City Council Meeting February 5, 2013

0:00:02good evening I'm going to uh request this the C clerk uh take roll call council member benicini here councilmember Bridges here councilmember Friedman here mayor Pro tem Abelson here and mayor Lyman thank you um first item on the agenda is Pledge of Allegiance if you'll join me in the

0:00:25Pledge of Allegiance thank you pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you our second item is Council and staff Communications I'm going to start

0:00:52on the outside and work my way in Jan Mark no in it no okay Rebecca I'm happy to just make a couple first I wanted to acknowledge um Todd Groves is here uh one of our um one of our Board of Education folks as well as Suzanne Ireland we both just came from the whale event at Fairmont

0:01:14Elementary School so I wanted to acknowledge the event that was put on there where an entire gray whale a set of Bones from a whale was set out and there were you know maybe a hundred people there there was a steel drum from one of our Avenue stores playing it was

0:01:28a great event so I really want to be making appreciative remark for the parent who put that together Ben Klein I also wanted to mention that coming up on February 12th uh the presentation of the climate action plan will take place in this in this room at 7 pm and the last

0:01:43thing I wanted to mention was that we haven't met for quite a while now because we've been interviewing people for commissions and I wanted to just acknowledge that we had such a tremendous response and we want to thank all of our residents who applied for these positions and we just had a great

0:01:55set of folks to to choose from who I think are going to serve our city very well in the coming term great thank you um I have one uh announcement that is a result of going to the West County mayor's conference where we did have a presentation about uh Community

0:02:13identification cards and uh Richmond is is finalizing a process where they've selected a a vendor that provides a community identification card that can also function as a automatic teller uh money card type card and so it's uh an interesting program I did ask if uh if

0:02:37our city would be able to uh piggyback on their program and uh hopefully we'll get more information next month as to whether this is something we can offer to our residents uh through uh through the Richmond program so that's something I will keep you posted on uh that I

0:02:55thought was quite worthy of bringing forward and in case there are members of the public that are interested in the community identification okay um are there any staff Communications yes thank you um in light of the the recent shooting on the green Ohlone Greenway and comments

0:03:13we've received we thought it was a good timing to ask the police department to spend a few minutes talking about the greenway and some of the trends that we've seen and some of their thoughts for the future so we'd like to do that here's Lieutenant Keith good evening mayor Lyman council

0:03:32members and Mr Hannan thank you for having me here tonight my name is Paul Keith and I'm the patrol Lieutenant at the El Cerrito Police Department wanted to take some time tonight to give you a brief communication about crime Trends on the Ohlone Greenway as well as

0:03:44the police department's response to crime and the fear of crime to start with this chart indicates a five-year trend of robberies assaults and rapes on the BART path so these are crimes that occur on the actual path itself some things to note are the decrease in

0:04:02crimes we experienced in 2010 2011 and 2012. now I can't claim sole responsibility from the police department for reductions in 2012 because much of the path was closed due to reconstruction of the bar path pillars as well as Landscaping however we did see significant reductions in

0:04:192009 and 2010 well 2009 to 2010.

0:04:24we attribute some of these to some of the changes we've made on the BART path um those changes include the installation surveillance cameras as well as some changes in the way we Patrol the bar path um beginning in the end of 2008 into 2009 and 10. the police department spent

0:04:39an increased amount of time doing bicycle Patrol on the bar path in response to the higher levels of crime that we saw in 2008. we've also been working cooperatively with the parks department to create a comprehensive plan for replanting and re-landscaping the pathway in ways that we think will

0:04:58help continue to keep crime levels low on the bar path some other data we looked at was the difference between crime during daylight hours and crime during nighttime hours I use the time frame of six in the morning to 6 PM as a general guideline for daylight hours on the bar path one of

0:05:17the things we wanted to look at is to see if there was a difference between daytime Trends and nighttime trends for the most part they both occur at approximately the same rate over the last five years and both had a similar level of decline as seen over the five-year period for Crime overall

0:05:37I hope this uh helped provide a greater insight into some crime in the BART path and some of the police department's response to it we look forward to continuing to focus our enforcement efforts when we have the newly reconstructed Bart path and we're definitely looking forward to uh working

0:05:55with the public better when we have greater sight lines a wider path and even more increased use of the BART path as the city's resource in closing we continue to be proactive and fulfill our mission we're committed to service Safety and enhancing the public trust through professionalism and

0:06:12Leadership thank you great thank you councilmember um I just have one question do we see any um Trends versus near the high school versus the north end of town or or is there any well different amounts of crime yeah I would say that different areas of town are susceptible to different types of

0:06:34crime um some of the crime numbers around the high school for example lead towards assault type crimes and it's uh a lot of times it's like the lunchtime period where we have uh surges in things like assaults and batteries at the high school it's a lot of times it's like

0:06:50schoolyard fights the classified as assaults around the high school around our commercial areas generally we see uh greater increases in crime because the businesses themselves draw crime as well so stores like Safeway and Lucky's are two drivers of crimes like

0:07:09robberies in the area because it's crimes associated with people resisting arrests during Petty thefts but those are so yes there are different types of crimes in different areas and it tends to be driven by the environment around them thank you that's my reason any questions no I

0:07:26don't council member just one question thanks for the presentation do you happen to know if the trends over the five-year period are pretty similar for the city or is the is the pathway different than the city or are those kind of city-wide trends that are also

0:07:40manifesting themselves in that geography we haven't seen those kind of reductions in robbery Citywide we have seen them on the BART path themselves so thank you so they uh they reduce at a much higher rate on the bar path than they did across the overall City great thank you I had one question she

0:07:58came to me I didn't have it before her question sparked it uh have we seen uh similar statistics for Albany I haven't looked into that however that is something I can do if the council would like me to do that well don't spend a lot of time on it but I'd be curious thank you probably wouldn't be

0:08:13that hard yeah okay all right thank you thank you very much thank you any other staff reports with that we would like to move on to agenda item three um we will be allowing uh three minutes per person there is a lighting uh device in the front uh to help manage your time

0:08:34um the green yellow red with is stop with that I will ask the C clerk to call forward the first speaker please Peter low ball good evening I'm Peter lobaldo saritan uh later tonight you will debate and maybe decide the Pledge of Allegiance issue any serious discussion of this topic

0:08:59shouldn't ignore its tie-in to the Loyalty oath currently not just planning Commissioners who are legally obliged to do so but also any applicant to an Advisory Board position must sign this oath this topic was an issue five years ago and I have distributed distributed uh

0:09:20related right up by my wife Rosemary you have it and she'd like it included in the minutes I also have a 1997 this opinion by California attorney general by the California attorney general it confirms that advisory bodies are not required to take an oath of office I'd like that

0:09:44to be included in the minutes too and I'll leave it with Cheryl now I'm here to ask you to please agendized this the unnecessary loyalty oath issue for a future meeting I noticed today at 6 30 PM that the opinion survey about the Pledge of Allegiance had an equal 50 50 split it's interesting I

