway so the congestion problem on I-80 can be

0:40:31tackled through uh different ways one of them as you know we can have more access to Transit through the corridor we can encourage more drivers to carpool we can apply different Transportation demand management measures such as flexible work hours and so on these are familiar strategies we've been

0:40:55deploying them for many years now but clearly they're not enough as evidenced by the congestion on I-80 uh so I ate the I80 ICM project and because of the funding we got we now have an opportunity to improve the traffic flow on the freeway through the use of technology so what is what is

0:41:18IAT ICM project it's basically a suite of tools that we make available to Caltrans as well as your agency and other local agencies in the corridor they're designed to improve travel time reliability reduce travel time and improve safety on the freeway so freeway

0:41:37traffic is encouraged to stay on the freeway we accomplished this through two main strategies the first strategy aims at to improve traffic flow on I-80 by applying adaptive Ram metering in a way that helps the freeway itself but not at the expense of the local streets we don't

0:41:57want the free the freeway to be free-flowing while the local streets next to the freeway are congested so it has been proven through studies that Trend metering basically allows more orderly merging Maneuvers without causing backups on the freeway right now when you get a bunch of cars trying to

0:42:16merge in the freeway at the same time the traffic in the rightmost lane basically had to slow down to allow those people and this causes congestion Upstream of that on-ramp if you have too many on-ramps like we do on I-80 then this this basically causes breakdown in

0:42:33the operations on I-80 the second strategy has to do with managing incident related congestion this is done by providing enough advanced warning to ahead of incidents to drivers so we prevent ndfq crashes we also when a crash happens or a lane is blocked we employ some tools like

0:42:55delay new signs you see and the slides that allows drivers to clear the lane ahead of the incident so we can get emergency vehicles quicker to the scene so you can have faster recovery to normal operations the other important component of the project include traveler

0:43:15information through on the freeway through the use of changeable message signs not only we provide information about incidents ahead but also we want to provide information to encourage mode shift to Transit such as available spaces at Park and Ride Lots the arrival the travel times for Transit

0:43:38and so on a major part of the project is equipping San Pablo Avenue and crossing the arterials to handle sudden surges in traffic resulting from incidents on the freeway we're adding uh we're upgrading all the traffic signal controllers along San Pablo Avenue and the major Crossing

0:43:59arterials we're providing what we call Trailblazer signs these are directional signs that we put on San Pablo Avenue and the major Crossing arterials to detour traffic back on the freeway past incident location we want to spare the rest of the corridor the impacts of

0:44:16incident related congestion or traffic we're also connect connecting all the signals so they can talk to each other and coordinating the signal timing as part of this project to minimize basically unnecessary delay thank you next one so there are several improvements we're

0:44:42doing in El Cerrito that were requested by your city staff these improvements basically before I actually get into that because Transit is so important in this part of the county there are several improvements to Transit as part of this project the first one is we're expanding Transit

0:45:02signal priority uh along San Pablo Avenue and all of Westgate service area basically Transit signal priority when a bus approaches a signalized intersection it allows the green time to be extended if that bus is delayed so it improves operations for the buses they can better

0:45:23adhere to their schedule at the on-ramps we don't want parametering to delay buses if especially if there are Express buses using the freeway which we do here so we provided at all the ramps that used by buses we provided HOV bypass lanes and also at the signals at the

0:45:44metering signals we're providing Transit signal priority so they're not stuck behind the Queue at the ramps again that allows them to better adhere to their schedule and eliminate or minimizes any delay they may encounter on I-80 if we improve travel time reliability on I-80 we're we're helping

0:46:05the buses because they some of them do use the freeway itself and again as I mentioned earlier we're providing information through the changeable message signs on how many spaces are available at Park and Ride Lots the next arrival time for Transit and so on and in El Cerrito at the Del Norte

0:46:28station as part of this project we're changing the configuration at the intersection of San Pablo and cutting basically to provide for a bus only lane at that location so they have a more direct access to that station like back to the work we're doing in El Cerrito

0:46:49these these improvements are basically intended to minimize the delay that's being experienced on the side streets and also to provide for safer movements for pedestrians and bicyclists as as you can see from the next two slides they also improve emergency response because

0:47:12we're providing uh as we're providing emergency vehicle preemption at certain locations again these are the other improvements we're doing we're providing Trailblazer signs at San Pablo Avenue and the major Crossing arterials on San Pablo Avenue we're upgrading all the traffic signal

0:47:35controllers um we're providing communication equipment so the signals can be coordinated and at the end of this project the signal timing along San Pablo Avenue and the crossing arterial will be optimized and coordinated in working with your staff so while we're taking into

0:47:54consideration the volumes on the side streets pedestrian traffic and bicyclist traffic as Yvette mentioned there are so many partners to this project 10 minutes municipalities two Transit agencies several planning and funding agencies and as well as Caltrans we have to make sure that everybody has

0:48:20the same understanding of their role and responsibilities part of this project this project needs to operate in an integrated matter and this mou assures that that this will happen so the purpose of the mou is first to confirm support from all the participating agencies for the project

0:48:40we want everybody to understand what their roles and responsibilities are as John will mention or operation and maintenance cost was a big issue in this project we were able to take care of that basically by Fun by having CCTA to fund it for the next 15 years uh it's also a framework for

0:49:04multi-agency cooperation collaboration and conflict resolution this nut will only help us on this project but also future endeavors that we may have whether it's transit or other kinds of projects with that I'll I'll turn it to John so he can talk about some of the challenges

0:49:22we had and some of the achievements uh part of the summary thank you Sean so we identified issues of concern to the nine cities along the corridor in crafting the mou and I want to take a moment to highlight the resolution the ramp metering will not have adverse

0:49:42impacts on local streets there are the maximum end of queue detectors sham reference to make sure that the volumes on the ramps do not exceed the capacity and will not back up onto the local streets the metering will just go all green and Caltrans has made a commitment

