City Council Meeting September 18, 2012

0:01:31company I'd like to thank you all for coming tonight this is the September 18 2012 city council meeting I'd like the record to show that all members of the city council are here and ready to do the business of the city I'd like to ask mayor Pro tem Lyman to lead

0:01:57us in the National in the uh Pledge of Allegiance flag of America is to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you do we have any counsel or staff communication tonight Becca to make two announcements that I'm sure

0:02:28are all are on all of your minds as well uh the city council will commence a workshop on Saturday for our strategic plan and anybody from the public is invited to attend this coming Saturday from 9 30 to 1 30 here in City Hall um and also on Saturday another very fun

0:02:45event uh for residents is the alvarito street play event where we've done this for a couple years now closed key root in Ashbury along that stretch down to Albany and there's a lot of great fun events and kids can basically play in the street and I do hear that this year

0:03:03we're doing an Albany versus El Cerrito tug of war so we're encouraging all of our residents to attend that event thank you thank you Anne I'd like to announce that I attended the league of California cities meeting in San Diego and participated in a number of different things I'll just mention a

0:03:28couple of them one was that I was the presider of a session on um uh what I like to think of as the taco trucks session and what it was about was the issue of having food trucks and food vendors that come in without having a brick and mortar establishment and it was extremely well attended I think

0:03:57there was standing room only actually and um the so it was an interest an area of interest for a lot of different cities and um the the two sides of the issue were one was that people do like to utilize those food trucks and they become gourmet food trucks as opposed to the old-fashioned

0:04:18taco trucks of yesterday many of them anyway and so there become a lot of City permitting issues that come up and sometimes they're located on a piece of property sometimes they're on the street a street will be closed or they'll just be along the side of the street and

0:04:38it'll just be one so there are a lot of issues dealt with and we had two speakers one of them was a from a firm that represents cities and one of them was from a firm that represents the food indust the food vendor industry so it was quite a lot Lively exchange and I

0:05:02was really interested in it and so were many other people I um also um was on I attended a meeting there of the administrative services policy committee and um we just had one agenda item which was on the ballot and um that was a consideration of whether or not

0:05:27the league of California cities should endorse proposition 31 which was the government performance and accountability act and um the um uh position that was taken was to oppose that and that was by this is the policy committee that I was on it then went on to the the league which I think

0:05:54actually took a final position of neutral on the issue but so that was what happened where I was in that particular committee um and um in addition to that let's see here um I think that's I also attended um along with mayor Jones and I'll let him talk about the details about but I

0:06:30do want to just mention that I attended the mayor's conference and um then I'd like to mention some activities they're going to be going on if people are interested in attending upcoming issues we're going to have the garage sale throughout El Cerrito on October

0:06:5513th from 9 to 3 P.M if you want to register for that you need to do so um by September 24th which is um very eminent and you do that at the community center and if you are interested we're considering the draft climate action plan and it'll be released in the not October November

0:07:26time frame and those are the items I wanted to mention I think thank you right yeah I want to um acknowledge a few agencies we had the tri-safety day on September 8th and that was at the plaza El Cerrito Plaza um and I understand it we're going on at least three decades of of having this

0:07:53event um and I want to acknowledge some of the agencies that were there the American Red Cross East Bay Regional Park District Albany Police and Albany fire district community outreach Department was there Contra Costa County Health Department has this materials Response

0:08:11Unit um El Cerrito Police Department El Cerrito fire department which is also the Kensington fire department Contra Costa County Supervisor John Joy provides staff American Medical Response was there Kensington Police Department the community emergency response team

0:08:29was there Richmond fire department and Contra Costa County Animal Services Department of special interest was the United States Secret surface was here for the first time and they were had the longest line and their the service they were providing was Operation Safe kid where they were

0:08:49registering your child essentially providing you a photograph and some fingerprints um in a hard copy document that you would be able to take home and and use if your child was ever abducted so it was not information they're collecting uh but in a service that they're

0:09:05providing that allowed children to collect the information and parents to go off with their information um the Contra Costa County Health Department did was there and they were providing um uh Refreshers in in how to CPR how to save someone's uh life and it's now CPR

0:09:26and these are little handouts that they provided for us um it's hands-only CPR so that just for those that have not taken CPR in a long time it's now hands-only CPR you can actually save a life just by providing chest compressions um so just um please consider saving a life if you

0:09:48see someone go down and obviously check them to make sure that their need assistance but you can save a life with uh with CPR so and I too had attended the mayor's conference with mayor Jones and council member Abelson okay thank you uh I have some announcements here first of all I

0:10:09attended the league of California City's annual conference with um council member Abelson was also there and uh one uh some of the things that I think maybe of Interest here is there's a strong infinite emphasis from the league on promoting strong cities strong State and

0:10:32I think it's an effort it's a positive effort rather than a negative one to um indicate that if you want a strong State you make your city strong and vibrant and support them and also the league is actively engaged in protecting self-rule for cities so I thought that was uh given given the

0:10:55current climate and in situations that a lot of cities find in their uh in throughout the state it was a positive statement that if you make your city strong you'll have a strong state um there was uh information on post Redevelopment the Redevelopment movement for economic

0:11:19developments and a discussion on what tools uh we will have in the future and the share of what some cities have be again to do and uh I thought it was a positive thing and it actually passed some of the ideas on to staff so I think that was very worthwhile as far as Redevelopment down there the

0:11:39state uh did not receive funding that they that they requested from 21 cities throughout the state and El Cerrito was included in that and uh it was shared that all 21 cities received a letter from the state that was pretty confusing and unclear and even had lawyers who understand these things very

0:12:03well scratching their head no no penalties they say they want penalties but they won't promise in the future that they will restore these penalties so uh we're going forward there and it was surprisingly upbeat given the some of the situations that the the cities find

0:12:23themselves and it just shows I think that cities are struggling but there's a lot of good people trying to find Solutions and go forward so that was a good statement I thought uh second of all uh former council member uh Leticia Moore often would come to the meetings and say