0:10:09assume it'll stay that way because either side will bring in their people and it is a controversial issue with some and a ridiculous issue for others now I'm hoping that the patch is represented here in the conduct a similar survey on on the Loyalty oath these topics are

0:10:28related and by the way I'd like to say that I proudly signed the Loyalty oath when I became a citizen and I do not want the oath to become a robotic formality that's why I'm here thank you thank you very much you'll be any of the speakers our next speaker is Tom panis

0:10:52please uh good evening mayor Lyman members of the council and City staff my name is Tom panis and I live at [address removed] in El Cerrito on May 15 2012 an extension of the exclusive negotiating rights agreement with Eden Housing regarding the tradeway project came before the council

0:11:24my suggestion that evening was that we will add time to your your time my suggestion that evening was that the enra not be renewed because my my view Eden had been so unreceptive the community's thoughts and wishes however when I later watched the video of that

0:11:42meeting I was quite surprised to learn that Eden had submitted revised plans these plans addressed a number of the community's concerns that were expressed in my letter of November 17 2011.

0:11:52while the revised plans are not perfect they're stepping the right direction I would not have recommend the council decline to renew the enri if I'd known about them so I apologize to the council to the staff and to Eden for not being better informed about the status of the

0:12:04project I also apologize to Barbara Hill who graciously presented my comments which I later learned were well not well informed to the Council on that evening since I was out of town this evening the council has been asked to approve a contract with PMC for environmental review services on the

0:12:20trade away project I favor approving the contract the staff indicates the work will likely be an eir although it might be a mitigated negative declaration it's hard to believe it'll be a mitigated negative declaration since the current plans anticipate altering a historic

0:12:33resource but regardless of the type of report there will need to be mitigation secret mandates that these processes are public processes and it's becoming more common to include concerned members of the community in the discussions and decision making regarding mitigation for

0:12:46historic resources from the get-go this happened this happened with the mirror florist project in Richmond and I suggest this is how we should operate here in El Cerrito as well to ensure the mitigation proposal is both appropriate and adequate there should be at least two members of the

0:13:00community taking part in any discussion about mitigating regarding the historic resource on this site in fact discussions and decision making about mitigation when any historic resource in elsewhere that's being altered should always include advocates for that resource to ensure the Public's

0:13:13voice is heard before and during the time a plan for mitigation is being developed thank you for your time this evening Mr Penis you gave us two handouts what's the relationship to the when is your your when is the letter I referred to okay thank you next speaker please no other speakers

0:13:32for public comment General are there anybody here who would wish to speak to an item on the consent calendar or any other topic under our jurisdiction other than those that are on the agenda seeing no one else we'll move on to item four which is a presentation yes would all members of the crime

0:13:59prevention committee who are here please come forward I see you back there good evening Mr Mayor members of the council City staff and members of the public hi I'm Robert delacampa I'm a lieutenant at the police department uh with me tonight Sergeant Scott cliott

0:14:21members of the El Cerrito crime finishing committee Jean go and Catherine Krueger we're here to talk about National Night Out in 2012 this was the 16th year that the police bar participated in the National Night Out event it's held on the first Tuesday of every August and

0:14:38it's an event for Neighbors to get to know each other no members of the city staff and to talk about crime prevention the police department partner with the community registered parties we did it through an online process this year on July 19th there was a hosted

0:14:55informational meeting for persons that were going to host the parties and then on Monday August 6th we did the National Night Out of operation actually part one of it I should say which was the hosting of a movie they showed the movie Cars 2 at the theater in El Cerrito it was free for kids to

0:15:14attend the following night the true event was Tuesday August 7th we had 29 different block parties throughout the city with over 1500 persons participating city-wide there were parties held at Homes at city parks there were block parties like in the street there were barbecues potlucks

0:15:33various forms of get-togethers kind of customized by the persons that we're hosting police and fire and many other City staff members went to each event to try to get to know the public and vice versa the program itself is actually sponsored to an organization called the National

0:15:52Association of town watch the National Association of town watch recognized El Cerrito for outstanding participation for cities with a population between fifteen thousand and fifty thousand so we came in ranked at 13th out of 288 participating organizations the crime prevention committee plays an

0:16:13integral role in the entire event they've assisted us with putting the event together they participate in their neighborhoods and go to other neighborhoods this year they will be doing their next meeting is actually next week February 13th in this building in the hillside

0:16:31room so if anyone is interested in attending their public meetings and they'd be happy to have more persons present for the meetings but as of now we have the award which was received from National Association of town watch and we'd like to present it to the city council this evening

0:16:48that's great um any questions before we go down and take our photo okay let's roll on down we're gonna hit you right thank you [Applause] foreign so I want to reiterate what uh uh Bridge committee now has I think five members and we'll be meeting again uh next Wednesday night seven o'clock here

0:18:35at City Hall anybody who's interested in participating in uh crime prevention in our city should please come and participate in that meeting and find out how to become a member so thank you very much for that wonderful award and and that recognition with that we are going to move on to the

0:18:55consent calendar item five adoption of the consent calendar I'm seeking anybody who would like to sever any of the items seeing none do I have a motion I move through 5G second uh show that it's been the Motions are made and seconded all those in favor say aye aye opposed abstentions seeing none

0:19:23Mass uh it passes five zero um item six adoption of the growth management element of the El Cerrito uh General plan so we're going to conduct a public hearing which consists of a staff presentation questions from Council uh opening it up for the public discussion

0:19:48calling for public comment uh testimony and then we will close a motion to close the hearing and then a discussion at the council level uh with that is there a staff presentation Mr Moss thank you good evening mayor Lyman council members what is before you tonight is a minor

0:20:17update of the growth management element of the El Cerrito General plan first a little background the growth management element was included in the general plan uh in order when it was adopted in 1999 in order to comply with measure C which was the transportation

0:20:34funding measure that was in place at that time uh in 2006 Contra Costa County voters uh passed measure J which is the current transportation funding measure measure J requires that cities comply with the Contra Costa Transportation authorities growth Management program in

0:20:54order to receive measure J funding CCTA releases a growth Management program checklist every other year the the most recent growth management checklist requires adoption of a growth management element which complies with ccta's growth management model growth management

0:21:13element ccta's last checklist required a draft growth management element be submitted as part of that checklist the city submitted a draft and that draft was accepted by CCTA along with all of the other checklist items the the um as I said the the current checklist

0:21:34requires uh that this that the city council formally adopt a growth management element so the document that is before you tonight reflects the draft that was accepted by CCTA and is before you for for adopt for your consideration of its adoption um the the element basically complies uh

0:21:57I'm sorry the element basically compiles information that's found elsewhere in the general plan um so there aren't any substantive uh new policies um or implementation measures that are that are not found elsewhere in the general plan um given the the limited scope of of the

