City Council Meeting October 2, 2012

0:05:29for Council and staff communication we'll start with staff communication and um the council did meet in special session this evening and I'd like the City attorney to go ahead and report out on that meeting please thank you Mr Mayor the city council authorized the city

0:05:50manager to enter into an agreement with the former building official allowing him to participate in the city's service credit program and an amount not to exceed 38 thousand dollars which will resolve his appeal pending before the Civil Service Commission thank you appreciate it

0:06:08yeah yeah definitely would you like to start yeah I'm happy to just make a couple of announcements some of you may know that October is National Arts and Humanities month the city has a number of celebrations underway first if you this is always up there that there's a great

0:06:23art show up in the gallery upstairs but there's a particularly interesting one so if you happen to walk by on the second floor tonight something really interesting to look at I also wanted to mention that on October 26th the city will be having a celebration for the

0:06:36month right out here in the plaza and during the celebration on Friday the 26th from 5 to 7 P.M we will debut the very first street icon that will be the artwork that the commission has been working on for several years now with a local artist and they'll be installing

0:06:52the First Street icon on the light pole right in front of City Hall so that should be a great celebration also wanted to mention uh that there is a art show going on at the community center beginning on Friday the 12th going through Saturday and Sunday the 13th and

0:07:104th if anybody would like to go see some local artwork I believe it's a show as well as a sale thank you yeah oh I just wanted to I think the city for hosting yet again with the city of Albany the El Burrito second annual now and actually our Third Street play event and you know just in light just in

0:07:32context Berkeley is still getting theirs together for the first one so just very proud of our community and making great use of our public spaces thank you Janet um yes I have a very um amazing amazing announcement from the executive director of wiktok this last meeting which was last Friday

0:07:56she announced that she was leaving WIC Tac for a higher calling um she's joining the Dominican nuns at the end of December and is very excited about doing that um of course it somewhat left us in the Lurch I'm the chair of WIC Tech and um the um so we what the WIC Tac board

0:08:22did at its meeting last Friday was to form a search committee for an interim executive director consisting of the chair which is myself and the vice chair and so we will be looking for somebody to fill in on an interim basis for a chair an interim chair um for a contract period of six months with

0:08:55a month to month renewal so the chair of whiptack is a technical position and um so we are hoping to find somebody who's basically an engineer that probably doesn't need purrs that could fill in for six months and then after that a month to month so we're very sad to see Christina adianza

0:09:26leave us she's been well liked by everybody and taken us through some very difficult times with things like the ICM project the integrated Corridor Mobility project and so we're going to miss her but that we also do understand that she's you know going to a higher calling and we

0:09:49support her in that decision so then after that interim period we will be hiring a permanent replacement for the both the chair and a technical position that will be assisting her as the assistant uh I forget what it's called but the um anyway so there'll be two positions that

0:10:18we'll be filling ultimately both technical so if you know of anybody who's got engineering types of skills we are in the market thank you and they should contact I guess Christina thank you great yeah we we were presented with a notification their St Peter's CME Church

0:10:45has was scheduled to hold off a forum of candidates tomorrow night October 3rd they've rescheduled it to October 17th 7 pm to 8 PM that's at the Saint Peter's CME Church in El Cerrito at 5324 Cypress Avenue before you can make it thank you um I just had a couple things or three

0:11:14things here one is I'd like to thank everybody who came out for the tip a top tip a cop fundraiser for Special Olympics there was that Macaroni Grill it was well attended it's one of the few times I've gone down there and actually had to really search for a parking spot

0:11:30so it was well attended and I think it's a pretty successful thanks to the police as you know this is not part of their regular Duty they do this as a community service and to support Special Olympics so I think we've it was a great effort and appreciate everybody's effort on that

0:11:53one like to thank people who came to the Strategic plan Workshop that was held it was one of the formal meetings with Council but I think if you were there you got the impression that we really want involvement from the community and so far the response has been very good

0:12:16and there's more opportunity for that input what will happen is it's now time for the Consultants to kind of uh come together and summarize all the things that they have uh received all the information they received from this point make a preliminary report to the

0:12:36council it's more of an updated report and then uh input from the public will begin again so when that schedule is ready to be announced we'll let everybody know but thank you it's it's been a good experience so far and finally I'd like to thank our cable television people who put on these

0:12:58things on cable each week they're the Pinole Pinole city of pinole's cable Department I guess and they've done a great job since they've taken over they're real professional if you remember and recall it's mostly when we were at the community center we sometimes wouldn't be able to broadcast

0:13:21because of some technical problem or the thing goes fuzzy or whatever the problem was and we just seem to have a real good quality and the people show up so I'd like to thank you very much uh panel cable for your efforts on behalf of the city thank you yes staff yes thank you your honor I'm

0:13:42Karen Pincus the assistant city manager I just wanted to make an announcement the city staff met with School District staff last week and we'll be meeting with them on a more regular basis as some of the construction projects continue we've met with them um regularly over the years as pretty

0:14:00much every school in El Cerrito has been touched so far and will be by the end of their program the demolition of Portola has begun so I just wanted to let everyone know that particularly neighbors or if you drive through the area there's going to be traffic there's

0:14:14going to be all sorts of fun stuff going on there and if you have any questions I can give the operations number for the West Contra Costa Unified School District it's 510-231-1105 and again we'll be meeting with them regularly as things progress with the new middle school and finally

0:14:34Fairmont Elementary which is in design right now so thank you well thank you any other staff report okay thank you next agenda item please the next agenda item is oral Communications and the city council has allotted three minutes per speaker when I call your name please come to the

0:14:55speaker area the first speaker is Elon Elon [Music] hello hi my name is Alon and I'm an El Cerrito parent and one of the founders of community organizing group called go Portola which supports the writer coach connection program in our public schools which is on your agenda later this

0:15:22evening the writer coach connection program addresses fundamental issues within our Public School System large class sizes lack of individual attention and a lack of connection to the community writer coach connection gives kids individualized help and encouragement

0:15:37and lets them know that they have an entire Community here to support them though individual coaches are amazing volunteers that donate their time to help there's a lot of other work that goes into making this program a success coaches need to be organized trained and

0:15:51supervised the program needs to be evaluated classroom assignments need to be communicated and so on it is this work that we pay for when we support the program in addition to administering the program the Community Alliance for learning works very hard to find alternative

0:16:06sources of funding such as grants to alleviate the cost to schools districts and communities my own experience is that the people who work for cafl are incredibly dedicated and responsive and I have come to believe that this program is efficacious and well run and justifies its costs

0:16:23we parents understand the realities of the School District budget so go Portola teamed up with cafl and undertook an online fundraising campaign ourselves which has raised two thousand two hundred and seventy dollars to date from community members and people as far away

0:16:37as New York Virginia and even Europe who care about the education of our children however parent and Community Resources are spread thin ptas and ptsas have to fundraise for even the most basic school supplies financial support from the city council would bolster our efforts

0:16:54and would reinforce to our students how much we are behind them and how dedicated we are to providing them with the education that they need and deserve thank you very much for considering financial support of WCC thank you thank you for your efforts and we'll hear about that program shortly

0:17:09next speaker please Mary deshaw hello I'm Mary ducha I'm an El Cerrito resident and a writer coach I come with very informal comments uh kind of a personal story about being a writer coach I wrote all of you this morning and to summarize pretty much what I wrote is simply to say that Beyond

0:17:39helping our students with the technical aspects of writing we have the opportunity as writer coaches to build relationships with them that go beyond just the academics and the story I'd like to tell you is my experience last year one of my young students we were

0:18:00reading the book The Outsiders if you're not familiar with it it's a book about rival gangs and there's a lot of violence in it night things and guns and so on and so forth and my student was writing an essay about this book and he he pulled out a book from his his rather baggy pants

0:18:22about guns and I could tell that he had some experience with guns probably new people who had guns I asked him if there were guns in his family tried not to be at all judgmental about that but just to get him to open up a little bit and we worked all morning on his Essay with

0:18:42some respectable progress on it but it wasn't until we walked back to his classroom that I really got a sense of why I was really there that particular morning he mumbled something under his breath and he was a little hard to understand because it was a English was

0:18:58a second language for him it was noisy in the hallway and I said pardon me you know say that again and he mumbles something and I please repeat that again and I'm glad I pestered him so that I understood what he was saying and he said I I know about guns but I want to

0:19:16be a good example for my friend and do the right thing and I said oh this was my opportunity to say to him oh you are going to be a wonderful example to your friends and I felt that that was just a little bit of the silver lining of what it means to be a writer coach going beyond

0:19:35the technical aspects of the writing into helping these young people feel that they have an important voice an important place in society something worth saying and something worth saying well so um thank you for the opportunity to speak and I do hope you fund the program

0:19:52it's a fantastic program you should be proud it's in your city thanks thank you next speaker Linda Frank good evening evenings Linda Frank I am an El Cerrito homeowner I'm a parent of a student at El Cerrito High and also a graduate of El Cerrito High and um I am also currently involved with the

0:20:19writer coach connection program many times during the evening you're going to hear how wonderful the writer coach program is and what a difference it's making at Portola and at El Cerrito High and I completely agree with all of this um so instead of speaking to you from

0:20:36the vantage point of a writer coach or of an El Cerrito High School parent I'd like to speak with you I'd like to speak to you from a homeowner perspective um quite simply I feel that um asking the city to provide a relatively minimal amount of funding for the writer coach program is basically a

0:20:57no-brainer it's an investment in the El Cerrito schools which is definitely an investment in our El Cerrito Community it's a smart investment because it has an Optimum rate of return where else can you get approximately 140 tutors who spend hundreds of hours with hundreds of

0:21:14students for a few thousand dollars and this is all one-to-one time with them every day I drive past the granite blocks that line the sidewalks of San Pablo Avenue and I asked myself was this really a good investment for the city the many thousands of dollars spent on

0:21:29this I realize that these are different pots of money but I won't have to ask myself if the relatively small investment of writer coach is worth it it really is so please fund this program thank you thank you next speaker please next speaker is Ann Nutt hello my name is Anne Nutt I'm actually

0:21:54a resident of Albany but I spend three and a half hours every Friday morning during the school year most Friday mornings during the school year volunteering for the writer's coach program at El Cerrito High School I feel it is well worth my time and I think it's a wonderful thing for your

0:22:10community it's an investment in not just the schools as Linda said who is our fantastic one of our two fantastic site coordinators for El Cerrito High School I should add that um but for the students themselves um I you know sufficient funding for this program means that there will be a

0:22:31sufficient number of coaches to be able to do what they are trained to do which is to provide one-on-one coaching to students with the goal of helping them write more proficiently but the the success of this coaching is based on a trust relationship that develops over the course of a semester

0:22:52with the students that we regularly meet with every week we don't just coach one student one week another student another week we're able to spend sufficient time with them to build a trust relationship while we're working on the writing and I would like to just tell one of my stories from

0:23:10last year I was working with a student who was trying to write an essay about personal challenges that she had faced we worked on it for a couple of weeks and we'd already been meeting for a while and we'd been kind of building this relationship and I I could tell she

0:23:30wasn't used to working with someone in this sort of manner but um when she was working on this draft of of an essay on personal challenges the first week she brought me a rough draft and the way we began the coaching session is to have students with drafts read their drafts

0:23:47out loud to the coach because then they hear themselves speaking what they've written she started reading her essay and she got little ways into it and then she said this is the part I don't want to read I don't I'm we're not going to work on this so I said that's okay we skipped

0:24:03over it she read the rest of the essay and we spent the rest of the time together working on the parts that she had read to me and I didn't look at it the next time we got together she started reading her second draft to me and I figured that oh she told me she

0:24:19thought she was going to take that part out it was something she didn't want to write about she didn't want to to bring up the second week we got together she got to that part of her essay and she said I don't want to read this out loud I want you to read it you know to yourself and I did and she

0:24:38had written about something that she had not shared in the school context with anyone before as far as I could tell which was the experience of her father being taken to jail a couple of years earlier and it was it was very moving for me but I was able to just say to her this is very powerful

0:25:01it's wonderful that you're able to write about this now let's work it into the essay and we focused on the writing and we moved ahead and she felt comfortable I think with with what she had done with that at the end so it's uh as Mary said it's it's the technical writing but it's also

0:25:18the personal uh relationships which we are able to have because with sufficient funding we have sufficient coaches and we can spend that kind of time thank you thank you next speaker Christine McGinnis hi um I'm Christine McGinnis I'm the communications director of writer coach

0:25:43Connection in full disclosure I live in Berkeley um so I want to keep my comments brief but I wanted to share two things uh the first is that I had the pleasure to interview Kurt Douglas who is the head of the English Department at El Cerrito High School and I wanted to share two things that he

0:26:00said about the program which you have heard and probably will hear continue to be reiterated reiterated in people's comments um the first is that he felt about the program that kids often get overwhelmed when they're faced with an assignment and one of the wonderful things that Raider

0:26:18coaches bring into the classroom is a little nudge each time is helping students to progress just to The Next Step whatever that next step is and teaching kids that when they're overwhelmed with anything with any kind of assignment but particularly writing that they just have to figure out what

0:26:34that next step is um the second thing that he said about that the second part of that is when he and his fellow English teachers looked back at the year he said that they were able to do to assign twice as many English assignments in the year because the writer coaches were there

0:26:54and first I checked that I said twice really and truly twice are you exaggerating he said no truly twice the amount of assignments and I said what do you attribute it to and he's like no one was falling behind and it was that gentle encouragement that gentle push that the coaches give

0:27:10um so that's the first thing and the other thing that I just want to share is that I've been with the program for eight years I was um a coach at Willard and what you're seeing here and what you're hearing here is that this particular program and the the moments that people have with kids

0:27:29inspires engagement and inspires continued engagement in the public schools so you'll see a lot of parents get involved with the program for a few years while their kids are in school and they stay involved with the program for years and years and years after that so

0:27:43it's truly engaging and it truly gets people involved in both the schools and the community so thank you for your consideration thank you the last speaker slip is Bobby O's Dowling hi I'm Bobby Joe's Dowling and I'm in Kensington parent and I was a writer coach at El Cerrito

0:28:09High School last fall and at Portola last spring semester I want to share with you uh sort of how that came to be my I had an ulterior motive for becoming a writer coach as a mom of a fifth grader I wanted to check out what was going on in the schools that she is slated to attend I

0:28:31wanted to keep my finger on the pulse and also to have some experience with some older children to get a feel for that what I found was so much more than that I had a three-day training I worked myself as a professional writer full-time as a technical writer for a

0:28:55software company so I'm writing all day every day and even through the training there I found that some of the tips and Refreshers were helpful even to me as a professional writer so they're tried and true things that we're teaching these kids and this knowledge is disseminated

0:29:13out um I I found it very rewarding to meet week after week with the same students we not only built up trust but we became accountable to one another and there was no wriggling around and I became I came to know their strengths and their their tough spots and we worked through those

0:29:37and what made it particularly helpful was that there was a site coordinator who went through and acted as the single point of contact with the teacher and then she would disseminate out the assignment and the particular um aspects of the assignment that the teacher really wanted us to focus on

0:29:57working on with the kids so the teacher wasn't wasting time talking to 12 different volunteers about their individual questions all of those were filtered through the site coordinator and made it very effective for us because there was a also a relationship with the site coordinator and the

0:30:13teacher so what in essence then we got to our one-on-one time was extremely productive because brainstorming time was brainstorming time and polish time was focused on that and and there are certain habits to instill the reading out loud that another coach mentioned is

0:30:33a very very important part of writing and and we just come to go through these good habits and then working on the technical aspects at the very end the spelling and the and the punctuation aspects so those those are really important and as a professional writer I

0:30:51I just feel that um out in the business world we can't get enough of good writing so that's my comment thank you very much thank you and I hope you support kind of figured that one next next speaker next uh speaker item 4A the writer coach connection presentation by

0:31:14Robert menzeimer executive director of Community Alliance for learning welcome why can't Amber right good evening Mr Mayor and honorable council members and City staff my name is Robert menzimer I'm the executive director of the nonprofit Community Alliance for Learning and speaking of

0:31:49learning why can't Amber write I think a generation or two ago we might have framed that a little differently we might have said why can't Johnny read but today the Spotlight of essential 21st Century Learning capabilities shines particularly brightly on writing and

0:32:13critical thinking skills or probably more to the point the lack of them the other day I was reading a report from the round table of American Business it said that American Business spends four to six billion dollars a year teaching its employees how to write so they can do their jobs