0:12:45uh you know we find El Cerrito in the some of the most unusual places and I had the occasion to spend some time with Craig Johnson and his wife who's an employee of the city and Joan lundahl and found out that they are ranked third in the world in ballroom dancing for the

0:13:07category over 40 years they also between them hold several World Championships in the past and I found this very interesting because you don't you don't really know who you run into and in this case who's working for the city and what they do outside their their working lives a lot and and turns

0:13:25out that we have World Champs um that are working for our cities so I I thought that was pretty good and my hats are off to Greg and his wife Joan uh like the we had the city had their annual uh golf tournament to support the David Hunter memorial fund and it was a

0:13:43success I thought and I'd like to thank the sponsors and the individuals who showed up for that a tournament we did have a mayor's conference right in Richmond for uh this is for chronicasa the Mayors we have one once a month and we had a speaker a reporter from the

0:14:01contecosta times spoke about the upcoming election and what I found interesting out of that whole thing is and we have it here in El Cerrito there are 37 cities Special Districts and and other agencies who elect officials that are not having elections there's not a need

0:14:22for an election because there is no competition for their seats and what was even more surprising that I kind of thought that was a pretty high number um but was even more surprising that is that's kind of the average each each election so we have a lot of these Special

0:14:41Districts and agencies and Regional boards and things like that and uh a lot of them go uncontested which which I find interesting and finally uh for those of you that follow the the council's activities we've had a few special meetings uh and the council held interviews to

0:15:05fill commissions boards and committees for the cities and we've made several appointments and I'd like to quickly uh announce those publicly in the arts and culture commission Christian Sethi has been appointed Economic Development board Vikram Baja Planning Commission Ken hirano and

0:15:27Andrea Lucas tree committee and we have several of these this is our new committee that is being formed and and will be in place here fairly soon Ralph beniello uh shaky shaky uh why do I always blow that way Sushi Chang Janet Hittle Steve price Michael Sergo have all been uh

0:16:03appointed to the tree committee we thank everybody for applying and congratulate those that have been appointed thank you very much any staff communication okay I'd like to ask the city clerk if we have any uh speakers on oral communication from the public yes mayor

0:16:21Jones we have several speakers this evening the council has allotted three minutes per speaker and we have a speaker timing light up at the podium here that will help you track your time the first speaker is Don ganchef thank you three minutes is not nearly enough so I

0:16:49will pay homage to all of you once hello and thank you for coming the reason I am here is because I could not get satisfaction at the police department I was ticketed twice my car which was parked in front of my house where my cars have been parked for 40 years I have

0:17:18been here 40 years I will be 75 in a month which makes me the longest lived person on the 600 block of Clayton I went to the police department to talk to the Watch Commander at the time I was told that I could not I asked for an appointment I was told I could not have one

0:17:45I was given a form which would which said appeal I said to this person I am not appewing anything here's my check I have paid the 108 dollars I know about appealing then this person said you should talk through the ticketing officer what talk to the officer I did a card with the officer's name on

0:18:19it do I want to talk to the officer call him and ask him why he ticketed my car the next suggestion was you should see a council person and I talked to Cheryl Morris about that she I know this is difficult I appreciate your trying to arrange that but I am still at the point where I do

0:18:57not know how police officers know whether a car has been moved it's 72 hours or not so I would like you to authorize somebody that would be the police department to give me a sheet with the code Codes correct and on that sheet I would like to see how an officer can decide whether that

0:19:32car has been driven 71 and a half hours 72 and a minute hours how many hours how does he know she he or she can you get that for me you can ask for it Chief says yes so all right is that three minutes Ah that's ridiculous all right where's the chief I will get that

0:20:04then I will forego the second item thank you very much thank you next speaker please Laura Woodford are the speakers on hello uh uh thank you council members for allowing us to speak um I'm a volunteer from the Golden Gate Audubon Society and I believe that the

0:20:36council has already went to committee and council member Chang introduced the resolution to urge local businesses to stop selling rodenticides and certain rat poison products that are hazardous to children pets Wildlife especially Raptors and there's some other people I think from the community

0:20:56are going to speak tonight because it was in the El Cerrito patch so anyway I just uh you know I'm glad that the committee hopefully is positive about this resolution I think especially concerning that children many many children across the United States every year are poisoned by these you know

0:21:13little d-cons they're so easy for a toddler to get a hold of and of course we're very sad when Wildlife or you know this area loves wildlife and we have lots of wildlife to bless our city so of course the Audubon Society is greatly concerned about the secondary poisoning

0:21:31of predator birds and wildlife and so I'm just here as a volunteer for that group and to urge you to go ahead and pass a resolution and also urge the city of El Cerrito to not use these rodenticides they're just very nasty toxic poisons that kill creatures in a you know nasty

0:21:52way they basically you know die of starvation and you know their body dries up it's nasty so it's just very hazardous to people's pets if the pet you know eats a mouse or rat that has gotten this poison you know dogs and cats and so forth and that's likely to happen because they'll crawl outside the

0:22:10pet will die very quickly in a very also horrible death it just goes right through their systems so um that's why I'm here speaking tonight and I really appreciate this the city of El Cerrito City Council Members being willing to consider or passing this resolution to urge local businesses to

0:22:27take these off their shelves especially following the fact that the EPA has also been trying to revoke their licenses nationally too because they recognize that these are very toxic poisons and they're really not the best way to control rodents there's a lot of other

0:22:41ways to control rodents such as rhodotrol natural deterrence rat zappers there's you know a host of ways to to get rid of rodents cleaning up areas and so there's really no use a good reason to use toxic poisons that could be very hazardous to children pets and Wildlife

0:22:59thank you thank you next next speaker Patricia Jones good evening thank you mayor Jones and council members for putting this resolution on the consent calendar and I'm asking you to please support this consent item G as you know from my emails that I've sent you this topic

0:23:25became very personal to me my family and my neighbors as we were blessed with a rare sighting of a turkey vulture fledgling meet Mo this was our Mo we didn't know whether Mo was a boy or girl so it's MO and mo appeared on our property and for about a couple of weeks once we were

0:23:48aware of him we watched him grow we watched his parents care for him her and then we were horrified as he came to us moments before he died and as the prior speaker said it is not a pretty death I won't go into details so the you know the cycle of life is the rat