0:22:18changes that are being proposed uh staff has determined that the uh the amendment is exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality act we tried very much to to limit the the scope of the changes so that it would be exempt under sequel um further any further changes to the

0:22:38document may may require additional environmental review so that concludes my presentation and I can answer any questions you might have so we have a document in front of us that was handed out at the diocese it has a few Red Line edits can you please describe how this uh compares to the

0:23:01document we reviewed uh in the agenda packet yes um so the um the document that you had in the agenda packet as I said reflected the draft that was submitted to ccata it was also reviewed um by the Planning Commission which recommended uh that the that the city

0:23:21council adopted um subsequent to that when after the packets were sent out we received comments from a couple of council members um and we went through the document and made uh a few minor typographical changes correcting a couple of typos there's there's one sentence that is

0:23:42that's struck for clarity purposes um that that sentence led to some confusion and so uh we we decided that it was that it didn't change the meaning of the paragraph and it just made more sense to strike that sentence great there were a number of other small typographical errors that I recommended

0:24:03like commas and twos and Oz and I'm not seeing those reflected here my understanding is those might be addressed through administrative changes uh we could do it that way I I apologize I I tried to go through the comments and and make all of the the changes that

0:24:19were um simply typos and and things of that nature I apologize if I missed anything hard to see they might be hard to see if if there are some for example that we see can we uh what's the best way that these these truly minor things can be dealt with um since I know you submitted them in

0:24:40writing to the staff that they'll be able to reconcile those against what's been presented tonight and if any of them have been overlooked they can be made administratively since they are just in the nature of typos excellent because I just don't want to take the

0:24:51time to go through them here uh but I want to make sure that we leave the process open so those those can be corrected they can okay um any questions for staff yes I just have one question um Sean can you just talk really briefly about the planning commissions discussion if you remember it they did

0:25:09they did talk about they did push this um up to us with a recommendation of adoption but if you want to just kind of summarize their discussion yeah the Planning Commission um they made one minor change to the document when they uh when they recommended approval of it

0:25:25um they did have some concerns um that pedestrian and and bicycle safety was not adequately addressed in the document um staff staff encouraged them not in in keeping with the SQL exemption um for this amendment staff encouraged them not to to make any major changes to

0:25:48the policies in the document but we did make uh they did make a minor text change that is reflected in the version you have I I think it was it was the matter of adding a a clause that mentioned bicycle and pedestrian safety to to one of the sentences yes I recall

0:26:03they look they looked poorly upon sentences that were specific to vehicles and then didn't include other other modes so thank you for that any other questions questions for staff okay that moves us to the next part of this agenda item which is opening it up for a public hearing

0:26:24so we move it to public hearing and I know we have at least one speaker if not two I'm the first speaker is Tom panis foreign members of the city council and City staff my name is Tom pianist and I live at [address removed] in El Cerrito on Saturday January 26th we had an open and

0:26:54engaging conversation in this room regarding our future strategic plan one of the decisions of the council at that meeting was that the strategy used to implement the goals of the Strategic plan should include one El Cerrito adopt historic resources ordinance and two El

0:27:08Cerrito perform a survey of the town to identify the most likely historic resources paragraph 15 of the implementation section of the growth management element of the general plan titled historical inventory and designation States the city will initiate a survey the city but

0:27:21I see no reference to a historic resources ordinance a reference that would be proper in this section I realized the adoption historic resource ordinance is not imminent but the council did request the Strategic plan include adoption of such an ordinance we should add some language in section 15

0:27:33to cover interaction between the survey and any such ordinance since it's a rare historical ordinance does not create historic resources Board of commission to reference the ordinance should also include any border commission created by such an ordinance I provide comments regarding paragraph

0:27:4610 development review of The implementation section I see no reference whatsoever the historic resource is here there's a reference to SQL but it's quite General and SQL has a very broad scope section 10 should specifically include language about house uh screening of

0:28:00sites for possible historic resources for possible economics historic significance before building a demolition permits are issued is incorporated development review processes regarding historic resources are incorporated into development review the results of the survey of the city

0:28:14are Incorporated in development review and any future historic resources ordinance and board of commission created by such an ordinance are incorporated into development review in Section 8 development incentives we offer developers incentives proposing projects to exemplify good Community

0:28:27design because they include certain desirable features both proper treatment of our historic resources and Innovative adaptive reuse of our historic resources should be among the features on the list in the development incentives section I realize that my comments are in

0:28:41reference to a documents created before the meeting on January 26th but we should get this correct at the beginning rather than rather than having to patch it up later thank you for your time this evening thank you any other speakers uh no other speakers for this item

0:29:01do I have a motion to close the public hearing I move that we close the public hearing second all those in favor of closing the public hearing hi hi opposed abstentions motion passes unanimously um discussion motion and discussion at this point uh comments thoughts

0:29:26all right we're going to start with Mr Friedman since Rebecca's still uh getting her thoughts together oh okay uh I think the the plan makes sense um I have questions for staff about Mr panos's comments and the appropriateness of including some of these concerns

0:29:54not to put you on this battery no that's fine um I I would just reiterate um with with the scope of of these amendments we were really trying to be um conscientious of of just limiting the scope to what was required for for measure J compliance and and so that really was the

0:30:14um the purpose of of preparing this this revision to the element um and so um at this time we've we've moved we've presented the um the amendment to you as exempt from review under SQL as I stated and and so I would just um encourage the council to be kind of conscientious of that and and

0:30:39um be aware that you know that making any other changes especially to the the language of the policies and the implementation measures um would would probably warrant at least looking at additional environmental review if I could add to Mr Moss's response um the issues that Mr Penis raised were

0:31:01not agendized for the meeting tonight additionally um you know I think that that it while it might seem like there'd be no need for additional environmental review to add those changes we would need to actually review whether or not SQL itself would require some additional

0:31:17review of those issues before they were added and then finally I believe that that although the council directed that those matters be addressed as part of the Strategic plan that the staff and the Consultants are still working on the best way to implement that within the

0:31:30Strategic plan itself so I think that probably we'd want to refine um that direction that the council gave before um sort of rolling that up into an element of the general plan any other questions yeah Jan any questions to add Rebecca no I'm I just want to add um the Planning Commission to go through

0:31:55this pretty carefully and they had a number of suggestions similar to what Mr Tom Mr pan is brought up they had a broad scope they wanted to address but they also came to the conclusion that anything that's more broad than what's kind of explicitly in this growth

0:32:09management element needs to be dealt with in a more comprehensive fashion either through the general plan or through the Strategic plan so there was a lot of interest in you know updating and refreshing our documents but there was an acknowledgment that this is not

0:32:21the best way to do it and that we need a more comprehensive process to add in more goals and more plans and I just wanted to comment about uh the transition from major J to Major I mean major C to measure J and comment that uh in fact we although a lot of things are similar in the two majors