0:49:58to work with the local agencies and they've shown that commitment throughout the project development process we're improving I-80 without traffic diversion to San Pablo Avenue this was key there will be no equipment or signs to alert motorists to get off the freeway and on San Pablo Avenue rather

0:50:16the flush plans when the motorists inevitably divert during an incident from the freeway to San Pablo Avenue will allow the traffic on San Pablo Avenue to move expeditiously through the city and back onto the freeway to minimize cut through traffic for those motorists who are just using San Pablo

0:50:36Avenue to divert and we will measure the volumes of traffic that are going to and from the freeway onto and off of San Pablo Avenue before and after and make adjustments as necessary there will be no cost to the cities in perpetuity CCTA has made a commitment to

0:50:58seek funding they've set aside two million dollars for the O M for the first 15 years to cover the project cost and they will seek additional funding from Regional sources to cover the cost beyond the first 15 years this was a real issue and we've made progress on

0:51:17that and improvements to Transit Transit is key to the project in this part of the County Transit is so important so expanding Transit signal priority on San Pablo Avenue in the crossing arterials is a key feature providing priority for the buses at the on-ramps so the buses

0:51:36basically jump the Queue at the ramps there will be no delay to the buses there will be the bus only lane at Del Norte signs on the freeway to encourage motorists to shift modes to Transit by providing real-time traveler information and transit times and AC transit in westcat have been part

0:51:56of the project development team the project benefits are numerous let's read through them there will be fewer and less severe collisions both primary and secondary on the freeway we expect a great gain in safety reduced emergency response time both on the freeway and on the arterials again a

0:52:18safety Improvement the incident resulting congestion will be cleared faster thereby minimizing delay shorter and more reliable travel times both for motorist and for Transit users because we expect that traffic on the freeway will flow more smoothly and traffic on the arterials will as well

0:52:39flow more smoothly that will be a benefit to the buses the commute time for everybody in West County will become more predictable again whether you're a motorist or a Transit user even if you're a bicyclist or a pedestrian it will be improved because of some of the features Hashem

0:52:58just outlined better Transit performance no more Q jumping that's when a motorist exits the freeway gets on a ramp crosses an arterial and then hops back on the freeway through another ramp it occurs at several locations throughout West County you're probably familiar with

0:53:16those locations that will be minimized due to the ramp metering there will be a disincentive to do that there will be improved air quality due to the reduction in congestion when the cars are moving at a steady flow the air pollutants are minimized when they're

0:53:34stuck like a parking lot that's when we get the the local knocks and socks and PM and other pollutants and we've established a framework for the successful collaboration of all the governments along the corridor not not a minimum point because it's a big project

0:53:52and it's taken a great deal of effort and through this effort we've developed a collaborative process both at the technical and at the political level uh WIC attack and staff recommendation is to approve the mou and to commit some staff time from each jurisdiction for

0:54:11the ongoing project development we will continue and enhance our public Outreach so the public knows what's going on you may have seen already that there are some improvements being made to the signal controllers along San Pablo Avenue some steiny trucks out there that

0:54:27will continue to happen and as the project is implemented we will conduct public Outreach so everybody knows and there will be a rollout in about mid-2014 with the before and after studies that I mentioned and we are available the project team is here and to Sham to answer any questions

0:54:46thank you appreciate it uh we have I'm sure we do we'll start with the council member benazini thank you just just two questions thank you very much for the presentation um so I was interested in in the flush plan when there are incidents in on the I-80 and uh when people inevitably get

0:55:04off to San Pablo Avenue and the idea would be to kind of let them go through quickly and then get them back on the freeway um I'm sure our staff has brought this up but I want to make sure that's integrated well with the recent improvements we put on to San Pablo

0:55:17Avenue with regard to um pedestrian Mobility crossing the street where we have the the big sign the big lights that light up along the Crossway and I just want to hear more about the flush plan and whether or not it may result I'm sure you don't anticipate this but in people speeding

0:55:32more quickly down the Avenue and just making sure that there still are um as safe as possible walkways for folks crossing the Avenue so that's a very good question as part of this project we committed to work with a city staff and every jurisdiction to make sure that we understand the

0:55:52parameters at every intersection um you mentioned pedestrians bicyclists also we don't want to mix the side streets wait wait too long so all these parameters will be taken into the equation and then the signal timing will be optimized based on these parameters

0:56:11so and whatever signal timing we come up with has to be satisfactory to the to your city engineer as well so that's that's what we're committing to and uh there is one component that we're working on now as part of this project called the incident response plan

0:56:30and basically this is pre-approved uh response plans for different scenarios of incidents that take place on the freeway so it's not like somebody will decide by himself that this is what I'm gonna do now because of this no he has to pick from pre-approved plans and then once that's done we'll

0:56:53evaluate those plans and determine if there are revisions needed to do that so this process will be dynamic I will be ongoing as uh with with for the life of the project basically I'm sure there's going to be a learning curve but I'm happy to hear that there's you know these considerations being

0:57:10given already um the other question I had was with regard to the Trailblazer signs that are going to be up it's kind of a funny question but I assume those will not be on 24 hours a day they'll just be sort of activated at the appropriate time so when there's no traffic at midnight they

0:57:25won't be blazing any signs to anybody that's accurate it's only activated during incidents on the freeway to detour traffic back to the freeway okay thank you those are my questions thank you yeah thank you um very exciting project and just have some questions about the the data number

0:57:46one actually um John and I were both at a sustainable Mobility conference where we got to hear a lot of interesting presentations by third party applications and and so I'm just curious if this data and the information will be available uh publicly to you know so so people can

0:58:03get that real time information through you know without before they even get on the freeway to to know all this absolutely council member Chang great question indeed the sustainability conference highlighted the use of social media and uh smartphones to assist Travelers in

0:58:22making a mode Choice even as they're leaving the front door deciding whether to walk to the corner and get a bus or walk to the garage and get in the car so part of this project is the enhanced Transit and traveler information we mentioned the changeable message signs