0:24:08poisons out there the parent gets the rats or the mice and they they catch it and then they feed it to the to the baby so since um the baby died we've also never seen one of the parents again there used to always be two parents floating around our properties and since then there's been

0:24:26the one looking around for its mate and looking for its baby so my name my neighbor Debbie and I took Mo to Wild care for testing and he did come back positive for rat poisoning so I urge you to support this resolution and I thank you for putting it on your agenda

0:24:45thank you appreciate it Robin Mitchell I'm Robin Mitchell I live at [address removed] in El Cerrito and I'm also a member of the park and rec commission but I'm not speaking on in that capacity I'm just speaking as a resident and I too would like to support passage of this resolution to encourage

0:25:14businesses not to carry this rodenticides and also that the city don't you doesn't use those rodenticides either I don't think I have to make the case everyone has already made it I just want to express my opinion that I hope you support the resolution thanks thank you

0:25:32next speaker Jane Kelly good evening my name is Jane Kelly I'm a resident of Berkeley actually um I wanted to thank you for considering the resolution to discontinue the use of certain rodenticides and also for asking the department of pesticide regulation to refuse to register the 20 most toxic

0:25:55of those products as you know ingestion of these rodenticizes poisoning children and killing dogs and cats birds of prey and many other species of wildlife I have obtained a copy of the statistical data from the Department of pesticide regulation and it is literally

0:26:12heartbreaking there are thousands of deaths caused by these products and I actually couldn't whend my way through the hundreds and hundreds of pages of the reports I also wanted to take this opportunity to tell you how impressed we are with the environmental leadership shown by

0:26:31the city of El Cerrito it's everything it's the new recycling center the rain Gardens the way you install swales along the streets the California Native plantings whenever Landscaping is performed you are really forward-thinking and creative and I just wanted to take this

0:26:48opportunity this evening to say that it's not going unnoticed by the residents of your neighboring cities so congratulations and thank you thank you thanks uh speaker please Sylvia falcon Sylvia Falcon Sonoma Street El Cerrito mayor and councilman we appreciate you

0:27:17putting the rodenticide resolution on the agenda as you know many pest control companies are in business to control rats they're everywhere they're in the best neighborhoods and we can't deny it we you've probably seen them going into compost bins in your or your neighbor's

0:27:36yard so there are preventive measures that can be taken and it's it's education that will do it but until that time rat control companies are trying to control them in a professional way this company for instance does not use redundicides in their traps they trap

0:27:55rats they pick up the rat and the trap and they dispose of it they use peanut butter and fruit so you can give our local businessmen more sales and peanut butter and fruit if you pass this resolution get rodenticides off the shelf I have some statistics that are kind of

0:28:18scary the national animal poison control reports that they receive about 160 000 calls per year about suspected rodenticide poisonings including children dogs cats to horses pigs rabbits ferrets and birds the EPA gave the rodenticide manufacturers three years to switch to

0:28:42safer products but three companies which I won't name because it's probably not kosher to do that at an ulcerative council meeting they refuse to do so so the poisons continue to be put on the shelves we look forward to having you pass the resolution and I urge you to do

0:28:59so thank you thank you next speaker is Pamela Austin my name is Pam Alston and I live on Kearney Street between Waldo and Stockton I'd like to speak in support of the ban on rodenticide please um and and to illustrate that I'd like to share a little Slice of Life from my

0:29:29backyard I have a cat and he diligently patrols his yard and guards against anything and we also have rats at times and he kills the rats he doesn't eat them because he's very well fed but what happens next is that a crow comes and takes away the body of the Rat which is

0:29:53the natural order of things and um and you know that if that rat had been poisoned it could well have poisoned my cat and the crow and who knows what else I'd like I'd also like to encourage the city if you use radenticides not to please and I live in fear that one of my

0:30:15neighbors will decide that this is a great idea to put out rat poison and kill my cat and kill the other animals that appear in my yard thank you I and I'd like to encourage more productive means like um owls um I think again as was mentioned earlier that it's consistent with the

0:30:36city's efforts um environmental kinds of efforts it's easy to do it's cheap um uh you put up all houses and um and and you get owls and they and they live off small animals like rats thank you thank you next uh speaker please Tomcat Tom Kelly uh good evening members of the city

0:31:05council my name is Tom Kelly I'm from Berkeley um they're just two points that I'd like to make in support of your resolution tonight on rodenticides uh one is that uh we do a lot of restoration work in our free time and um we found that uh Ivy houses an awful lot of rats and once

0:31:25we remove the Ivy the rats Scurry around for a few days looking for someplace else to live but they move on and it's sort of proved to us that if you know you're able to take care of an ivy situation you're also going to help to reduce the rat population so that's a

0:31:40like a very proactive way of uh you know pulling Ivy out of Street trees or in our Parks or whatever that are actually doing damage to the trees and at the same time you get rid of the rats the other thing I wanted to point out is that um the U.S EPA is trying to do some

0:31:57uh make some efforts to reduce the use of rodenticides or the approval of them and they're getting a lot of pushback from the manufacturers and it's really important that cities demonstrate their interest in seeing these rodenticides eliminated so that the U.S EPA isn't

0:32:14sort of standing alone there against the manufacturers trying to argue against their use as they see more and more cities coming on board with this it just makes it that much easier for them to stand up to that the the lobbyists from the big chemical manufacturers so again

0:32:31I urge you to pass this resolution tonight thank you thank you next speaker Dave Weinstein hi uh mayor and members of the council I'm Dave Weinstein I'm the chairman of the El Cerrito Trail Trekkers so I'm not here to speak about rodenticide although it's a great idea to get rid of that

0:32:54stuff I'm also a member of the Environmental Quality committee um the consent calendar has uh an item to make the El Cerrito Trail trackers co-sponsored by the city that would be really valuable to us because recently we've we've been meeting at at my house which is very small we can't have a

0:33:13general meeting it'd be great to be able to use City facilities we began about two years ago and we did meet in City facilities then we were kind of an offshoot of the Environmental Quality committee uh since that time we've conducted just numerous hikes we do at