0:32:43especially in terms of policy some things are different and I think what this is intended to do is to make that transition um and um so I saw things too that I you know I wanted to change but um my understanding is that this is not the appropriate place to do it time and

0:33:03place so this is why we need to do a um General plan uh new general plan and bring it into the Modern Age um which I'm sure will require any an eir uh um to to that end you know I I too had the same sort of uh just the hierarchy just the order the sequence in which

0:33:29these things are focused on they're it's focused on uh level of service of roadways prior to level of service of our city services like parks and police and fire and even though it seems relatively minor just changing the order of the the emphasis just changing the

0:33:48order that they appear in this document would potentially uh change the emphasis change our the importance of it and so although it's not something I'm suggesting we do it's something I I would encourage as we go through the general Plan update process um that's you know that's sort of the

0:34:06theme of streets first and then uh and then the services that our city provides at a great expense I'd love to see that prioritized properly and that would potentially reflect itself in resequencing the goals and policies again not something I'm proposing tonight but there are certainly certain

0:34:26goals and policies that I think our Council would highlight in uh you know in prior to um compliance with applicable levels of service standards which is goal number two for example um so uh but there are there's at least one uh correction that I need to propose

0:34:47tonight um because it's not in my written comments and it's on page 4-56 I believe it's in the same place on both documents let me double check yes it is 4-56 the discussion about cutting Boulevard the last sentence says uh most significant congestion occurs east of

0:35:15Carlson Boulevard and uh cutting Boulevard intersects Carlson Boulevard about a mile west of El Cerrito so I'm I'm just trying to figure out uh staff should we be inserting the words occurs in Richmond east of Carlson Boulevard so as much as this this sentence may be

0:35:39true but I'm not certain that we have congestion in El Cerrito on cutting Boulevard so I'm just curious if if that's uh if this sentence is to remain can we at least acknowledge that this intersection is in Richmond yeah that senses and since it does seem out of place um

0:36:00say in Richmond or change it to say in El Cerrito the congestion on cutting occurs near San Pablo Avenue um something to that effect that would be that would be an acceptable edit to me to to recognize that the congestion is not this this this seems to be talking about

0:36:19congestion in Richmond and and we're an El Cerrito document so that's that's an acceptable edit to me um I'm getting consensus that we make that edit um there was one other change that what what's the change the most significant congestion occurs at the intersection of San Pablo Avenue

0:36:40and cutting in El Cerrito one of the other changes I proposed that's not what I would consider typographical is on page 4-58 foreign Emergency Services the second and third sentences in their under service standard the city's resources alone are insufficient to meet hence the

0:37:17department contracts with both of those similarly that the fire had a similar discussion about the fact that they get Mutual Aid and those two census should really be under the service function section and not necessarily in the service standard uh section so I'm

0:37:36wondering if uh if that's something that seems appropriate by if staff is amenable to that change and if the council would recognize that it's not typographical so it's it's really just an organizational change I'm fine with that okay yeah you know the trouble I'm having with this whole

0:38:00thing is that um the the intent of this is to update the general plan to reflect major J correct and um this has nothing to do with major J so um and what what we when we get when we got this document it doesn't show what the chain you know what kind of what the changes are that are related

0:38:27to Major J in this version of the document so I'm having trouble then uh I understand that there may be these may be valid things to do but it seems like not the right place to do it somehow and it's kind of mixing we're replacing these pages in total and so I I just want to for me this this is just

0:38:48a minor change that doesn't seem like it reaches our sequa threshold it's it's it's the topic that's the issue not the um the fact that it's are you suggesting we shouldn't make this check change I'm I'm I can't exactly tell from this what the changes are from the original General plan to

0:39:12this because how I don't know what how do I tell I don't I can't tell what they are so I'm not sure that it's the right place to be making these changes and I wish that staff would tell me the answer foreign so I think real I think it would help maybe real briefly if I if I went over

0:39:34generally the the changes that are in this document um the the first thing is basically a lot of references to measure C have been changed to measure J and and that language has been updated slightly to to reflect the requirements of the requirements of measure J rather than

0:39:55measure c um the other thing is a lot of um you'll see it actually in in the back of uh in the the goals section A lot of a lot of goals have been reiterated in this section so they've been compiled from other places in the general plan and just duplicate it here

0:40:15um there are I'm sorry policies rather not goals um there are two um policies which have been added both of which um the the exact language isn't a duplicate from somewhere else but the but the the policy itself is so one of them simply reiterates that the council has uh in

0:40:402006 that that the city council adopted the county-wide urban limit line um so that that's something that was already done the policy just acknowledges that um and the other one um acknowledges a lot of policies which are otherwise contained in the housing element

0:40:57um it's it's nothing um it's not it's not a new policy in essence it just duplicates a lot of a lot of other policies which are found in the housing element um so those are those are generally um the changes um in regard to uh what has been done to to comply with measure J versus measure

0:41:18c um there there are some things that measure C required which measure J no longer does such as uh the use of of level of service as a standard um and also the the requirement that um some of these service standards for for different Public Services be set measure

0:41:40J doesn't actually require those things any longer but because they're so intertwined in other parts of the general plan level of service is used as a as a metric throughout the the transportation element of the general plan um they they were kept here and and the

0:41:56text actually acknowledges that if if you read the the introduction section it acknowledges that although measure J doesn't require these things any longer they're they're found in other parts of the of the general plan and used in other parts of the general plan and so

0:42:10they were kept here for that reason so does that answer your question uh yes and then um so so I'm back to the question of why we would um why we should be addressing any I because I see things here too but I you know the job is not to do that I mean we need to kind of decide whether or not we

0:42:31can do that and I thought I heard um our attorney say this is not the place to do other kinds of things this is the place to address the change from major C to measure J so that's what I would present to the council I suppose is a question I have one comment I I

0:42:49suggested that some language be struck and I kind of viewed our role definitely our staff is helping to protect us from getting us into trouble with sequa but I think it's also we we serve as another set of eyes for a public document just to make it more readable so as I was

0:43:03reading it I was going through and trying to find places that were just confusing and didn't make sense and I made suggested changes um that Sean some took and some he didn't and I and I kind of viewed that as our role just trying if we're going to put out a new if we're

0:43:16going to update a public document but our our goal is not to make real policy changes but just to update it for new circumstances we might as well take the time to make it either correct if there are grammar errors or more readable to the public if there's something that's

0:43:31under a category doesn't make sense so I I'm of the mind that we could makes minor changes as long as they don't run afoul of what sky brought to our attention of that is sometimes seemingly minor changes on the surface actually do have policy changes even though maybe the um the person

0:43:51making the changes didn't think they did they in fact do because a lot of times a lot of effort has gone into the exact words that are used especially in this kind of stuff and um so word it does make a change so that that's my concern is that and the whole document the general plan that