0:58:40on the freeway that will give enhanced information more than we currently have right now it tells you 12 minutes to SFO or 14 minutes to Oakland Airport this will also tell you a comparative travel time between riding on a bus or Bart versus sitting in your car and

0:58:57continuing to sit on the freeway and then this slide here the traveler information to 511 is what you're referencing council member Chang this information will go out not just to 511.org but to all of the vendors who want to provide this through the social media

0:59:14platforms that we were looking at a couple of weeks ago so this will enable these vendors to use real-time information from the project to help that traveler who's walking out of the front door deciding you know do I bicycle today do I take the bus or do I drive what's the comparative condition

0:59:32on the freeway have all the buses been deployed sometimes buses don't pull out that information as well will be available great and I think tagged to that so that that kind of answers my third question which is about the real-time kiosk so would that also be available kind of

0:59:54I'm thinking in addition to you know right now you have the BART platforms that tell you when real-time arrivals are will there be funding for additional real-time arrival at other locations maybe at you know major destinations grocery stores at the ground level of

1:00:11Bart or um you know those kind of additional kind of kiosks I guess is that potential absolutely as part of the development of this project we created what they call a corridor system management plan where we identified some major construction projects that could follow up to this

1:00:32project like reconfiguring the maze or a metering 580 or metering carquina's bridge in addition we listed a whole series of other improvements that we could make in terms of providing real-time information to Travelers at the major Transit hubs to get the local

1:00:50destinations great and my last question is about the two Transit agencies that have been identifying which are AC Transit and westcat and just knowing that because we've we're getting Regional traffic from Cross counties North of us if the the signal or I guess the cue jumping

1:01:11for Transit would be available to Solano County buses as well as um you know Golden Gate Transit you know all the other Transit networks that make use of our freeways and help alleviate the I-80 congestion maybe they don't aren't getting funding for the emitters but

1:01:31maybe compatible I just want to hear about that thank you as you mentioned there are emitters and there are that go on the buses and there are receivers at the signals as part of this project we're putting all the receivers in the areas where they don't exist along San

1:01:49Pablo Avenue as well as the crossing criterions but we're also providing 40 emitters for westcat and 40 emitters for AC transit for the AC transit buses we we are not providing them we're not providing emitters to other Transit agencies because simply we just don't have enough

1:02:12funding to be doing that but I mean it could be done in the future through other fun sources where but at least the signals will be ready to accept them when they happen Okay that's a yeah so if if they have them currently they would be compatible with the receivers I

1:02:30guess that that would be responding to them yes thanks that's it right yeah I've got a couple of things um first there were a couple of things that I noticed in attachment a that indicated that a couple of the on-ramps um off of cutting may actually be in El Cerrito I mean you haven't indicated as

1:02:57in Richmond but I was looking at some of the city maps and it looks like like The Cutting Loop is actually in El Cerrito is there a way to make those Corrections at this time absolutely right also that in that same table the Potrero on-ramp is also indicated this with regards to

1:03:16ramp metering is also indicated as being in Richmond when it clearly is in El Cerrito um the the what what are the the cross arterials the the connectors that there was never a list of what the connectors are um yeah maybe we can get the Alberta with that or uh

1:03:38can you do that basically they can the connecting streets in El Cerrito are cutting Boulevard and Central Avenue Carlson isn't a connecting Ontario right now but we are have started talking to the technical Coordinating Committee about possibly adding that um connecting arterial as part of our

1:03:58incidence response plans yeah I know I know that when the freeway was under construction that people frequently exited at Carlson and worked used Carlson to get to San Pablo Avenue so I I would highly recommend that that become considered a connector and certainly our end of it is in El Cerrito

1:04:16where it comes out at the plaza what are the improvements that are being proposed for these connectors I I heard that you're thinking about these uh these signal priority uh Transit signal priorities would be potentially included in in the connector along the connectors

1:04:34but there what other improvements emergency vehicle priority also will be provided as well as improved the signal controllers will be upgraded am I correct yes the signal timing at the end of the project the signal the coordination between the different signals so there

1:04:55are there any new traffic signals proposed in El Cerrito not nothing else and I I did notice that as a result of all of this additional technology that's being applied to our intersections um that there is obviously more information hubs controllers of some form and uh

1:05:15the the increase in controllers it it's very clear it states in here that the city is responsible for the maintenance and the normal operation of those controllers um but it strikes me that if we're going from one to four that that's a potential increase cost to us so I'm just curious

1:05:33is it an increased cost to us and if so is there operational money that's being provided we're simply upgrading your existing controller so actually we're taking out your old controllers and providing new ones so your maintenance cost should actually go lower not tired ah great because we're

1:05:53getting new ones fantastic so it's so it's mostly replacement and John mentioned here they're more energy efficient as well oh good we like that too um good thank you and um let's see I think I had one more but I will um pass it along okay I don't think I have any more

1:06:20questions I think this is actually the third board as you can send which I've heard this presentation so I've had lots of opportunities to ask questions I asked the same question about isn't that in El Cerrito because it sure looked like it to me but um the um so the thing I think I'd like

1:06:40to emphasize is um what an amazing piece of coordination the work on this project has been between all these different agencies with all their different interests and I wanted to say that I really do appreciate the work that has been done by the staff you've heard speak today

1:07:00and in a number of other people at agencies ranging from the Alameda County let's see if I can say it right the the new Transportation Commission I have trouble saying that still that their new name but the um so so it really um so there's so there's been a lot of

1:07:23thought given to this and I think it reminds me of the work that was done on this uh San Pablo smart smart Corridor project where those pretty much the same agencies were working together not not exactly the same but pretty much the same to make a common project happen and it was I

1:07:43think pretty successful because it's what brought a number of the features that we're still using on San Pablo so I think this is a good model it's what I'm really trying to say and um I appreciate all of the staff work that was done in making this happen uh By You Know by all those people

1:08:03including our own City staff and the other folks that you see here in the room today um and um I I know it was said but I I have to I think bring it up again the the fact that um we won't be paying for the maintenance that that sounds pretty trivial when you float over it after