0:33:26least one a month sometimes three or four we've also mapped charted even done GIS of about 40 Trails these are publicly owned either usable Trails or trails that are currently not usable in the city of El Cerrito we're going to be working with uh you know the Environmental Services Division and

0:33:46doing a map of these we already have a couple of little tentative Maps we've also worked the natural physical hard labor on at least two of the trails one motorcycle Hill Trail which extends what used to be a trail in the hillside Park that came to a sudden dead end on a

0:34:03precipice and now goes all the way down to uh what is it around uh Ganges navalir Blake it's a great Trail always one member of the castle has been on it people have been jogging on it the geocachers have been using it and a house that went for sale right at the base of the trail okay

0:34:20when it came for sale the Realty sign you know the thing they hand out said easy access to local trails and that was a trail that had been used way back in the 70s when it was a straight line coming down some power poles now it's got really beautiful well designed we

0:34:34had experts out there switchbacks we also started work on a trail there's a trail right now a usable trail from King to shevlin and then there's an unusable one that comes off that that emerges on Terrace and we started working on that one and we've got a lot of cooperation

0:34:48from the neighbors who are really glad to see us there because we were eliminating well number one we were eliminating some some fire uh danger there was a lot of brush in there and all that and we've been working very closely with um you know Bill Driscoll and Jerry Bradshaw and other people in

0:35:02the city we have very good cooperation we use City tools and this is an effort that I think really it's almost something Visionary about it because we see connecting all the trails together in you know just a way they can go throughout the city from north to south

0:35:15as much as possible on these beautiful hidden little Trails some of which are stairways some of which are more rural it's just a great thing when we cooperated with a lot of different groups in the area and so anyhow I'm glad to see that we're going to continue to have great

0:35:30cooperation with the city because it's good for everybody I think thank you very much the red lights on so oh I'm sorry did I overstay my welcome oh that's all right thank you very much no other speaker slips no other speakers great well thank you very much um why don't you talk out yeah go ahead

0:35:52okay I just wanted to for the speakers who came wondering about the city's policy in our packet um the staff has confirmed that we are not currently using anticoagulant rodenticides um and that our our methodology is licensed by the California Department of pesticide for vector control services

0:36:11including cat rat control so I just wanted to let you guys know thank you hey please announce the consent agenda please um the next item is presentations oh sorry about that with a false present prevention awareness Proclamation and Laurel Zion is here to accept the

0:36:33proclamation thank you very much for coming tonight thank you oh go ahead my name is Laurel Zion I'm an elder care coach a patient advocate and I'm a volunteer with the fall prevention program of Contra Costa County and we'd like to thank you for your ongoing support of our program this is I

0:36:58think the third year I've personally come to accept the proclamation and I really appreciate the questions that you've had and the support that you've given our program the fall prevention program of Contra Costa County serves hundreds of senior citizens throughout the county both at

0:37:13East and West and Central by providing providing educational Outreach home safety assessments by an occupational therapist and by providing home safety modifications to Residents all at no cost the mission of our agency is to reduce preventable injuries loss of

0:37:31Independence costs and death associated with Falls among seniors and people with disabilities by raising awareness and developing fall prevention programs in Contra Costa County our program also AIDS family caregivers in the difficult task of caring for their loved ones

0:37:48we're very proud of our achievements and benefits that we've provided to the residents of the county since the program began in 2008. here are a few highlights since 2008 county-wide we've educated over 1720 adults and 288 care providers on fall prevention and home safety

0:38:08our occupational therapist has done a home assessment with 375 seniors and family members to provide personalized education on fall prevention and recommended assistive devices our contractor has installed assisted devices in over 296 Homes at no cost to the residence

0:38:29we've provided free fall prevention materials to countless of people countless residents at senior centers and libraries ninety percent of the people we've served now say that they're less afraid of falling and can more safely remain in their own homes and we continue to partner with over 70

0:38:47local agencies to reduce the number of falls in the county thank you again for your support please feel free anyone in the room to contact the fall prevention program for any referrals or educational programs so we can provide we'd be helping to help help whenever we

0:39:04can and also um our third annual Watford fall prevention is this coming Saturday at um Ellenwood way in Pleasant Hill I have Flyers if anyone's interested it's a really great event it's a quarter mile circuit there's free breakfast and free goodie bags and a vendor fair and all

0:39:21kinds of things about Trial prevention and thank you very much well thank you in the packet of information tonight uh Council there is a fall prevention Awareness Week Proclamation again this year and I have to admit when I first came on Council the first year that this

0:39:40came up I had no idea what the fall prevention week was about but um since that I've had member of the family who is in an assistant care and I the care about Falls and and it comes to be to the point where every time he does follow the caregiver gives a call to the

0:40:03family to make sure that the family knows that there was a fall and also that there wasn't an injury in our case there wasn't an injury so I'd like to thank you very much for all the effort you've done all the education you've done and I noticed that uh 65 and older High has the highest

0:40:22unintentional injury hospitalization rates so um I appreciate the uh coming up I I appreciate the fact that we've got all this education and awareness going on so thank you very much thank you thank you [Applause] thank you the next agenda item please next item adoption of the consent

0:41:02calendar item number is 5A 3 through okay can we start uh with any pool anybody would like to pull an item I'd like to pull h onest anybody else okay hearing none do I have a motion I move uh the consent calendar of the city of El Cerrito items five A through five G and item five I second

0:41:37it's been moved and seconded all those in favor aye opposed motion carries any comments follow-up comments okay I I pulled 5H um well I I pulled it but for um I really think in my opinion the council should consider the resolution on on Prop 32 for two two main reasons

0:42:06again in my opinion Proposition 32 is a blatant attempt by one group of people to intentionally and without acceptable reason and purpose take away basic constitutional rights from another group of people including the residents of El Cerrito the proposition is nothing more than a

0:42:25transparent attempt to undermine control and greatly reduce the rights of people to organize and negotiate labor terms and conditions in my opinion again it is also has a veiled purpose in laying substantial blame for the state's economic problems at the feet of