0:44:14is is in my opinion in great need of being replaced so you know we're going to do that and this so therefore I would just I get nervous about doing it you know and then because then we need to look at whether or not that is making a um policy level change so I go back to

0:44:35one of my questions are you opposing this movement of these two sentences to the preceding section I would like to stop all of these changes to things that don't relate to the change from major C to measure J which was the topic so you oppose the moving of the two senses yeah

0:44:53I just wanna and without even looking at that well I understand you're not opposing the concept of the movement you're I mean you're moving opposing the concept of the movement not the actual movement councilmember I just like to hear from the city attorney about

0:45:05whether moving those last two sentences from standard over to service function is that relevant to causing us issues I mean it's it's it's such a minor issue it's someone it's actually somewhat difficult to say um but I mean this isn't introducing a new concept it's just moving existing

0:45:22text from one place to another I don't imagine that it would be um such a significant change that it would need to be reagendized um that seems to me like it would be relatively safe that said I mean I do understand what what council member Ableton is saying which is that the the

0:45:37focus of of the staff amendments that were brought forward were to focus on changes to accommodate measure J But ultimately if the change is one that is um you know reorganizing existing text that doesn't change policy then I think it's within the scope of what the

0:45:54council can do without having to be concerned about reagendizing it all right I can go either way we're gonna we're gonna bite this apple many more times hopefully over the next two years so councilmember Friedman I'd like to make a motion uh resolution 2013 XX

0:46:12which is a resolution to the city council the city of El Cerrito adapting that growth management element and revisions to the growth management section of chapter four Community Development and design of the El Cerrito General plan with the amendment of the change on The Cutting Boulevard

0:46:31a second all those in favor say aye aye opposed abstentions measure passes unanimously thank you uh we are now moving on to item 7A um Amendment of the city council meeting rules and procedures to eliminate the Pledge of Allegiance and with this I will ask Mr Friedman to

0:47:01introduce the item thank you very much I think it's interesting that this issue has caused such a stir and press attention I'd rather see El Cerrito recognize for our world-class recycling center our wonderful public servants are extremely well maintained roads or our natural

0:47:19beauty and wonderful Parks and Recreation facilities but potential controversy always attracts attention and fortunately our high quality of public service in El Cerrito is not very controversial so I was asked by a reporter if the city doesn't have more important topics to

0:47:37address and I told them certainly there are many important issues that the city and the council deal with and we give most of these topics much more time than I expect tonight's discussion will take since we started every council meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance before

0:47:53doing anything else it sets the stage for all of our meetings that's why I think it's relevant to discuss at our strategic planning session on January 26th the consultant listed one of the limitations of El Cerrito as quote doing things because that's the way we've always done them unquote and

0:48:12that spirit I want to discuss whether to continue the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance so that we either consciously affirm that recitation or we decide to modify or discontinue the practice I love the United States and the people who live here I want to be clear that I

0:48:28raised this issue not out of any anti-patriotic sentiment and I respect the opinion of those who Embrace The Pledge and as an important affirmation of their faith in our nation and in God I also respect those in the military law enforcement and firefighters who risk

0:48:46their lives in service to our city and Country by raising the issue of the Pledge is not intended in any way to undermine their sacrifices I've done a lot of research about the pledge and learned that it was first introduced in 1892 by a Christian socialist Minister named Francis Bellamy

0:49:04Mr Bellamy in the publication he worked for called use companion youth yoth apostrophe s developed the pledge in conjunction with the 400th anniversary of Columbus's arrival in North America their group also sold a lot of flags The Pledge has been revised three times

0:49:24since then with the last change coming in 1954 with the addition of the words under God I suggest that it may need to be updated to reflect how dramatically our nation and world has changed since 1892 in 1954.

0:49:40I'm not sure taking a pledge to start our City Council meetings is necessary and indeed the city councils of Fremont Alameda and Berkeley do not say the Pledge all of us City Council Members taken us oath to uphold the Constitution where when we are sworn in in my research I found many Divergent

0:50:00opinions on the pledge including those on the right and on the left who oppose the pledges and infringement on freedom and many people who oppose the phrase under God as a violation of the separation of church and state in The Establishment Clause of the United

0:50:16States Constitution here are my problems with the pledge is currently recited one we as council members are elected to serve the residents of El Cerrito not to represent the entire Republic of the United States and the flag two the world has changed tremendously

0:50:35in the 111 years since Mr Bellamy first wrote the Pledge among his goals were to have a pledge that the country would rally around to represent the post-civil war unified country that appears to be why he used the term One Nation indivisible which my Elementary School classmates usually

0:50:55resize One Nation invisible now our country is well past the Civil War period and we increasingly are interdependent with the rest of the world environmentally economically technologically and spiritually We Are One Planet and our children's future depends on learning to cooperate on a

0:51:14global scale to address the tremendous challenges of global warming poverty and providing food clothing shelter education and health care for everyone indeed until we succeed in solving these challenges it is difficult to say that we are providing liberty and justice for

0:51:33all the flag of the United States and the noble sentiments it is intended to represent but I love the people of the United States more we as council members are elected to serve the people of El Cerrito not the flag in the entire United States if we determined that a pledge of some

0:51:51kind is preferable to start our meetings I would suggest the pledge like this I pledge to serve the people of El Cerrito the United States and the world to the best of my ability and to work for liberty and justice for all for those who say the Pledge is a tradition and that it's presumptuous to

0:52:12alter it or consider a stopping its recitation I say the original original Pledge was the creation of one man and that tradition has been modified several times just as the U.S flag has been modified many times the pledge was not ornate ordained from on high and why

0:52:29can't we in El Cerrito determine consciously if we wanted to continue continue the pledge in its current form or not so I bring this discussion forward in the spirit of healthy Democratic engagement and look forward to hearing the views of the public and my colleagues

0:52:46any questions for councilmember Friedman with that we will open it up for public comment Al Miller good evening mayor council members and Ms Al Miller I live at [address removed] here in El Cerrito I believe very strongly in the separation of the church and state for

0:53:12that reason I stopped reciting the pledge in 1954.