0:32:35California State University says that 50 of its incoming students are not equipped for college-level writing they have to take remedial courses first in writing in order to begin their regular coursework the sobering fact is for today's students is that they have to learn how

0:32:54to write effectively and think critically to succeed in school in post-secondary education in the workplace no matter what their job is all throughout their lives and we will all pay the price of degradation of writing skills if we don't do something about it now

0:33:19in El Cerrito here is one thing that we are doing about it [Music] we work to develop students writing and critical thinking skills which they will need in secondary education post-secondary education the workplace their whole lives it's a key 21st Century Learning

0:33:54skill well the impact has been huge not only [Music] the thing that writer's coach does I think the most for my students is that it gives them a consistent adult that they can check in with almost on a weekly basis one-on-one which is what we all want to do as teachers but don't

0:34:15have time each of them taught me something different about writing you know they really connected you with you they really try to help you they're really nice I've never seen anything like the capacity of this a program where there are so many volunteers on site at one time really

0:34:30working around one focus of improving academics through a personal touch the first chapter of the story happened in the year 2000 small group of parents got together because they felt their kids weren't learning how to write and wanted to figure out what to do about it

0:34:50in the spring of the year 2001 35 Berkeley High parents started sitting down with 180 Berkeley High students working on their writing in class right now 530 trained volunteers trained as writer coaches are working with more than two thousand students in 12 schools in four

0:35:14East Bay School Districts we're working with all the children we're not just working with the children that are struggling we're working with kids at the a level the B level the sea level and the D level the kids all need writing support so it doesn't matter and

0:35:29so we work with groups of kids ranging from about 60 students at a school to a school where we're working with more than 400 students these essays I got were college level essays like just blew me away because they had that opportunity to spend that little one-on-one time with the coach I mean it

0:35:50made a huge difference it was amazing numbers tell the story we have hundreds of volunteer coaches working with thousands of students but the only number that counts is one one coach one student and the individual interaction that goes on there is the key to everything that's

0:36:12the magic we try to have the same coach and student every week because it really helps the students gain confidence it helps them realize that someone is interested in listening to what they have to say the teachers are saying in the English Department that they feel as

0:36:28though their students are more connected and more engaged in what's happening not just what the assignments they're doing with writer coach but also what they're doing in the curriculum in general learning is most effective when there is a student working individually

0:36:41one-on-one with a more able adult to guide them and that underlies everything that we do here because the coaching is strictly one-on-one there's something about this one-on-one connection and watching the communication on the paper happening rather than just turning it in and grade

0:37:01shows up later it requires the kids to dig in and actually do the rewrites or do the second part of the assignment and have it done on time and one of the results um for my class was that we ended up finishing about twice as many major assignments with the assistance of the

0:37:14writer coaches than we did without them our score show that has made a big difference just in this year's Casey exam we had 79 of our students passed the exam what school principals tell me about writer coach connection is this program works it generates results

0:37:30Pass rates on the California high school exit exam go up writing proficiency goes up critical thinking skills go up the rate of assignment completion that students see goes up the students grades go up and the students confidence goes up my writer coaches really did help me out

0:37:54when it came to uh trying to find different words to replace simple words such as and and button whatnot the interactions between coaches and students are positive students generally look forward to the experience they know they're going to be heard they know their ideas are valued and they're going

0:38:10to get help I was actually really pleasantly surprised at the diversity of coaches was really pleased with the recruiting effort and I was really happy to see that all ages and populations were represented and the coaches fall in love with their students the coaches love the interaction they

0:38:34love the energy and it's very rewarding to see a student grow through the semester and progress in their writing in critical thinking abilities come on anybody can who wants to do this we will train them to do it retired people working people who can work it into their schedule

0:38:56students working professionals it's a wide range of backgrounds ethnicities interests will train anybody to do this well I really feel fortunate because it was just happenstance that my daughter who worked at Berkeley High School got a an email and afforded around me saying

0:39:18mom I think you'd like this so that's how I found out about it uh it's a pleasure working with the kids I'm retired and I'm 80 years old and I hope that seniors will uh volunteer to get in this program you will find it so totally inspiring well I'm gonna get to interact

0:39:39with my two kids and I love them they're so great and I like when they tell me the stories about their lives and things that happen at school and their their plans settle the future and all sorts of stuff this is my second year with writer coach and it turned out it's just an extremely

0:40:09good fit for my skills and my interests and I have a ball almost every single time I work with these kids they love it I've had coaches who are very busy with jobs at school and families and they always make time to be here they recruit people for me they just they're so

0:40:28excited to be here just yesterday somebody came back and went oh that hecka helped me understand the book so um even if it's not writing even reading comprehension just getting to talk it out I think that that's a huge benefit for students it's fascinating the type of relationship

0:40:47that you develop with them we first come into the classroom and we're both very nervous and then after a while Rapport starts and it's a wonderful feeling I was surprised and how easy it was um because really at the end of the day it's about being a patient and open listener and

0:41:12liking kids and luckily I like kids and I like listening and I like writing um if you have those three things you'll be a good coach I think it brings a lot to each kid's life it's a really nice way to give back to the community to be involved in the lives of kids other than

0:41:28your own and the whole thing about this program is it binds together the community and its Public Schools so most people want to work in the school in their Community we have a lot of coaches who are willing to work in more than one school they love doing this so much that

0:41:44they'll work in their local school and then they say where else are you doing this the coaches really like being here they feel like they every time they come in they're making a difference in somebody's life they see it in the students eyes that's the deal you're working with this

0:42:01student and you see in that student's eyes right now today the difference that you're making by the time we were done she dried her tears and she wrote the best paper that I'd ever seen and I knew I was hooked that was him I said I want more of this [Music] in the El Cerrito last year 468 students

0:42:50sat down with 140 or 50 community volunteers trained as writer coaches and conducted 3552 individual writing conferences throughout the school year David Luongo the principal at El Cerrito High said I I've never seen anything like this you saw him in the video and Portola

0:43:09principal Matt Burnham is determined to bring the writer coaches back to Portola this year to serve his seventh graders and English language development students uh funding is a Perpetual challenge of course the money it takes to recruit train and organize the volunteers to set the program up with

0:43:27the district and with the individual schools to work with teachers to communicate the details of every writing assignment to the writer coaches in advance so the writer coaches are prepared when they come in to supervise every writing Conference during the school year and to assess the program's

0:43:44Effectiveness the funding challenge this year is especially acute everybody is pitching in as Elon mentioned the Portola School Community is raising money on its own to bring the writer coaches back they've got twenty two hundred and seventy dollars donated themselves so far Mr Burnham the

0:44:02principal at Portola has allocated ten thousand dollars of very very scarce funding toward the program this year that leaves us about twenty five hundred dollars short of what it will take to run the same program this year at Portola as last year I I know the factors that go into the answer are

0:44:22complex but the question is actually simple can the city of El Cerrito help Amber learn to write thank you does council have any questions um I don't have questions at this time but I want to make a couple comments and maybe we can keep Bob on the hot seat in case any other questions come up

0:44:51um so I've been talking to Bob for several months now and thinking about this program and I want to take you through just my thinking on this and then I want to hear some of your comments and maybe once I talk through how I went through my devil's advocate positions you'll

0:45:05understand why I got to where I am today which is in strong support of the program and uh in asking that the other council members support me in asking uh that our city manager try to carve a modest contribution out of our budget for the program my first reaction in thinking to this

0:45:20and in hearing these these uh the set of testimony earlier in in the year actually was this is a fantastic program I hope somebody does something about this this is not our problem that was sort of the The Devil's Advocate in me is I hope somebody does something about

0:45:35this and I very quickly came to the realization that cities all over California do come up with Community benefits grants and I did some quick searching cities like Long Beach Temecula Solvang San Mateo San Pablo all have set aside a small part of their general fund and they make that money

0:45:51available to community organizations that are doing great public services in their cities so the next thought I had was well there's a lot of great groups in El Cerrito why is this the one that should come to our attention and that um should should get our get our focus

0:46:08in line with it there's a lot of great groups um other cities and in some cases have come to the point where they have a competitive process each year and they consider mini grants and I think that would be a great benefit that we that the council might consider agendizing

0:46:22and talking more about that could stimulate Community work because organized and dedicated individuals may get together to try to compete for these grants I could see that being a really positive experience but the fact is in the last decade or so I asked Chris

0:46:36Jones to look this up for me we have considered giving money in on an opportunistic Manner and the way we've done this in the past is we decided to fund the MLK parade in one case and then that became sort of part of our budget with the human Relations Committee we

0:46:50wanted to do something for Earth Day that became part of the eqc budget we wanted to do something with the Ed fund we decided we were going to make contributions to the edfund so we have in the past made opportunistic decisions although I am supportive of a more

0:47:04deliberative process of potentially setting up a competitive grant program but that's something I think would take more time that we would have to consider maybe in the next fiscal year the other thing I thought of was that let's just wait until our budget's better we are in tough times now maybe

0:47:21we want to wait a year or two until we can figure things out a little bit more deliberatively but this is a really unique and critical time for the writer's coach connection as Bob kind of mentioned it's been growing from the high school to the middle school there's

0:47:34a lot of momentum with Volunteers in the community and it seems like it would be such a shame to kind of halt it in its tracks and I think there was a sort of halt that came about when the sites uh El Cerrito High in Portola didn't have much funds to continue giving to the

0:47:48program and it would be I think a loss to the community if nobody if the school district doesn't step in and then if we as the last stop Gap measure also don't try to step in to make sure that momentum isn't lost so I do feel like this is a critical unique potential potentially a moment for us to

0:48:05make an exception and not go through the more deliberative process just this year the other thing I struggled with was we just went through the budget process several months ago our employees gave up a lot to make sure that we are not cutting services and we are so

0:48:18appreciative of that and I struggle with this a lot um we'll hear from Mary Dodge a little bit later that our payroll is something like 250 000 a week so even though we're was so appreciative of the employees pitching in and making sure we can get our budget to a place where we want it

0:48:33to be the scale of the funding that we're talking about for this program just doesn't really you know make a have any comparison with with the payroll and our sort of normal operating costs so I I think I I think I went over all the arguments that came to my mind when

0:48:51I was thinking about this program with Bob and whether or not I would advocate for us getting involved um but the thing that really struck me that he didn't touch on and if you if there's anything I miss about characterizing this is that no is that the writer's coach does not currently

0:49:07have I mean a city uh funding or support mechanism in place and he's mentioned to me that in trying to get grants in the future having the a city step forward to the plate no matter how much money it is just having a city say that we want this program in our city

0:49:24can be used and can he says go a great deal towards making them more competitive for Grant so that was the other thing I thought of that it's not the amount of money that would make a difference but just us as a deliberative body listening to the testimony and learning about the program

0:49:40us taking that all in and saying we support the program he could then use that as a really important argument I think and going to get grants in the future so I thank you for letting me take you through sort of my thought process on this and I'd love to hear other thoughts but um I'd like to ask

0:49:55that we consider asking Mr Hannon to try to carve out a modest contribution the one that came to mind was the 2500 that would pretty much a little bit more than match the Portola communities raising that they've done to date on their online system excuse me with all due

0:50:10respect to the cause here that type of discussion has not been agendasized tonight yes it's just a presentation so our comments on the presentation are great we'd have to take up your suggestion another time and obviously you can bring it or request it on the on the agenda that's right and I

0:50:28would love to do that great thank you I do have a question um what are these funds used for I mean I I wrote down that you said they're used for uh recruiting training setting up details with schools you know supervising the uh the various events but um fifteen thousand dollars doesn't seem

0:50:47like that go would go very far in uh in a 10-month school year so I'm just curious like who gets it and what does it really pay for the the funding and it's a good question it's uh why does a volunteer program need funds we get that question all the time it's a logical one

0:51:03it's a question I would ask the funds are are for everything that it takes to find hundreds of community volunteers to train them every volunteer has goes through a six hour training program to do this to organize them into coach teams direct them to the school where

0:51:20they want to coach um and um interface with the teachers every time there's a writing assignment the teacher conveys everything about that assignment to the site coordinator at the school who passes that on to the coaches so when the coaches come in they know everything about the assignment

0:51:36they can sit right down and start to work with the student right away because they know what the student has been asked to do and they're familiar with the assignment supervising all of the coach coaching sessions that go on we did over 3 500 of them in El Cerrito

0:51:52last year there's somebody on site the site coordinator supervises all of them is always there the program goes on all year long and then assessing the program at El Cerrito at Portola Middle School the fifteen thousand dollar budget covers two classes a seventh grade class

0:52:08and an English language development class the principal would love for us to widen the program at Portola and be able to cover more students that's what we can do with fifteen thousand dollars and that's what he wants us to do and come back and do this year at least so the

0:52:23site coordinator gets a stipend for some of this coordination work oversight work training and recruiting is that yes the site coordinator is paid a style type and right and then volunteer coordinator in the community is also paid a stipend to help us find the volunteers and then

0:52:39we are we're an organization so we have insurance costs and all we don't have an office we all work out of our home offices we have a staff of Two and a Half people that run the program for 500 and some volunteers and so they're paid and I'm certain there's costs associated

0:52:55with getting background checks or fingerprinting checks because obviously these people are working in schools and so we have our security reasons um concerns that need to be met so you do have costs I mean these these these coordinators that are getting these stipends their stipends are very small

0:53:12yeah they're modest to say the least but there are program costs associated with the program the training uh we spend money on training right the materials for the training and so forth and the trainers themselves uh 92 percent of our budget goes for the people who run the

0:53:31program and our operating expenses and program costs are about eight percent thank you I was just curious about the The Proposal why just um the Portola program versus it sounds like this would just be going potentially we're we're asking to to augment the port of the program versus

0:53:57in addition to the high school program or just like how yeah we run the program at both El Cerrito High and at Port another program at Portola is a lot smaller the high school had more of of a budget that it was able to generate from the district to cover uh to cover most

0:54:15of the cost of its program plus other fundraising that I did with grants and so forth I look at El Cerrito as sort of an entire entity how do we pay for the program in El Cerrito I could have asked uh requested uh 2500 toward the program at El Cerrito High but twenty five hundred dollars at

0:54:33Portola is more bang for the buck because that's the difference between having enough funding for the program at Portola and not having enough funding and would the the goal to be to have essentially the same kind of 40 community volunteers working with 62 7th graders is that that that would be the

0:54:51yeah that would be the that would bring us back to what we did last year Mr Burnham really wants us to be able to expand the program and do more I'll continue to do more fundraising but it takes this last piece of the puzzle to bring us back into this into the school

0:55:08this year and have the program that we had last year at least okay my question is around fundraising it sounds like you do some fundraising yourself but El Cerrito um service is about 40 percent of its of the students RL Cerrito residents so what other communities are donating to your your

0:55:32formal not not donations from individuals which I know you get from all over but formal um organizations uh we just partnered with uh for a grant with the city of Richmond for a cities of service Grant to expand the writer coach program at Richmond High next year

0:55:49we just launched the program for the first time at Richmond High this fall um but what um council member benicini mentioned about being able to leverage support from a city is really true funders love collaboration and if you can say that a municipality that houses some of the

0:56:09schools in your program are contributing to the program the impact of that contributions from the city goes Way Beyond those particular dollars and will help us to generate funding to expand the program further in El Cerrito that's what we have in mind okay so do you get money from Kensington

0:56:30for instance their their governing group up there uh the community group it formally uh our other cities for instance is that Richmond money also support uh else uh functions at El Cerrito High if we get the uh the cities of service Grant in partnership with the city of Richmond that would be

0:56:51just for the program in Richmond at Richmond High if um the city of El Cerrito is able to do this it would be the first time a municipal we have partnered with a municipality to directly support the program in that Community Schools it would be huge that's big news

0:57:13okay thank you I appreciate it I actually thought you were asking a different question um I thought the question you were asking is how many of the students at the various schools are actually from the community well I I know roughly in all of those real schools roughly 40

0:57:34percent that's the latest figure I heard our El Cerrito residents going to El Cerrito school so my there's 60 percent at what school the high school for one yeah there's a lot of Richmond kids in school at El Cerrito High right and and Portola for that matter but so

0:57:54my only interest was what other outside sources besides El Cerrito uh are funding uh the function in El Cerrito since we're we're serving so many people from different areas yeah the budget is made up of school of school district funds the ten thousand dollars that Mr

0:58:11Burnham has for uh Portola Middle School is from the district those are district funds right that uh he gets and the other components of the budget are Foundation dollars and um individual contributions from Individual members okay that sounds good Community appreciate it this quick