0:42:43organized lab organized labor and professional classifications the second reason is that whether one agrees or disagrees with the United States Supreme Court in the case of citizens united I feel that Proposition 32 violates the very logic and constitutional reasoning

0:43:04that the court used in reaching its decision on citizens united so that being said um the city council though conducts the business of the city and thus represents the image of the community even though at times the council uses demonstrative statements and verbal

0:43:23discussions and deliberation on various issues and my previous comments notwithstanding I guess in the end resolutions and proclamations the formal and official records of City business must reflect a proper and professional decorum expected by the community in this regard I'm going to

0:43:43suggest the following adjustments be made to the proposed resolution in order to eliminate unnecessary rhetoric encounter Rancor Excuse me while still providing responsible reasoning for our actions I feel these changes will reflect the proper standard for formal presentations that

0:44:03City that El Cerrito City councils have always strived to maintain in the city's official documents so with that if you could turn to the resolution the proposed resolution I'd like to propose the following the first whereas second line eliminate the following Ultra conservative

0:44:25on whereas number three first line it's more appropriately called the special exemption Act second line do away with because third line do away with billionaires and and insert selected individuals and selected individuals and and then the third line of that whereas

0:44:50eliminate voices of every day and insert rights of working people whereas number four eliminate uh fight and put negotiate whereas number six uh take out over 10 million and just insert millions of dollars whereas number seven second line um right after Women Voters please and

0:45:28serve have indicated their opposition to and then later on in that same line cross out they say and number eight whereas first line take out uh what is that powerful geez I crossed it out powerful wealthy oh yeah powerful wealthy and insert uh political and to continue political and corporate

0:46:00special interests so that would be what I would suggest I I think it's uh to be honest the better presentation and one that's representative of our actions tonight on the third whereas could you just read that you made a number of changes in there and I'm not sure let me read it in

0:46:18total as corrected whereas the measure exempts selected individuals and Powerful Corporation corporate special interests from its Provisions while targeting the rights of every of working people colon and that's how I I would suggest that that whereas uh be restructured

0:46:43sorry that was the third one third whereas yes the measure is more appropriately called you struck all of that is that what you're saying correct okay I don't know if it is appropriately called that but anyway the recommender of this resolution I would be willing to entertain all the

0:47:06the suggestions you made and would I guess move to adopt this resolution my second the motion it's been moved and seconded any final discussion okay as amended correct all those in favor I I opposed motion carries thank you next agenda item next agenda item is the

0:47:38item number six public hearing abatement of fire hazard public nuisances on four properties pursuant to El Cerrito Municipal Code chapter 16.26 okay um before we start I'd just like to go over how we handle public hearings the public hearing has been announced there'll be a staff in this case a staff

0:47:59presentation questions from the council to staff about the presentation then I'll open the public hearing and we'll hear public testimony when all the public testimony is received we will close the public hearing have final discussion and perhaps potentially a motion and a vote

0:48:22on the resolution whatever that resolution is okay staff presentation please good evening honorable mayor and City Council Members as you know I Am David chapar your fire prevention officer and I'm here tonight to introduce a resolution confirming the cost of forced

0:48:45abatement on four properties previously recognized as Public public nuisances by the city council and allowing for the lien of the associated costs against the properties as a general overview when the process began in May to June we had 187 initial properties that were

0:49:04inspected and found in violation by July and the previous city council meeting there were 26 declared public nuisances by the council um and since then there have only been the the there's been a reduction in the total properties uh down to four that had forced abatement

0:49:22uh in general the costs for all four combined were 950 in contractor work as well as two thousand five hundred and twenty dollars in administrative fees that's the basic General overview and I'm available to answer any questions you may have questions um how many of these four were have been

0:49:45previously abated in the past uh in the past going previous year last year last year none okay none of these uh two of them uh went to the last hour the two properties on Hagen that you'll see in exhibits A and B uh went to the final hour um but this year there was no such luck

0:50:04okay and and then um there was testimony that we consider starting the abatement process earlier um in in the year and I'm just curious if the uh chief who's standing up behind you has taken that into consideration for next year by looking at how many properties overlapped with previous

0:50:26years uh the chief that's the I'll uh defer to the chief to answer that question mayor members of the council I'm Lance Maples I'm your fire chief back in July we heard testimony from one of our citizens in regards to our program and the possibility of starting earlier for

0:50:42returning customers which caused us to go back as we always do when we hear comments from our constituents uh Fire Marshal Bond did a cursory review of the last three years uh in the last three years there have been five properties that have been on the initial list all three years when you

0:51:00consider we survey approximately 14 000 Parcels it's a very small number to adjust our process moving it in a direction that would make it more cumbersome for the citizens that participate in it and eliminate a longer period of due process to get the job done as fire prevention officer chaparro

0:51:17mentioned of the four properties this year that were forcefully abated none of them were abated in 10 or 11. although they were in the process they were not forcefully abated the customers at that point moved forward and abated under their own willpower so I do understand Mr Richardson's

0:51:32concerns that he brought forward in July very unique parcel that uh the two Hagen Parcels because it's grass flashy fuels and so the grass does come up and uh does appear to be there early in the season and dead earlier in the season um what we're committed to do this year

0:51:49and we've I've worked with Mike Bond the fire marshal and Mr shapara from fire prevention we're going to do an early notification on these properties just one more layer of hey it's April we abanded your property last year this was the cost that was a lean to your

0:52:03property and try to just heighten the awareness and continually apply a little more pressure I think our system's been in place since 1995 it's been very effective on the scale in the late 90s we were a little earlier and we had lines of complaints that people were

0:52:19having to do vegetation management twice on their property one other key thing that should be remembered when we forcefully Abate a property most properties are very different than these two Hagen Lots we forcefully a brush dead trees you know rubbish things of those nature so we do a very good job

0:52:37follow our diligence go out to bid get good contractors so when we leave a property after forceful abatement unless it has flashy fuels or grass on it it's not a problem the next year because everything hasn't grown back yet and so uh you you'll see every you know a