0:53:16as a veteran of 26 years of service in the United States Navy which has moved me all around the country and I've been active in the communities I lived in then as I have been here in El Cerrito I bore or perceive no adverse impact in my relations with my neighbors and

0:53:36people because of my choice therefore I would support the removal of the Pledge from the council meeting agenda another reason is I believe reciting the pledge has become almost a thoughtless rote process by way too many people who do it I don't think most people even think

0:53:58about what they're saying when they say it it's like now they lay me down to sleep pray the Lord my soul to keep Etc for example what is a governor of Texas thinking if anything when he says indivisible when he recites The Pledge but yet proposes that Texas withdraw

0:54:14from the Union what about the dozen or so Republican Governors what are they thinking when they vote to restrict the voting opportunities of their citizens when they are at attempt to recast the Electoral College in a purely partisan way that will deny the intention of the

0:54:34Constitution when they continue their war on women's health trying to eliminate abortion and other constitutionally provided services what do they think when they repeat liberty and justice for all when they say under God who's God you're a God my God Christian God Muslim God

0:54:56what about the people in the United States who don't believe in God did they just not say it does that change anything finally as council member of Friedman very eloquently stated the pledge has nothing to do with your role as council members and I would strongly support the dropping of

0:55:17the pledge of allegiance to the flag and adopting the pledge of service to the citizens and the residents of El Cerrito council member Friedman suggested thank you thank you any other speakers okay we'll bring it back to council for discussion I'm going to jump in you're gonna jump

0:55:44in all right um I I did not prepare remarks tonight mark because I when I saw this on the agenda I really wanted to hear what you had to say and I didn't come into this with any pregnancy Notions and I'm going to make a couple comments but I'm not I want to hear what

0:55:57other council members have to say um before I come down on one side of the issue or the other um we've all been reciting the pledge since we were probably six years old um being up here is a lot different for me I would say I I think the the I've been kind of trying to think about the

0:56:13things I like about things I don't the things I do like about it is it is for me a moment of reflection and I do think I'm a representative of our democracy and I do think of I'm sitting here and there's somebody sitting at the White House with a desk very much like this

0:56:26and he's making decisions on behalf of all of us and I'm doing the best I can to make decisions um for our our small piece of this country um the other thing I like about it is it begins our meeting in a harmonious note of an asterisk next to that because it begins our meeting on a harmonious note

0:56:43because we're all reciting the same words there are probably very few phrases we could all recite together by memory without much thought and then we dive into a meeting where we're maybe gonna not have as as harmonious of a moment um so those are sort of my initial

0:56:58thoughts I put an asterisk next to harmonious because hearing your thoughts it wouldn't it wouldn't seem the same to me if we are standing up to recite this pledge and we're not beginning on a harmonious note because of the feelings you've expressed so I'd like to hear

0:57:10what other council members have to say I did have Cheryl go back for me just out of curiosity about the note that you had um on the we've been doing it like this forever so let's keep doing it and I did have her go back to the 1955 agenda just to look back on what we have been doing

0:57:24over these last 60 years and at that time of course we had a pledge and we had a prayer so it's not as though we haven't over from time to time change the way our agendas are are put forward so I thought it was just kind of interesting to look back on how actually

0:57:35for the most part similar the agendas are with the exception of the prayer so those are sort of my first thoughts and I love to hear what other people have to say council members any thoughts well um I thought I thought I probably thought one way when I came here and I

0:57:52found what a council member Friedman had to say pretty interesting um actually and um what I'm mostly thinking about is the idea of changing it and uh and saying El Cerrito but then I kind of think about that I thought about that a little more while this has been going on

0:58:17and um I like to think we're not so isolated as to only think we're thinking about ourselves but I think so I'm not really even sure about that now so um but I do I actually enjoy saying the Pledge of Allegiance um and because I and I think it's it's much the way that Rebecca does it I was

0:58:39talking about because I do sort of think about the different phrases as we're saying it I don't just sort of do it like that I I think um you know about the phrases and uh what does it mean you know in a very abbreviated way because of the time but I I do actually think about it and I

0:58:59kind of think about it a little bit always actually in a historical way and um it I like the way it makes me feel good because it's been being done for a long time and we're still doing it so we're bringing that sense of History into it and that I actually do like so

0:59:19those are my initial thoughts on it um so um I actually had a conversation today with an ulceridan and asked her opinion and she told me that it's you know a show isn't important for a Civic meeting to potentially include a a pledge to the flag and for those that you may have heard me

0:59:45tonight I refrain from saying certain words uh in the pledge and that's my choice I suppose we could uh you know change it to a moment of silence and those who want to say the Pledge can say the Pledge uh but for me because like the other council members it does

1:00:12cause me and I will say when I was in the audience it was wrote but when I stand up here it is no longer wrote when you stand as close to the flag as we do and you face the flag and you say these words they they actually take on great meaning and so for me a and and I

1:00:29with all respect that of of proposing an alternate pledge I think we would have the audience stumbling until you know unless we posted them on the side of the room what do you think they did in 1892 they handed out cards probably for everybody to say the Pledge

1:00:44um right with all due respect uh to your well thought argument and your proposal at this time I would um prefer that we provide a spot on the agenda for a pledge and maybe um you know at each council member can uh introduce their own style of saying the Pledge of Allegiance

1:01:07um I I was toying with the idea that you might be able to say those that want to stand can stand and join me in silence as I salute the flag during this period of the Pledge of Allegiance and those that want to say it can say it and that would be maybe the way you could lead

1:01:23the Pledge of Allegiance but it would remain on the agenda and those that want to say the Pledge of Allegiance would say the Pledge of Allegiance and those that don't want to say it can provide the time for us to those who want to say it to say it and and that's

1:01:36I mean I put a lot of thought into how we might reach a [Music] um and a decision tonight so I that that's and and with that I mean I pass it back to the motion maker yeah I think those are it's an interesting suggestion I and many people I've talked to change the words when they're saying it and I

1:02:02was thinking if we do want a commemorative pledge to unite us as council member benicini said I'd much rather have something we could all enthusiastically say together without having to change the words in our heads or Mumble words and same for those in the audience so

1:02:22um failing to adopt something we could all enthusiastically support I would support a sentence whenever any of us leads the pledge and say those who want to join in reciting the pledge are welcome to stand and recite it with me those who do not please feel free to have a moment of

1:02:45silence and and so on days that I'm feeling grumpy I can stay seated absolutely great um is there go ahead about the we do people say that I think I don't even think we say that okay good point Thank You appropriate um but I think I think we usually say please join me it is yeah uh but I think

1:03:11that it's it's whatever anyone wants to do but I think we I would prefer we not do that particular variation um but the word stand yeah yeah with all that said do we have a motion well I'll make the initial motion which may die for lack of a sentence second but just to get it out there uh I move

1:03:35that uh we uh amend resolution 97.99 uh Etc to eliminate the Pledge of Allegiance from agenda preparation and order of business is there a second I'm sorry I say that I it's an emotion that you have here it's you he he essentially read this first paragraph so you're just saying what you what it

1:03:58says yeah okay do we have a second motion Dodge for the lack of a second all right now I have an alternative motion that uh whenever we start the meetings and ask people to join us we uh add a sentence those who would like to join in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance are welcome to join me those

1:04:24who are not comfortable please observe a moment of silence second about the record show that councilmember Ben C seconded uh discussion yeah I think it's too many words it needs to be something okay um he the motion maker is working on an alternative care to please

1:04:50join me or please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance or a moment of silence I accept that amendment that sounds good all right I'll second that oh do you want to have discussion Greg we're still in discussion uh the the motion maker and the the set I'm assuming the seconder has actually