1:08:23it's happened but um it was not trivial in the making and so I want to express also my appreciation to staff for making that happen um because I know it was at uh WIC Tech where I think I even made the motion that we would approve it but but they had to find the money for the

1:08:42maintenance because in fact we're we're in a recession and things are you know the cities really can't afford to pick up additional expenses so I think that's a really good example of how the people working on this project really did listen to what we were saying and

1:08:59um and like for example I had a lot of concern that the transit features would be in there and that it would serve Transit needs and in fact you see those things in there now that I think you wouldn't have seen had not the staff been listening so I do appreciate that and

1:09:21um anyway I'm prepared to support this great thank you Greg yeah Mike I did figure out what my last question is it it this mou appears to be more of a sort of a policy outline plan um and I think you actually said very clearly that you're still developing the instant response plans and I just wanted

1:09:43to find out more about how and you know how that's going on and and how you you did say you're going to reach out and get uh solicit input from the various cities but I just wanted to make sure this isn't the final document what we're looking at is much more of a policy

1:10:00document and there is a lot more work to be done to implement this project and that's accurate this is basically the framework to complete this project and there are still many components that need to be developed we just started on the incident response plan basically the

1:10:18way it's going to work is we're working with the through the technical Coordinating Committee which basically is made up of the staff from various agencies to develop scenarios and develop to develop the incident response plans and then when the final outcome is is is

1:10:38there when the plan is developed every city has to basically bless it to pre-approve it so when it happens in in the field when there's a major incidence you already know basically exactly what's going to happen based on this plan right thank you just one more question

1:10:58um considering what council member Lyman was speaking about in terms of implementation still you know being an ongoing process and this being sort of the framework document um I had a comment that is very very suggestion for your consideration as you're coming up with implementation

1:11:12items um it's uh having to do with the left turn signals in El Cerrito and I do notice that many of our left turn signals particularly during off-peak times when they're read They're unnecessarily red and you can't one can't turn left and this isn't necessarily causing congestion but it's

1:11:28definitely causing more idling and and I think that it could it is a bit of a mobility issue um and I know that when I brought this up before it has to do with Caltrans policy with regard to the left turn signalization but since they're one of our member member Partners I thought I

1:11:43would just make that suggestion to you that that be potentially an area of quick analysis uh that could potentially be changed so that there's not a there's not a red left turn arrow is basically what I'm suggesting based on your analysis of of um the safety of all that in addition to

1:12:03the signal timing that will consider that volume on the side streets and the intention there is to optimize the operation at this at this intersection we are adding actually left turn phasing if as you look in this slide at San Pablo Carlson the plaza intersection as

1:12:22well as San Pablo and ferment and that's exactly uh why we're doing this is because we want to minimize the site delay at those locations and I'm talking about turning left off of San Pablo onto a side street where there's currently a a left turn pocket Lane and

1:12:39there's a red arrow which comes up which allows you to not turn left when there's absolutely no cross traffic in front of you signal coordination will happen once we start to fine tune the project and a vet is on the technical Coordinating Committee and she's made it clear that

1:12:55this is an issue that will be addressed in El Cerrito we've often heard about the left turn movements from San Pablo Avenue onto such streets as Manila so it's part of the project but we did enlist all of those concerns from each individual agency in this overall

1:13:11presentation Pinole had some concerns that are slightly different Richmond had some it was slightly different what's different about El Cerrito is this attention on the left turn movements from San Pablo Avenue onto the the side streets so yes it's it's definitely part

1:13:27of the project and when we do the signal synchronization as we start to fine tune it that will be improved great thank you very much well thank you yes Rebecca hit our council member benazini hit it on the nose um about some of the concerns and I guess a vet and she'll bring it up

1:13:47because she's the one that has to catch all the phone calls that come in and ask what's going on with the signals so that's good but um the other thing was yes in the evenings late in the evenings like when we go home um sometimes there's no need to wait a minute or 90 seconds at a light and so

1:14:10I'm glad to hear that you're also taking those considerations in and I like the plan and by the way the uh information signals on the freeway that tell you you know 10 minutes to this or 20 minutes it's really accurate I don't know how you do it but um I've signed them several times in

1:14:28several different situations and I believe in them unfortunately my only alternative is to get off the freeway and go alternative route right now through town so I guess that'll be corrected with your plan but at any rate that that's good thank you I wanted to ask you about a future use

1:14:52of this because part of this plan is to also pay attention to the to the freeways and will any of this infrastructure and or are you planning to tie into these commuter Lanes the hot Lanes or I like to call them the fee collector lanes that they are developing that that project it's still in in the

1:15:17concept stage along I-80 we we foresee that the express lane along I-80 will be one of the last because it there is really no space to widen I-80 and the technology has not yet been developed to allow you to have continuous access to the hotline right now if you drove along

1:15:38680 there is a buffer zone and you can only get in and get out at certain locations well you can't do it here along I8 I mean there is really no space to be widening and and if you want to widen it's going to be so expensive that's that's gonna take a long time to

1:15:55to have the funding for such that for such a project so in the future however like 10 20 years 30 years in the future there is nothing here that precludes that from happening if it happens uh basically we're still going to be needing to manage the traffic along the

1:16:15rest of the lanes and we still need to have these tools okay so it sounds like long after I'll be off the road so I won't worry about it now thank you um the timeline you mentioned 214 or 2014 excuse me is that implementation or is that when you're beginning to install

1:16:38all the information no that's to turn it on basically to turn it on in 2014.

1:16:44construction actually on some of the components is is already underway all the improvements along San Pablo Avenue and the transit improvements we talked about or the contract for that is out and they've been working on it for the next for the last six months at least that's

1:17:02good news okay hey thanks public information and education uh could you kind of brief us on what's going on in that regard yes on as part of the environment that we had environmental clearance for this project in July 29th 2011.