0:52:51property reappear every third year you know every fourth year but rarely is it year after year that we forcefully abate okay I thank you very much for taking Mr Richardson's testimony to heart and and doing the research to look at that and I will still continue to encourage that it

0:53:09is a notification process it does require City Council meetings and um certainly you can't do the abatement until you have the July meeting and so I would encourage you to consider having that um instead of us taking the first uh meeting off if that potentially we

0:53:28have the first meeting so that we can at least get two more weeks earlier uh abatement in the future thank you thank you I had anybody else have questions Janet you have a question no I just had a question uh and I think it was brought up last night the state of

0:53:45California one of the properties the state of California and we're abating and having having to Bill them extra for the time and administrative work on this did you ever get a response from uh what I had to do uh we used the uh the city's GIS system to find the owners of the

0:54:04current owners of the properties uh when there's no response from there or the letter gets returned back to us I then go to the county as the authority to verify the owner of the property because that address is what shows up on the that's the address that they send

0:54:23the property tax bills right from there once they confirm the same address there really isn't a whole lot else to do however what I did in this case because it does seem a little bit strange as you said is I contacted a department of this uh within from the state in Sacramento that manages

0:54:43property and at this time it evades me what the exact title of it was but basically they were the property management department for the state they had several addresses a phone number I contacted them they gave me the number the address and the phone number for that exact

0:55:01Department I contacted them they told us this is the address that you send it to we will take care of it from here I did that repeated the phone call they said did you send it I said yes I did they said we'll follow through with it from there and they're not that's as far as it went

0:55:20okay well thank you I'm States in trouble with money and I mean I do I do understand and I knew that it would you know create a red flag but no literally that was the most no reason to apologize they have to take care of it just like everybody else I appreciate it

0:55:36thank you okay um since we don't have any more questions then we'll go ahead and open up the public hearing so I'd like to open up the public hearing on abatement of fire hazard public nuisances on four properties pursuant to El Cerrito Municipal Code chapter 16.26

0:55:59we have one speaker slip James Richardson MD good evening good evening mayor and Council I want to thank the chief and Mrs see a paddle for taking my concerns of uh seriously the concerns are real as I mentioned before there has been a fire on that hill and after this council meeting in July

0:56:34I saw a couple smoking in the middle of the grass so fireworks are a big concern for that for that hill and the Fourth of July is my biggest concern for fire occurrence on it on the hill those smokers are are an added an added concern so um addressing earlier consideration of that property certainly

0:57:13is of a real step forward and I think thank you very much well thank you for your suggestion appreciate it okay any other public testimony on this issue no other speaker slips okay moving close to public hearing second the motion the mood a second to close the public hearing all those in

0:57:34favor motion carries uh okay if there is I've got some comments I want to thank um you know firefighter Bond and and firefighter chaparro for their work on this it it it's tireless I mean the chief said it's 14 000 different individual properties that you guys evaluate I realized it's a lot of work

0:57:59and I really appreciate how hard you do work um your testimony about how diligent you were trying to contact the state is again another testimony of how hard you work on this so I I want to extend a big thank you for this um and reiterate my plea that we try and

0:58:17do it even if it's just two weeks or three weeks earlier next year that it would be um at least for this one parcel that Dr Richardson is talking about most beneficial [Music] um jump and I'm ready to move a motion make a motion if if there are no other comments

0:58:37question I Fire Chiefs say that there were some issues by doing it earlier that it caused people to have to do it twice um well in this in essence when it comes to weed abatement in our community both a community of Kensington and El Cerrito if we do move and push the abatement too

0:59:02early we have a regrowth and in our initial inceptions like I said in the early 90s and we did this we forcefully evaded properties and then at the end of August had properties with fire hazards again so it's problematic that we don't want to have an overlap enforcefully

0:59:15evade property twice um I I still believe our program has been very affected over the years by the diligence of the fire prevention officer staying on top of single properties ultimately by Mr Richardson coming to the council in July and pointing this out he's a great supporter of our

0:59:33program as you can see and he he would like to see it more frequent more often which in essence is going to stimulate us to pay special attention to this area and and try to make contact continually throughout the year our program is successful not because of the punitive

0:59:49side of doing the forceful abatement it's the educational process um there's rumors in the community that someone's looking at purchasing the property and and my comment to it fire prevention officer Paris well when you find out who they're going to buy it from find out who that is more

1:00:02importantly then who's buying it too so we can start the foundation so changes in the air uh Mr Richardson coming to the council motivates us to pay strict attention to this piece of property early in the year and throughout the year and and hopefully we can solve this

1:00:14problem without without having to adjust our system that then would change the due process for all the citizens involved or cause us to run us through this process twice thank you a move resolution of the city council of the city of El Cerrito confirming the report of the costs of abatement of

1:00:33public nuisance conditions resulting from the presence of weeds rubbish litter or other flammable material on the private property designated herein under the authority contained in El Cerrito Municipal Code chapter 16.26 seconds it's been moved and seconded on the

1:00:51motion all those in favor aye aye opposed motion carries thank you very much exciting please item number 7 7A sciu local 1021 memorandum of understanding and Reporting the value of employer-paid member contributions for Sci employees SEIU employees okay we have a staff report on this

1:01:23director and I'm here with uh two items for you to consider the first one is a resolution adopting the memorandum of understanding between the city of El Cerrito and the service employees International Union SEIU Local 1021 effective July 1st 2012 through June 30

1:01:432014 and a resolution amending the paying and reporting of the value of employer paid member contributions for SEIU Local 1021 it's a little bit of background on the agreement the original agreement went from July 1 2005 to June 30 2010 and then in July 2010 a side letter was

1:02:06adopted that extended the agreement for two more years and it expired on June 30 2012. City Representatives have been discussing this agreement for three months and on July 24th a tentative agreement was reached and on August 15 2012 a vote was uh done by the union to

1:02:25approve it um this agreement will be in effect from July 1 2012 through June 30th 2014.

1:02:35and in these concessions that were made by SEIU as well as the other employee groups have made a significant contribution to ensure the city's service levels are in place without Workforce reductions so we've basically called out six major changes in the contract for the first

1:02:54one the employees will contribute a total of 2.5 percent which is a 1.5 percent increase of the member contribution to pers for fiscal year 2012-13 and then the employees will increase their contribution to three percent a point five percent increase for 1314.