1:05:11agreed to her own change to the motion yes um so we have a motion in a second can the motion maker or the secondary please repeat the motion please go ahead Rebecca please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance or a moment of silence that's the motion on the floor and can I

1:05:35make a comment we don't in our current agenda we don't have a in quotation marks what we're going to say so could we leave it up to whoever's turn it is to come up with their own phrasing right now we don't have the phrase it means to say A variation of the pledge no no to say to

1:05:53allow give people the option to join or not to join preliminary words correct all right I have got another suggestion so so we have a motion on the floor Hold Up Hold the motion on the floor in a seconded are you withdrawing that motion okay motion withdrawn okay new one why

1:06:10don't we just change where it says on the agenda pledge of allegiance to the flag and say pledge of allegiance to the flag or a moment of silence I second that motion and I'm not sure we need a motion for that per se because that does not change the uh section three agenda preparation order of

1:06:29business um which we the current motion on the that was originally published in the in our documents struck the words the Pledge of Allegiance are you proposing now to instead of striking that to insert or moment of silence and I'm not sure that's necessary we can probably leave

1:06:46it the way it is and ask the clerk to include those words on the agenda without a motion I think I think that's fine the current the current Council procedure calls for there to be a pledge on the agenda it does not say that it has to be unaccompanied by anything else so I

1:07:04think that as long as the council I do I mean I think that there's a motion if somebody seconds it I think it could be to direct the clerk to revise the text of the agenda to also allow for a moment of science so so moved second sorry what what what would we say so we wouldn't

1:07:20say anything um the motion on the floor if I heard it correctly is to uh advise the clerk to please change the way the text shows up in our agenda such that it says pledge of allegiance to the flag or a moment of silence or observe a moment of silence which you should say

1:07:42right or observe a moment of silence and after where it says the name of the mayor says wait no it would be in all caps it'd be in all caps before the the person who's going to be seeing it so it would be in all caps that's the wouldn't it say something like obvious

1:08:02um observance of a the Pledge of Allegiance or observance of a moment of silence grammatically yes yes so the motion is to is to give direction to the clerk we have a second any further discussion seeing none all those in favor say aye aye aye those opposed of sentience motion carries unanimously

1:08:27can I just clarify the secondary was council member benicini yes yes oh yes it was the second or was it menacing yes thank you uh for everyone's comments on this and and your thoughts moving on to item seven b appointment of City Council subcommittee uh at the request of city manager Scott

1:08:53Hannon he has requested to appoint two council members to form a council subcommittee to work with staff and West Contra Costa Unified School District on the ultimate disposition of the Portola Middle School site volunteers well I'd actually like to do it and so I'm looking for people who

1:09:15else would like to do it uh with me I would like to do it yeah I was afraid of that um um Mr Hannon do you want to tell us anything about this what the duration when we would start what the duration would be no I mean we don't we haven't gotten that far yet in our in my

1:09:31conversations with the superintendent we thought this was a good way to get both the board and the council involved in working with staff as we sort of go through the sort of the exercise of uh planning out the future so the district understood our hopes and dreams for the site

1:09:49and then presumably the board and councils the the subcommittees of each would report back with a recommendation to their respective bodies for consideration at a later date or we would do it together as a German we just haven't gotten that far yet but it would

1:10:04certainly be of a limited duration I just don't know how long at this point okay so um Dan did you I think I heard you say you were interested as well I'm I'm I'm interested in the default position so you can go ahead you have you have a candidates here okay great

1:10:23um it's a tough choice uh Janet I um I know you are on a number of committees and subcommittees that are of regional importance and I would um I don't want to take away from your attention on those items so I would like to have council member bensoni uh join me in this subcommittee if that's

1:10:48acceptable to you I just want to know so you know that I actually do spend a lot of time with the school district already so don't but I so I don't plan to stop that no no that's not no not at all no no this is the subcommittee oh no not at all no we can't stop you

1:11:05oh you're a force of nature so I've been talking to him and you can continue to talk to them this will be a subcommittee um I believe that concludes that item I'm looking at the City attorney we do not need a motion for that the subcommittee consists of Mayor Lyman and

1:11:26uh council member benicini with that we'll move on to item eight Council assignments liaison reports um who would like to start I'll go ahead and start um on January 2nd the design review board had a meeting they actually heard again the um project that's at 11858 the former

1:11:52Mitsubishi dealership site this is um now going to be a automotive automobile sales and minor repair facility this actually came to the last Council uh back in September 18th of 2012 you made three recommendations and um that project um and it's on a CO mingled site with a

1:12:17an another business uh both business owners were there they've ironed out some of their differences the project is going to move forward after meeting with drb the architect for the project wasn't actually at the meeting so some of it was the architect and the applicant are going to have to come back

1:12:40with like a color board and the the printing on the plantings and the signage because that wasn't actually presented to the drb but it did move forward and I figured since you are already familiar with the project you'd like to know that the second meeting I attended was of course the park and rec

1:12:58commission meeting which was actually on January 23rd um of interest at this meeting was the contract that was presented to the city which is our joint use agreement between the West Contra Costa Unified School District in the city of El Cerrito for facilities we heard at our strategic

1:13:20plan comments from the public that a lot of the facilities at school board members left a lot of our the facilities at the schools are locked and not available um to us there's been applications sent to the school board with a very um time-consuming application process for

1:13:44use of these fields primarily tennis courts things like that that's kind of onerous it's not allowed to be done online it has to be faxed or brought in and hand carried the applications have been getting lost three times they were filed and the facilities are still locked in

1:14:04among the key points that were um of contention is that you know they had not a lot of recognition that we actually do a lot of Maintenance that isn't recognized on primarily the fields and um and then one of their site use comments says that we can use they can

1:14:26use our facilities um for free but will be charged and those charges remain to be seen what they are so it's it's the way the joint use agreement is drawn up it's really not um something that we would accept at this at this stage I also want to recommend and maybe Mr Hannon wants to comment

1:14:45about it that he and our park and rec director um met Chris Jones met with uh actually Dr harder and the person that's now in charge of field so I'm not even sure what his name was and we'll again be meeting again to to sort of iron out some of these issues yeah we've both

1:15:09sides have agreed to schedule regular meetings um which will include me and the superintendent if it helps to just make sure we get back on all the same page so I think my perception was that the superintendent is will will help us get there more to follow hopefully

1:15:32the Tom Bates Regional Sports field um the meeting have you met right they were supposed to meet in January but I got postponed to February okay great Mark none of my entities met since our last meeting Janet okay I um have a couple of things I'd like to report

1:15:51um one is the about the committee on Aging uh one is that I'm very happy to report that um I was told to stop recruiting Because it's actually looking like it's going to be full with the people who are currently uh in the works by attending three meetings so it's really pretty

1:16:12positive you know it's really positive and I'm really happy about that um I we I also uh talked to um the new director of the senior center Janet bilbus and she told me some things about um her plans for um are making changes to senior services and one of the things she's looking for