1:17:21as part of that process we had two public meetings along the corridor one in was held in San Pablo and the other I think in Albany and also just last month on February 13th we had a public meeting to inform the public about the project as well the way I see this before the meters are

1:17:43turned on on the freeway we need to have actually an uh an educational campaign to let people know that this is happening and this is what they need to do when it happens so we foresee that to be happening in the future before we turn on the meters also we have public Outreach for

1:18:01contractors we heard from other cities that we really need to be generating jobs in Contra Costa so we have agreed to special public Outreach basically for local contractors in West Contra Costa County to allow them to compete for the main for the remaining contracts for the project so we're

1:18:23trying to do it in from every direction but it's going to be important to ensure that the people understand what we're doing oh good there will be when this is turned on there will be a period of fine-tuning we want to make sure that when when it's all said and done that

1:18:43the cities are happy with what's happening at the ramps we definitely don't want any adverse impact to happen to the locals three so there will be monitoring and fine-tuning for a period of probably a couple of months and then as John mentioned we're committed as part of the Project funding

1:19:02to do a before and after study we want to make sure after we spent all this money that we're reaping the benefits we're talking about here so and if something goes array you know this is a tool we can make adjustments basically to make it work right so we're providing a tool

1:19:20to Caltrans but also we're following up uh with the before and after study to basically assess the benefits of these of these projects good I uh been impressed with Caltrans in this regard they they've done a very good job in notifying the public about work on the bridge and they've used a number of

1:19:41ways including I was in a coffee shop and they had dropped off cards for people to take about the you know the closing of the bridge I mean they've thought it through pretty good so I was pretty impressed with that um is this program modeled after anything that's existing now or is this a kind of

1:20:01a first time uh out of the box type thing this project has been done in Europe however in the United States Washington state has implemented portions of these Technologies not everything we're talking about here but they've they've implemented them and they've had great things to say about

1:20:23them we're we're the first in California for sure and I have to say the legislation is looking the legislature is looking at this project very closely because they want to implement it elsewhere in the state because as I mentioned earlier this is a very cost effective solution

1:20:42to give you a perspective to widen a mile of freeway in Highway 4 in East County it cost us about 50 to 60 million dollars here you're improving traffic flow hopefully along 20 miles and it's costing us less than less than that amount in construction costs it's less

1:21:00than 50 million dollars so there are going to be a lot of eyes looking at this to assess its benefits and hopefully it'll be a model for others to follow when it's implemented okay just a couple more comments one is uh does this tie in in any way of the study going on at Central Avenue at the

1:21:21freeway to improve we have a money dedicated to that and I was just wondering that's right and um the I-80 Central project has funding from measure J as well as from federal earmark we're working on it where CCTA is working on it along with your staff we anticipate that project actually to

1:21:44take place before this is done the goal is to finish environmental in the next month or so we've been working on it for a long time and that's the improvements as part of that project are in two phases I'm only talking about the first phase which will basically

1:22:05detour traffic to 580 instead of to use the 580 Central interchange instead of 80 Central right during only we can speak our and so that project will be designed hopefully in the summer and implemented in the fall of this year that's the plan that's good news well I I just want to

1:22:26close my comments by saying that um I think this has long been awaited in all seriousness a lot of people commented on San Pablo and the increase especially when there's a traffic problem on the freeway so I think it'll be very well received and and uh like you say there's

1:22:46going to be a startup uh period and fine-tuning period but I think long range uh I think you'll find people very receptive to this program and I'd just like to thank John he's also on San Pablo Avenue's specific plan and he's been an active member of that and and

1:23:06I'm glad to see this is going to tie in beautifully with our plan and and so thank you for being the conduit between projects for us appreciate it thank you comments up there up there oh I'm sorry there's no public speakers very brief comments I think this project

1:23:26is so exciting and I and I want to Echo councilmember abelson's comments about the O M being funded it's so rare that the OM o m is considered right at The Upfront position of the project but that's wonderful that we've thought this through and have funding sources at

1:23:40least in place for the next 15 years and and it's great to see all the member organizations working together and I'm so excited to see implemented very shortly okay uh thank you very much I just want to see is there any public comment on this no speaker slips okay

1:23:57well I'll bring it back to uh the council here oh does staff have any more okay well thank you very much all for uh presenting here and we'll try to get this wrapped up any other uh comments before we go forward yeah I just I I want to say that framework for me a council member

1:24:15Abelson definitely covered many of these comments but the developing of a framework that is this complex with so many different uh eight entities that are involved is quite the challenge and I thank you for sticking through to it because I know it's taken time and and a

1:24:33lot of energy um so I I too am looking forward to passing this um but I do want to make sure that uh you know there's a couple things that I wanted to highlight and that is three accidents per day that might be avoided through this congestion management tools set of tools that that has a great

1:24:52benefit um to anybody who's ever been rear-ended on a freeway and I actually have been rear-ended twice on the freeway um I can say that it's um it's worth it um you know you've the number of hassles and and pain that you can get from even just a simple fender bender on the

1:25:09freeway is is immeasurable um so I I definitely applaud it for that um and um I also want to highlight the fact that buses rule going forward the amount of energy that you guys are putting in place to optimize bus movement um really people need to start understanding that that is going to be a

1:25:33form of transportation that is highly supported and promoted through this program and people should be pulling their bus schedules out so thank you I'm ready to make a motion if we're ready right have the honor I would love to make a motion to adopt resolution authorizing the city manager or his

1:25:53designee to execute the I-80 integrated Corridor Mobility project memorandum of understanding which is contained in exhibit a to the resolution and to make non-substantive changes subject to the review of The City attorney a second the motion moved and seconded on the motion all

1:26:14those in favor aye aye opposed motion carries congratulations and thank you very much yeah next item please item 7B authorization to cast ballots for the 2012 clean water program we have a staff report on this thank you mayor and Council I'm Jerry Bradshaw your Public Works director