0:58:28question kind of related is of the coaches that are volunteering we heard from one great woman who's from Albany coming to El Cerrito and just you have a sense of the um the volunteers and what percentage our El Cerrito residents versus not most of them are El Cerrito

0:58:43Paris and El Cerrito residents uh as I mentioned in the video though we have a lot of coaches who just like doing this so much that they want to coach somewhere else so we have a lot of coaches in El Cerrito from Albany just like when the program existed in Albany

0:58:57but didn't exist in West County yet we hadn't come to El Cerrito yet we had an enormous number of parents from El Cerrito coming across the border and coaching at Albany High and opening Albany Middle School and that's why when the community in El Cerrito insisted

0:59:11that the program come to El Cerrito and it was the community that drove this they just would not say no when I kept saying we don't have any money we can't do this and the community members said we're not listening to that this community will respond to this program

0:59:24and we need it and and they were right but when we came in because so many El Cerrito parents had already been coaching in Albany they were all ready to go and jumped immediately into coaching at El Cerrito High which is where we started the program in West County three years ago

0:59:40so I would say most of the coaches probably are from the El Cerrito area at Lindo who spoke earlier Linda Frank is one of our site coordinators at El Cerrito High and she would have more details than I would about that but I think it's probably safe to say most of

0:59:55the coaches are from El Cerrito thank you I have a question oh sure um I have a question um which is the I think the obvious question about what impact has the um this program and other programs had on the performance at the um at Portola and at El Cerrito High

1:00:24um how are they performing uh relative to other schools the the when we started at El Cerrito High three years ago we were coaching only English language development students and what the school noticed was a startling jump in Casey Pass rates among ELD students taking the

1:00:40exam over and above what had been the case uh previously before the coaches came in I think the year before the coaches came in the ELD students had a 35 pass rate on the Casey exam on the English language arts uh portion of the Casey exam uh 35 percent of them passed

1:01:00it on the first time district-wide that figure was 37 percent the first year that the writer coaches worked with the students that pass rate was 63 percent it had gone up 28 percentage points in one year and you know I'll never claim that this was all only because of the

1:01:17writer coaches uh there are so many factors involved in academic performance like that solid curriculum School leadership District leadership but the teachers themselves insisted that it was the writer coaches that had more to do with this than anything before we the

1:01:32coaches came in 35 pass rate after they would the students worked with the coaches for a year 63 percent uh pass rate um Jennifer Dreyfus says uh her turn in rate for essays went up to 100 percent with among students working with the writer coaches she'd never seen that

1:01:48before Molly McGrath that El Cerrito High said 13 more students scored A's and B's on their writing that had been the case before the writer coaches came in Kenny Khan said that 85 percent of his low performing students getting D's and F's went up one grade level entire grade

1:02:06level because of their work with the writer coaches and Carol Renee at Portola Middle School said her Ela scores went through the roof with this among the students working with the coaches um so they all want the program back and it's because of raised academic

1:02:25achievement that's why they want these coaches back great thank you very much very nice presentation congratulations on such a successful program and we'll look forward to hearing more about it thanks very much thank you next agenda item please item number number 4B um national public radio news

1:02:48poet Tess Taylor receive a presentation by Tess Taylor and approve and presented Proclamation recognizing Miss Taylor on her many accomplishments in the literary field and celebrating her contributions in the areas of both Arts Humanities locally and nationally

1:03:06I'm so tickled to be here thank you I am grew up in El Cerrito and I went to Harding and I went to Portola and then I had to go to Berkeley High the year that the school district went bankrupt I mean I didn't have to but it seemed like a good way to go I just have to say it's really wonderful

1:03:30to be in a class full of students that are motivated wherever they happen to come from it helps all the students in a class that are trying to be motivated really learn I'm having a great experience now being back in California after 17 years away and I teach at UC

1:03:46Berkeley I teach um I teach writing there um and uh it's been so wonderful to be kind of seeing the end product of the California education system I went away to school but I realize I'm very excited by what there is here so um now that I've said all that I thought

1:04:09I'd read you this uh this poem that I wrote a few years back um during a time in my life when I was coming back from New York kind of just for for vacations when I could and I've since moved back to El Cerrito and I live six blocks from where I grew up I didn't live there when I wrote this

1:04:31poem song for El Cerrito I used to hate its working class Bungalows grid planning power lines sawing the hillsides it shamed me the way my parents did for not making more money now it looks like a demon corn now I want even the bad wood siding in our living room and my mother's aging books

1:04:54on Modern Indian thought hertanpura in the sunlight I want foxweed and railroad trestles that endangered frogs in our Gully I want a lemon tree on San Pablo polyester Collectibles a folk song Store The all-button Emporium open ten to four only Saturdays how did love Lodge in these it might be

1:05:18how Marigold light forgives even the traffic Islands December only yellows the ginkgos and redens the maples a stream smells Rich under our house for Christmas my sister and I steal Persimmons from Neighbors yards ten years on I discover how I keep falling in love here among pickups and

1:05:40blackberry brambles tonight it happened again we drove a bad car to the beach at dusk alone scrub Pine clear like a Japanese print in the real Sky the moon slid through clouds that were cinder-colored I wanted to offer this book this poem and this book to to Bill Jones thank you

1:06:04so much for having me it's um new California writing of 2011 a great series published by Heyday over in Berkeley and I wanted to use my 13 Seconds Of Fame just to make a small small plug that you all have just been involved in this visioning process for El Cerrito

1:06:20and I would really encourage you to think about what the Arts can do for the development of El Cerrito my experience coming back here is that there are many many artists living here because housing is Affordable and for all the reasons that we love it but how can we involve them in Civic

1:06:35life even more and um so with that in mind I wrote up a few thoughts for you which I won't present now because they're not part of the agenda but just some just consider it as sort of a love letter to El Cerrito in bullet points instead of verse thank you very much for having me and uh

1:06:55I'm gonna leave these things right over here and get home to my toddler well thank you if you could hold on for a second sorry no I I brought this before the council because I heard well read about it first of all on in the El cereal patch that Miss Taylor was honored by being called

1:07:17back to New York and writing for NPR Public Radio uh a poem and apparently this is an honor that is given to many not many there's only a few uh National and international poets and it's quite it is quite an honor and I thought that here here we have a person who's

1:07:40carrying El Cerrito's colors uh on National radio and is nationally internationally recognized as a a poet and a contributor to our cultural World here and there's more than one or two people from my high school days that probably be shocked that I uh can actually

1:08:00recognize poem a poem poets let alone uh honor them so just I I uh I think it's a it's a great talent not too many of us have it and thank you for sharing it with us and also for living in El Cerrito so the proclamation is is there probably everybody has seen it but I would like to present it to you

1:08:26oh thank you so much [Music] [Applause] thank you foreign thanks again you guys this is lovely thank you next uh agenda item please I'm next to Jet item 4C Marin clean energy Community Choice aggregation good evening mayor Jones and members of the council my name is Maria Sanders and

1:09:35I'm in the Environmental Services Division and as a part of our climate action process a Community Choice aggregation or CCA has come up as a cost-effective measure for reducing greenhouse gas emissions so we're in the plan we're planning to release the draft climate

1:09:52action plan in the next month or so but we wanted to take this opportunity to have Council here on informational presentation on CCA and Marine clean energy Marine clean energy is the first CCA to operate in California and its success has spurred new interests in ccas most

1:10:11notably with the city of Richmond joining Marine clean energy and also with um you might have heard about East Bay mud is beginning a pre-feasibility study for a CCA so I'd like to introduce Don Weiss who's the executive director of marine clean energy and Adam lens

1:10:30who's the sustainability coordinator for the City of Richmond they will both be giving us some background on how ccas work and how and why Richmond joined the Marine CCA okay thank you good evening council members thank you so much for the invitation to be here um

1:11:02and talk to you about what we've been up to in Marin and Richmond it's really a pleasure to be here um so I'm going to talk to you about the Marine clean energy program which we launched back in 2010 and um to start with I'll explain a little bit about um how we're structured and and how we

1:11:18got started so Marine clean energy is administered by a local not-for-profit public agency so we're a local government agency we have a board made up of elected officials with one representative from each City in town one representative from the county of Marin sitting on our board and I'm

1:11:35setting policy for for what we do much like a city council does we're structured as a joint Powers Authority we were created really it's interesting to hear um the the connection here to The Climate action plan because that's really where we started in Marin County

1:11:50we did a back in 2000 2001 we conducted a greenhouse gas inventory in Marin County and set targets for how much we wanted to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by and we then set a um we did an analysis to determine which programs could get us towards our targets and we

1:12:07found that the launch of this type of program which is known as Community Choice aggregation would enable us to achieve our goals much more quickly and really stood Head and Shoulders above any other program that we could launch because it wasn't incremental in nature

1:12:23it was really redirecting where our power supply comes from so that was really the driving force initially Marin for exploring this idea um so really the the ultimate goal was to give residents and businesses the option of having their energy demands met with Greener energy prior to Marine clean

1:12:41energy there there wasn't another option for how folks got power in in Marin County we currently partner with PG e to deliver the energy and to maintain the power lines so um they continue to provide Billing Services they continue to repair the lines in a storm and that

1:12:59sort of thing but what we're doing is supplying the generation portion of the bill and we provide two choices to customers a 50 and 100 renewable product which I'll talk about more in a minute and our service area includes all of Marin County Today is actually an

1:13:16auspicious day and we just got the news today that our implementation plan submitted to the CPC has been certified acknowledging that the city of Richmond is now part of our jurisdiction and we can actually now offer service to customers enrichment that are interested

1:13:32in our deep green option we'll be offering service to customers interested in our light green option next summer and we'll talk more about that later but we're really excited about bringing on that the new city into the jurisdiction of marine clean energy we're currently

1:13:47serving approximately 95 000 customers we just conducted a a series of mass enrollments since launching service in 2010 the biggest of the mass enrollments occurred just this July where we enrolled about 80 000 customers so we've gone through a very big expansion in

1:14:02recent month months but it's going very well and it's worth mentioning that we are self-funding so there aren't public funds or tax tax dollars associated with the agency we are funded based on we're just redirecting the electricity costs for customers into the agency so we're rate pair funded

1:14:23um this is a graphic that gives you a sense of how it works so the program that we're running known as Community Choice aggregation was enabled by and as a California state legislation that passed in 2002 and it it provides for local governments to become the power

1:14:40purchaser for their communities and to become the default provider with a community members provided being provided with the option to opt out if they want to continue getting their power supply from the incumbent utility but this is the way it works we handle the source the supply of the energy it

1:14:57flows through the existing infrastructure so not having to create a redundant infrastructure there and then it's delivered to the customer and this gives you a sense of how how um we are structured compared to how power has been purchased historically in California historically there have been

1:15:15two ways that power has been purchased in California on the left-hand side you see the investor-owned utility model in El Cerrito that investor and utilities PG e in the IOU model the PG e purchases the power they maintain the transmission and distribution infrastructure and also

1:15:33provide the customer service then on the right hand side you can see the public utility model and a good example nearby of a public utility model is SMUD Palo Alto there's also the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and about one out of every four energy customers

1:15:49in California actually gets their power from a public utility so they're fairly common and they range in size even little Truckee has their own little public utility but there are there are many around California the CCA approach shown in the middle is really a hybrid

1:16:04of the two so in this case the CCA takes on the purchasing of the power but we leave and and uh similar to a public utility but we leave the other components the maintenance of the transmission lines and the customer service to the incumbent utility PG e so we're not creating a redundancy there

1:16:23but we're partnering with them on that effort and we have So currently in our jurisdiction there are three energy products available to customers customers can continue to get the supply that PG e offers throughout the rest of their jurisdiction that's 20 renewable

1:16:41energy currently or they can choose our marine clean energy light green product which is 50 renewable content when we started in 2010 our objective was to hit 25 renewable content but we've been able to dramatically increase that over the last two years which we're really

1:16:59excited about and our it's our our default product basic product is now 50 renewable content then we also offer the Deep green product which is 100 renewable energy and that's not the default product customers have to contact us to choose that product it comes at a slight premium it's one cent

1:17:18per kilowatt hour more per month so at an average in an average single family home that's about five dollars more per month for that product now this slide gives you a sense of where our power supply is coming from this is all power supply both the conventional and the renewable it's all

1:17:38coming from the western region of the United States and these resources change a little bit from year to year but this gives you a breakdown of our 2011 resources and then this is drilling down a bit further and showing the re the renewable contracts that we've entered

1:17:54into since launching in 2010 we received some of our supply from Shell Energy North America much of that is shown on this slide this initial slide but then the power purchase agreements that we've entered into since launching service are being built for our customers and

1:18:13these are in development and will be coming online as early as next year we've actually had one that's going to be coming online next month that's the San Rafael airport and we'll talk more about that one in a minute um and you know I should actually mention one other thing just to back up a bit

1:18:31renewable energy is defined by the the state of California and the renewable portfolio standard and and can include some of the resource sources shown here solar wind biomass biogas and small Hydro so not not large but small 30 megawatts or less and this next slide is a listing of the

1:18:53power purchase agreements or contracts that we've entered into since launching so this is really to to just demonstrate that we're driving new renewable energy development in California and um it's definitely having a an impact on the the developer Community we get a lot

1:19:11of inquiries frequently whenever we do an RFP for power supply we get inundated with with offers for power the most recent RFP process we went through we're looking for 20 megawatts and we were offered over 600 megawatts of 29 different projects were bid into us so

1:19:27there's a lot of power supply out there particularly for projects that are at the scale where we are looking some of these smaller projects five megawatts 15 megawatts are really too small for a large investor owned utility to go through the transaction costs with but

1:19:44for us it's a very good fit so we're finding a nice match between the size of renewable projects in California and our knee needs at the bottom here we've listed our local procurement and this is worth mentioning because we we'd like to see more of it we have um a almost one

1:20:01megawatt system going in at the San Rafael airport that's scheduled to be unveiled in the next few weeks um and this is this is a part of our feed and tariff project we have set prices that we offer to any uh projects that are Bid into us from our local region now that Richmond has joined the

1:20:22city of Richmond has joined the mea jurisdiction we'll be expanding our feed in tariff to include the Richmond area as well so that we can have feed into our projects bid in in that jurisdiction we're also working on a one megawatt new solar carport shade structure at some

1:20:38place in Marin it looks like it's going to be in Novato most likely and I'm so this is another local project that will be um up and running within the next couple of years excuse me yeah yeah what size is a one megawatt carport structure yeah that's about enough to power a

1:20:56thousand homes what how many cars I mean are you is it okay yeah about eight acres is what it takes oh that's a big parking structure yes it is and that's that accounts for space between to allow for large vehicles to drive through and that sort of thing but eight acres is

1:21:12what you need for a roomy a roomy site for a megawatt um you can you could squeeze it onto something a little smaller okay yeah um and then we also have uh over a thousand almost two thousand Marine clean energy customers generating solar power on their own rooftops and they are

1:21:30part of our net energy metering program we pay a premium to those customers if they over generate we pay them that one extra Cent per kilowatt hour if they over generate and we allow them to cash out on an annual basis if they've generated more than they use we send

1:21:45them a check this gives you a sense of how the PG e bill would change for a marine Clean Energy customer it looks very similar but there's an extra line item added there you can see where the Green Arrow is pointing there's the Marin Clean Energy electric charge that is separated out from the um

1:22:04the blue arrow that points at the PG e electric charge PG e continues to charge for electricity but they are only charging for the transmission and distribution and some of the added fees like the nuclear decommissioning fee Etc is still embedded in their rate the

1:22:22generation portion of their rate is eliminated however and that is taken care of by Maroon clean energy foreign now I wanted to spend a minute to talk about our net energy metering program because it's one of the best nems programs in California that's really intended to incentivize distributed

1:22:42generation as I mentioned we pay that retail rate plus one cent per kilowatt hour and we we credit Surplus generation to the customer we also eliminate the um the four dollar charge that PG e places on the bill for nems customers so we we provide a four dollar credit to

1:23:00eliminate that that charge from PG e or to balance it out and we also don't allow credits to disappear as has happened in the past with customers if folks have accrued credits it rules over year after year and are cashed out on an annual basis as I mentioned now because we're a local government

1:23:21agency a public agency we our goal is to give back to the community to the extent that we can we don't have shareholder profits or anything like that so we've been able to give back a little bit to the community and as we grow over the years we expect to be doing more of that

1:23:38we have a local Renewables program that includes the feed and tariff program I mentioned we have very very competitive rates above Market rates really for solar and other types of renewable projects to be bid into us we also have uh Energy Efficiency programming that we