1:16:36and would invite the general public to participate in it's just ideas and the real question is what would seniors and that doesn't mean just seniors who are um in their very older years but also um Earl I'll call them early seniors people who are even as uh you know in their 50s

1:16:57and young seniors what Young seniors yeah and um to to let the senior center know let you know call up email you know whatever method you want to communicate by what is it you would like to see in a senior program um is it trips is it um classes is it um exercise programs you know what is it

1:17:24because her idea about the future for Senior Services is to provide the things that people want to go to and I'm really pretty excited about her interest and it looks like things are really moving forward with the group at the last meeting there was a um I just a speaker from the DMV on um

1:17:49driving in senior years and you know the the issues related to that and it was pretty well attended we had a number of members from the public also who attended that particular session um on the Contra Costa Transportation Authority it says on board chair I'm actually not board chair uh and vice

1:18:09chair but um maybe next time it will be different uh but not right now and um the um League of California cities hasn't actually met this month um and I'm not sure if we can talk about what we might be doing can we do that the event we would have here no okay so

1:18:32I will do that if and when it's more definite um and um WIC attack I'm not I think I haven't announced this since it happened um jury our very beloved Jerry Bradshaw is working part-time here now in as a consultant um the other half time he's working at WIC Tac as the interim uh direct

1:18:59executive directors so he is in both places and as am I and um it's a very nice relationship and we're looking forward uh to his being there for the next few months um however with tech is severely down on staff um right now and so we there will not be a whole lot of work coming out because

1:19:22of that um and um so stay tuned great thank you I have six things to report on of which one of them actually councilmember Friedman has to report on for me on January 10th the West County Integrated Waste Management Authority Matt and as my alternate you attended so

1:19:43I'm hoping you can remember back that far yeah I can um the major issue was negotiating the contract with uh Republic on the rates for garbage recycling Etc and there was a big debate whether that recycling needed to be every week or if every other week was sufficient

1:20:08and one or two of the members from Richmond thought every two weeks was planning the other representative from Richmond said every week was appropriate and I certainly support that I think every week is very important if we're going to reach our goals of waste aversion and of increasing

1:20:27people's recycling Consciousness so um I think that'll probably win the day but uh El Cerrito is in a separate situation because we have our own contract and so we're making sure that as those negotiations go forward the mayor and I have discussed with City staff how to ensure that El Cerrito's

1:20:50interests are protected great thank you councilmember Benson just one item to report the Planning Commission didn't meet in January and they talked about the growth management element which we've already spoken about and they heard three permits for fences so I

1:21:04think we do know that they're getting a lot of activity with regard to fences and they have long discussions and I think they're probably going to request that the city council will do a study session and potentially give them additional directions so I'd be thinking

1:21:17that that's coming up shortly but they did hear three and they have split votes and it's pretty in-depth conversations about the fences so that'll probably come to us on January 2nd the human relations commission committee committee there committee right I'm looking commission human relations

1:21:36commission uh met and at that meeting they did get a presentation from uh the recipients of a high school Grant or the human relations commission gave a grant to the high school to a mentoring program and uh the presentation was given by a combination of teachers that are the

1:21:55mentors and students that are the mentees and it was a very um they they were very grateful in the gift that they had been given to buy them materials and time to provide one-on-one uh interactions between the teachers and the students and the students were very grateful for the the

1:22:16difference it made in their lives and I will uh if if it's the pleasure we can have them come as a presentation it'll be a short presentation I don't know if anybody's interested in that I see one nodding head okay not enough okay um they also talked about the Martin

1:22:31Luther King Day parade I I'll take it uh if we can slide it in I'll get them to come in and give a presentation um it's not an auction I know um Martin Luther King they also talked about the Martin Luther King Day parade which many of us attended actually we all attended

1:22:48um so uh and of course later in the month on the 21st we did have the Martin Luther King Day parade that the human relations commission participated in a lot of the organization of that day um on January 10th I was not at the waste management meeting because I was

1:23:07at the Contra Costa County mayor's meeting the presenter that day was the Greenbelt Alliance who gave us a presentation about their efforts to maintain open space to the benefit of all Contra Costa County residents and that they're actually now in order to reduce pressure on our Open Spaces

1:23:32they're providing a tremendous amount of support in Infield development so they're they're actually facilitating a lot of uh development in Inner City development and they're facilitating public Outreach to to facilitate Goods in City development so that they're a potential

1:23:58asset to us to as we go forward if we if we get any projects in El Cerrito the on January 14th the tree committee oh and at that meeting we also appointed a representatives to the Bay Area Quality Management District there was three appointments um he works he bricks uh fire chief it's

1:24:21the community Communications uh system the new Communication System East sorry East Bay Regional communication system and we appointed um someone to another committee which was very unpopular we actually had to solicit volunteers out of the audience to to take that appointment so I

1:24:42apologize for not having that for you at this time um the tree committee met on January 14th and continues to discuss updating uh take completing their charge which is to update the list of trees that should be approved as Street and Park trees in in El Cerrito

1:25:07and they seem to be working quite well the on the 24th the West Contra Costa County Mayors met and in in in addition to the discussion about IDs uh identification cards that are that Community identification cards we also discussed um uh consciously bringing forward

1:25:32candidates for some of the the county uh the Contra Costa County mayor's conference appointments um so my action item was to get with the Contra Costa County conference and find out when there are terms vacating and and where we will be discussing a process by which the five West counties

1:25:55can um look for promote candidates from our cities to better represent our region so that's an ongoing agenda item at the West County Contra Costa West Contra Costa County mayor's conference that I want to make sure you guys were aware of so as I come to you and ask you to

1:26:13please step forward to take a position you guys can say no at least knowing that I tried um on the 25th we did it I don't it had some press coverage but I want to make sure that you guys knew that I represented the city with regards to the unveiling of the Lincoln Highway signs

1:26:32uh these are signs that there's four of them in the city I've I found two of them already um and I think there are two at the north end of town which I haven't figured out where they are yet um but there are four recognizing that um our current San Pablo Avenue

1:26:50um formerly currently Highway 123 formerly Highway 40 and before it became Highway 40 it was the Lincoln Highway he was the Lincoln Highway for one year and then became highway 40. but it still was Lincoln Highway uh the Lincoln Highway was the uh first cross-country paved road that led from

1:27:18um Times Square to Lincoln Park in San Francisco and it moved the reason we were only there only Lincoln Highway our Avenue was only Lincoln Highway for one years because they were constantly moving it to represent the shortest route between those two endpoints and in

1:27:391926 The carquinas Bridge opened so from 1926 to 1927 San Pablo Avenue was the Lincoln Highway uh and in 1927 it became highway 40. so there you go trivia for the night um with that I will adjourn the meeting to the next regularly scheduled city council meeting 7 P.M on February 19th