Joint City Council and WCCUSD School Board Meeting May 7, 2013

0:00:08explain the process that we're going to take this evening we're going to convene this meeting this joint meeting with the Unified School District and at seven o'clock we will take a recess in this meeting and we will convene the regularly scheduled meeting of the El

0:00:25Cerrito city council which will then go into recess to return to this meeting that we're about to start so I just wanted to explain at seven o'clock due to some advertising and the public hearing that we're taking in our regularly scheduled meeting we do need to convene the regularly scheduled

0:00:43meeting at seven o'clock so there will be a a moment of confusion at seven o'clock um but it is uh it we will return to this meeting so I apologize now for whoever I interrupt at seven o'clock or maybe you guys will can help me watch the clock and we can all pause so we can

0:01:03convene the regularly scheduled meeting of El Cerrito at seven o'clock um with that we will convene uh the meeting with the West Contra costing Unified School District at 6 30 and proceed with that okay missing my agenda apparently um so with that it's green for us it's blue for them

0:01:30with that um mayor Pro tem Abelson would you like to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance or a moment of silence of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all great um with that it's welcome introductions and

0:02:01opening comments uh by myself and uh Madam president Cronenberg so I will let ladies go first I want to say how very much we appreciate being invited to to uh to the Joint meeting it's been an important part of of our year this year to to make sure that our cities that we can

0:02:26collaborate with our cities on everything that's uh that's going on and you'll notice we've got a an agenda that's filled with things that are specific to El Cerrito and we're really looking forward to um to sharing our successes and and sharing with you the our

0:02:43our opportunities in the future we're doing a lot of a lot of things in the school district right now and I I too want to thank all of the board members for coming tonight uh to this joint meeting and and taking uh time to be here at 6 30 uh to cover these items they're of great importance

0:03:04the school district is probably one of the largest employers within our district or in our city and uh is an important contributor to our community and and so it's important for us to continue this open dialogue and really look forward to it every year and I appreciate you guys coming tonight

0:03:24um with that we will move on to item three which is discussion items we do have four items that we will be talking through um so what I'd like to do to keep us moving is essentially ask questions uh during that period and then we'll go to oral comments from the public and come

0:03:44back to the diocese after public comments to give our discussion our comments our opinions in any direction if necessary so with that it's description of new El Cerrito High School city of El Cerrito internship program foreign good evening mayor city council members and board and

0:04:17also City staff my name is Sakari bashirs I am the human resources manager for the city of El Cerrito and I'm going to go ahead and do a presentation regarding the what we refer to as our EC Stars internship program thank you oops no okay the program first started with an

0:04:55idea and this idea arrived from um excuse me from president Cronenberg as well as mayor Pro tem Abelson so thank you for the idea and from this idea grew the internship opportunities which is a joint effort of the school district and the city and what we're looking to

0:05:18do here is to educate the youth about local government and when I work referred to EC stars the star stands for students training and ready for success and this again is just to connect the high school students with local government and giving them the opportunity to build skills within the

0:05:39city of El Cerrito this picture on the on this first slide here is the first group of interns that we actually interviewed this afternoon and we also have um Melody Shaw who's one of the teachers at El Cerrito High School and Chris moreda who is part of the future the

0:06:00tech future program at El Cerrito High School the goals of the program is basically to develop job skills for the students and what we're looking is to put them in a professional work environment and we refer to the 21st century skills I kind of want to talk a little bit about that

0:06:22and that used was formally soft skills we now refer to it as 21st century skills and looking at Best Practices and problem solving and again we're looking to help to develop the students and put them give them real job experience here within the city moving on to educate

0:06:42them about the local government here and how our cities work so they learn more about the city we we employ not just police and fire but to also give them an opportunity to learn more about departments such as our sick house City management works and part of that is

0:07:00human resources our finance department and so again to kind of give them more of broad experience and information about the opportunities here at the city and this again was a part this is a partnership this could not have been done without the support of the school

0:07:16district and I'm very grateful for that support and that collaboration we had several meetings everybody was ready to chip in and provide insight and to help to to bring this program to fruition and we are hopeful that this is our first time doing this and we're very

0:07:37hopeful that what we've created here in El Cerrito that other cities will look at this and say wow what a great idea we want to try this and implement this with other cities within the West County School District one other thing I want to talk about is we're also not only looking at bringing

0:07:56students here and giving them that work experience but also providing going out to the school so we're looking at possibly in the future having staff to go out and have a local academies out at the school so that's in the future but it's something that we're definitely

0:08:12looking at doing moving on to the program um this this program we're first what we're first using right now is our Juniors um in the I.T and the media academies and we hope to expand that in the future but we wanted to start out with a smaller group and then we can

0:08:32again expand from there these are paid internships so students are really excited about getting paid here and I've listed here some of the some of the assignments some assignment areas in terms of where the internships will be located there's a total of nine that we

0:08:49have available we interviewed nine students and they don't know this yet but I'm happy to say that we are going to place all nine so really excited about that [Music] [Applause] moving on to the process this after several joint meetings that we had to kind of bring the bring the ideas

0:09:13together we started out with our internship Fair which was April 10th several staff members went out to the school district excuse me to the El Cerrito High School and we had an internship Fair where the staff members were able to talk to the students one on one and give them a little bit more

0:09:34information about what those intern opportunities are here they had to submit applications by April 25th and part of that application process was to submit a personal statement and a letter of recommendation from one of their teachers they could also in addition to

0:09:51that if they wanted it was an option to submit a cover letter and a resume and actually all of the students chose to do that so I was really impressed with them and it's just it's I'm really excited about this again we had our interviews today we interviewed all nine of the

0:10:08students and we're looking at orientation in the first day of work as June 10th and then the last day of the program is August 2nd so it's an eight week program and another piece that I wanted to add here is that part of the program is not just them working but each week they

0:10:31will also have a class and I think that's going to be run by Corey Mason and what they will do in the class is basically have a reflection and so that they can tie their work experience to um to to school and have that in again just kind of do a lot of reflection and

0:10:48it's going to be that that Weekly workshops um with Corey Mason thank you and then lastly I want to give thanks to everybody who was a part of this and who brought this program together because without each and every one of these individuals we wouldn't have been able

0:11:10to do it again thank you to board president Madeline Cronenberg and mayor Pro uh Tim Janet Abelson this was again come this was an idea that came from the both of them so thank you very much West Contra Costa County Unified School District College and Career Readiness

0:11:29coordinator Michael aronian thank you very much you're very instrumental our principal from El Cerrito High School David Luongo so without him we would not been been able to pull this together and two teachers that we have Corey Mason and Melody Shaw from the high school as

0:11:47well as our Tech future uh Chris moreta who's also part of El Cerrito High School and thank you to our own city managers Scott Cannon who was also very instrumental in helping to pull this together and to each of the staff members here at El Cerrito who helped to

0:12:06develop in terms of the whole the program and the internship opportunities because again without each and every one of them working together we would not have been able to pull this off I also want to bring up our College and Career Readiness coordinator Michael aronian if

0:12:25you'd like to add anything thank you Sakari good evening everyone and audience members I just want to compliment the idea first of all and it came from those two ladies up there and we just kind of put the rest of it together I have to compliment Sakari on the ownership that she has taken for

0:12:47this project and I I want to replicate her words on this is the Prototype and the plan is like Sakari shared is that we want the other cities to say Well when is it our turn and we think that's going to happen and then at that point then sicari and the El Cerrito staff together with us we can

0:13:07mentor the other cities on copying El Cerrito thank you very much questions go ahead I know I knew it couldn't stop you from making a comment no I want to um thank um thank you for the presentation but I also want to expand to the city attorney's office we have a program now

0:13:31with El Cerrito High School for our mock trial program working with what's it called Center for your youth through the developmental law and we work right now with the city of Richmond and they work with the city attorney's office other departments and there I was just talking

0:13:50to Nancy Schiff who runs the program and they have five slots that we have paid internships for and I'd like to make sure that you're aware of that and to say that that's another department that could hold one of the slots from El Cerrito High so that a student who's in

0:14:08their mock trial program which they did very well last year their first year could be placed in the city attorney's office oh I was not aware of that thank you um I appreciate that and we can definitely pass that information let me give you Nancy's number okay okay

0:14:25oh um sorry someone has it we'll go ahead and I'll get it from him thank you five two five twenty seven twenty eight we have it and that way because I was talking to her today and she was struggling because she's had an overwhelming number of kids already applied from Richmond High Kennedy High

0:14:45School but they've been in this program now a couple El Cerrito was just their last year and I said we want to forget about El Cerrito High part of what the board did was to make sure that De Anza had five Richmond High at five Kennedy had in El Cerrito had the opportunity

0:14:59for five so we wanted to make sure that there was places because they wouldn't get them if there was an opportunity to place them in some of these departments and so I've been very active in letting different agencies know and so I think that's useful for some kids to be able

0:15:15to see what a city does in terms of their City attorney roles and responsibilities how they look at statutes and Municipal codes and what they do to help advise the city manager and ultimately the city council so hopefully you can reach out to her and I think that would be very good thank you

0:15:31council member benassini just one comment thank you so much for describing this I just wanted to pass on to Mr aronian and Sakari that I'm sure some of us City Council Members would be happy to also talk with the students about what it what it takes to be on the city