1:23:59have we've been providing rebates over the last couple of years and we just received an award from the cpuc of 350 000 to launch an Energy Efficiency program for 2012 and we have an application in for a four million dollar program to launch in 2013-2014 to offer

1:24:17Energy Efficiency incentives we're starting with a multi-family program next year we intend to expand to have a more robust multi-family program but also add a small commercial audit and retrofit program and a um a single family program as well as some financing

1:24:34options for customers that want to do whole house retrofits and things that cost a little more the financing element will include on Bill repayment and potentially a commercial PACE program and then we also have been able to help with the installation of five electric

1:24:52vehicle charging stations and some of our member cities and towns and we we hope to do that again in the future that's great to get some of those installed and we've been able to support some of our local community groups through sponsorships of events and that

1:25:05sort of thing foreign so a little bit about why customers choose to stay with Marine clean energy when we go go through the enrollment process it takes about five months to go through the enrollment process and the way it works is we start by sending notices to customers and there are

1:25:25actually some some guidelines that we follow that have been adopted by the state regarding Community Choice aggregation programs it's it is required that the program be structured as an opt-out program so customers are automatically in the program unless they choose to opt out but as part of that we

1:25:43are required to send notices which we do actually send an extra notice Beyond what's required because we want to make sure folks are really aware of what's going on and make a conscious choice of who they want their provider to be the the notices that we send to customers

1:25:59start three months before enrollment they include information about our energy Supply product information how to get more information by computer or calling us we have an 800 line that's staffed during business hours and it's actually available 24 7 During the opt-out period that lasts for five

1:26:19months um and we encourage folks to contact us if they have questions or make it easy for them to opt out if they don't want to be part of the program but what we've seen since between 2010 and now we've done a number of enrollments of customer groups and what we found is

1:26:37that about 80 percent of the customers choose to stay with Marine clean energy and some of the reasons for that are the reduced pollution from electricity usage creating a competitor we've seen since we've been serving customers it has had some positive effect on our competitor

1:26:56reducing Reliance on fossil fuels is another benefit and being able to shift away from the volatility of fossil fuels keeping more rate payer Revenue in the local community to invest in local projects and programs and tie to local needs and then potential cost savings

1:27:12our rates actually are currently lower than PG E's and we expect that to continue it may not always be that way but we expect that to continue going forward and we've listed here a few of the customers who have who have chosen to stay with Marine clean energy oops and um

1:27:30the other thing that folks have mentioned as as important to them in remaining customers of marine clean energy are the reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions we've actually been able to achieve dramatic reductions and we'll continue to see that going forward the choice of energy providers

1:27:47is important to customers and the choice of having 100 renewable energy we have a lot of folks that are really grateful to have that option um and then new opportunities to deploy local programs including Energy Efficiency and the local solar that that I touched on earlier

1:28:03as well as the local economic activity which we're seeing actually now in the Energy Efficiency sector as we unroll our Energy Efficiency programs that does Drive job creation so we're excited about that and I'm going to now invite Adam Lentz from the city of Richmond to

1:28:21come up we worked closely with him on the process of getting Richmond involved in the program so Adam turn it over to you thanks Don good evening Mr Mayor members of the council my name is Adam Linds I'm the sustainability coordinator for the City of Richmond thanks for having us

1:28:37here this evening so one of my primary responsibilities since March of 2011 has been to help lead Richmond's valuation of joining the Marin Energy Authority ultimately the Richmond City Council made the decision to join the American Energy Authority on June 6th of 2012

1:28:55this year and thereby became the first California City outside of Marin County to offer residents a choice with Community Choice segregation I believe since then the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has voted to also move forward with their own clean power SF

1:29:12program so it is gaining Traction in the state like Don mentioned earlier we have an anticipated enrollment date Richmond customers in July of 2012 so my primary responsibilities and excuse me 2013 so some of my primary responsibilities in the uh next year will be to help lead

1:29:29the the enrollment for the city the city's representative to the American Energy Authority will be city council member Tom Budd with the mayor serving as the alternate so there was there were several policy directives that I believe helped led to the city council's decision to join the

1:29:52Marine Energy Authority um we recently adopted an updated General plan in May of this year and policy EC 3.8 directed the city to pursue or a Community Choice segregation program with neighboring jurisdictions to help achieve economies of scale we were fortunate that the only CCA in the state

1:30:16was right across from the bridge from us so that kind of helped facilitate the conversation and another policy direction that we've received from city council been numerous ordinances that they've passed and resolutions that commit the city to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the

1:30:34assembly Bill 32 which is the California global warming Solutions act many of you are familiar with that committing the city to the urban environmental cords and then also the city took a stance opposing prop 16 which was a proposition on the state ballot I believe in 2010

1:30:51which would have made CCA much more difficult for local governments also City of Richmond conducts biannual surveys to the community and in 2011 uh the community survey responded stated that improving Environmental Quality was either essential or very important while

1:31:10only four percent stated that was not important so it was actually the second highest priority on the community to survey second to potholes so we thought that that was pretty significant policy directive to staff um so Richmond's evaluation like I said began in March of 2011 ended with the

1:31:32city council decision to join on June of this year um Don and rent Energy Authority been great Partners working with the Richmond Community to conduct extensive community outreach we had seven Community meetings primarily within 2012 two of those were for the business forums in Richmond

1:31:52being the Chamber of Commerce and the Council of Industries two of those were residential meetings that we held in our city council chambers those were both meetings had about 200 folks turned out so it's a pretty successful Outreach we also had several meetings with

1:32:10community-based organizations folks from the Sierra Club and other environmental groups were very interested in the city's evaluation so again Don was a very gracious and attended a lot of meetings in Richmond over the last year and a half so we're very thankful for

1:32:26that we also conducted extensive legal review and risk analysis we attended five City Council meetings to report back on risk analysis that our city attorney's office conducted and ultimately they decided that the city would not incur any potential recourse from jpa debts or

1:32:48liabilities they concluded that there was a sufficient firewall between the Marine Energy Authority and all member cities so that it really came down to a policy direction from the city council whether or not they would like to join or not um [Music] and also should be noted that Richmond

1:33:07would have board representation so that's something that would kind of guarantee that the community's interests are kept in mind moving forward um another consideration that I think led to staff's recommendation to uh to the city council to join the Marine energy

1:33:24Authority where the environmental Community co-benefits um Don already went over some of those but I think some of that came to came to light in Richmond's evaluation that we were really supportive of were the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions providing customers with a choice

1:33:42previously they did not have a choice to buy energy from a different provider if it's just PG e the opportunity to develop local Innovative energy programs Don mentioned the feed-in Tariff that's a great economic tool to drive local development within a community it provides

1:34:00businesses and incentive that they otherwise may not have had there's opportunities for Workforce Development we're working with Don right now in American Energy Authority on the implementation of the Energy Efficiency program plan and Richmond has a Workforce Development program called

1:34:16Richmond build it's a green jobs program we get a lot of folks with great training but we need to increase demand and for those jobs and we're also looking forward to working with mea on implementing the Energy Efficiency program plan in 2013 2014 like John said there's an

1:34:36application in for four million dollars for a host of programs that are all um I think will achieve significant energy reductions in Richmond and with that I'll take questions after Don wraps up the presentation thank you okay so um just to wrap up here we've you know since launching in the May in

1:35:01May of 2010 we've been able to create a lot of demand for new renewable Supply in California and even more locally than that we've been able to um reduce the our carbon footprint quite a bit which is exciting and we've grown our products our the renewable content

1:35:20of our products really ahead of schedule by offering this light green at 50 now we're also exceeding the state California state renewable mandate and we're leading the state among all utilities in the amount of renewable content of our power supply mix so we're

1:35:35really excited about that one of the other things I was asked to to touch on here is you know possible next steps obviously Marine clean energy is an alternative way of procuring Greener electricity and it's an option that could be available to other cities we aren't actively going around and talking

1:35:54to other cities and towns about this program unless we get a strong invitation we have a lot going on and and trying to keep keep the shop running at Marine clean energy so we're not actively looking for for folks to join at this point but it's certainly something that we're very open to if if

1:36:11we find a city or town that's very eager and aligned with the the objectives which it sounds like might be the case here our board is interested in exploring expansion and you know as as demonstrated with the addition of the the city of Richmond and um so we'd be

1:36:28happy to entertain discussions along those lines as far as next steps I I don't know um how how much your Council has discussed this idea but I can say a little bit about what happened with Richmond as they expressed interest we really were in discussions for several

1:36:47years talking about the program and responding to questions and actually entered into a contract with the city of Richmond a year or more ago just to cover some of the initial analysis that needed to happen um and and that's that could be a next step here if that's something that the

1:37:04city of El Cerrito might be interested in I think that um we view the the vetting process you know it's important to kind of look at the economics look at the um the the customer base and ensure that the program would would pencil out for the city and um and then you know if if so then

1:37:24looking at next steps something we'd be very interested in in doing and very willing to continue discussions on so um with that I'm happy to take any questions and uh can also direct questions towards Adam well thank you very much appreciate it I think uh Rebecca you want to start yeah

1:37:44thank you that was a great presentation um can you have a couple questions here so can you tell me a little bit about the governance of it or of the organization you know the composition of the board and then can you also talk about sort of your startup how you how

1:37:58you started and what it took to get this going because that just seems like such a huge barrier and it's probably the reason that cities like San Francisco have taken quite a while to to get to it the the first order answer our question is we have 12 board members

1:38:16that have been sitting on our board although this Thursday we have our monthly board meeting and it'll be the first time that we have a 13th board member from Richmond joining I'm super excited about that but the board composition is one representative from each jurisdiction each member agency so

1:38:32you know the city of San Rafael the city of Novato the town of Ross they each have a representative that comes and sits on the board we meet once a month as a board the board sets policy and it's very similar to a city council staff does research and Analysis makes

1:38:47recommendations on power supply agreements customer marketing material that sort of thing but the board ultimately sets policy for what we do we also have several board committees we have a technical committee that meets monthly that deals with technical issues

1:39:02related to greenhouse gas at cools and some of our compliance reporting and our power purchase agreements we also have an executive committee that handles agenda setting HR related items Market items and that sort of thing and then we have some ad hoc committees one that

1:39:17deals with expansion when needed we have one that deals with rate setting we go through an annual rate setting process prior to our fiscal year start every year and we also have an ad hoc contracts committee that deals with some of our power purchase agreements to kind

1:39:31of pre-digest and vet and provide direction to staff as we go through that process so that's the way we're structured or public agency and so our meetings are conducted they're actually televised on local television they're available live on our on our website and

1:39:47we have public open time everything is there's a lot of transparency with what we do the story of how we got started back in 2002 there this proposed CCA legislation was going through the State Legislative process and the county of Marin chose to support it and you know

1:40:05encourage the moving forward of this legislation after it was approved Marin County was part of a group of cities El Cerrito may have a part of that I'm not sure there were some East Bay Cities that participated in this initial feasibility study that was partially

1:40:19funded by the California energy commission to determine the feasibility of implementing a CCA program I think that with the state legislation going through the state wanted to kind of help spark the the next steps in the exploration process for local governments that weren't familiar with

1:40:35how to start an energy program so the feasibility study occurred in 2004-2005 the results of the feasibility study were extremely promising and showed that economically the program was very likely to pencil out well allow for higher renewable content and comparable or in

1:40:53the future lower rates for customers the results seemed too good to be true so many of the elected officials involved asked for peer review a peer review which was conducted by another entity to make sure it was unbiased still the results looked very positive and so more

1:41:13period previous were taken taken undertaken and risk analysis Bond counsel review you name it there's a lot of study and Analysis conducted for many years in 2008 we formed a local government task force with representatives from each of the cities and towns up until that time the effort

1:41:31had been LED really by the county of Marin and the two water districts in Marin County the water districts were very interested in the opportunity or the possibility of having access to Greener content and stabilized rates energy is a big part of what water agencies do so they really helped spark

1:41:51the effort and um but in 2008 these cities and towns in Marin County joined in this local government task force to take the the idea to the next step and develop a business plan and this task force developed a business plan and and issued it in late 2008 the business plan

1:42:09then set forth what would need to occur for a joint Powers authority to be formed to manage a Community Choice aggregation program The Joint Powers agreement was developed in concert with many of the local governments and many of the city and town attorneys that had

1:42:26a lot of experience with local governments and so the jpa agreement is structured similar to a uh other jpas that you might be familiar with that cities are often involved with it does provide us as Adam mentioned it does provide a firewall to the member cities and towns

1:42:44as far as the debts and liabilities of the agency that's often the reason for setting up a jpa and in this case that was no different so ensuring there's a firewall there with the jpa structure was very important the jpa was then formed and the cities and towns that were

1:43:03interested at that time we didn't have all of the cities in towns in Marin interested in joining initially we had eight member cities decide to join initially and the first step in and the launching of the agency was to issue an RFP request for a proposal for power supply so that we could prepare to

1:43:21serve customers in Marin County the RFP process took about a year we received 12 bids the um the the only bid that came into us that allowed us to meet the renewable requirements that we wanted and have a locked in power supply cost was with shell Energy North America so

1:43:40we entered into an agreement with them to provide really Bridge a power supply to us for the initial five years of the agency with the goal being that we could transition away from that power supply contract as we entered into more power purchase agreements for long-term

1:43:57renewable Supply in California which is what we've been doing over the last two years but that RFP process ran its course and we then finalized the agreement with shell energy and launched service to customers in May of 2010 we started by serving 8 000 customers we wanted to walk before

1:44:16we run we enrolled customers from all classes we included we enrolled all Public Accounts initially but we also included many residential and some commercial accounts throughout the jurisdiction that we served at that time we then did another mini enrollment later in 2010 and in 2011 we did a third

1:44:36enrollment really biting off chunks and you know ensuring that all the Kinks were worked out in our billing arrangements with PG e there were some things that needed to be resolved there and so having that initial phase in structure worked very well during the during to late 2011 we offered up an

1:45:00amnesty program to invite the cities and towns that hadn't initially joined the agency but were in Marin County to join Energy Authority and all the remaining cities and towns elected to join at that time so in early 2012 we had all the cities and towns sitting on the on the

1:45:19board and um we launched service in those communities in July of 2012.