1:03:16and then during the term of the mou the city will amend its the the report says a tremendous contract with pers to implement a second tier retirement formula for total miscellaneous members with the passage of ab340 this this determination of how this will play out

1:03:32is going to take a little bit more consideration because at in effect a second tier has already been adopted with the passage of av-340 so we need to do some more research on this one also affected the first pay period in July 2013 all Representatives will receive a 3.5 wage increase and no

1:03:52increase will be received in fiscal year 1213.

1:03:57they also discussed and agreed on furloughs so employees will will shall reimburse the city the agreement initially said 22.5 hours prorated for part-time for a furlough program through payroll deduction and the program would conclude on June 30 2014. since we are adopting this a

1:04:18little bit behind there has been a minor modification to those hours and that has been agreed upon it's not a material amount it's going to be like 21 hours because we're just now getting it implemented so also annual floating holidays will be reduced from three days to two year to

1:04:36two days for the two-year period that the agreement is in effect so in addition to the resolution to adopt the mou we also have the second resolution which is essentially dealing with that specific wording that we have to have hers requires anytime we modify the employer paid member contribution

1:04:59okay could you also uh go over the financial considerations for those in the public that's my next paragraph for the financial Integrations for the you mean for on the report the last part of the report so the financial considerations typically what we have for in the year

1:05:192013 wage increase and that will be more than offset by the three furlough days the loss of a vacation day and further increase pension contributions for a net savings to the city in 1314 of twenty one thousand dollars thereafter the cost of the city is approx approximately fifteen thousand

1:05:41dollars when we lose the furloughs overall compensation was adjusted to the meeting in 2006 and has not been readjusted since that time or as part of this extension staff will be moving towards the implementation of what's second tier there we will be doing and I'm sure we

1:05:58will be discussing this the entire Purge ab340 effect on the city at a later date and we are saving for this physical year uh seventy nine thousand dollars correct yes okay well thank you very much uh questions to staff thank you Mary I just want clarification the wage increase and

1:06:23um let's see 2013 it's 3.25 is that correct 3.25 okay I thought I just wanted to clarify that one um and can you just give a little bit more context of the recent state law AB 340 and just talk a little bit more about what the second tier is that was passed in that state law and just to

1:06:44compare it to what we have here in the contract also call a little bit on from from our City attorney but essentially what they're saying is that as of January 1st for new members and that would be employees that were coming to work for the city who have never been

1:07:01a part of pers they would become part of the two percent at 62.

1:07:08[Music] or 60. 60 formula they've developed a new formula that everybody would come in as now what we don't know is whether or not what exactly they haven't defined what a member a new member is and there's a little bit of of uh discussion as to what would happen to

1:07:27the people who are going from one pers agency to another pers agency in in light of that change and just to be clear that that differs from the contract is because that's two percent at age 60 for all employees Public Safety miscellaneous is that no okay so that's the same as the contract

1:07:46then miscellaneous only and then Public Safety is a different uh formula so the second tier we have here is equivalent to what we believe ab340 stated in terms of the second tier well we don't have um we don't have a specific second tier that we're proposing here today under

1:08:08the purse formula that the different purse formulas we think it would be relatively consistent with the new legislation however our our current hesitation is we're getting different interpretations from the our human resources attorneys from our labor negotiators from the union groups

1:08:31themselves that I mean essentially if you ask three people how do you implement this what are the Caps what are the formulas based on does the latest one today in regards to the second tier is does the new legislation override the second tier and there's some people who believe that it does so

1:08:50staff is going to different trainings including uh Mary is going tomorrow up to purrs we are working and we'll be coming back to Council in October to try to sort it out but as as you've all probably seen nobody yet has jumped out and said here are the directions so that's why we're

1:09:09having a little bit of a hesitation because we are getting mixed very mixed signals from everyone all the stakeholders involved and all those who have to interpret it including the league thank you and but one thing we do know is that we have five years to be in compliance with the law is that

1:09:27correct there's no that you have five years to the point and I asked the city trying to jump in yeah doing this from memory you have five years where the city May impose um the new terms you don't you're not obligated to do it's not a mandatory it doesn't kick in but it gives the cities

1:09:47the ability to impose it if you don't reach a similar a similar agreement okay okay thank you okay so um going back to the uh business at hand which is the mou uh is there any other questions of staff at this point I would like to State at this point that um uh several meetings either before or

1:10:16after we announced that we were going into closed session and Ford labor negotiations and this was the item so I'm reporting out that this is the result of our closed sessions state law allows us to strategize and make considerations of of proposals behind closed doors so that

1:10:46we could come to a resolution but I am reporting out that this is the this is what uh results from that those closed sessions public speakers all right so with that uh any speakers on this is there any speakers no speaker slips okay bring it back to council we have two Resolute

1:11:10proposed resolutions uh looking for an introduction to those yes if I may first though I want to acknowledge our negotiator and staff for all their hard work and actually even our employees and their representation for this this is um fantastic to be able to move this

1:11:29contract forward with the savings that's in there um it it's fantastic so I I do want to thank our negotiators and our employees for their hard work and reaching this negotiation yeah if I could just say um we appreciate negotiations are never fun especially in

1:11:49in times where um the the economic everybody's looking to get get more more money more more security and we appreciate the employees working with the city um to come up with a with with a solution to a problem I won't say that uh everybody is satisfied with it this

1:12:13isn't the time where you get very satisfied agreements but um we did come up with an agreement the employees were a big part of that and we appreciate their time consideration on that okay time for resolution if one wants to be proposed I'm happy to move a resolution

1:12:34of the city council of the city of El Cerrito adopting a memorandum of understanding between the city of El Cerrito and the service employees International Union SEIU Local 1021 employees second been moved and seconded on the motion all those in favor aye opposed motion

1:12:53carries unanimously one more resolution sure I move a resolution of the city of Council of the city of El Cerrito amending the payment and reporting of the value of employer paid member contributions for SEIU Local 1021 employees and any discussion okay it's been moved and seconded on the