0:15:44council and why one might choose to be on the city council so if there's any interest in expanding a class or having us come to speak to one of the classes I'm sure many of us would be interested in that thank you oh great thank you um and one other thing I just wanted to mention too I was just

0:15:58we plan on back um to a future council meeting after the entire program is over to introduce them to the council and so that they can be a part of that process so and they can and we talked a little bit about that so um I'll definitely I'll definitely make note of that thank you board member Enos

0:16:18I want to thank everybody involved in this project and encourage everyone to emphasize this as you go to your classes and you go to your work when we've got the young people engaged in local government and after having been a government teacher for 20 years before I

0:16:37turned to the dark side and became an administrator um I'm very happy that this is going on the internships great for the kids but it's great for the community to see the young people doing the work they'll be doing so thank you thank you so I do have a couple of questions

0:16:53giving that it's the first year it's always sort of how do you carry it on into the future um it what's the is there a policy in place for returning students you talked about having Juniors so I'm assuming that they potentially will want to in turn in the future

0:17:10um so is there a policy about returning students and or making uh new opportunities for new students is there have you thought through that future dilemma this is kind of our first um we we're starting with the Juniors because of you know thinking about in terms of their Readiness and

0:17:29preparedness for the workforce and then we can we're thinking about expanding from there we we don't have a policy in place but again we'll be working um we're just kind of starting here and we'll be expanding so and and what is the you've got nine for this summer

0:17:46what's the maximum number that the city is considering that I mean again looking to the Future what is there a is there a maximum number that you think that we can take on well we don't have a maximum we had we thought what would be a doable number would be anywhere from about

0:18:02eight to ten for starters and so we'll see how this year goes and we make we may possibly consider expanding from there but right now we thought eight to ten would be a very manageable number great thank you any other questions um the comment I'd like to make is that

0:18:27it really has been because people from the school district and from the city have worked together uh and I really can't emphasize the importance of that working of that relationship of working together in making a difference we were not either one of us uh I think

0:18:45thinking about what our side of it was we were thinking about the kids and what we were really thinking about was the importance of creating a atmosphere with really linking kids with that final career experience and making sure that what the education they were getting in

0:19:04school was relevant and useful and so I think that was really important and I'm really really excited about being in an environment where so many people and they are they're the ones listed and I and you know others are just willing to make it happen and really work hard to um create

0:19:27the right environment for our students and to create new situations and try them and you know it's possible that something won't work but you know if we don't try new things new approaches we're not really going to get anywhere and I think the thing that we all share

0:19:44is that we want our students to be given an opportunity that really creates an environment where they are able to succeed and I think that this is a great step and I really want to thank everyone who was involved in this process but I I actually have to give a special thank

0:20:01you to my caronian because the place that I started this was when the school district's link learning program was having this breakfast and he would come and pick me up at 7 30 for a 7 30 meeting and take me to these places that I couldn't otherwise have gotten and I

0:20:19really want to thank Mike because he really was quite instrumental in the very beginning of this and so thank you Mike and thank you sicaria who I don't see quite right now and also I want to thank Scott Hannon who really um got got the you know who was really really supportive and

0:20:39um without that kind of thing it wouldn't have happened and thank you Madeline I think you may I'm I was hoping that we might squeeze in the next presentation before we had to recess but yes if you can make it I'll be really fast I just want want to Echo all of the thank you

0:20:56especially to Mike and I want to uh just mention for anybody who doesn't know that Mike uh is a former principal of El Cerrito High so there's a there are major connections to El Cerrito here and this is a huge opportunity for collaboration and and to model something

0:21:12for the future in terms of a link Learning Academy in public service and it's something that I'm looking forward to sharing with not only the other schools in the other communities in the school district but in other for other school districts in California because

0:21:27this is a really unique opportunity and if we do a district-wide it will be even more unique so we're on our way to do that and it's because of the work of the of the folks here in El Cerrito and I thank you Janet too because this is very much uh your baby and I'll stop

0:21:44great we'll we will obviously have opportunities for further comments later so I would like to move on to item Four B update on the writer coach connection and I do want to warn you that if you do go more than seven minutes I will ask you to pause so you can yeah I understand

0:22:03thank you um School District directors and staff members and city council members and City staff good evening um I'm Bob mens and I'm executive director of the non-profit organization Community Alliance for learning which runs the writer coach connection program

0:22:21you've heard me repeatedly describe writer coach connection tonight I'd like to for you to get an update on the program in El Cerrito from voices other than mine we're mindful of your time we pledge to be concise with our remarks we will be interrupted at seven I understand that

0:22:40the voices you hear will be from El Cerrito School administrators teachers and students and from one of our own program site coordinators so we'll start there with the site coordinator from Portola Middle School Kathleen Hallam good evening I don't want to speak for

0:23:01very long because I want the voices of our teachers and our students to be heard I just want to say that I'm a long time trainer and coordinator for writer coaching at various schools that we've served and I've been very impressed over the past two and a half almost three

0:23:17years with the uh the volunteers that we are recruiting and keeping for our two El Cerrito schools I started out helping the El Cerrito High program get started and now I'm I'm helping keep up the Portola program and I'm just really impressed with how many of our

0:23:37volunteers are they're not necessarily associated with the schools they're not parents they may be retirees they may have part-time or flexible jobs and they're just they really believe in public education and they're committed and to bettering their community Through

0:23:54helping the kids in their community so it's been a pleasure and a privilege to work with them I'll just give you an idea of what we've been doing at Portola Middle School this year we're coaching the students in two classes Ms Soto's eld-3 the English learned at

0:24:12one of her English learner classes and Miss Renee's regular seventh grade class we would love to be coaching in more classes than that but that's what our resource level is now and this year so far we've met with each class 11 times and we have two at least two more times

0:24:3130 to 35 trained coaches have had 636 one-on-one sessions with these students 636 averaging about 25 minutes a piece some of them a little longer some some shorter and I'm hoping that when you hear from Miss Soto and her students you'll hear you know what kind of things happen in

0:24:54those one-on-one sessions thank you so much the school administration perspective on the program from Portola comes from Principal Matthew Burnham who will in turn introduce one of his teachers good evening everyone uh board president Cronenberg mayor Lyman board members and

0:25:18city council uh thank you for giving us the opportunity to share the wonderful program we have at Portola Middle School from my perspective the uh the program serves many different purposes but two kind of stand out to me uh the program offers students the opportunity to work

0:25:34one-on-one with a coach to engage and improve their writing the ability to sit down and work closely with a trained coach gives students confidence and skills they might not get in a large class setting and because of this the quality and quantity of our writing by students who are and have

0:25:51attended the program is improving and as we know we're going to roll out the Common Core State Standards the writing amount is going to increase dramatically and it is critical that our students learn to write well and the other the other thing that I'm impressed with is I believe that

0:26:09students benefit from the experience of working with volunteers from our community it's kind of what this meeting is all about a connection is made between a coach and a student that helps our students feel comfortable in different settings and teaches the importance of civic

0:26:22participation and Community responsibility hopefully that connection and the learning experience will encourage them to give back to the community when they complete their own education do we have time for my teacher to come up or are we yes please all right I'd

0:26:36like to introduce to you Miss Soto my ELD teacher good evening school um school board members and city council members and mayor Lyman my name is Yvette Soto and I'm an ELD teacher at Portland Middle School I've come this evening to speak about my experience with the writer coach connection the

0:27:00writer The Writer's coaches the writer coaches have been coming to my class for two years now they have come once a week prior to the district writing benchmarks the coaches come prepared with the knowledge of the assigned writing genre the corresponding rubric and any

0:27:16required reading material I truly believe my students have benefited greatly from the program four students were able to advance to eld4 mid-year and 20 of 30 are scheduled to advance the eld-4 for the next school year one is actually going to skip eld4 and go to Advanced eld5 my hope is for the

0:27:41remaining 10. to show Improvement on this last Benchmark to also advance to eld4 um I really want to thank the volunteers some people tend to shy away from middle school but I have been able to witness the great work that they've done and I really appreciate it and I know my

0:28:05students do too well thank you perfect I want to introduce do we have my students if they can stand up if are they going to speak or they're just going to have time to speak well I'll tell you what we'll we will allow you to do that after we recess how's that so if you want if you we you Marshal

0:28:24them to be ready to come up in a few minutes that'd be great okay thank you thank you um with that I'd like to recess this uh special meeting we will resume it shortly um and uh my clock says seven so I'd like to convene the regular city council meeting on Tuesday May 7th uh

0:28:47here at the city Chambers let the records show that all council members are present with that um I would like to also let the record show that we already took the Pledge of Allegiance so we do not need to do that again and prior to going to item two of the El Cerrito agenda we will recess

0:29:11this meeting at this time to be resumed upon adjournment of the joint meeting with the school district with that Miss Soto would you like to bring your students forward yes I would like to introduce freesia Castro Amanda Rocha orisha Khan and Numa cabal they each have something to say

0:29:47good evening ladies and gentlemen school board and and distinguished guest my name is bricia Castro and I am here behalf of ours principal Mr Burnham and my ELD teacher Miss Soto I am here to talk about what we do with our writing coaches and how has it helped me what me and my writing coach