1:45:27um so since that time we have expanded the program and gone through the the final enrollment offering service to all customers uh in Marin County and during the month of July and so we are now the default provider in Marin County as someone new moves in they automatically

1:45:42are served by US unless they choose to opt out after receiving their opt-out notice okay I'm going to ask a few more questions but hopefully they could that sounded like your work diary it sounds like so much fun into it so I really appreciate that background just really quickly you

1:45:56mentioned the kilowatt hour price and that you currently are lower than PG e but you kind of made a clarification which was but we're not sure if that will continue into the future can you just really briefly say if if you know that that might not continue into the

1:46:10future or you're just kind of saying we don't know what the future will hold in terms of how your rates will cross with one another or not yeah based on uh best best available information it's very likely that our rates will remain lower than PG E's but that said we can't

1:46:27control PG E's rates right and when we launched service in May of 2010 we had done a lot of analysis because we were getting that question quite a bit and the prior 10 years PG e had not reduced their rates once they had had a number of increases over the last 10 years

1:46:44typically around three to four percent per year is the average that we were saying well when we began serving customers um several months later PG e reduced their rates they then reduced the rates again and then they then reduce the rates again maybe that's the result of healthy

1:47:01competition maybe there were some other factors at play we are seeing very low prices in the power supply market right now but we can't control what happens with with PG E's rates what we do know is that we're both buying in the same market and so it's likely that our rates

1:47:18will remain comparable the reason that we project a rate savings is that we have lower overhead costs we don't have shareholder profits to pay we can borrow money at a lower rate because we're a public agency we can issue bonds for prepay of power so we have a number of

1:47:33advantages that we're all sort of baked into the feasibility analysis that demonstrated why a CCA program really is economically viable So based on that analysis and based on what we've seen to date we continue to expect that our rates will be slightly below PG E's which is great to see

1:47:53considering that our we have a superior product we have more than twice as much renewable energy in our mix and renewable energy does cost more so we're taking the the um the savings that we achieve as a public agency and putting that directly into renewable energy

1:48:08purchases so that we can provide a Greener product to customers and did I hear correctly that you're offering a commercial PACE program but you're not administering a residential PACE program yeah what I said is that we're hoping to launch or partner with a commercial PACE

1:48:25program in 2013. there are a couple of proposals out there we're looking at the California first initiative we're looking at a baren proposal that was submitted to the cpuc we're also looking at some independent vendors that are kind of coming out of the woodwork now

1:48:38to to launch commercial Pace programs those are the three options that we're currently evaluating but we'd like to have a program available to our customers by mid-2013. we'd like to launch a residential PACE program as well and we're just waiting for some of the residential issues to get hammered

1:48:56out with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and hopeful that that will happen within the next nine months or so and then we'd be able to launch a residential program as well we see that commercial really is the first step thank you great I just wanted to confirm so that

1:49:11the default is the 50 correct and um and then in light of uh PG e and how they charge for just distribution and all the lines so we know we we can't control them but do you know if that's do they make up you know in maybe they go down in the generation or the the cost of the power

1:49:31rates but then they're making up the difference in other places I guess do you know yeah what pg&e's attitude is about well the good news is that they they are regulated by the cpuc and they are not able to charge different rates in our jurisdiction than they charge in

1:49:49the remainder of their jurisdiction and they have to get approval for any rate increases that said PG e does gravitate towards what we call Cost shifting where they hide some of their gen costs in the non-gen line item so we have to remain very Vigilant and engaged on the

1:50:07regulatory front to prevent that from happening wherever possible and we're um it's pretty easy to spot that okay yeah the first one was pace you're using an acronym what does it stand for yeah I'm very sorry um it's the property assessed clean program and this is a program that

1:50:29allows customers who want to do an energy upgrade on their home an Energy Efficiency retrofit or a solar installation for example to use funding from the PACE program and then pay it off over time on their property tax bill so it ends up becoming an assessment on

1:50:48the property tax bill just like a sewer fix or undergrounding power lines or something like that only difference it's not done at a neighborhood scale it's done on a an opt-in on the opt-in level incrementally by customers it's a it's a program that's being operated

1:51:04successfully in Sonoma County and was actually first piloted in Berkeley where there was a lot of interest there have since the programs the pace programs have launched in California there have been some some barriers put forth by by some of the banks because I don't like

1:51:21having their their someone else stepping into that waterfall all of payment on a property so that that discussion is going on at the federal level right now and we're hoping that that can get resolved so that customers can have access to this type of financing great thank you

1:51:39um you I hopefully Richmond has demonstrated that communities do not need to be contiguous to be members of a CCA that is correct although we do consider Richmond to be contiguous you just have to swim a little bit or get in a boat but no there is not a need for

1:51:58any Community to be contiguous you know potentially we could even provide service in Southern California although it would add some complexity having another IOU to interact with but it's certainly feasible I think that our board was particularly interested in Richmond because they were so close by I

1:52:14think any further expansion would be most of interest to the board if it was close by and as you expand how do you address homes that have already have power generation added to their homes you know through whatever programs like the Berkeley PACE program yeah that is um that is a seamless

1:52:33process so um currently those types of customers are with PG e they're considered net energy metering customers and there's a seamless transition once they're enrolled with us they are flagged already as an MS customer and so we credit any uh energy that they generate

1:52:50against what they use so they're only paying for the net amount that they use if they use if they generate more than they use we do cash out and provide them with a cash out payment you mentioned that you have a subcommittee looking at it at growth or expansion of the of the

1:53:07CCA what is the current thinking on when will the CCA be too big too large to manage efficiently yeah you know the that ad hoc committee on expansion hasn't met in about six months or nine months we were um we that committee was active when we were looking at the enrollment of

1:53:28Richmond and I think that our board you initially we we came to this committee with a kind of wondering if if the committee would like to help craft a policy around our future expansion in general and we just felt the committee felt like we don't know enough yet about

1:53:47how big we want to grow what the constraints might be what the challenges might be but we'd like to take the walk before we want to approach and and respond to the first request that we have from Richmond and see how that goes and then revisit the idea so the expansion committee hasn't convened in

1:54:04in a while but if there was a request from another Community I think that would prompt further discussion some of the issues that come up when we talk with the committee about expansion certainly there's a strong interest in um you know with the core mission of the

1:54:19agency being reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the amount of Renewable Power on the grid certainly expanding to another Community is movement towards that mission and so our board is interested in seeing growth for those reasons I think that the the only

1:54:35real constraint that are that has been identified as you know how how what when does the board become unwieldy and you know currently Sonoma County is exploring a creation of a CCA program and we had discussions with them back a year ago about the possibility of joining or would they

1:54:56start their own and we've been providing a lot of support and assistance to them in their exploration process well they have 13 jurisdictions and they're they would want seats for all of their jurisdictions and that that might get into the category of becoming unwieldy

1:55:11you know there could be some other structures that our board would undertake or we have rotating seats or you have kind of a some of the smaller cities and towns share a seed or rotate we haven't gotten into that discussion really fully yet yeah you're discussing

1:55:26the management of the board I'm I'm just talking about the actual organization like how many employees does it does it take to like for example because obviously a city alone doesn't necessarily justify a CCA because at some point there is some you know magic number of the number of

1:55:45employees needed for a number of customers please don't answer we're taking up enough time so I'm going to move on to let Janet ask any questions well I can say quickly that we have 10 employees so it's um it's not too too much and we do have um we've we added a

1:56:00couple with the addition of Richmond and we may be adding one or two more because of Richmond but our business plan indicates about a 20 20 persons staff at full rollout we currently have a lot of services to provided to us on a Consulting basis on a part-time basis but we we think we'll

1:56:17stay within that 10 to 20 range probably for the next coming years thank you so do you think you would have room for a city like El Cerrito well I mean at first glance we obviously they haven't done any analysis but it seems like the the characteristics of the community would be a good fit given

1:56:40the size it's not too big and would be fairly easy to serve this community I think the proximity to the city of Richmond would probably be helpful as far as you know customers hearing about the program and not having a brand new brand new program brought into the community so um yeah I think

1:57:01there would be some interest I think that you know compared to some of the other cities and towns that have inquired about this El Cerrito is probably one of the better a better fit than uh so what are those strong factors in that decision uh oh and the weak ones

1:57:21um I think that the size of the community like I said is a good fit the the demographics from what I know about the community as far as the residential commercial mix um and the location um and I know you know from my prior work on greenhouse gas emissions and sustainability I've I've been here and

1:57:44know that there's some shared shared goals shared vision for greenhouse gas reductions I think all of those things add up to making El Cerrito a very strong candidate I don't see any downside at this time but we certainly need to do an economic analysis to to verify that thank you

1:58:04thank you very much certainly appreciate your presentation and thank you you're in you're in contact with our staff correct yeah thank you very much next item please number five adoption of the consent calendar items 5A through 5D I'm happy to move adoption of consent

1:58:26calendar items 5A b c and d a second been moved and seconded to approve the consent calendar all those in favor I I opposed motion carries thank you the next agenda item is the public hearing correct yes Journey before we go on I know we've been sitting here a while uh and I I'm sorry I I know some

1:58:52of you have been here waited two hours for this item but if we take a five just five minutes let's just if people want just just five minutes we'll come back and we'll start the public hearing thank you I can't thank you council's back in session in 905. mayor if I if I may I did take this

2:06:02opportunity to um not necessarily use the restroom but check on the score of the A's game uh the A's are currently winning three to one thank you for that'll be put on the next agenda for discussion already the Giant's already cleansed okay everybody cleansed it

2:06:26uh next item is the public hearing and uh could I ask the city clerk to announce it please for the record the public hearing is an appeal of the planning commission's approval of a conditional use permit at 11858 San Pablo Avenue thank you we're going to enter into a

2:06:45public hearing we haven't done one of these in a while I'm going to ask the City attorney to briefly just outline what um what a public hearing of this of an appeal of the Planning Commission entails kind of the limitations in our and our bounds it is not as formal as a

2:07:06court of law but it certainly is not as informal as a Roundtable discussion so um with that I'd like to ask our City attorney just to brief us before we get into the staff report all right thank you Mr Mayor um I'm I'm not going to um spend a great deal of time on this

2:07:25um I think all the council members um are aware that um appeal hearings such as this are what are typically referred to as quasi-judicial um you are being asked to adjudicate um the matter that's before you which is um an appeal of a Planning Commission decision for development project that

2:07:46the the staff will provide you with more information about on appeal the city council can uphold um the planning commission's decision to approve the project can deny it or can approve it with modified conditions of approval the city council can't this is a de novo

2:08:07hearing which means you're able to consider all matters that that come before you you're not bound by the record but your decision is must be based on the evidence that is presented to the council and as out line for you in the materials in front of you that you'll receive a staff report you'll

2:08:25hear from the applicant and the appellant and members of the public then you'll have an opportunity to ask questions and deliberate and ultimately reach a decision and I'm certainly available for any questions that you have on procedural issues great thank you very much so we'll start the process

2:08:41tonight the city council will hear a testimony of an appeal to the city council by Stephen Khan of Stephen of Steve's Auto care sales of the planning commission's approval of conditional use permit at 11858 San Pablo Avenue first I'd like before we continue I'd

2:09:01like to ask any member of the council to disclose any communication related to this appeal that took place outside of this meeting mayor if I may take this opportunity I asked the liaison to the Planning Commission I did attend a portion of the August 15th Planning

2:09:17Commission meeting where this was discussed but I did leave before this item was discussed so I have not benefited from any prior information that might fall under this category of communications related to this appeal okay thank you Jana I'm none yeah I just have

2:09:41I talked with a city all on clarification issues of of the subject matter City attorney and briefly with Steph all right if you're if we're just closing questions that we asked of staff I certainly did have exchanged a set of email questions with staff for clarification of items that were

2:10:03presented in the the agenda item and I plan to ask some of those questions this evening I'd like to State the same thing I did ask some questions which I'll repeat tonight great same okay good I'd like to outline the process for this evening's public hearing after opening

2:10:23the public hearing I will request presentation from staff following the staff presentation Council will be have an opportunity for the Appellate and the applicant to make a presentation of five to ten minutes each at the conclusion of the presentations we will hear from anybody

2:10:42who has signed up with the city clerk that would be from the public if you have not submitted a speaker slip please do so remarks will be limited in this session the remarks will be limited to three minutes per person after the public has spoken I will then provide the applicant and the Appellate

2:11:02five minutes each to respond to comments after everybody's had an opportunity to speak at the public hearing I will seek a motion to close the public hearing so with that we have staff [Music] would you like to begin thank you Mr Arbella good evening mayor Jones and members of

2:11:26the city council the case before is an appeal of a Planning Commission decision of a use permit to establish an auto-oriented use at one one five 11858 San Pablo Avenue on August 15th the plan commission made the necessary findings to approve the conditional use permit to establish the

2:11:53auto and Auto Sales through Consignment only and Auto Service use in approving the case the plan commission made the necessary findings to approve it they include that the proposed use is consistent with the general plan then the zoning ordinance that the use is compatible with the

2:12:19surrounding Auto oriented and Commercial uses and that the proposed design of the well the existing building and use on the site offers a convenient working environment for the proposed use on August 16th Steve Khan from Steve's Auto uh the pro which is the property directly to the

2:12:50south of the subject site submitted an appeal of the Planning Commission decision Mr Khan basically cited four reasons to overturn the Planning Commission decision um jumping back a year on April 6th of 2011 Mr Khan received an approval from the planning commission

2:13:19based on the same sound findings that we made for this project consistency with the general plan compatible with the surrounding uses and the site design offered a convenient working environment Mr Khan's operation is a little different than Mr shouse applique application which is the potential

2:13:48property owner of the subject site Mr xiao's operation is that primarily cars will be coming in clients who want to sell their cars under consignment will come in and park their cars on the lot and employees from Mr Khan's I'm sorry Mr xiao's uh business will provide the marketing

2:14:23tools and the marketing of their automobiles so customers can just come into the site and take a look at the cars that are on sale he'll offer also automobile Services repair and minor fixes to the cars being sold on the site also he will provide a cars from the General Public public to

2:14:52come in and and also conduct repairs for those vehicles um each case was approved on its own merits taking into consideration the proposed and potential operation of the business the lot configuration how the site was uh developed and how each business would fit within

2:15:23the surrounding uses so as a result both approvals um were approved by the Planning Commission with its own set of conditions of approval based on the merits of each project um I would like to briefly go into the the council mentioned some questions that they provide that they asked of staff

2:15:53and I'd like to take this opportunity to quickly respond to some of them first one is the access on Kearney Street um which is at the rear of both properties the intent of the original use permit on this site was to have the delivery of cars come along the backside along

2:16:27Kearney Street staff noticed that on the Honda property uh they were unloading cars right on San Pablo Avenue which caused a backup uh southbound along San Pablo Avenue so we certainly didn't want that same scenario played out in front of the subject site or in front

2:16:48of the uh Steve's Auto site here so we required that the offloading of vehicles and deliveries be made at the rear with the subject site there really isn't that same dynamic in that cars will be individually driven onto the site and parked in the parking lot here so there's no real uh

2:17:16there's no offloading of vehicles on San Pablo Avenue it's just individuals coming in and parking in the back and wanting to sell their cars there um the second issue that was raised was the location of the roll-up doors here and stuff felt that that was the most appropriate

2:17:42place the proposed width of the doors are a total of 23 feet wide to relocate them along the east side you would there's only room for a 21 foot wide double doors so you'd have to make some modification to existing to the existing facade and cut out uh a large enough space for

2:18:18a double car or a double uh a double door on that side um so staff recommends that the city council denied the appeal and uphold the findings made by the Planning Commission in approving the conditional use permit that concludes staff's presentation of the report and I'm available for any

2:18:43questions thank you we let me double check here or something uh this would be the proper time to ask questions of staff if we have any at this point yeah I'll go ahead and re-ask the question you've you've actually started to answer it but I'm not certain I um fully understand

2:19:14um the the answer one of my questions was um why wouldn't frankly why wouldn't the operator of the subject lot want to have a curb cut into Kearney to facilitate uh the use of the of the property for their for their clients including prospective buyers as well as prospective sellers of

2:19:39of vehicles more importantly um and I'm not certain that I understand the use permit maybe I didn't read it as carefully as I should have but it is this restricted to a consignment sales if I made through uh mayor Jones to answer your first question the uh the access along the real property there

2:20:09is a concern that uh that safety may be an issue here in that having a secondary driveway or access from the back May compromise cars possibly being tinkered with or stolen and accessing that rear driveway also that they would like to control the incoming and exiting of cars in one

2:20:45space which is or one driveway which is accessed from San Pablo Avenue the use permit was approved specifically for Consignment only yeah I see that it wasn't in this the fine print but it's certainly in the title of the use permit thank you um my other one of my other questions

2:21:07was specifically that you addressed was the orientation of the doors um 21 versus 23 uh may make it easier to move a six foot wide vehicle in or out um so it strikes me that you could actually have a doors as small as 18 feet and be able to get two six foot wide vehicles in and out so the width of

2:21:30the door is not necessarily the question that I'm asking the width it's the orientation of the door the Appellate asks you know why the doors oriented this way is not a nuisance to pedestrians on San Pablo Avenue I think your response this afternoon was to motorists

2:21:49so I'm now asking if we're going to be developing a pedestrian friendly environment on San Pablo Avenue why the orientation of the doors facing south isn't a hazard or you know a nuisance to pedestrians again through the mirror the this is in a cc zoning District which is

2:22:09primarily our General commercial use I think uh yes we'd like to see pedestrian access all throughout San Pablo Avenue however the the emphasis is around the transitorian development zoning districts now given that The Pedestrian access from San Pablo onto this site

2:22:37is through a front a front door and kind of a raised entryway along the side of the property here there is there is no handicap access from San Pablo to the site as of now there is handicap access from the rear of the property onto the site onto the into the building here this front

2:23:04building will have display of cars and so [Music] um future customers clients can access the display areas through the rear the parking space for handicap will be will also be along the rear side so so you've mentioned that the extra curb cut on Kearney is not something that the

2:23:34owner wants because of security concerns there is indicated in the plans that there is new black metal picket fence to be installed it doesn't appear that that picket fence encircles the entire property so how is it that there isn't a security concern and can you speak to what is it that will be on

2:23:59the south property line that divides the two properties that might reduce visual this visual impact of having these doors facing south that's a good question the uh the along the East Eastern side and the northern side of the property there is a existing chain link fence that will

2:24:23remain it is the gates along the driveway only that will be replaced because it's rotted out and it's in disrepair and so they felt that they needed to replace it to provide more protection what delineates both properties uh is that there is a raised curb planter

2:24:51along uh along the property line and it's primarily mostly on the on on Steve's property and that was a requirement from the design review board to provide some separation there and staff felt that the Landscaping was the most appropriate technique to separate both properties