1:13:17motion all those in favor aye aye opposed motion carries thank you very much last item please uh Council assignments and liaison reports start with Janet you have um okay don't have any uh thing to announce most of the things I did were not active and um thank you last month

1:13:46right yeah I do and I hope everyone will be patient with me um the recycle more our joint Powers agreement of joint Powers Authority on in West Contra Costa County on waste Hazmat and is considering several things that are worthy of consideration um and I will work with the mayor to

1:14:10potentially bring this forward as a item sometime for in October potentially as early as October but definitely by December um specifically we're working on uh a strategic believe it or not we're working out to plan there as well um and that in that strategic plan and I've

1:14:32got some really nice Graphics that they have provided that we will be bringing forward that talk about the steps about um the the consideration of the future of the uh joint Powers agreement joint Powers Authority group over the next 16 months and there are some decision

1:14:56points in here about um if and when cities will stay with the joint Powers agreement a group that joint Powers Authority group and that decision will probably occur in December so I I want to make sure that we're properly briefed and that are that I'm representing the decision of the council

1:15:16when we move forward uh so that that's one of the things so they're going through a strategic planning uh Workshop as well and and some of the things they're looking at is the future of recycle more once uh we have paid off the bonds that built the processing facilities that

1:15:39we're currently using um also that group is considering a series of proposals from a wide number of entities on what the future processing will be so in in 16 months in January of 2014 uh the current processing agreements will end and this is for services after they're collected

1:16:08from our street so it's a number of services recycling composting household hazardous waste it's a it's a number of services um and there are currently six firms that are vying for the services and that's great news because it it was one of our concerns that we would not have a

1:16:30competitive environment so that we did receive a report at the last meeting September 13th that September it was Friday September 14th um that there are six firms that are interested in in vying for our our services so that's fantastic news the technical advisory committee that's

1:16:52evaluating those proposals is continuing to meet and negotiate with all of them to try and get us the best rates possible and include the best Services they're all different um they all have different slightly different equipment slightly different locations slightly different pricing

1:17:09um so we we do have evaluation going on and they hope to advise the authority on when on which firm is best suited to meet our needs in the November time frame so I part of the ongoing update that I need to give you is that um that there that that firm may be selected by the time we meet and do a

1:17:35um a working session um and last but and of great interest to our group is the single uh single user carryout bag reduction ordinance or basically the plastic bag ban um we did just get a report from uh the executive director and the I don't know if you all remember there was a public

1:18:03notice for uh the initial study the initial study was completed and it's been out for 30 days we did get a number of comments including comments from the Save the plastic bag coalition um and in that comment they threatened litigation against approving an ordinance without an

1:18:25environmental impact report um so um all we considered the other day was a essentially a report and um notification of the close of the comment period uh they are essentially moving forward with a negative deck declaration as their document but there is an opinion the

1:18:50um we did request the uh Authority Council to to seek guidance from all of the member City uh uh Council attorneys because it is each individual City that will defend the document that's produced so there is an opportunity for us to evaluate whether um have our City attorney evaluate whether

1:19:19a negative declaration is adequate or if a eir is adequate the case log right now is for Manhattan Beach which is a small community the California Supreme Court upheld that they did they could pass the ban based on a negative declaration so it may or may not be applicable to our community

1:19:43and that is what's being evaluated and our Council will be uh consulted on on that issue here shortly so um hopefully waste was interesting tonight great appreciate it um some of you don't know that uh council member Lyman has extensive uh expertise in recycling and garbage

1:20:15and so it's a great fit as we come in it's it'll be um big outline 16. there's a 16-month process but the council will have to decide I think a little sooner than that what the future is and and what role The Authority will or won't play in the city so it's it's one of the more important

1:20:37decisions on the horizon I believe remember the last uh agreement for the joint Powers lasted 20 years so my guess is that uh if they go forward it'll be at least 20 years so it's a big it's it's a big decision thank you great yeah sure um unfortunately our our interviews last week got scheduled

1:21:00on top of the financial Advisory board meeting but Mary kindly forwarded just a recap of the the minutes um basically the the Fab discussed and continue to discuss the review of council compensation uh in reviewing the grand jury's recommendation to have an annual review of council compensation as

1:21:19part of and the city's response that it would be reviewed by The Fab as part of the budget and no recommendations made yet um the another item was uh Fab's review of Municipal Code section 2.04.300 essentially um you know a code section and code section review revisions needed in light

1:21:44of uh dissolution of Redevelopment agency um and uh also uh they reviewed uh the 2009 two-year service credit participation resulting staff changes and essentially looking at the actual data as we requested um uh in terms of how effective that policy was in saving

1:22:08us of funding and finally they also reviewed before we did the quarterly investment report from June 30th great thank you thank you my groups didn't meet but I'll have a report next session okay in my report I talked a little bit about the Contra Costa mayor's conference already the successor agency

1:22:30to the former El Cerrito development agency we have met uh the good thing about our organization is we stay on top of things and act maybe before other other cities do and this was another thing we were well prepared and provided all the documentation and reports that the state

1:22:51has required to this point the jpa the sports Fields joint Powers agreement for the Gilman Street the regional Sports fields and Gilman we're meeting tomorrow there isn't anything really exciting on the on the agenda but maintenance is on there so I'm anticipating something

1:23:15along those lines but everything seems to be going fine down there right now uh everybody looking for more parking things like that but that's been there a while and and the uh the group is looking for uh ways to lessen the the parking situation down there which is crowded I

1:23:36guess it's a good way of putting it and finally the West County Mayors and supervisors Association that's the five um the five Mayors from the West County cities plus the supervisor we meet once a month to discuss Regional our regional issues would be interesting is uh

1:23:57assembly member Skinner is supposed to attend and um well I I think the best way is hold the discussion with the Mayors the Mayors have been asking for this for three months now so we'll see what happens I'm sure it'll be very professional but uh to the point all right anything else

1:24:21okay with that I'd like to adjourn tonight's meeting and to our next meeting which is October 2nd Tuesday seven o'clock thank you for coming