0:30:14do is share ideas and work on our essays and she also helps me write writing good essays and she had helped me improve on spelling and writing writing better essays thank you thank you good evening everyone my name is Amanda and I came here to talk about how the

0:30:40writing coach had helped us with our essays we really appreciate having a writing coach because it's really good to have someone to share ideas with if we make mistakes or if we write something that is off topic that writing coaches help us get it right my writing

0:30:57coach had helped me with spelling also when I didn't know what to write she gave me some good ideas they really help us write good essays so I'm really thankful thank you hello my name is hello everyone my name is Arisha Khan and I'm here to talk about how the why the writer coaches are

0:31:21so important and how they have helped me when a writer coach helped me one-on-one I feel like I have a personal abdomenal academic resource to who I can ask any question and get help with my writer writing in addition to that whenever I get help from a writer coach my writing

0:31:38is improved and have less grammar and spelling of us and they always help me brainstorms from ideas and transport those ideas and and well writing paragraphs all those assign assignments that I say or why writer courses are so important not just to me but to all kids

0:31:57who receive aside assistance from brighter coaches they are wonderful academic resources that pay attention to all of us and I am really thankful for the wonderful writer coaches that always help me as much as they possible can't thank you [Music] hi my name is number and I'm here to

0:32:23talk about writing coaches with writing coaches I work on fixing my grammar and getting ideas for essays writing could you help me with my mistakes on on the essays when my grades went down they they helped me boost it up we would also get to know about just like we're

0:32:40families each family about each other just like families [Applause] you don't have to listen to me I we can all just listen to them the perspective of the school administration from El Cerrito High is provided for us by principal David Luongo who will in turn introduce his

0:33:09English department chair good evening everyone so it's a pleasure to watch the growth and development between our school and the city and the actual City itself and so it's been a pleasure for me to be part of this growing process in my second year at the school the writer

0:33:26coach program really is one of those strengths and uh the thing that stands out at this point with the writer coach connection from my perspective as an administrator is that it's helping to strengthen our community at the school and I believe the connection with our

0:33:38community as a city things that stand out we have five teachers in the English Department and the ELD Department that are part of this program with those five teachers there's 387 students that are being impacted by this program this year and so with that we have 108 coaches volunteering to work

0:33:58at the school site that's huge my staff of all the staff that I have on my campus is probably close to that number so by having 108 volunteers on my campus I can double the amount of adults that are working with the youth at the El Cerrito High School campus and that the

0:34:15more adult contacts that they have and mentoring going on only strengthens the relationships that we build and the connectedness that they have with the school and with the city so some of the things that stand out why is this important for high school students to

0:34:27improve their writing skills one of the requirements for a high school student in graduating is that they have to pass the high school exit exam one of the components of the high school exit exam is that they are able to write an essay that meets a certain standard

0:34:42the writing coaches are working specifically with the Department to make sure that some of the things that they're covering within those coaching sessions are preparing the students to write strong essays for the high school exit exam students in the ELD program

0:34:56that are receiving the services from Rider coach connection in order to progress through the ELD program there's a assault exam that students take every year and ideally they would progress through and then work their way out of the program one of the components of that program is

0:35:11testing their writing skills so the writer coaches are working directly with our ELD students to help them progress quicker through the ELD program and so we're seeing success in that area as well and then we know that when students apply to four-year colleges they need to

0:35:27write essays in order to be admitted to college and so one of the components of this program too is pushing our students to think more critically about their writing skills and to prepare them for that next level when they move Beyond High School we're real fortunate the

0:35:41past two years to have the writer coaches volunteer their time to come out and do some college application writing workshops with our seniors so they're not only working with the ninth graders and the ELD students but they also had an opportunity to work with some of our

0:35:56seniors so that was a great opportunity and we plan to do that again next year well our students take when the underclassmen take the PSAT exams our seniors are working with writer coaches on college applications the other components of this is really the community building piece and our

0:36:12community building comes from the fact that these coaches are working one-on-one with students and so they're more than just coaches for writing they're they're building relationships with students and they're becoming mentors they're consistently checking in with these students and that's leading

0:36:25to more resources for our students to have access to to make sure that they're staying on top of their duties at school so for example when a writer coach is working with a student and something comes up that's a roadblock to the writing process because maybe something

0:36:38happened over the weekend with that student the writer coaches are then able to help that student find resources at the school to get some help whether it's through our health center whether it's through the administration whether it's recommending them for a student study

0:36:50team process but it's another person that's stepping up to support these students to make sure that they're successful it's also opening the doors of our high school to our community so often people wonder what's going on in schools now the adults in our community

0:37:04whether they're retired or they have the time during their work day to come and work with the students they're seeing firsthand what the great things that are happening at the high school and they're hearing it from the students what their opportunities are at the school and how

0:37:16things are going for them at the school so I think it's helping the community as a whole see in a better light what's actually happening at the high school so a lot of great things happening with writer coach I really appreciate the support that the city and the district

0:37:29is giving to the program and I'm looking forward to the growth and the results that we're going to see from the program as we continue to support so thank you and I'm going to introduce our English department chair Mr Kirk Douglas good evening everyone um I want to share why as a teacher and

0:37:48department chair I'm so excited about writer coach connection every year that I've taught I wish that I could multiply myself in order to better serve my students needs and that is exactly what writer coach does it is a profound thing that the students who participate in writer coach have 10

0:38:04sessions one-on-one for 20 to 30 minutes in a single semester it is an amazing thing and I want to share some quotes from fellow English teachers that I gathered over the past year and when they were reflecting on the difference a writer coach has made in the classroom

0:38:22to begin with I want to share a quote from Godly Bose one of our ELD teachers who said the coaches helped provide a village to educate the student and it's exactly that that we are able to come together as a community in a much better way to serve the needs of each student

0:38:38whether it is a student who historically has excelled or a student who historically has struggled every single student comes away from the program learning new things that I do believe they wouldn't learn if it wasn't for the program more specifically I want to share

0:38:57three key areas in which academically speaking I think the program makes a big difference the first is completion of assignments in some of our classes it is a chronic problem that assignments do not get finished by an uncomfortably large percentage of our students so here are two quotes that

0:39:16speak to that Jennifer Dreyfus one of our English teachers last year said with the aid of the coaches my turn in rate for essays increased to almost 100 percent another teacher spoke to the issue of quantity of how much curriculum we can cover in the amount of time that we've been given

0:39:35Eric Jepson another English teacher said that the regular appearance of writer coaches helped my classes complete and he was shocked to look back and find this more than twice the number of writing assignments that he had tried to fit into his curriculum the previous

0:39:48year and lastly of course the issue of quality we want to see that our students are becoming stronger writers year to year and the program does speak to that as well one quote from English teacher Kenny Khan 85 percent of my low achieving dnf students went up one grade level largely

0:40:07due to the work they did with the writer coaches um I observed in my own class that the grades went up 10 or one full grade level for many of my students and lastly English teacher Molly McGrath found that in her English one class last year 13 more students scored A's and B's on

0:40:29their writing so for all of those reasons I I love this program and I thank you for your support I do want to introduce three of our students first rose will you please come up and so Rose is a ELD student who has benefited from the program in previous years and she'd like to speak about the

0:40:50impact writer coach has made for her personally come on hi everyone my name is Rose and I had writing coaches since my freshman year sophomore and now I'm a junior and I just had them last semester so I feel like family like those that came in help us with our writing reading

0:41:18thinking brainstorm about works and stuff I feel like not a lot of people would take their time their own time to come in and help us as a teenager I feel really appreciated and very thankful for this program and all the writer coaches and the teachers so I feel like if I had a chance to have

0:41:43it again then I would because I feel like the relationship that I have with my coach I don't want to lose it like I made my own card and gave it to her when the last week like the last time that I'm gonna see her and I feel like that was like my second mom like she was

0:42:00actually like helped me a lot with my writing reading and everything she actually spent her own time thank you thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] second I'd like to introduce Rabia a former student of mine who experienced writer coach tutoring both as an English

0:42:20one student as a freshman and as an ELD student hi my name is came to America almost 12 years old my family and me speak with no one at home can help me with my studies because English isn't our first language because of that my grades well go down writer coaches helped me in

0:42:45many ways they helped me with essay writing corrected my typical ELD mistakes in English grammar look at looking back a time when I knew nothing and now when I know a lot better coaches did make a difference in my culture when adults help you we call them Uncle Auntie sometimes Grandpa

0:43:04Grandma writer coaches have not only been my teachers they're also like my family thank you and last but not least I'd like to introduce one of our current freshman students Perry please come on up hi so my name is Perry and um I'm the freshman class president in

0:43:29El Cerrito High and I have three points why I like writers coaches so one I think that it's a lot easier to hear feedback from someone who's not your parent because sometimes it can feel like when they're trying to help you they're telling you what to do and if

0:43:44it's not your parent then it's a lot easier to hear constructive criticism and then also um they make me feel a lot more confident about my writing because they also point out all my strengths with the criticism so it's really helpful so I know what I can focus on next time

0:44:01I write my next paper and also I really like that it's one-on-one and that we have the same one every time because they understand how I write and they understand what they can help me with and I find it really helpful so thank you thank you [Music] [Applause] the success of this program and the