2:25:18while still protecting the cars from being taken off the lot so there's nothing stopping somebody from walking from San Pablo Avenue through Steve Auto Care front parking lot and into this subject sales lot that is correct and everything is controlled though through one entrance and exit on

2:25:42the driveway you just answered my question that somebody could walk across Steve Auto Care's parking lot and into the subject lot yes why should the neighbor sustain all this foot traffic and potentially you know cigarette butts or or food wrappers being dropped on their

2:26:04property as as somebody walks from San Pablo Avenue to these service bays and into the subject lot to look at you cars for sale shouldn't there be something more substantial that divides the two properties that might also act as a visual barrier to a pedestrian that's walking

2:26:23Northbound on San Pablo Avenue um there's no barrier there you can certainly have a pedestrian walk across the property line and onto the subject lot okay and then I think my last question I asked this afternoon was had to do with the width of there's a sidewalk called out in the drawings

2:26:55that is indicated to be the pathway for handicap entry into the existing building and these are not the scale but it certainly looked as if that sidewalk was less than three feet so I'm just curious if staff had looked at that sidewalk and had any indications as to what the widths were

2:27:18and if if there wasn't you know it's indicated as the handicap entry but maybe it doesn't function as the handicap entry in a particularly useful way if I may through the mayor this was looked at and there is a condition of approval that in that states that all ADA requirements must be met

2:27:39um in compliance with the building code so with in this case possible striping may be added to delineate the a pathway to the handicap ramp so we did take a look at it and it was conditioned as part of the East permit great thank you you're welcome any other Rebecca yeah

2:28:08um so for the for the planting plan like what actually so delineating between the two properties there there's a bed but what is what would be the I guess required planting plan to to look at you know possible barriers that are organic sure I uh I'd have to go back to the

2:28:32plans that were approved for for Steve's Auto I believe there were Ground Covers requirement required and then some some bark uh but it was uh I believe there are trees also called them so it was low-lying shrubs and trees is there any I understand it's not on the

2:28:59applicant's property so when it's not within I guess outside of the process is there a way to negotiate and try to work together to to come up with a A solution that meets both of their needs we could leave it to the both the Steve's Auto and the proprietor proprietor to negotiate that

2:29:25or you can certainly provide a condition of approval um well and I guess what were the was the Planning Commission did they consider or the design review board I guess in in light of this very sensitive Zone I mean what was the proceedings in discussion with regards to or consideration of

2:29:46something additional sure with regards to the subject lot the designer reward still has to go through its formal hearing uh in order to approve this project they did go through a conceptual review and did this issue was not raised by the uh design review board at that time however

2:30:13on with regards to Steve's property we wanted to protect the cars so we wanted to we wanted some barrier that would be constructed so that you can't just drive off the lot with the cars thanks thank you Jana oh what does the Ada say about disabled access to a site

2:30:42in this I'd have to refer to our building department specifically I don't know it's just the shortest distance from like in this case the parking lot because that's where the Ada parking space is to the building don't you have to be able to get from the sidewalk

2:31:04to the um front door of the business so to speak I'd have to ask our building department then and again it's there's a condition of approval that says all ADA requirements must be met so if that's which on which tenant or top property owner on the subject lot on the on the uh

2:31:28the subject lot to the north there's a condition of approval that says all ADA requirements must be met and so okay so if in plan check they find that it's deficient the applicant has to provide access and will it be on their um list to make sure we'll be on somebody's

2:31:53list to check it out and then if it isn't to make sure yes and it wouldn't be through it would not be the driveway it would be a sidewalk right again I'd have to check wouldn't be through through somebody else's it wouldn't be through someone else's lot or property it would be on

2:32:13the on the subject live but I I have to check what the requirements are through the building department division okay and it through plan check they'll they'll see if there's a deficiency they'll provide the applicant with the with a comment that says please meet

2:32:37this requirement so at that time at the building permit point we we can design handicap access for them so this is just not that stage it's not that stage yet okay right that's a more specific detail to the plans okay thank you a few questions here uh you referenced safety several times

2:33:03and I was that a concern of the commission uh on the back uh off Kearney not having not punching through a driveway Kearney no that was not a concern of the commission it was a concern of the applicant okay did they uh did the police department weigh in on that

2:33:26were they concerned about that no not on that specific issue because there was no driveway proposed at the time that the Planning Commission looked at this application okay so then how did the discussion on safety and a driveway back there happen I uh maybe I misunderstood I thought you

2:33:48said that the reason why one of the reasons why not to have a driveway back there is for safety concerns right at the time at the time the issue was raised uh we staff looked at the um the site and with the one access determining that that was that was this uh the safest point of entry was one access

2:34:27through the driveway okay so it was a also the applicant and then staff the applicant reviewed that that concern okay thanks um I went back there on Kearney and of course there's the BART construction has wiped out some of that however I had a hard time seeing whether

2:34:50Kearney was going to be going through as a street and actually whether there is room I have questions about whether there is enough room there for a driveway because there's a pillar sitting fairly close to there so um I'm wondering though have has you our public works or somebody look at that

2:35:12see if it a driveway is viable off a Kearney I did talk to our Public Works director and he recognized that there was some there was the work that Bart was doing there at this point he didn't analyze it for the specific alignment but he said he would talk he could talk to the

2:35:31applicant to see where a driveway could line up and all it would need is a an encroachment permit from the the quarks Department right okay um you said that on the division of the the property line there there was a landscaping plan and this this curve is primarily on the property adjacent

2:35:56correct that's correct okay does the does that barrier actually go along the property line or is it off in a little bit it's mostly it's all it goes along the property line but all on the um on the subject lot to the South okay so I then I'm assuming and correct me if

2:36:19I'm wrong that it was the Planning Commission on the adjacent property when they went before for conditional use that put the stipulation that there be a barrier there um and it being landscaped so the Landscaping is actually part is not part of this application correct for that

2:36:37that's correct the uh excuse me the requirement for the Landscaping here actually was through the design review board however during the Planning Commission process I think we wanted a barrier there to avoid people getting into cars parked here and driving off onto onto that lot okay so

2:37:03correct me though I and maybe I didn't I went by there and it didn't seem like the Landscaping is there is that is that accurate I think there's there's some Landscaping I know there's I thought there were trees out there but as a condition of approval there was

2:37:19some that needed to be landscaped okay all right um and then I'm assuming and I didn't see it and I probably missed it no on this next question yeah um I'm assuming that all applicable laws the state the county may have for a business of this type is part of the they must be followed as

2:37:46part of the uh use permit there are certainly outside agencies that look at um that you need to get approvals for for this uh for a project like this a use permit and I don't know if there's California law that addresses things like consignment uh sales or cars on I

2:38:11do know that it serve if it was a service station there's plenty of state and County laws that would come into play here I'm just and I don't know what what they are I'm not not really interested is there just a clause in here that says whatever laws apply to that particular job or business they

2:38:28must comply with I don't think they specifically state or cite California law but we do say they have to maintain they have to meet the fire department building department and public work requirements um I with regards to the state requirements I don't think that was a condition of

2:38:49approval okay thank you my last question is this on the existing driveway office San Pablo it goes behind um first of all I went by the property couldn't get back into that driveway so I I apologize but I just couldn't answer my own question on this and that is

2:39:11um if you go if the driveway goes back it goes behind where the building where the bays are going to be correct yes off of San Pablo office San Pablo off of San Pablo yeah and the building that contains the two bays oh here yes the doors are on the South Side yes on the uh

2:39:33north side is it possible to punch through the doors there for The Bays or is that a utility wall or is there something that would not would prevent that right internally the space next to that wall is the office and bathroom and basically their their business office

2:39:59for for the use all this area is they've got a display area at the front and some display area here that that was going to be converted into the base okay so if we all I'm asking if we put the the doors on the North side there on the opposite side is there any reason why you can't do that yes

2:40:26because that side of the building is where they have the offices and I believe the bathrooms oh in that building in that against that wall yes okay all right that's all the questions I have for now thank you can I ask one more just about landscaping and drainage

2:40:45um in the planning commission's resolution there was a condition of approval that I just wanted you to kind of summarize for us under public works department which says number 17 submit detailed landscaping and drainage Improvement plans as part of the building permit application so is that

2:41:02having to do with the landscaping that's shown on attachment five the drawings that's the Landscaping just on the south side of the building that just goes gosh I don't know 10 or 20 feet in is that right yes that's what that condition is referring to yes and also there's

2:41:21there's new Landscaping at the at the rear and I think on the side um but it's mostly that area on the south side of the building and did it was the planning commission's intention to kind of screen the bays in some manner with that landscaping or what was the goal of that landscape to

2:41:45provide some separation between the properties the properties and to provide a I guess a more aesthetic uh environment along San Pablo Avenue okay thank you great thank you okay appreciate it okay I'd like to uh see a representative from the Appellate Steve's Auto Care

2:42:11sales and I believe it's Mr Khan good evening great good evening um hello good evening members of the council uh mayor Jones I'm Steve Khan owner and operator of Steve's Auto Care at 11820 San Pablo Avenue as you may know I have a passion for cars my customers my employees and and

2:42:32the community as well um I want to discuss tonight the uh the appeal before us we respectfully ask for equity and the placement of comparable restrictions on a business with comparable activities as well as equity in the permitting process we contend that allowing the applicant

2:42:51to situate all his repair base directly facing our only customer entrance is inconsistent with the prior requirement in a largely indistinguishable circumstance further it would be incompatible with the specific use of our adjacent property which was not only approved but

2:43:10effectively designed by the same staff if a closely adjacent facility is allowed to run its most disruptive operation and essentially The Identical location where we were expressly expressly prohibited from using it would create an objective anomaly in the permitting process

2:43:31the ensuing noise from the mechanical Repairs Service and deliveries would directly interfere with our ability to interact with our customers when they come in but even more profoundly it would effectively defeat the rationale and purpose of the permitting process itself

2:43:49I went through quite a bit of all of the requirements that the city had me do as you could probably see from an earlier photograph of this which add 1.9 million dollars I have a oh excuse me do we have the folder oh there it is which is the newer upgraded Steve

2:44:11Auto Care and a lot have thought expense um Blood Sweat and Tears went into making a facility so attractive we're currently in competition to be a top 10 shop in the United States is our date that we're targeting for um everything we carefully insulated against and avoided will be negated by a

2:44:39more egregious and Unholy um a modified version right next door in other words if if I didn't do anything and he didn't have to do anything then we'd be even but I did so much there and the applicant appears to have almost streamlined through the process I feel

2:45:04at a real disadvantage and addition the applicant's new use would transform the prior use of the site which while including a showroom has never included automobile repairs or other clamorous activities I would like to respectfully thank the city council members for taking the time

2:45:25to hear my appeal request thank you thank you okay um do we have any questions of the after the Appellate at this time thank you okay I could I could ask a few questions and maybe staff will answer these the service Bays if someone could point out to me were the Appellate service bays

2:45:54are located the number and and location just generally on the on the slide that's up here the appellates Steve Auto cares Bays it's oh you can use this okay and your question again sir where your service bays are AC are trapped okay and back there and prior to your

2:46:22renovation where which where were they which way were they oriented we're all done here but the requirement is nothing is going to be done in the front so the requirement that the staff made is no repairs are done in the front if he's allowed to do repairs here

2:46:40that's my front if you follow what I'm saying sir all right no I the the question is the orientation to San Pablo Avenue is what my question is uh rolling down so none of your none of the former doors or none of the doors you were proposing at some point faced north for example out

2:47:03of my activity fronted San Pablo Avenue thank you I do have a question was that your your desire to have bays in a different location than what were originally um what had originally been there one is the uh the layout of Steve's Auto Care has such an appealing attractiveness it doesn't

2:47:30look like no offense what you see across the street from City Hall every day okay or various other shops as you go down San Pablo Avenue they look like a dive my place is not a dive but it'll be reduced to a certain amount if bays are allowed to face my reception area

2:47:48the other thing is deliveries my deliveries are done in the rear be it cars be it parts and and supplies we make a strong effort every day to make sure that vendors come in from the back it clears up the front area for my customers coming in we have approximately 500 customers a month and

2:48:10we want to delineate that in our operation and with that we have deliveries constantly from Kearney Street he will be having deliveries on San Pablo Avenue so we're going to have people that we have thrilled you know to make sure that all those deliveries are done on Kearney

2:48:31Street but now next door he gets them on San Pablo Avenue that doesn't make sense my question was actually if you wanted to have what was your original desire to have Bays accessed from the front no you never wanted that from thinking but I was under this to make sure that not a

2:48:51hood is up and that's the but that aligned but it sounds like it it aligned with what your original it aligns with our what your original desire was okay thank you just one more question before you go away because you when I first came to El Cerrito I we did have a Honda and we

2:49:06actually used this service bag and didn't we used to drive our vehicle in through the front and then sort of it it drove in I don't remember we would drop our vehicles off for service in the front early answer yes um the driveway was a drive-through for the majority of the cars the negotiation

2:49:28from driving through leaves a little bit of a safety issue for my technicians walking this way so what we do is we have a yellow chain big deal but we do have quarters that drive around to the back when the cars come in we have certain areas that are stipulated for

2:49:45certain uh stages of repair so there is one door that faces the street is I guess what I'm asking correct and you were not required to take that door out of service you could still use it for vehicle movement vehicle movement yeah but it's not it's so recessed under the

2:50:03Eve that um uh you know it's 35 feet in um and the angle of the pitch of the roof and the height of the driveway you know it doesn't offer I mean there's so much other visual distractions that are appealing looking in and looking at a battery charger I don't think so if

2:50:22that's what you're asking if it's a sightly thing it isn't you you are going down the line of questioning that I would I'm following yes thank you could I ask one more question so if I'm your customer can you kind of walk me through where I'm driving and then where

2:50:38I'm walking to come and speak with somebody you can either but anyway oh I'm sorry um if you uh drove in the drove if you proceeded through the driveway under the eave that is one some people actually go over to this line here but the direction is into the driveway here so you're

2:51:08um your main reception area is here and along this line here okay so I drive into that front Eve get out of my car and then walk into that sort of skinny or L-shaped building on the north we we greet you and there's a Podium um uh reception area glassed all glassed

2:51:26have you you haven't been no I mean I've driven through I've driven by and seen it of course but I haven't been in but we have a nice uh fully glass encased office right here you can't see it obviously but we can either agree to right here uh usually when the weather

2:51:42is rough but some people do come to the left especially if they're unloading their bicycles and things like that okay and if you'd like us to see your display you might want to just hand it around because it's too a little too far for us there thank you and and you can think

2:51:57about the answer to this question while you're moving that um what is the front of your a lot used for uh the mayor was asking me is that where are cars parked there the park that you have you we've been told that you have you do car sales so is that where your

2:52:16sales lot is is the front half of your lot okay that's um something stipulated by the Department of Motor Vehicles the area that is basically sequestered for new car sales are in the showroom here and from the driveway I guess South uh curb line of the driveway

2:52:35to approximately the light the PG E standard which is about um nine stalls in so those that's a stipulation by DMV if I could ask um Friday I went by and saw a lot of cars in that front part however this morning I didn't see anything what when it goes on we we have some power

2:53:01days and we have some softer days so today was a little bit on the south side but allowed us to get our inventory up to Snuff if you walked in the back here by any chance almost all these stalls actually all these stalls were full back here so our activity was earlier at the

2:53:19end of that yeah earlier in the week it was full yeah yeah okay thanks appreciate it thank you okay um is there a representative from the applicant here tonight sure um would you like to come up and it's your time to address however you want 15 minutes and you're Mr Shaw shelf right thank you

2:53:48I think most of what I have to say has been already discussed um well I I just want to you know hopefully everyone can take into account their seats business is about probably five times larger than what my business is going to be like you said he goes through about 500 cars in one scene

2:54:05repairs I would probably service about 50 cards a month um his site is three times larger than money and uh financially he's you know it's much more well off to me and uh so you know for me to do exactly what he does and for him to have expectation of what my shop you know of my shopping

2:54:25exactly is his is going to be unfair um if you were to uh you know make that comparison you could you know wipe out 80 of the business in your car repair business in El Cerrito because like he said he's going to be one of the top 10 shops in the U.S and uh very few people

2:54:40can match that um so I I just don't think that he can really make it the right comparison between what I'm going to do and what he's doing um you know just like a big guy trying to bully another guy okay uh is that it um well um well I you know in terms of what I'm gonna do there was you know

2:55:00Steve he combined two of his smaller businesses he has two small shops and he also read uh one else really one year Richmond um you know he moved the three businesses into a dealership-sized facility you know he wants to uh grow the business and you know create more