1:26:42I'll try and do this without a PowerPoint it's been a while um the agenda bill before you has a lot of background in it and I'm not going to go through that again at this point I can take questions on later if you want I'd like to start the story in 2009 when the water board

1:27:05issued the current Municipal Regional permit this was a watershed Mark for that board to bring all the counties in the Bay Area into one permit system that's all the same throughout the counties it was many years in the making they had to blend all the different needs the counties

1:27:23have been working for 15 years or more under their own individual permits this was the first time they came into one permit at the same time they also strengthen a lot of the language and added several new features to the permit that we hadn't seen before in doing so they they took input from of

1:27:43course the federal and state laws that apply to that they heard from all the implementing agencies the cities and the counties and basma which is a very uh Association for stormwater management agencies and also the environmental groups are quite active in crafting this permit

1:28:01um the permit has several new requirements one of the main new focuses for this is monitoring constituents of pollutants in the in the bay they've really stepped up the the requirements for monitoring that's done at a regional level so we don't have any hands-on experience with

1:28:22that here in the city but it does add to the overall cost of complying with the permit the main one that hits home here is the trash capture this is a brand new feature for the permit and I think everyone has seen trash along the roadway trash and or catch basins trash

1:28:39along the shorelines we hear about the trash island out in the Pacific and these are all real things and I think that is uh probably worth being in the permit but it is new for us and and how to tackle trash and how to even understand it let alone cure it is becoming quite a big task and we knew

1:28:59that that it was coming in the years that this permit was in development and in the two years it's been in hand we've been wrestling with trying to comply with the letter of the new permit um in addition to that the board has been much more aggressive in in what

1:29:16they expect from the agencies in reporting and follow up on actions they actually streamlined our annual report but at the same time they uh put a lot of teeth into uh into the permit for for uh agencies that were nodding compliance notices of violation are much more

1:29:34common now they didn't used to be and we're seeing some fines being assessed to cities at this point so they've really put some teeth into this new permit in contrast County we have um we have a county-wide program that all 19 cities and the county and also the Flood

1:29:54Control District itself are members of us 21 municipalities and all I won't go into the background other than to say that the first fees were put in place in order to fund this activity in 1992 that's 20 years ago and those fees haven't been increased since that

1:30:12time what has happened since then obviously is Proposition 218 came into effect in 1996 and that changed how municipalities go about raising funding for various activities as this new permit was being developed in 2007 2008 and finally out in 2009 the the program saw which way it was headed

1:30:34and about that same time we decided that we really needed to try on again to ascertain whether we could raise funds to increase the fees that had been in place for 20 years the county program hired a consultant to study this on two fronts first of all they they

1:30:54wanted to quantify the needs to see how much more funding was going to be needed to stay in compliance with this new permit and also to test the community's acceptance for for some new fees or an increased fee on this on the needs front I'll bring home to El Cerrito but it's

1:31:13really the same for all the municipalities I'll Focus again on trash capture that's the the largest new element in this we have to we in fact just a month ago we submitted our first submittal which is our short term trash capture plan and that describes how by 2014 we're going to capture 40 of

1:31:34the trash from what we has been going in historically into the storm drains we need to have a plan to capture 40 percent of that and keep it out of the Creeks there are two other Milestones culminating in a 100 trash capture requirement in 2021 or 22. it's out 10

1:31:52more years but that's still a lofty goal to be 100 trash capture we haven't figured out out our long-term plan yet but our short-term plan is is in and we're working on actually implementing that um there's a lot of existing activities that we've been doing but we need to

1:32:10step up the game on that uh the reporting requirements are more stringent as I mentioned earlier there's a lot more teeth in the permit we have been struggling here our budgets have been shrinking all around again we've been at our maximum fee for probably a decade now so we we have

1:32:30actually gone grown to subsidize this program a little bit through our gas tax which is also eligible for storm drain activities in the roadways ideally we'd like to get off of that subsidy and put the gas tax money back in in other places but we also need to step up our game we need to be more

1:32:46proactive in managing the program and training our staff for integrated Pest Management for Bay friendly landscaping for charting out all the requirements in the permit and being ahead of the game and not skirt so close to the non-compliance threshold as we have in

1:33:03many years for many years now uh also there's a cost for the additional monitoring for the pollutants that that's a huge cost and it's really ramped up here next year and the year after it looks like it will settle down after that for a few years I've had some questions about what this

1:33:20fee is for why is it needed I know there's some material out that came out with the ballot I think there's some other information out there there's been a lot of items in the newspaper and a response to that the bureaucrat in me wants to say well the board is making

1:33:36us do all this work we need funding for that but responsible public course professional in me really wants to say that we have a lot of hard work to do before we can really feel secure that the waterways that we are so precious to us that are that are really important in

1:33:51the Bay Area here are are safe from harmful pollutants and protected so for these reasons that I've mentioned earlier this work is really important and I think it's in line with the stated goals of this Council namely environmental stewardship and environmental leadership

1:34:08therefore staff is recommending that the council authorize and direct staff to vote Yes on these 30 ballots that have come to the city and with that if you have any questions about the program the county way program or the permit mandates or the ballot process I'd be

1:34:27happy to answer those council member Lyman yeah I have a number of questions that hopefully will help those that are at home trying to decide what they're going to do with their ballot so that they can potentially follow our lead it's can you talk about the the non-point Source enforcement that's

1:34:50going out and what are some of the penalties that we could be looking at if we don't implement the trash capture program that you described well the non-point Source you refer to is is what came about 21 years ago after since the 70s we did point source pollution factories and Sewer treatment

1:35:12plants and then or the early 1990s they went to the non-point source which is just the general pollution that comes from Urban landscapes and that's what's developed over the last 20 years with this permit system and has brought the cities into this as a player

1:35:28um with these permits with the laws there are fines out there for people for cities municipalities that aren't compliant I think they're up to ten thousand dollars a day for for uh non-compliance you don't normally jump right to that but we have seen some fines being issued to cities now who are