0:44:23remarkable growth of the program in West County are due to a number of circumstances but most certainly include the steadfast support of the school district and the city of El Cerrito I can't tell you how much we appreciate that are there questions we can answer

0:44:39questions remember Bridges how how does one volunteer as the the mentor and the writer coach uh we we get our another way to ask that is where do we get our volunteers and the answer is anywhere we can we're everywhere we can think of in public recruiting booths uh

0:44:59any kind of a public event our booths are there and uh coaches can register get information at those moves and register for our training all coaches are trained on our website board member Groves how are we situated for next year we have plans in place yet are we just talking or do we have

0:45:19sufficient site funds to cover the the expense of this program we're in the middle of discussions about that very very good questions uh every year at the end of the year we're looking ahead to the following year uh we what our anticipation is that we will return at

0:45:34the same levels where we are at both El Cerrito High and Portola Middle School for next year we would dearly love to expand the program at both schools we haven't identified the resources to do that yet but we're working on it given that we're also at Richmond High is it

0:45:49time to start looking at a West County level coordinator instead of three schools yeah that's on my wish list for sure uh we have we have expanded to Richmond High as you may know this year and we're further expanding from the English language development classes at

0:46:04Richmond High next year to three mainstream classes thanks to a grant that we got in in partnership with City of Richmond cities of service Grant and so um we will do that in Richmond for next year for sure we know the funding is in place to expand at Richmond High for

0:46:23next year all of that means we really need a coordinator for West County I don't have the resources for that yet but clearly that's something that we need it's first on my list any other questions just a piece of advice this is the most meaningful two hours you can spend in a

0:46:41given week this is a fantastic thing I I look forward to it every every week and uh it's fantastic I hope people can take advantage of it if you look at writercoach.org weathercoachconnection.org that's how we sign up it's it's easy it's it's meaningful it's it's it means a lot for

0:47:03our students thanks very much um president Cronenberg um I just want to add this has been um very very much the um the child of Mr Groves Mr Groves really needs a round of applause for his efforts because [Music] that all of our our children who have been involved in it have benefited from

0:47:33and and I will tell you my husband is is a volunteer and writer coach and has been now for I guess he's in his third year and he and as Mr Grove said it is one of the highlights of his week he is he schedules his law practice around his uh appointments with the students at El

0:47:50Cerrito and and at Portola it's that important and I and I I want to say to anybody who's interested in doing it one of the real uh major uh parts of it is that it they teach you how to do it I think people are afraid to go into classrooms because they're not sure what's going to be expected of

0:48:11them and they think they're going to fail and they're going to fail the kids writer coach is a turnkey system you you're told what the teacher wants you're you're supported in connecting with the kids and you're supported in helping them have success and I think

0:48:25that is it's a brilliantly done volunteer programs all volunteer programs are not equal but this program is is Far and Away one of the best ones I've ever seen so I applaud all of you thank you thank you director menzimer with that I'd like to move on to item 3C update on

0:48:46bond program in El Cerrito Mr Layman good evening Madam president uh Mrs Kronberg a good evening member of the city council and member of the board it is a great opportunity tonight to share with you how is it that demand program is the proximat program and thank you

0:49:19for allowing us to share with you uh what kind of progress we make and what kind of effort are we making in making the schools in El Cerrito is a better place to learn uh we are going to touch in details on three uh projects uh two of which in design or ready to go to

0:49:38bed one of which is starting construction soon uh in that effort I will invite Mr Marcus hepser of Hui to share with us uh some of some of the progress when it comes down to Fairmont Middle School elementary school my apology thank you very much good evening board

0:50:04members City Council Members I am very pleased to be here I've had a lot of and you may not all know me I know all the board members do but you may not all know me very well but I've been in El Cerrito for a long time working uh did some work at Harding Elementary School

0:50:17for the theater I've been working on Portland Middle School and right now I want to talk to you about Fairmont Elementary School just give you an idea of what the project is and where we've come to date it's a really exciting project a big part a lot and a lot of

0:50:32reasons for a lot of reasons but predominantly because the school really needs to help they have a lot of special needs students they have a lot of special needs just like every school does and they've got some issues that hopefully to resolve this is an image up

0:50:46here on the screen of what the new elementary school is going to look like when it's all finished I'm proud to say that it was an award winner at the recent cash conference so it was a that's very exciting for us as a firm but also for the school district to know that we have award-winning

0:51:01project that's what the school district brings I'm very proud just as an aside of the school district program in general I live in Kensington so I'm your neighbor and I might pay my taxes into the bond program and so I I'm a huge supporter of the of this entire effort

0:51:18so um let me talk to you a minute about what the needs were at the campus before when we got there they needed additional classroom space 10 of the students for special education of one variety or another some severely handicapped some autistic some um a non severely handicap

0:51:36they needed additional classrooms right now the enrollment is 611 and in 2010 it was 500 so there's been exponential growth they needed some additional flexible multi-use spaces which is part of the district standard program they need larger multi-purpose larger admin

0:51:54you get the idea they they need more space uh the uh one of the critical features of the project was to maintain the existing play space as much as possible which we uh which we which we believe we did or we know we did uh in the final design so some of the challenges here

0:52:09were a very small site uh it's just around three acres and to get 600 students on three acres with the district standard program of all the administration space multi-purpose space additional space for multi for the special ed classrooms was very difficult we're pretty excited about the result we

0:52:26ended up with a two-story scheme one of the other challenges was the BART noise there's a significant amount as you can imagine being that close to the BART tracks you can see them in the image here there's the BART tracks right there in addition to providing enough natural

0:52:40ventilation so that we could get natural air into the classrooms but not have the noise affect them so we um We Had Creative Design solutions for the mechanical system to allow them a lot of fresh air but also keep the sound down the pickup and drop-off was a congestion

0:52:54is an issue and make making sure we separate from the um the library and the the senior center is also critical to make sure that we maintain the the sovereignty of the school district and not have those people interact so it's an exciting program as you can see uh

0:53:12the um there's a there's a lot of space here for administration Administration one of the important aspects of this is that they really control all the entry onto the campus those you're familiar with Fairmont now will know that it's difficult to find the administration

0:53:24anybody can wander in in fact you have to wander in to find them so the um the design of the campus is really to have Administration front and center all the students once they're on the campus the gates will lock here here and here and the only way into the campus is directly

0:53:39through the administration Lobby so all the the all the admin staff will have secure control over the campus we have a larger multi-purpose we have larger special ed classrooms they're about 1450 instead of your standard 960 so about a one and a half times just out of the

0:53:55size of a standard classroom so accommodate things like wheelchairs and Walkers and special tricycles and the things that they have because they do have 10 special ed students here um the the other features of the site um it's fully accessible uh for instance the play structure uh your typical play

0:54:14structure is their design for the the for for anybody in a wheelchair is Johnny gets to go up next to the next there's a transfer station so Johnny gets to go up there well Jane and Jimmy are running around on the play structure wellness it's a play structure you can

0:54:27actually get your wheelchair onto the play structure Jimmy's actually going to be able to go onto the bridge they're actually going to be able to play it better with the student to their their their friends on the playground and we want to incorporate accessibility every

0:54:38place we can into the campus it's a full inclusion program so we don't have a special ed Corner the um the students are distributed around the campus in the standard classrooms but they do have special needs so we do have special needs classrooms distributed throughout

0:54:51the entire campus um tactile learning panels is something that we think is a really wonderful feature of the campus we want to use every inch of the of the building as a teaching environment so on the as you explore the hallway so here you you can see an example what these tactile panels

0:55:07are like they're resin panels that would be in the shape of a birch tree or a redwood tree bark so that the students can actually feel the bark and feel what it feels like without without going outside not that we don't want them to go outside because the Outdoor Learning

0:55:20environment is also has a lot of educational opportunities the the site committee was very adamant about the the ability for kids to to get to touch dirt not to get dirty but to be able to interact with the ground and nature this is a very Urban environment so we want

0:55:39to have to give them as much opportunity to interact with nature as possible so that's that's a major component of the outdoor spaces you can see a lot of landscaping here and all along all along the major Corridor of the of the campus and some opportunities for gardens in

0:55:53the back emphasis on local ecosystems in the history of the campus at the bottom that last bullet says design meets chip standards chips is the collaborative for high performance schools it's uh it's a green sustainable building standard that the district has adopted and this will

0:56:08meet all chips requirements so um the project is for the most part designed there are some pieces to finish up it's been sitting on the back burner right now because we're waiting for Portola to complete we anticipate the complete the design amid to 2015 to get

0:56:25the permit in late 2015 uh just in time for the Portola students to move out of their temporary campus into their permanent home once they do that then Fairmont will move into the Portola temporary campus and then we can start bidding in 2016 and build start building

0:56:41in 2016. and this last image is what the school will look like from the corner of Kearney and Stockton our next project to share with you will be El Cerrito High School stadium well we're going to ask questions on this project at this time yeah can you turn back to the previous slide

0:57:06and what I'm you're already sort of have started designs if it turns out that the Portland project is accelerating at a more rapid Pace are you in a position to bid this project out during the summer of 2015. uh definitely all right well in the future we like to see options like

0:57:29give us flexibility so the resonance are assured that we're working diligently to try to because we've already moved up the part of the process they're starting I see Lou Brower here and Renee again I wanted to talk about what they're going to get started because when we heard

0:57:45last December when we're at the Castro sort of Clubhouse there that it wasn't going to start till the fall guess what starts next week so that's already chopped off four and a half five months of where people thought poor Lou was going to go and with the ca on site and

0:58:02I see you have a lesson Lee here who knows if they get hit the ground running and arts gets going I'd like to at least see that as an option and not box the board in and then the city in and find that it's sitting out there for 12 months because there's no coordination

0:58:18in terms of effort I just want to make sure it's on the record that you say that you can finish construction drawings and get it out of DSA because you have a Long window anyway if you get to stand out yes by the summer of 2015.