2:55:16efficiency and provide better service and you know the main goal is to increase profit he wants to make more money um you know I'm going to be running a small operation um and I I just you know you know just you know hearing what he has to say I'm kind of at a loss it's

2:55:32like how am I supposed to be able to compare it to him you know how can you put me against you who's been here for 30 years you know who's getting to a dealer-sized facility I just don't see you know how there could be a comparison um you know but in terms of uh you know

2:55:49the business I'm proposing you know I'll use my resources and abilities uh to do the best that I can uh you know give them what I have and uh okay great could you hold on for just a second is there any questions yeah I've got a couple questions um actually the drawings that were

2:56:09submitted for our review and staffs report um differs slightly on this black metal picket fence so I'm wondering if that is actually a new structure that's going to be added along the north side and the Kearney Street side the koni street side the defense has a

2:56:29hole in it um and then it's in a disrepair so we're going to remove that fence and then replace it with a new fence and and the new fence I'm assuming you'll go through some design review board yes um so you're going to put new fence on a portion of the property

2:56:48for security purposes which is what we've been told is that correct that's correct I'm going to put a new fence in the rear of the property and replace the front gate and then uh on the North side there are some fences in the disrepair as well the actually the property owner

2:57:05on the North side has a semia Romeo letter and he'll want to discuss um possibly uh you know fixing that fence as well so so I'm left confused how you will secure these vehicles at night from people who will enter the lot from San Pablo Avenue walking across Steve's

2:57:28property hopping over the planter and getting to these vehicles so I'm I'm I hear your concerns about safety but you're not securing the whole site with this fence right um well I would like to I would like to circle the entire you know property with the fence but the

2:57:45design review I don't think that that's what they want they're one of their concern is that uh the curb appeal they don't want an offense between the two properties uh it's uh they don't see it as something that's very cycly and we have to ask you to brought that

2:58:01up during the design review okay and and so the planter that large circular and maybe it's it's supposed to be a tree that's behind the existing porch is that supposed to provide a visual buffer from pedestrians and and the shop doors is that is was that the discussion that was

2:58:22had at the design review board um I I I wasn't the person that planted the trees oh so that's existing trees I believe Steve uh planted the tree sir no these these these index on the drawings that were submitted with us this indicates that it's on your property so on the

2:58:39front behind yeah behind the existing porch right um which which is currently in the photograph the staff is showing right now is paved so so I'm trying to find out you know what what are what changes either you or you've proposed or you've been asked to make that would

2:59:00um you know provide some sort of visual barrier between San Pablo Avenue and the repair doors um Phyllis uh the planning uh the Landscaping behind that porch is what's required by the uh the design department they I think they want a certain portion of the property

2:59:20um be landscape and then uh I'll just conforming to uh to what they want to what they want from me okay and and then still looking at this the strong and maybe it's existing concrete um but I but there was some discussion about in your in the use permit that you

2:59:37will be making uh again it's on the strong some ramp changes between the pavement area and the service bay doors is there is there a need to ramp up into the new service bay doors yes I I don't believe there's there's there's one ramp on on one of the service bay doors and the other one

3:00:03will need to be uh created okay and uh last but not least the the um driveway onto Kearney are you opposed to that driveway are they I mean we've heard that it's a security concern but again your site's not actually enclosed so I'm not even certain why you would want

3:00:28to put a fence on the back property line right I I'm not a I'm not you know opposed to it um so the planner that was that's put in between the two property it actually blocks um it blocks like the portion of the driveway that that could be there the curb cell yeah um you know if the design review

3:00:47review board or if the city wants it all I'll put one in there so for example where the existing bollards are located you have no desire to put a driveway in to facilitate movement of vehicles or anything like that I I don't have a desire but if this requires me I will do

3:01:05it Rebecca did I ask just one follow-up having to do with the security discussion so at under this design after if this design were to be implemented somebody could walk onto the site and vandalize the vehicles but somebody could not walk onto the site and drive a

3:01:24vehicle away that's correct is that correct okay thank you I just wanted to clarify that yeah yeah um yeah I think I I want to ask one question can you just um the question I have is um if you have a customer who uses a wheelchair how are they going to get on your property

3:01:46um because we don't want to use a wheelchair that would drive to the back of the property there'll be a handy cab parking spot and they will just roll and then they'll roll into the office through the back door what if they don't drive a car if they don't drive a car well I I am

3:02:03going to be operating a automotive facility they don't operate it have a car uh maybe that's why they're coming to you is because they don't already have a car okay well if they don't have a car then at this time they will have to uh you know roll the wheelchair through the

3:02:19driveway on San Pablo and then to the back of the building will it be accessible yes all right well didn't isn't there a condition that it has to the site has to be accessible yes okay so you're not at that stage yet it sounds like right to the design review board is is going to have to

3:03:02finalize that later okay your architect or your planner may have to be the one that supplies you with that uh plan I I think uh council member abelson's question is well taken though that it's a requirement of all the buildings in El Cerrito when you're remodeling so you'll

3:03:20have to uh absolutely check with your architect about an accessible plan okay um okay yeah actually I've got some questions and maybe I don't know who's supposed to answer these um I'm looking at the west elevation which is the San Pablo Avenue elevation and there's no entrance

3:03:40um off of San Pablo Avenue and if I understand this correctly I look at the South elevation even though there's existing quarry tile steps up to the the the uh Porsche I think is what's called in plan View they would have to walk past the service bay doors to get to the entrance to your

3:04:04facility there there is a door um on the San Pablo entrance if they choose to take the steps up there there's the door that opens it has steps or doesn't it does have steps steps don't work yeah I guess I'm not I'm looking at the South elevation and I'm not seeing anything that resembles a

3:04:26door on the south elevation other than roll up doors it's a sliding there's a sliding door okay oh behind the planter right here so I mean I see the two doors on the East Elevation and one of those is clearly obviously intended to be the business entrance because it's where the Ada path goes to

3:05:03but I'm not I guess I'm not seeing this sliding door on the south elevation uh it's where the existing Porsches right where they existing porches uh to the main building there's a sliding glass store okay great thank you I can clarify that uh councilman Lyman if you look at the

3:05:24floor plan uh unfortunately you didn't give us the interior floor plan but I do we do have sheet A1 which is the site plan was there an A2 no I'm just no there is no E2 provided to us but um what I'm hearing is that there is a sliding door under the exist you know

3:05:45accessible from the existing porch the existing porch is only accessible by stairs existing porch has a there's a I think there's a round on the back there's a ramp on the back side there's a ramp on the back side there's a ramp going to it on the front side through through San Pablo there so

3:06:03there's correct addressing addressing council member abelson's question the only way for them to access the building would be to drive you know for her um would be to roll up the existing driveway to the back of the building and and such so okay I I got some quick questions here

3:06:27um are you now in business do you run the I I did I I ran a uh automotive repair shop in Oakland and I sold the business recently and uh I wanted to open a business anything else Cerrito okay and Consignment Sales have you been in that before I've never done Consignment sale before

3:06:46um I have uh I've been in and out of the buggy bank which is a Consignment sale quality in Berkeley so for the past 20 years so I really like that business model and I feel like you know it'll provide a valuable service to the community okay I was just interested in

3:07:00that okay it doesn't really have anything to do with land use but anyway um there is going to be a showroom in your facility yes okay so is that for uh cars that are on assignment you'll be taking them in and out of there fairly regularly or how's that work probably I would imagine the cars that

3:07:25would go into the showroom part um are going to be cars are they're more valuable that people doesn't want just anyone to come in and test drive I see um did the Planning Commission address or the uh working outside the Bays do you plan let me rephrase it I don't

3:07:48plan on working outside the base I I don't think they would be all inside the building right everything will be done inside the building and uh we heard from staff that you needed 23 feet for the roll-up doors I I take that that's kind of an ideal standard I I didn't hear it that it was

3:08:08a minimum standard for some some odd reason could you work with 21 feet and put the Bays on the on the east side that's that's definitely possible and the the way that the building is uh you know what was structured there's two there's two uh glass windows on on the south

3:08:31facing side um and uh those those glass windows actually are well one of them is a glass door is is where a car used to be driven in into the showroom so uh but removal of that door and then putting up a roll-up door that would uh you know that would I I would I wouldn't

3:08:48have to you know open up the entire wall on the on one side of the building so it's uh just like the existing the existing configuration the building just so they may just make makes more sense okay I I I'm trying to visualize it I'm sorry I wish we could have had this meeting

3:09:10right on site but uh well if you can if you can have Bays going from the south side I would assume that that means because you have to get your your cars back you could go from the East side but what what are you saying about you would have to do what well if if I put the doors if

3:09:33I put the entrance out on the on the back of the building which is uh east side right yeah right right the East Side um it will actually block the access to the bathrooms and then um you know it would uh I guess it'll block the 88 Ada access but yeah it will pretty

3:09:52much I will have to tear it out tear out the entire building the entire inside of the building to uh you know reconfigure it there will be no I'm trying to visualize if you if you if you put in cars excuse me if you put in cars from the south side they won't reach

3:10:13I guess you're taking it it won't reach the bathrooms correct yeah come on up thank you that won't take too long I just trying to visualize this as well I'll open two doors here and park pass here to apply the access to the bathroom so what's the distance between here

3:10:36foreign thank you that's all that's all the questions I had thank you very much I yeah I'm sorry I just look having seen the plan View and and now looking at the the East Elevation um the East Elevation has Windows identified uh in in the East Elevation and those windows uh you know there's three

3:11:16looks like there's three galleries there those those windows on the on the plan view on the interior you calling out a storage room on the interior so I'm just trying to figure out why you got big glass windows and and they're blocking a storage room um you know the the I understand you're

3:11:33you have a desire to orient the lifts a particular way I guess in looking at the plans you just showed us what would prevent you from having the lips be diagonal so that you could do a single driveway in one roll-up door cheaper for you because roll up doors are expensive and then diagonal lifts

3:11:56that don't block the bathrooms that you just showed us so I'm just trying to figure out why um why the windows that you have on the east side can't be converted into a roll-up door um that then provides access to diagonal lifts as opposed to perpendicular lifts

3:12:19talking about Beast right here yeah so there's Windows there's a window right here um I would have to tear out the the wall right here and that says this is new walls right here around the trash yeah there's the existing wall right here right now it says new walls there there is a

3:12:41existing wall inside of this uh inside right here and then uh the reason why uh we're gonna put new walls here is because um this wall right here is blocking part of the part of this driveway so how will you so you're you're proposing removal of this gloss and putting the lights asking a question if

3:13:04you can put the door back here and put the lifts diagonally and here so that the vehicles can access your new lifts um since you're I mean lifts are not are not cheap either they obviously require some form of foundation and such so nothing and then I'll be you know

3:13:23waiting right here and then uh most of the space right here would be useless except for driveway thank you um now we'll hear from the public um you have three minutes each and I'd like to ask city clerk if we uh have any slips to speak tonight no speaker slips okay is there anybody that wants to

3:13:53speak okay seeing none uh we have now have five minutes for each for the applicant and the appellant to have an opportunity for rebuttal or for comments and I'll start with the applicant first excuse me the uh the Appellate the Appellate first yeah the um again thank you it's been a long day for

3:14:25all of us um the only thing I wanted to make sure we air is the fact of the uh delineation and defense um yes we want a defense initially and uh staff said no fence um I like you know my letter that I I worked there for many years and yes we did have cars stolen I'm very diligent

3:14:48on making sure that back gate is uh locked or kept closed as much as humanly possible because of the um traffic from time to time but we did want to fence a decorative type of fence uh delineating the two but again staff didn't want that we make a strong like I said we make a

3:15:14strong effort that there's no Vandal event vandalization or car theft with the both properties being open um you know and he's he has cars back there I think it's an open invitation and once they get their pickings there then they can look in my locked area and

3:15:33I think it just makes an attraction for an element that we really don't want thank you thank you uh the applicant yes yeah um you know if this is on a review board uh disapprove I I would uh I I agree with Steve in terms of what he said concerning defense um I I think it would uh you know you

3:16:01know if if it gets approved I I would put a fancer thank you all right sounds like that's it um do we have a motion to close the public hearing a move that we close the public hearing not good it's been moved a second to close the public hearing all those in favor hi hi opposed

3:16:23the public hearing is now closed um do we have any comments or questions from the council before we vote if there is a motion well it seems to me that the access issue needs to get resolved and I'm thinking in the motion it needs to get resolved is that correct

3:16:48staff oh well yeah if I may through the mirror there is a condition of approval in the Planning Commission conditional use permit resolution that says Ada has to be addressed so if that's not enough you can certainly add a additional condition there's actually two

3:17:10conditions number 18 and number 22 and and it actually strikes me that number 18 doesn't isn't feasible um I'll read it repair sidewalk at walkway leading to front door on San Pablo Avenue and along accessible route to the ADA Compliant to be ADA Compliant but there is no front door so I'm trying

3:17:34to figure out how they can comply with number 18.

3:17:39given that there are stairs to the front door which the front door is actually on the south side of the building there is a sliding door that's there along the South elevation at the front so so let's assume that's the front door that's the door that we established was

3:18:01a sliding door that's under the porch but it's got stairs going up to it so presumably this condition would require them to replace those stairs with a ramp in that porch area or design a ramp in that porch area right and so so that that's there is a condition that already

3:18:20does require ADA compliance off of San Pablo Avenue okay it it also would seem to me that um the Appellate and the applicant agreed on the fence and so we should put it in the motion well I have a question for staff regarding the fence I mean at this point has various design treatments been

3:18:48considered or was it just in reaction to a you know metal chain link fence kind of the minimum treatment although it was just it was to primarily provide an openness and avoid any barriers any um physical obstruction they wanted to and it was through the design review board

3:19:12that wanted the uh the planters hey go ahead and and so the I guess the the plantings along on the the Steve's side and the the quality there is that I mean theoretic we could you know work with Steve to see what what could be grown to kind of Shield the fence and if there was a fence then

3:19:38we'll work with Stephen the yeah the applicant to to comply with the landscape requirements that was approved by the design review board yeah to that effect the design review boards plantings were Native if I remember correctly were native plants to be drought tolerant and of a low height

3:19:58and all these fancy things and I guess my question would be if if a fence was to be sought after and approved certainly that Steve would get some relief from the planting requirements so that he could uh create more of a visual attractiveness in front of that uh fence

3:20:19um or if no fence is put in maybe maybe Steve could propose blackberries in there as a deterrent to people climbing through so I'm I guess to answer your question the Planters are actually heavily regulated right now the plantings the design reward put a pretty

3:20:37heavy price tag on the or constraints on what can be placed in those Planters and and it it certainly wouldn't achieve some of the things that we're talking about people seeing the for sale signs in a window of a car in the consignment lot and and strolling across his lot because if I recall the

3:21:01planter as low profile with low profile plants that people are going to be stepping over to get to the consignment lot so I I'm just um concerned that we're visually it may be one we may succeed with one thing visually and then functionally end up with a lot of cross

3:21:22cuts through this Steve's lot okay well um why don't we conclude the comments and then we'll come back and see what people want to include in any conditions if we are going to go in that direction because I think there's different ways of handling that and without trying to design the project

3:21:42tonight no um anything else yeah my the only thing that that I would like to see I I think that the Planning Commission did uh find their findings are well-founded um I do think that the property division is still subject to uh some some discussion and debate and would like to

3:22:07to hear what uh staff in the design review board can come up to improve the functional division of these two different businesses so that there isn't um spillover from one to the other okay Janet I'm having a little confusion here so what I'm hearing is that they both agreed on offense

3:22:33but this group is not very enamored of offense is that true no I would love to see some sort of division between these two properties it may not be events it may be a more robust planting Division I I would like to see a better division between these two businesses

3:22:49so so actually then I think what you're saying is it you maybe don't want to support a fence the defense may not be the only choice but offense may be a very good choice I mean and we haven't said for example how tall the fence is or any you know we haven't described the fence particularly

3:23:09um I'll leave that up to the design review board and the applicant and and the adjacent property owner to maybe work that out or propose it but I don't know that we want to get into a debate tonight on whether it should be six feet or eight feet or four feet or

3:23:24or metal or chain link or I certainly don't but um or do we want to give some direction about events I'm not sure I hear that because you the subject keeps changing to planting so um that's what I'm not sure I think I mean based on what I've heard i i would support some kind of division to address

3:23:44ideally the Aesthetics as well as you know the functional outcome of reducing transient behavior um and deferring to our design review board to work out what would be the best solution but otherwise I guess I'm ready to make a motion to essentially uphold um or deny the appeal and uphold the