1:35:47blatantly in non-compliance we were notified actually of a potential notice of violation coming our way for one item we got right to it got that cured got a contract language solved and and avoided a notice of violation which is the first step before you get the fines but those

1:36:06are real the agenda build discusses a difference between what you have budget or what what you project our expenses are and what we currently collect of about 254 000 difference um prop 218 which is the election the mail-in election ballot style does it basically is targeted funding it's this

1:36:33funding if this goes through this funding would only be for this purpose for the water quality protection uh features and programs that you're you described tonight yes that's exactly right in fact the the fees that are collected from property owners in El Cerrito come only to El Cerrito so

1:36:52there's no blending of these fees they stay in the jurisdiction the municipality in which they're collected and and if it wasn't if this fee is not passed there is this this Gap and that Gap needs to come from somewhere in the city because as we pointed out the

1:37:08non-uh compliance fees are up to ten thousand a day so you know to avoid that that risk we need to be making some changes in making some implementations without this fee passing that'll come out of the general fund unfortunately that's about the only place left for it

1:37:28to come out of yes great thank you yeah you took one of my questions that's good uh yeah the way I read everything and I've been in a couple of these meetings is we have two options you either go with the county initiative or we pay it ourselves out of our pocket

1:37:46one thing though you said 100 of the fees come back but isn't one of the major reasons for going county-wide on this is we uh share in the cost of planning and uh development of the program that's true and those those costs are going to come our way whether we pass

1:38:06this fee or not right and as a member of this we collectively pass budgets and part of those budgets for the program is to give back some of those fees to fund those joint activities it's our it's just our share of an activity that we're required to participate in so it really

1:38:21is El Cerrito cost it's just jointly shared and jointly paid right but by doing it together uh theoretically the the cost of planning inflammation should go down because it's coordinated across the County city lines throughout the county correct oh yeah absolutely in

1:38:39fact when you're testing the bay Waters I mean to what extent is one jurisdiction really responsible for that right okay and uh the trash collection seems to be a big big thing as far as what you see in this in the foreseeable future for El Cerrito anyway um you see us doing that as a city function

1:39:00or would we call on say a garbage uh collection agency to do this for us the the trash capture we're still exploring ways to do this the what was foreseen at the board level is that they we would all put filters in our catch basins that would filter out the trash

1:39:20so when water flows into our catch Basin carrying pop bottles and other trash paper trash that would get caught on these and we could then clean it out there and haul it away it wouldn't go into the to the Bay um that's problematic because that can a screen can clog up in about two minutes

1:39:38and we can't be at every screen uh during every storm so there are allowances for some overflows in within those so there's some designs out there that can hopefully work some of the cities in the county have already installed some of these had enough rain to really test them yet

1:39:54but um they can work but there's other fronts that we can work on and one of the things that's come up recently is that the board is prepared to Grant a reduction credit for passing a plastic bag ban for instance we're passing a ban on styrofoam food containers

1:40:15another really beneficial way of collecting trash is to run your street sweepers more thoroughly some cities run them much more frequently than we do in commercial areas you see in some cities do it daily I've even heard of some cities doing it multiple times in a day in really

1:40:31sensitive areas part of that is getting the cars that are parked along the curb getting them out of the way so your street sweeper can actually pick up what's lying in the gutters so another front there is to possibly look at parking restrictions on street sweeping days these are big

1:40:48issues I mean these are ordinances that we would have to go through public hearing process determine whether it's right for our community or not but we are seriously considering crafting some sort of look at these so those are some other ways to look at trash reduction

1:41:03credits as you may have seen in the city managers update a few weeks ago the the whole issue of trash loading hit the newspapers and the the consultant has that was hired by basma which is all the county programs put together um working with the staff at the board

1:41:23has tried to build a mathematical model to determine your trash loading and I talked to the consultant today and he used the term it is uh uh I can't remember exactly but it's an imperfect model it's spectacularly imperfect or something like that it's a very imperfect model but it's the best

1:41:42we have and as I talked to him I realized if I was tasked with building a model I'd probably do the same thing base it on land use population other things that generate trash so it's it's an imperfect thing but it's it's something we have to deal with and I think it's worthy work I think keeping

1:41:59trash out of there regardless of how you measure it how you count it the goals you set it's work that really is worthy and should be done well you're right El Cerrito at one time did have where uh streets were swept once a week but we also had party lines on our

1:42:17phones at that time so it's been a while since but it would be nice to get back to a little more frequently than once a month or whatever our schedule is now well thank you very much any other questions thank you any uh public comment please no speaker slips okay bring it back to council uh

1:42:39final discussion or action I'll move a resolution of the El Cerrito city council authorizing the city manager to cast ballots for the 2012 community clean water Initiative for all Parcels owned by the city it's been moved and seconded on the motion all those in favor I I opposed

1:43:02motion carries thank you uh we go to uh item number eight Council assignments and liaison reports do we have any tonight I just have uh I'm happy to give one report for the parks and rec commission which met on February 22nd um and the Commissioners heard a presentation actually by Mr Bradshaw

1:43:23about measure double w funds so they had a lot of interest in understanding what was remaining and what's what's left to plan on that um so uh Mr Bradshaw presented or noted for the Commissioners that there's about a half a million dollars uh sorry 550 000 that has yet to be planned and and

1:43:41there was sort of a discussion about how the commission might go about giving recommendations to staff so I think they're planning on having more of those discussions in the future and there was also a discussion about their next commission meeting which will take place

1:43:53in March uh where they'll hear a presentation from school district facilities uh Personnel so there was a discussion about what sorts of topics they might want to bring up with regard to Joint use of facilities and I think that that will be a lively discussion particularly around

1:44:08um use at the high school so I'll have another uh report after that meet great um I wasn't able to attend but they're the human relations commission did meet in February and they heard a or they had a great discussion with some of the earliest members of the human who

1:44:27started the human relations commission to hear kind of the the history of the commission and to build that into their thinking um for this next meeting which will be um talking about the budget and what uh programs and events that the commission wants to focus on for this year so