0:58:31could you do that yes definitely we can do that yep and and as long as we're talking about Fairmont I do have a question slash request um I did notice on the layout drawing that you had as much as I support outdoor uh learning environments um I would encourage you to coordinate

0:58:50with our tree ordinance um with regards to some of your learning areas uh specifically your Redwood Grove oh I will do that I'm making a note right now yeah thank you Gates and associates oh they they should know yes they should yeah I think they did the tree ordinancer or they did the uh urban

0:59:24urban uh Forest plan I should say okay then so they should know better thank you um please uh Mr Abdullah proceed unexped project would like to share with you a little bit more details as our next project going on construction uh the next quarter that will be the stadium

0:59:45project down at El Cerrito High for that I will invite Mr Kevin Maguire of wlc to share uh some of the slides with you foreign good evening City Council board members of West Contra Costa my name is Kevin McCrory and I'm principal with wlc Architects and I was thinking

1:00:10about the last time that I had a chance to speak to the council and it was probably when this project was in the throes of design and realizing that I've been with the district working on these projects now for over 14 years and at the time we started this Randy was

1:00:25actually on this site as well so it's been an amazing process to go through with your city and with the district on this campus and of course what you're looking at now is the completed or actually this Photograph nearly completed El Cerrito High School and so the area that we're going to be

1:00:40concentrating is off the left over here a little bit so as you realize the the multi-use fields have now been completed and if you have a chance to go over there and see the synthetic fields and the tennis courts and all the wonderful things that are happening there are just as informed

1:00:53by the principle that they're going to do a a baseball game there tomorrow uh for the first time uh to try out the field so that's going to be exciting but what we're concentrating on today is the new stadium and in this image the school itself is above the top of the page and

1:01:11if you have had a chance to walk over there there's a Promenade that goes between the tennis courts on the left and the multi-purpose room on the right that's going to be the primary entry for everybody coming to the stadium area and the stadiums you can see as a different

1:01:26shape it's called an international broken back track it was designed specifically uh to fit on this site as you know we have some challenges with the amount of space that we have but also it is a certifiable shape and track so we'll be able to hold regular Meats there that also it allows

1:01:45inside in the synthetic field to put a not only a full-size football field but also a full-size soccer field so we've created a lot of opportunity here for different different types of functions so just to walk you briefly through the as you walk in the gating the gate is going to be right here this

1:02:04is the visitor's side with approximately 500 seats and the Press Box and there's also a series of restrooms and team rooms the nice thing about this is these restrooms right here will be accessible to the baseball fields as well as the tracks we'll be able to use them in both

1:02:19areas team rooms and weightlifting rooms as we go around the end of the camp or the end of the building there there is also going to be an access off of Colusa up here as well and then additional restrooms on this side and the home side will have approximately 1800 seats so

1:02:35the total seating capacity is about 2 300 folks for this project then all around is our nice Plaza areas and Gathering areas as well as the uh the high jumps long jumps and shot puts and those kind of things then in this area right here is a concession stand and originally it was just going to be a

1:02:54very basic concession stand and now it is a full-blown production kitchen and so for not only for the football and soccer events but also for the whole whether it's a tennis tournament or any kind of activities going on on the main campus uh Fields you've got a a really

1:03:14nice production concession area and then a very nice Plaza that then can be shut off and controlled depending on which venue is using it as we drive up Central Avenue this is what you're going to see some nice trees along there but also a series of retaining walls that will keep basically

1:03:34this end of the track in one of the challenges we found is when we were designing and building the tennis courts is that when they built those fields they just took the dirt and just sort of pushed it over there and they didn't compact it they didn't engineer that

1:03:48fill and so that's been one of the challenges that we've had is to make sure that this entire end of the field is going to be removed so you're going to see a lot of dirt being moved out there so they can come back and recompact it and build it so that's an engineered field to create the proper

1:04:06base for the fields and then these are the various buildings I won't go through each one of them but just suffice it to say they're going to fit in beautifully with the architecture of the existing campus and just as a side note uh up on Eureka over here above the parking lot there is

1:04:22a basketball court that's over there that's going to be available for student use so that is the the basics of where we are with the uh with the stadium and we're looking to go out uh to bid on it here in the next several months to be able to start construction hopefully

1:04:37during the summer and ultimately have it open and ready to go uh by summer next year great any quick questions uh board member Ramsay on on this project for the who who's doing the hazardous material evaluation and and review it's RGA all right are they here tonight no

1:05:02they're not I'm trying to find out because we've run into problems at some of the other Fields projects and we we've had valuable Lessons Learned what expanded level of investigation and review are they doing for this El Cerrito Fields project as you know after the experience we had

1:05:22at the Helms field we went back and uh we did a full phase one phase two uh geo-hazard on uh Del Cerrito field and that's actually it's been uh going on right now all right so that is taking place because we don't want to get in a situation where we get started and we

1:05:38have to shut down like we did at Helms for three months so I hope and I it's good that the cities here in Residence that that is expanded and being done and that will help at least facilitate what's the situation around the lights are the lights going to be replaced or

1:05:55removed or what are they doing with the lights because the neighbors huh no in terms of what type of lights are they putting in I mean um lies like what the same kind of uh live fishes we've installed at other fields and we are replacing the existing lights and we're adding two more light poles

1:06:20all right I just want us to be sensitive to the neighbors and make sure that what we're replacing is actually more efficient friendlier and less impactful to the the residents in the area because they know that they do voice their concerns if these things are coming so I

1:06:38just wanted to make sure you stated it for us tonight to the viewing audience so they had some idea what's going on around the neighborhood for sure question uh council member Abelson um yes the question I have has to do with the use of the field when it's not in use for organized Sports and by the

1:06:59school during the school day is will it be available for use to the General Public definitely it would be part of the Azure news agreement that we are working on with the city was realized we spay I'm not sure I'm asking the same question what I wondered about is I know

1:07:18historically this track for example has been used by um individuals just individuals not organized groups to um you know just get their exercise in and so forth and I'm wondering if that will kind of use will be available after the site is done or if the gates will be locked or you know the question

1:07:43is I'm asking yes we have no attention so far to keep the gates locked the facility will be open to be used for the community and or whatever activity that the city will schedule for the use of that portion of the field at a given time so I believe that in Albany for example

1:08:04that once the school day is over that the gates are opened and uh the general Community meaning not organized but just you know people wanting to get exercise are able to come onto campus at all the Albany Middle School and at cougar field and get their exercise will

1:08:23that be true at El Cerrito High yes ma'am thank you councilmember benicide then board member Ramsey thank you I'm excited to see the gate uh from Colusa I think um I've been very interested in what this is going to look like from the street so I was also interested to see

1:08:39the street level drawings you had from Ashbury I think there's a lot of that's a tough walking environment right now and I think to the extent we can make it a little bit more pleasant for pedestrians will be a great Improvement so I'm happy to see that there's

1:08:52attention being paid to that view thank you board member Ramsey what are the issues in terms of Maintenance I know that De Anza had a maintenance agreement for the subsequent years after it was installed by the manufacturer and contractor I thought that worked so I want to kind

1:09:14of unders Bill Savage did a really good job with them trying to see if there's any thoughts about integrating that into this new project absolutely Mr Ramsay that's worked fine with us at the Anza and we are going to implement the same mindset down here at El Cerrito High

1:09:31yeah so I'd really encourage instead of a two-year kind of process more like five to ten and then you can see if it's really been maintained and able to be substantiated and really used for another 15 years after that because I think if you maintain it well early on it it can

1:09:49sustain itself so I really hope that and Ike is here and Kevin's here and I don't see Marshall value who's working on it from value design that they look at putting that into the documents that it would be considered a five to ten year maintenance agreement for that because

1:10:08we just don't have the staff or the music resources to do and I think I saw De Anza playing a baseball game there and it looked pristine it's been going on for four years now for sure what Mr abdalek if you could explain the maintenance program just a little bit to us those those of us that

1:10:25are not as familiar with the as the board members absolutely it is practically a mentalist agreement we tap into the contract itself for excuse me for a landscape subcontractor to come in and do the maintenance on the field on the turf and in the vicinity around it as part of the

1:10:48overall project cost and that will relieve some of our maintenance staff to do the custodial service and our operation around them so it's it's like an extended warranty period it's a plan in my profession we call it a plant established we I do a lot of uh planting

1:11:05professionally and we do have a three-year uh you know plan establishment period extended warranty period whatever you want to call it but that's that's essentially what you're describing absolutely absolutely um with regards to the production kitchen the concession area are there