3:24:06decision of the Planning Commission as is but with the recommendation that you know I know our goal is to have a more walkable San Pablo and I mean but the reality is the sidewalk is very narrow right there it's a lot of high volume traffic um and they're Auto uses so

3:24:24I think it's it's one place where I think we we need to deviate from our ideal design guidelines for the site which I which I assume that they were playing father respect uh before you make a formal motion could we hear from others and I think at least I have some conditions

3:24:44that are additional conditions would I like you like Council to consider within the motion okay thank you I agree with um what's been said about dividing the subjects and the subject properties um it sounds like the applicant and the appellant are in agreement so that's

3:25:01that's great maybe you discover that tonight I'm not sure maybe you've been talking about it already um and I I I I've been listening you know with a lot of empathy to to both parties I do agree with the applicant that the conditions that were put on Steve's Auto and the Planning Commission

3:25:17the way they did the work was not to look to those as the guide but to look at each individual property and what its attributes are in determining whether or not the use is appropriate for the for the area so I also agree that the conditions they come up with are

3:25:28appropriate and that it it sounds like it might help you be more harmonious in terms of coexisting in such close proximity to have more of a discussion about what could be done for the property line okay my comments for this um part of the the planning process in the

3:25:52city is when it goes before the commissions and the design review is to consider each project separate and distinct and not therefore I think that's what the Planning Commission has done and not so much on the business model side as much as the physical proximity of the buildings and the size

3:26:16of the Lots so I think with that in mind uh I'm going to stick to land use issues here and not business issues I do think fencing or some sort of screening and I think there could be fencing with Landscaping to hide the fence I'm not a fan of chain link um I don't I I know as a city we don't

3:26:44like to see these things in the separating a commercial area with a chain link fence but in this case um with security being a concern of both Property Owners I think it would be advantageous to to consider that and I think too um if we need some screening if we leave

3:27:05The Bays where they are I agree since one of our desires and guidelines is to uh to screen service areas like that is that maybe we can put in some trees that would block block the bays and the visual from not only the business but from the sidewalk and and the street

3:27:29uh I would like to see as another condition in there that work not be done outside the um the bay that was one of the first things I noticed when I was studying this and uh again my family had a a a a a a state service station repair and I really didn't like when we were working with

3:27:53cars outside outside the work area sometimes we had to do that but I don't think it's necessary and so I was glad to hear that the Appellate does keep we'll be keeping everything inside and I would like since I don't know I I still don't I'm still not satisfied that

3:28:12there is a clause in here that requires uh the the Appellate here to have all applicable laws the applicant excuse me all all applicable laws from the state and the county that apply to that particular business to be satisfied and I would suspect it just isn't this project I would think that we

3:28:42would have that again I'm not asking for you to for five pages spelling out all the laws but just put in a clause that they have to have to abide and it could my concern uh in this particular case as would be with any any business like this is on the environmental making sure that

3:29:03you um runoff and that sort of thing is taken care of although it's interesting because cars today don't require nearly as much oil and and that type of work as they used to so hopefully that risk is is mitigated by current business practices uh okay so those are my concerns I would

3:29:27agree with council member Chang that we do uphold the Planning Commission I think they looked at all of those issues that were before them but I would like some additional conditions in there so so one of those conditions that you just rattled off is number four

3:29:48automobile uh automobile service will be done so only within the building and not on the parking lot so certainly one of those is is uh is already in there okay um I I'll look to staff to see about the applicable laws one um I know you've got you deal with hazardous materials shall be

3:30:10called out and you have the C3 water uh laws called out but but maybe the City attorney or staff can say address whether there should be a sort of a more generic Clause um certainly it sounded like DMV has some which which caught me by surprise that DMB has some requirements about

3:30:33sales car sales so um you know I don't see that type of um you know discussion in here so I would look to counsel and first I'll make a motion to extend the meeting by 15 minutes second the motion any injection okay we'll extend for 15 minutes I'd also just say that it's it would be easy

3:31:00enough to include a condition that requires compliance with all applicable state and federal laws thank you and that would cover anything Fair Labor practices immigration laws they're obviously required to comply with those laws anyway the benefit would be the use

3:31:15permit would be revocable if there is found to be a violation of any of those excellent and and then the other one the first one you started off with is fencing and screening I believe that there's General concurrence among all at least the majority of us that the

3:31:28fencing and screening is something we would encourage um so I would look to staff or Council just to figure out if that's something that we put into our resolution okay and there is one other issue I don't know this might take some time it's about the driveway in the back is

3:31:49there any desire to explore once the BART work is done whether a driveway is feasible or not back there is there any need I mean I I don't know that there's a need because they're coming off coming off San Pablo Avenue any delivery trucks is actually driving up that driveway

3:32:10it's behind all these buildings and then it would park in the back lot um or just park in the driveway while they're doing their delivery so you know is there any desire to explore that and if there's any reason to explore it yeah given the location of the doorways for this business and this

3:32:28is part of the reason why I was asking the applicant Mr Chow If he if he would consider a driveway off the back is that all those delivery vehicles in order to ergonomically unload any of the materials that are being delivered for his Services they're going to drive in

3:32:46and basically Park in the Ada handicap area and unload from there because it really isn't um a loading zone a logical loading zone other than unfortunately where the Ada parking is identified so well not all people come by automobile no for deliveries vehicle deliveries so

3:33:10so you know for deliveries you know I I would tend to agree I I'm encouraging the applicant to consider removing the bollards or or doing something in the back just because it may facilitate his overall business model um but I don't see it as a requirement um in regards to the BART project

3:33:36is the I is the BART project actually I mean are the BART tracks right there yeah above yes where they're right there no it's the pillars that yeah there's probably a pillow right about here and it's hard to tell whether a driveway can be in there uh feasibly in there or not

3:33:55um but there can only it would only be covered by the BART project if it uh I believe were yeah are we restoring the the street and if so is it wide enough and big enough to handle cars going in and out of a driveway that's my concern and I can't really but Bart would cover

3:34:16we aren't expecting BART to pick it up oh okay I thought I heard oh no no the question was if it's feasible after the BART project to install one do we want to require staff to explore that and potentially require that of the applicant I think the key question that councilman

3:34:35Lyman mentioned was this may be a way to make Mr xiao's business work in a better way and I would leave it up to him to decide to decide that once he starts operation yeah I I I'm not sure what because I think we're there's multiple issues number one it was you know the

3:34:57additional driveway was looking at how to deal with you know the fact that these properties are so close together and and now that I think we're talking about the fence issue I think that eliminates the circulation and it keeps everything kind of neatly separated and

3:35:14I'm not sure what would the yeah the purpose of I don't know we talked about it and had a lot of questions to staff about it so I thought I'd bring it up see if there's any desire to explore that yeah for me I would continue to encourage the applicant to consider it

3:35:29um and it potentially would facilitate a lot of things um so I would encourage the applicant to consider it and it may be something that they do once they're more fiscally uh sound but I don't believe it's a requirement for the project okay that's not the way I feel about the

3:35:50fencing and screening so as long as as long as we're discussing the fencing and screening I feel should be something that um and I don't know where it gets added because we're not a men we're not amending the use permit is that correct we're amending we're making a resolution

3:36:04we're adding conditions oh we can okay I'm sure the City attorney will correct us if we're wrong but I don't think so we can add conditions as stated at the start of the meeting yeah no I knew that but but that's in our resolution the the new the the new stipulations to the applicants

3:36:28um pl-12-0080 use permit is in our resolution any additional conditions that the council wants to add to the approval of the project if that's what it chooses to do should be clear that in it that if assuming the council wants to adopt the resolution denying the appeal and

3:36:48upholding the planning commission's decision if the council wants to add conditions those should be added to the resolution prior to adoption thank you so there's at least two so far what I've heard is that um there seems to be so far a consensus among the council to require some

3:37:07enhanced level of physical separation between the two properties with appropriate visual elements to be determined by the design review board but he said but I have not yet heard anything else that I I've not seen the all political all applicable laws those are the two that I'm in I'm talking to

3:37:24right okay okay we're not considering the driveway anymore is there any other conditions I don't think so I think those are the only two after all this okay okay so um we're here to where if council member Chang was still and and she's got to say what you said I rather

3:37:46than make me repeat it I would I'd be fine with a reference back to the the condition that I previously described plus a condition um requiring the applicant to comply with all applicable state and federal laws so the motion would be to adopt the resolution um with those two additional conditions

3:38:02of approval I would be happy to move the approval of the resolution with the two conditions we just discussed second it's been moving second to approve the a resolution to uphold the planning commission's resolution PC 12-07 with additional conditions all those in favor

3:38:30aye aye aye opposed motion carries I'd like to thank both the Appellate and the applicant for presenting tonight and best of luck to your in your business Endeavors next item please item number seven tax anticipation note here before we begin this item if staff

3:38:53could give us an idea of how long the presentation is and so we could extend the meeting at appropriate length I think I can make sure be just five minutes or so then I I would suggest we extend just to be safe to uh 10.50 certainly I will extend the meeting an

3:39:19additional really only additional five minutes okay I'll extend the meeting and I'll move to the extended meeting five minutes to the hour of 10 50. second good evening mayor Jones and member of the council I'm Mary Dodge your administrative Services director and I'm

3:39:36here tonight to talk about uh to request your consideration for a resolution issuing tax anticipation notes also known as tans and uh Tans are pretty much so what they sound like it is a short-term issue that um is used to address the cash flow concern while you are awaiting

3:39:58anticipating receipt of tax proceeds and on this instance it's property tax proceeds from Contra Costa County and we received those proceeds at 55 percent in December 45 in April and 5 in June and because of that lumpy receipt versus the even flow of operations we have a cash

3:40:21flow concern that we need to do this borrowing so we determined we had a need and then we basically looked and tried to see how much of that we needed to have so the cash flow sheet that we have in the report basically shows how we anticipate spending down the funds and when we

3:40:40would have have them be need to be repaid so we started off with a date well actually we asked um The Firm Brandis Tallman and they received we received two bids one from Chase Bank and one from West America Bank the bid at 0.75 percent is the one that we have recommended they are the

3:41:02same company that we used last year and besides the lower rate the smoothness that the transaction went was another reason for that recommendation um the cost of this whole issue is seventeen thousand dollars approximately that includes uh the interest and all of

3:41:20the other costs and uh our resolution was prepared and up taken to the financial Advisory board for their review on September 27th and at that meeting they actually found some their their excellent review they found a couple of points that make it so that we are here tonight with a revised

3:41:40resolution um specifically board member Brad kaftel found that when we looked at the date that we had on it for to mature we had changed the date and the date now fell on a Sunday and he also had recommended that we bring it closer to the date that we received the funds which was a very

3:41:58logical suggestion and we changed some of the wording in the resolution none of which changes the structure which and has all been approved and reviewed by Myers Navi so the resolution that you have before you has been revised to take into consideration those differences

3:42:17so the Fab then made a motion they had that they'd reviewed the materials that were submitted to the council and approved a motion that the underlying assumptions and need appeared feasible and they made recommended changes to some wording the maturity date and the

3:42:33timing of the repayment which are incorporated into the revised resolution before the council tonight I agree with their recommendations and with that I'll be happy to answer any questions I'll just ask one question we've used this financing before and I think we've

3:42:49used the SIM the similar event the same vendor that you're recommending tonight and how how did that go how is the service were you satisfied with that it very smoothly and which is another reason why I think that Western America is uh is a company that I do like to work with on this and

3:43:03we're trying to make sure that we have get this wording good and solid so that we can have it be able to be reused as we go forward with you know very little changes thank you yeah my question is on Section 6 6E as in Edward repayment of notes the first sentence

3:43:24says in order to give effect to the intent of this resolution a budget appropriation is hereby made in an amount sufficient to pay the notes in full so that would be a four million dollar budget appropriation I'm just curious how we can make such a budget appropriation when our our

3:43:44Reserve is only three million that's some of the wording be changing this is a principle wanted in a principal component never has to have a budget appropriation and some of this language is stuff that would have been carried over from the year before and the only budget appropriation that

3:44:00needs to be made is one that would affect revenue or expenditure and that would be the 17 000 cost so a principal portion is not ever a component of a budget there's a few other little languages the resolution is for the seventeen thousand dollar amount correct that's the only

3:44:19budget adjustment oh that was not clear because it says notes in full sentences paid notes in full so you you that's that's what as far as I can see the way it's written at the moment it would be making an appropriation of four million dollars and I don't see how we

3:44:37can make an appropriation of that amount well the way I'm I'm reading it on the on the one here is where are you eating that sorry but on the resolution number on on where it says resolution of the city council authorizing the issue issues okay so in section 6E

3:45:01would we be able to make that modification to to put the 17 000 and 6E then as well it's on page four yes I see I it uh I agree with you it's in the it's in the title of the resolution but I'm I'm not I it does appear that that it it correct there is no budget appropriation needed

3:45:29for for the note in full for the note in full but we do need an appropriation for the fee whatever they call that 17 000 right there is and a recommendation was made by The Fab that if we're planning on having this um B's annual at this time that we incorporate this into the budget and we

3:45:47don't even consider it in the future as a budget appropriation but in regards to this one item here um I'm looking at our City attorney here and that uh there is no budget appropriation necessary for the principal component well I mean I I mean the the this resolution is

3:46:09basically a model for these types of anticipation notes without being able to tell you expressly what the what the source for that is um I would I would suggest leaving it in only because um I do know that this is a fairly standard that the res all everything in

3:46:26this resolution is fairly standard so I don't um I would be I would be hesitant to take it out without knowing what the consequence of that is um I don't I mean in my additionally my I mean I think my non-accountant understanding my attorney understanding of appropriation

3:46:42is basically it's it is authority to expend funds and ultimately um the loan the the note will have to be repaid and so at that time you know there will have there will have to be Authority for the city to basically pay back the the holder of the note once this once it receives the property tax

3:47:02revenue from a budgeting accounting perspective I understand that that there's no effect on the budget there's no there's no actual appropriation from that end of things but I think that in terms of authority to make legal authority to make the expenditure I believe that's the point of the

3:47:16resolution and that is the second half of that res of that portion of the resolution is that you know once we we have to reflect the projected earnings as well so so I understand it needs to be balanced but but I guess my question is um you know do we need to have funds on

3:47:35hand in order to make this finding no I I mean I I what my understanding of this section is that it is basically saying that once once the tax revenue is received you have authorized you've already authorized the repayment of the note fantastic thank you okay seeing no other questions I make a

3:47:54move a resolution of the city council of the city of El Cerrito authorizing the issuance of a tax anticipation notes Series 2012 in an aggregate principal amount of four million dollars approving the sale thereof by private placement proving the form of said notes and

3:48:12authorizing the execution of documents related to the issuance sale and delivery of said notes and certain actions and connections therewith and to appropriate seventeen thousand dollars for financing costs okay it's been moved and seconded on the motion all those in favor

3:48:28aye opposed the motion carries just like to make a comment um if we did not authorize the 4 million tonight on October the 15th we would be minus one million dollars so it comes at a good time and um I'm glad to hear it no Mary stay there I'm just glad to hear that the Fab

3:48:51did suggest that this is going to be a yearly thing we might as well build it into the budget because I was going to say that it's also it might be the Target that we use in the future for our uh Revenue that our Reserve fund for lack of a better term Reserve fund be

3:49:09since uh we're going to be borrowing except my only question was on that and I'll be very quick is there some way of readjusting this so we don't have to or this is just the lay of the land and this is how the money comes out primarily from the state I understand

3:49:25part of the reason that we need this now it um it seems to me like it goes it would be either economically cyclical organizationally cyclical if we had unspent Bond proceeds like we did before if we had some some funds before had two and three years of unspent tax increment

3:49:43or Revenue we had those available in a pooled cash basis we would not need this but that's not the case these days right and so now it comes down to cash flow yeah so people should understand we have the money it's just cash flow by conditions that we have no control over

3:49:59correct and this is really a very standard way of dealing with it one of the things we might want to do is look at some of this language which has been standard for templates as a whole during this period often simplify some of these ones because we were looking at some of

3:50:13this at the Fab kind of going well we're not really sure but where it is the template it is a standard format so we kind of left it alone okay well thank you looking uh we have our last agenda item please council member assignments and reports and I believe the meeting needs to be extended again

3:50:34is that right unless we're gonna report anybody need to report the only thing I need to report is the party on October 26th the arts and culture commission put in a lot of time to plan it so I hope to see some of you there okay with that I'm looking for a motion to adjourn so moved

3:50:49second the mood is second to adjourn all those in favor aye thanks for coming always