1:44:45that's it great thank you uh the only thing I've mentioned is uh at the WIC Tac meeting they took us a similar position to ours on the ICM project which is to say they voted in favor of it and the West County Solid Waste uh committee committee jpa did have a special meeting to reaffirm uh using

1:45:12hfnh Consulting to help us make decisions about the future of collection or recycling processing in West County great thanks and I attended the contecosta mayor's conference the monthly meeting and there was a presentation on organization that is presenting a smart government initiative

1:45:38so you may want to take a look at that and and study it it's it's quite an interesting uh initiative it takes in a lot of things that people have been saying all these years and kind of packaging it into it into actually government law if it passes has a lot to do with State

1:46:01funding and budgeting and measurable requirements you measure your accomplishments against your expenses and in your spending both at the state level and at the the city level interestingly enough though if you read it we're doing that right now City level what is in this initiative we are

1:46:23already we are already doing so um I was glad to see that looks like we're on the Forefront of some of the thinking that's going on in the state by the way the group that's put it together is by it's it's uh bipartisan and it's not um it's not they advertise themselves as not being

1:46:43politically motivated and I think to this extent it looks like that's that's correct their only interest is to make better government in California no matter what side the aisle you're from so and maybe I can get some of that information and I'll I'll pass it along

1:46:58uh it makes for good reading okay what we're going to do now for those of you left in the in the audience we're going to adjourn this meeting to go into our Municipal Services Corporation meeting and then we'll come back to the council meeting and then go into closed session

1:47:17so um a little technical gymnastics to to get to a practical practical business here so I'd like to recess our city council meeting and call to order the special El Cerrito Municipal Services Corporation meeting March 6 2012.

1:47:40if these city clerk will note that all of us are still here and ready to do business with the uh well excuse me I should I keep forgetting this I'm sorry we have more than just the city council members so could we have a roll call on this yes Vice chairperson Greg Lyman here

1:48:04director Hannan your director Abelson here here director Chang here director Pincus and chairperson Jones here thank you are there any board or staff Communications tonight see none oral Communications from the public is there any no speaker slips anybody want to comment

1:48:27go ahead Al I'm sorry I didn't notice that this item 4B on your consent calendar was also on the city council's uh agenda or I would have spoke then uh I'm in favor of your intended action and the action you took to cast the city's ballots the way you decided but I did want to comment that I've been

1:48:54involved with all of the fee increases uh sales tax increases School Board City and Steve sanitary districts their bond measures uh basically since the the mid to late 80s never have I seen the vituperative and the acidic response of the community to a revenue measure that I've seen on this

1:49:21one whether you read the letters to the editor from across the county whether you read the editorials in the West County Times and which are in the central County Times against the way this measure has been put together and the public Outreach or the failure of

1:49:39the public Outreach closer to home if you read the comments on the patch El Cerrito patch article when they talked about this measure people are just incensed not you know it's disappointing because nobody is addressing the importance of the action or the issue but it's a response in the

1:50:02way this measure they believe that this measure has been up you know well they picked the property owner's fee instead of a regular election so that they can get it passed with 50 rather than the two-thirds percent and all of these things it's crazy now I understand I'm

1:50:19kind of preaching to the choir because I think that our city council and our staff in the measures that they've put forward have done an outstanding job in advising our community uh and in enlisting the aid and support of our community and I think that's evidenced

1:50:38by the success we've had in increasing the resources we need for the services that we've asked for and expect so I think this is a learning opportunity for every elected official in Contra Costa County of how not to put a measure forward uh I don't know how it got to be such a a

1:51:01done deal with so many people uh voters not knowing about it not understanding it uh so anyway the least I would encourage you to do is to spend some time on patch and read through these comments and the discussion going on between the commenters and the arguments and the

1:51:24some of the language used and the thing that is most important to me on that is how little voters in our community understand about the different requirements for raising revenues in different methods and which process is allowed and it's particularly frustrating to me because prop 218 was

1:51:48voted by we the people of California in a proposition to encourage transparency and to be sure that we were told what was happening and to be sure that we had more participation and more chances to comment on these actions and uh but anyway I think that as I said that there's

1:52:12Lessons Learned for us and that no matter how good we think we are at getting the word out and explaining it there's what I've learned in this incident is that there's still this huge number of people for whatever the reason either don't have the desire or don't have the time

1:52:33to pay attention what's going on but they do have a lot of time and a lot of energy to react to it and unfortunately most of them through their lack of knowledge lack of information provided to them don't really know what's happening and I'm very pleased to see you identify the

1:52:56potential fines that the city faces if we don't comply with this and that if we don't support this measure it'll come out of our general fund which means we'll have fewer staff fewer police fewer Recreation services whatever the other services that need to be cut to

1:53:15avoid these horrendous potential fines so thank you thank you any other comments from the from the public yeah okay we'll bring it back here okay next agenda item please the um it's consent calendar items four and four B minutes and the Storm Casting ballots for the 2012 clean water program

1:53:52thank you any action comments well I I'm actually going to make a comment I'm going to Echo the public speaker in in that uh certainly um it I think this campaign could have been done in a much um better fashion but as as I demonstrated with all my questions in

1:54:20the previous meeting the ramifications for the city are uh severe and uh you know we I feel we're going forward with the correct action and I wish that the county had uh really worked harder to help us get to the right end that would Echo that any other questions

1:54:44okay looking for an action move adoption of the consent calendars items for a and four B second it's been moved and seconded on the consent calendar all those in favor aye aye opposed motion passes okay uh that is that concludes our business so uh move to or ask for insurance

1:55:12I move that we adjourn second any objection we're adjourned so I would like to go back to uh reconvene special city council meeting under closed session and before we do break is there any uh public comment on this no speaker slips okay then we'll close that and we will then go to closed session

1:55:40thank you oh wait um I would like to read in to why we're going to closed session uh it's a conference on labor negotiations pursuant to government code section 54957.6 thank you thank you