1:11:21plans to allow the public small businesses or something like that to use that for either education or one-off production events is what's the since it's a standalone structure I'm just curious if there's a community use for that structure uh there is a little restriction Mr

1:11:39Mayor in that regard in regards to local one employee working in the in a school facilities is still in the process of negotiation I cannot really give you a straight answer on that because we were willing to have any identities using the field who would like to use the

1:11:56concession stand to hire local one to operate the kitchen not necessarily me or any other individual to go there and operate for safety reason for for contractual uh reasons with the unions as well yeah so so if I understand your your answers when the con when the

1:12:13concession stand is open for events at the school the union local one would staff it my question was when there's no event there is the kitchen available as a community resource for people to use it for teaching or production not at this point no okay thank you any

1:12:33other questions I have a question yes council member uh Bridges so um I have a question about where the tennis courts are in relationship to the restroom where do your varsity tennis players use restrooms when they have matches currently I assume they're playing their matches

1:12:51there now correct if you could please come forward to the microphone and respond uh sure there's a couple different locations there's the restrooms in the gym that could be open as well and there's bathrooms on the field but the way it's intended is that there are

1:13:06restrooms right here right and the test courts are sort of on the other side they're right there yeah and they're right there are tennis courts are actually right immediately adjacent to where the concession stand and the plaza is going to be would there be any

1:13:19consideration to move the restrooms closer to where the tennis courts are because the gym isn't always open uh well no these restrooms literally there's so you can see the length of the football field right here yes they are whoops did I do that um thank you they're within a you know 100

1:13:37yards at the most and that's where the Promenade is the Promenade comes from the gymnasium and the parking lot in in between the gymnasium and the field between the tennis courts all the way uh down to the stadium and that will always be unlocked then we're going back one

1:13:54slide that uh I wouldn't I'd hesitate to use the word always those are always administrative issues that the the campus and the district need to work out appropriately so it can be but uh I wouldn't answer that that way okay one more question from council member

1:14:11Abelson I I just want to clarify the food thing and I'm thinking back to the many years my kids spent going to El Cerrito High and I have five kids so uh the um at a football game the parents would sell various things and it was a fundraising project for various School groups so

1:14:39when you talk about this being a production kitchen are you saying that that's no longer a possibility that's part one of my question and then part two is when there would be a group say like real life her life using the football field for 24 hours are they able to use that facility to

1:14:58um um sell food to the people who are there participating in that event which is an event that has um no direct relationship with the school well that's what your question is yes that the kitchen would be open at any time this activity the question is who is going to operate that kitchen as

1:15:17we speak now the the population that kitchen needs to be done by a union member who's qualified in this activity I.E our food service staff when is it needed how long is it needed for this is all can be negotiated and discussed in a case by case so um what I I've known historically that

1:15:43has meant is that the cost of doing so has been prohibitively expensive for those who are wanting to use the facility um is it there needs to be sort of an oversight person or is it actually no one else can sell the chips for example well I'm trying to get a sense of is

1:16:05this making it unusable for fundraising projects we're going to do I've remembered I'm superintendent we're going to do Relay for Life we're gonna have a community group in there we're going to make sure that they're able to get in to operate our our interests from

1:16:18our employee groups is just to make sure that we open and close and we haven't cleaned but in terms of actual use uh committee will have full use of this just as they do in all of our other high schools right now okay thank you all right thank you seeing no further questions Mr Abdallah

1:16:32would you like to continue sure we we touched on two projects that are in design or coming in in construction soon the next project is a project that's actually a starting construction next week for that I'm gonna bring Mr Marcus hesper again to talk to us about

1:16:50Portland the new project at Castro two people up here from Seville here please because I have questions yes sir back up it's good to be back it's been a while so uh uh again I'm here to talk about another exciting project uh in the city of El Cerrito um I want to talk to you

1:17:29about Portola Middle School the new Portola Middle School the future home of the portal of students is going to be at the now closed Castro Elementary School campus you can see here an overall image of the entire block this this small building down here is Cameron School

1:17:46here's Rita Vista Park and then this is going to be the the future Portola Middle School this L-shaped building in this building are existing on the campus the in all the rest of the buildings are going to be brand new well there's going to be quite a quite a lot of work happening here over the next

1:18:03couple two and a half years this just to give you an idea of what you're looking at here this is the gymnasium here and there's a locker there's a two-story this is a two-story building here which is a locker room it's on the lower floor library on the Upper Floor

1:18:17Administration this is going to be the primary entrance of the campus right now the entrance to Castro was was up here the new entrance to the middle school will be down here Administration is going to be here this new building here part of it is to most of it's two-story

1:18:33but there is a three-story portion that has a dance room and a fitness room in the lower floor and classrooms in the upper two floors this building will be predominantly classrooms and mostly special use classrooms there'll be an art room in there we have a robotics lab

1:18:50designed in there it's going to be really exciting space this is where the existing multi-purpose building for Castro is now it's much much too small and too low for a middle school so we'll be tearing the all one down and building a new multi-purpose building with a

1:19:04full-service kitchen and then behind that what you see right here is going to be the what we call the Performing Arts classroom they have their drama and music both in that classroom I'll show you some other images of of the site in just a minute but one of the features

1:19:18that you can really see from this overall view is one of the special features of the campus the green roof so we have living roofs on the gymnasium on the multi-purpose building and then on this small piece of the Performing Arts classroom the point of those is to both

1:19:35increase the energy performance of the build well three things increase energy performance of the buildings to treat the storm water as it goes uh it goes into the storm drains the storm system and slow down the Slowdown that that the amount of water that goes into the

1:19:49system in a rain event and the third thing is to reduce the amount of glare off the roofs the roofs are going to be pretty bright and we want to reduce the glare and be mindful of of the neighbors up here on the hill and their views and and the environment that's already there

1:20:01in that real nice little neighborhood so I talked about these already um there's three levels to the campus as uh anybody familiar with Castro knows um Donal goes uphill and Norvell is relatively flat so there is a lower level right now that has playground on it that will stay playground there will

1:20:21be some parking down there for the gymnasium for after hours events um the there's the central level now which is a lot of asphalt and a lot of slope and we're flattening that out and making a a nice quad we call this the academic quad because it'll be surrounded by Library which is accessed

1:20:36right off the quad admin which is right off the quad and then the classrooms really surround this quad space here then the upper level is what we call the the sort of I'm called The Performing Arts level that's my particular proclivity I like the fact that we're on

1:20:51this multi-purpose space it's not just a lunchroom but we're also designing this so that it can be a great performing space because they do have a wonderful jazz band if you guys haven't heard it already it's really it's really it's uh I hate to say it's surprising but it was

1:21:04it was is very surprising to see just quite how good these middle schoolers are it's a really wonderful program so so this is this space is designed both for um lunch to spill out in this area if you're easily supervisable be away from the classrooms but um also to

1:21:21provide an outdoor Avenue a patio for after hours events which is also why we have parking here and another entrance to the campus there to give you a flavor of what the interior of the building layout is the corridor down here the classrooms on either side this um this special this

1:21:38spot here is what we're doing is we're lowering a part of the there's a part of the basement of that existing building we're actually making that deeper so we can use that space for um for functions that are that are relevant to the school this particular space is what we call

1:21:52the community project it's based on another school in the district that has a special services for students that need intervention that need special counseling it's a it can be a student center it's a great place for students to come get the extra extra help that

1:22:09they might need and less traditional academic way it's more of a psychological place for them to to to better themselves the um this is the admin here like with Fairmont it's for security is very important so in when the students are on the campus the gates lock here Gates

1:22:28will lock here Gates will lock there students will be on the campus at all times in order to get onto the campus visitors have to go again through Administration so it's a great way to secure it it's council member Abelson to your your question about the Cerrito Fields this

1:22:45is another case where we will be able to lock down the campus here here and here after our uh after school hours but this public can still utilize the the areas that they're accustomed to using because we know that the community does use this area quite a bit the community center

1:23:00being right here and all there's always people walking their dogs or playing with their kids or it's a very it's a it's a tremendous community resource and so we're maintaining that aspect of the campus some idea of what the buildings will look like this is a section to the site

1:23:15I was talking about the three levels the gymnasium opens up on the lower level then you come up there'll be some retaining walls in here Administration opens on the central quad existing classroom building and then the upper play yard here some might wonder why we came up to go

1:23:32down you can see this depression here part of the reason we did that is that we did promise the community that we were not going to build any buildings any higher than the existing buildings which we did the problem was that the existing buildings were so low that we

1:23:46didn't have the height in the multi-purpose building so we actually depressed the um this area down here to get that height and get a nice multi-purpose space so give you a flavor what the campus is this is from this this image is of the main classroom building in the gymnasium

1:23:59from Street of Vista Park this is from the parking lot those same two buildings uh and then this would be the upper the upper play yard this is the multi-purpose building here you can see the green roof uh the entrance in and out of for the students in and out of

1:24:14the multi-purpose and some basketball courts and and some areas for the to spend their lunch and that's about all I have about that and questions yes uh board member Ramsay uh what's the square footage of the facility uh it's approximately 90 000 square feet and and this might be a

1:24:33question for the city how are you going to address the construction noise that's going to be taking place the demo demolition the Bang Bang pretty much throughout months of this project what is there a phone number people can call or how do you address work hours sometimes subcontractors try

1:24:54to sneak in at four or five in the morning to deliver things because they want to avoid traffic what's what's the plan we have butterfly that is in the process to be uh distributed everyone in the meeting today have one we do have a phone number just in case of any

1:25:12complaints um you make sure you distribute that there's no there's no flyer up here at the moment so yeah okay we don't need to stop the meeting to do that just please do so afterwards sure I think it's an appropriate question to ensure that notice is given to Residents

1:25:34so that they can at least alert us if there becomes problems contractors have been known to cut Corners not so much on the construction but trying to make sure that they are able to have their profits and so they'll do anything that they can and we need to make sure the eyes and ears of

1:25:52the community are out there so that that's done and I want to make sure the residents know we're at least being considerate and have taken this into account in terms of knowing it is so at least U.N City can have that information I did want to ask SGI who are the people

1:26:09that are going to be managing this project and how are they coordinating at this point in time are they here well Mr Ramsay as you know we have the a team from HDI I will introduce the construction manager lubrow I'd like to hear his qualifications if you come to

1:26:23the mic for sure and he's also brought with him his assistant Renee okay Mr Brown have you worked on projects in this area that counts yes Kensington Elementary School El Cerrito High School and Ford Elementary School this will be my fourth project with the district third in this

1:26:45area second right in El Cerrito and what is in Marcus you're here I'm starting to hear some concerns the board voted for a full-time CA on the site what's the coordination when are they going to start and what's the alignment and because when I talked to some people

1:27:04don't no one had a affirmative answer and I want to know when are they going to start what are their work hours and what's the process the board voted for that we want to make sure this project hits the ground running with no problem CA is a construction architect

1:27:18construction I apologize yes Construction Construction Administration construction architect it's the person that we have managing the project from our side to be sure that the contractor is building the project for the plans and specifications and any issues that are encountered

1:27:33during construction hidden conditions things like that we can address them in a timely manner so to address your question I I don't know if that how concerns were raised but we certainly have Lee Pollard he's with us he's the Hy architect he'll be our person responsible for construction

1:27:50Administration and he's being waived up but he is planning to be on the site as soon as the trailers are ready our understanding is that there are the trails are going to be delivered uh one set of trailers on the 13th the other on the 27th or the 24th somebody correct me

1:28:05if I'm wrong and we can't hear you they need to speak into the mic initial trailers will start coming in 13th or 14th Monday or Tuesday uh a second set will come in before the end of next week and the final set the week after the fencing will start going up next week

1:28:28uh the contractor met with PG e today and we're looking for utilities we expect to be on site and scratching around uh before the end of this month the pla initial markup meeting went well today pla is a project labor agreement uh yes sir project labor agreement and

1:28:52we've been granted authority to mobilize and commence construction have you had to work with State Sanitation District or East Bay mud on water and um yes with El Cerrito High School definitely also at Ford uh we're lucky our inspector of Rec record is Steve Cason

1:29:15who is not only a class one building inspector he's also the district's utility coordinator and many many years of experience coordinating directly with all of the utilities including Comcast PG e indirectly a t definitely East Bay mud and all all of those entities all right

1:29:47so I still didn't get an answer to the question so what day Mr hipster do you expect to have your construction administrator this is going to be very very important to make sure we can try to make some of these milestones and see where this Project's going for the

1:30:04future of Fairmont as soon as the trailers are available for him to have a space that's when he's going to be starting which we understand to be the 24th 27 of the month and what are the hours that they'll be working my understanding is contractor hours is from seven to three and those are the

1:30:19hours he's going to maintain thank you any other questions thank you just a quick question on Castro Park so during construction where will the access points be to the park well I I assume the ones on denal will be maybe more limited uh yes definitely uh the now the the construction site

1:30:41will be this entire area so let me just start by telling you what isn't uh accessible okay uh the construction fence is going all the way around this this this area and this is where the contractor will be um having his entire operation so that will be uh completely torn up for a good

1:30:57duration um there's still the access here there's stairs here and here which will be uh maintained and then there's always access from from this site from Gladys okay thank you the access through and around the tennis courts is also still available Council memory Wilson yeah the question

1:31:17I had to do was uh back at the Portola site um and I'm wondering about uh wheelchair access I I it was in um Castro Elementary many times and I know that it was what I would call a little bit funky uh to go from one level to another but the nice thing about it was

1:31:39one never is I remember had to use an elevator which is good since the elevators are always kept locked and I'm wondering if you will be able one will be able once this is uh complete to move from level to level or at least outside from every level so that you don't have to worry about

1:32:01getting stuck on a elevator only accessible by elevator and in fact it's locked and so you can't get out to answer the second part of your question first every every level is accessible to the outdoors so for instance here in the classroom building if if I were on this upper level you

1:32:24could go this way if I was on the lower level then I could come this way if I was on the further level the for the lowest level I could go this way so access from every level out is is there we do at for wheelchairs at um yes at grade that's grades at work yes great

1:32:43correct we do rely on elevators though to get you from level to level unfortunately the existing the existing grade change from the top of the site to the bottom is about 70 feet so it's it's pretty it's a pretty severe so it doesn't feel like it when you're when you're driving

1:33:01on the street but it actually is pretty severe the reason I say this and I'm glad to hear what you're saying is that at Portola I was actually trapped on the low the highest level because there was no none of that so I think it's really great that you have Incorporated it into

1:33:20this project good um just going back to the construction uh project uh you do you have a public Outreach website or something like that that will provide information as the progress goes uh project progress as the contract goes on yes and it is an urban program project

1:33:41website at www.wccosd bondprogram.com uh we we update the information there very frequently great that that actually isn't on your Flyers that's something you could add to your next flyer and I'm assuming that the work hours seven to three that you that if there is somebody

1:34:00working at typically equipment uh maintenance people like to start at five fueling machines and such if there is somebody working outside of outside the seven to three time frame you would expect them to call the phone number uh Lou Brower or Renee barra's phone number

1:34:18that's listed on the flyer is that correct absolutely and Mr Mayor as you know we just finished finished the demolition of Portland and that went very smoothly right and finally I haven't seen a schedule for what your anticipated completion date is and when the students would move in the project

1:34:36is as we address is due to be completed by the end of 2015 early 2016. uh it is 980-day duration and this is just about the right time for it great thank you anyway yeah it's a little sooner than that because the notice to proceed was signed by Mr Fay on April on April 7th so I

1:35:01just remember well I mean April April the day after the April 8th so I saw that and the two things are still missing from the presentation unless you're done we're not done yeah and no one that would take so much of your time I'm gonna skim through the rest of the city of Cerrito

1:35:21um sorry Harding and as for the last 12 months we've been doing quite a bit of work at Harding we finished the restroom Renovations and we just finished the crawl space ventilation and we are on the street for uh the waterproofing and Roofing uh projects who was due to be

1:35:51open today and and we are gonna have to go back and bid it again Madeira is one of our schools at El Cerrito city as well uh Alto portrait we all know that it has been gone this is what's left of a contract is going back next week to start doing the grading part of this project which we had to

1:36:12pull out because of the weather and was raining it was not suitable by the time we finish grading we'll do the height receiving and we'll walk uh we'll walk away from there this is a quick slide to uh just show how much the band program have contributed to the city of El

1:36:26Cerritos schools uh very very very healthy portion of our Band program at 200 85 million dollar in total this is now considering the cost for Australia Stadium or Fairmont who is we're looking down three years down the road uh knowing what the construction costs at that point will be that will

1:36:49conclude my presentation thank you for your support yes sir board member Ramsay I think I just wanted to wait to be recognized and be considerate I'd like Steve Collins to come up because there's still a part of the program is incomplete Cameron school is also in the city of El Cerrito and

1:37:06what are the plans in terms of getting uh we we're in the process of trying to hire architect for that and I want people to know that that that is not being ignored and Mr Collins could you at least say what it is that you guys are looking for on that and what's where are

1:37:24you at with the architect selection process we are going uh back to do the architect selection as we speak only have a budget set aside to start the design for for the school uh Mr Collins will uh give us an idea about what would they what would we looking for um program wise Mr Collins if you could

1:37:48Mr Collins if you could let us know what your position is that'd be great I am Steve Collins I'm the sofa director for West Contra Costa um we're a single district selpa with a special ed local plan area because we have over 30 000 students there's 127 Celsius in the state of California and

1:38:07what's solpas stand for if you could special ed local plan area thank you so I'm the selfie director and also the director of Special Ed we've been working very closely with the bond on department and oversight Committee in looking for a architect one of the issues was we had a change in

1:38:27administration our our administrator there became ill and we had to bring in a new administrator so we started the process over we're looking for an architect who has knowledge of special ed needs and Facilities to meet the special ed needs of Cameron Cameron there's an early intervention Center

1:38:47where we serve students zero to five years old so it has particular special needs plus we're looking at on expanding the building because our program is continuing expanding as Federal Regulations change we're providing more and more services to students especially

1:39:05in the area of autism great thank you yeah but because it was in the bond language and I I think this is going to be a unique opportunity but what didn't we move also at the Castro site wasn't there other program that we moved to Downer Mr Abdallah because I think people need to know the traffic's

1:39:22going to change because that program's not there any longer yeah you're absolutely correct Mr Ramsey it was a program that moved to uh the downer site which is the California Children's Service program that was housed uh the tail end of the L-shaped building at

1:39:41Castro they they since they have been moved and uh they've been very worse than the weather for the last three weeks yeah I just want to make sure the council was aware that that was an important program and now we've found because we didn't want to be around that

1:39:54noise when all that construction was going on so we wanted to make sure when people asked what happened to it they knew they were relocated for their own well-being great thank you any other questions seeing none I'll move on to the thank you final discussion item uh item 3D report from

1:40:13the Portola disposition subcommittee and not seeing any staff step forward I know that uh council member benicini I'm happy to start it off and have the other members jump in the subcommittee is made up of board member Groves board member Ramsey mayor Lyman and myself as well as

1:40:33staff members and the goal of the subcommittee is to discuss the future uh temporary Portola campus that will be vacated by the district presumably once the Fairmont kids are moved into their new building in around 2018 is sort of the current schedule and the subcommittee met one time so far in

1:40:52April 29th and our main discussion was about the sloped part of the campus where the demolition has taken place and where the district no longer has a use for for that land and one discussion item we proposed that staff explore is the idea of a long-term lease between

1:41:11the district to the city so that the city could then move forward with trying to come up with programming for that site there was also a point made that there may be some money in the bond program to potentially help with whatever uses may be placed there in the

1:41:25future we also began we also began speaking about the lower level of the Portola site where the current um portal of middle school is today and the only points we made at that at this point are that that land is currently Zone institutional use um and then we also just discussed sort

1:41:43of the movement of the chill of the schools and the timing of when the middle school kids will vacate and when the Fairmont kids will come in and we'll continue to have discussions about that site as that is still several years away in terms of being vacated and I'd be

1:41:56happy to hear any additions from the other subcommittee members board member Ramsey yeah I know that um there needs to be timing issues that's why I think all of this is critical because and you may want to expand on the the idea of I don't know how you would characterize

1:42:13it but funding from the city to do projects if there's a bond measure or something here look I don't know how they do it in the city but I think I'll let you guys tackle that and talk about the coordination I can do that in a board member Groves do you have anything to add

1:42:31I think it went swimmingly well I think we had a really good start and uh it's gonna be a a very fruitful discussion I think we're all on the same page and uh we're moving forward so and stay tuned yeah two things I want to touch on the the school district does have a very

1:42:47formal process that they need to go through with regards to Surplus properties so um that wasn't necessarily brought up in the subcommittee report and uh to respond to board member Ramsey's Point um we we don't know what the future use of the property is so it's premature for

1:43:04me to say it's going to be something like a lifelong Learning Center however as we go through this process the public will have comments and it's through what the final uses that will determine how we might do fundraising to fund that future use um so you know it depends on what the

1:43:23future use is to determine what the funding is if it is something as uh replacing another building that's in the city then it might be through a bond measure that's voted on by the people but at this time it's it's still premature to go down that path so um with that

1:43:48no questions I'm going to move on to item four oral Communications from the public and I I could see the nod that we have a few um do we have more than five we have three three well then we can stick with our uh traditional three minutes per person we do have a light system here

1:44:10out in the front Podium by the laptop computer that will help you remember uh to fall within the three minutes uh green yellow and red I will politely ask you to wrap up when the red light comes on if we could have the first speaker please Al Miller School Board city council Al Miller 625

1:44:34Ashbury Avenue that's right across the street from our nice now not so brand new but still wonderful El Cerrito High School at the risk of lecturing the choir or the I'll it's not my intent so if I get too high up on a soapbox please pull me off of it or what but one of the things that I really want

1:45:00to get across to you is how important it is for the two governing bodies to be together and to continue to be together especially in the next several years at least from my point of view the school board staff District staff is extremely confident working very hard on

1:45:20their goals the city staff very competent working very hard on their goals each of those have a separate body comprised of you guys you guys are the unifying forces because you all work for the same people all of the people that elect city council members in El Cerrito

1:45:41elect school board members in West Unified School District so that's the foundation I moved to El Cerrito in 1979 right across from the old high school ever since I can remember all of the facilities the basketball courts the football field the track the old practice field is bumping along it was

1:46:06was open if it was just you know the school had priority on it the uh Billie Jean King Tennis Center the built by the combined I guess by the school but it you know it was for the school teams and then the community uh people would throw their balls for the dogs around it they run and walk

1:46:28around the track new facilities entirely different type of facilities uh it's hasn't been worked out at least it hasn't been publicized if it's been worked out how the community will continue to be able to share now why is it important well there are resources we paid for the school bond we

1:46:50are paying for it that's building it I think it would be very unfortunate if we realize that after paying for these new facilities we no longer have access to them or we have only have access to them with a very difficult and from our point of view because we don't know the requirements

1:47:10of the new facilities uh procedures to do it I was very surprised the first time I went over there to watch a soccer match with my unfoldable canvas chair I can't put that on the new field it's going to hurt it whether that's changed or not I don't know I know you're not going to

1:47:28want dogs running around there with things that dogs do after they've chased the tennis walls Etc the theater that's being used the facility that I've never seen so much activity at that school since it has been open we used to wonder when we saw saw the occasional event what's going on now if

1:47:50there's no event going on there no matter whether it's a weekend or a weeknight we wonder why but anyway I encourage you to keep aware especially of how they work out the City Rec and the School District staff works out how are we going to share these facilities

1:48:07in a way that meets everybody's requirements thank you thank you next speaker please Robert studifer good evening board good evening Council my name is Robert stuttiford I'm a year member of the bond oversight committee former chairman I've watched the bomb program since its Inception back with

1:48:28Lavon Geron and have seen every community that it has touched benefit when it comes to my community El Cerrito I want to talk to you specifically about the Portola the old portal around when I look into the future I see an open space and I see a play field a soccer field

1:48:45that is open to the community one of the things that the new Portola School site will bring is a new school but at four o'clock the property reverts back to the city so the kids at Portola will not have an ability to have intramural sports program but if it is at Portola

1:49:03they can easily walked over to the old portal of field and have a space and open space to play now when it comes to the city if I were a city rep parking Rec person I would then have a Playfield on the old Portola footprint I would have Cerrito Vista and I would have

1:49:21access to the high school New stadiums two new Fields down there so if I wanted to put forward a soccer tournament say in the middle of summer when it's 110 degrees in Concord and I have 65 degrees beautiful air conditioning and I have four venues that I can take BART bus or

1:49:40I can walk to I have a facility that I can reach out into the community and bring dollars back into my community I can have Fitness for my community for my youth but then also as the demographics change in our community the other thing that we get is we have the ability to

1:49:57have adult leagues at night because you could actually light that field because there are very few residents around that field to be disturbed by late night activity and on a lit field this already happens that the tennis court Red Cross from the private school what is it uh

1:50:13Sierra yeah aspect yeah so I just look at if we're going to spend Community dollars and work together as city of government and the school district this is one way where Mutual dollars and mutual work could provide a very long health benefit into the future and one

1:50:30of the things that Al just brought up was you know that theater when we paid 25 million dollars for that theater those people were either people screaming at the top their lungs nobody's ever going to use that thing well ask Al how many people use it I've never seen a weekend where it's where

1:50:46it's quiet ever so you know when all of the things all the good that can come out of one little space we have to remember in El Cerrito we have the highest density a population to open space ratio there is this is a huge amount of land that's come free and this

1:51:02is one resource this is one use of of open space that would benefit everybody in the community and both you both municipalities can work together to make it happen and that goes I don't take that down even further when I look at that kitchen at that at you know that

1:51:18allows you when you're having these big uh tournaments to actually serve real food and for the high school you can print on Monday a menu for the football game on Friday and you can send it to both schools if you can serve you know real food instead of hamburgers and little plastic bag and

1:51:35some nacho chips please uh wrap up your comments thank you next speaker please uh Tom Banas good evening mayor Lyman president Cronenberg members of the council members of the school district City staff and School Board staff my name is Tom Patterson I live at [address removed]

1:51:58in El Cerrito I'd like to thank the district and the city for putting on such a great presentation tonight very educational I realize this is in the Q a session but I'd like to point out that the very large Mosaic across from the office at Fairmont School is a treasured resource

1:52:14in this town is more than 50 years old it was created over Spanish three years by the students at Fairmont School every single student who attend the school during that period laid down at least one tile on that mosaic it's remarkable depiction of the topics of

1:52:29interest in El Cerrito at the time the community will be extremely interested in knowing how this unique local resource an important piece of folk art will be integrated into the new campus beyond that I'd like to thank both of our two previous speakers for addressing

1:52:45Recreation at the school and the need to keep those campuses over for open for uses after school by the community we all paid for them and we we'd like to be able to use them they're wonderful facilities thank you very much for your time this evening great thank you

1:52:59um on the on the matter of the school facilities as a resource for the community I'm looking at uh city manager Hannon and Dr harder I don't know if one of you wants to address that quickly well I think it only I think it's suitable if just one does uh We've uh

1:53:22we've been meeting and we've come we've come to a general conceptual agreement about how we're going to work together and really delighted that we're going to be able to make progress to make sure that our facilities are available not only for groups but also for individuals

1:53:34as as we move forward within the city great thank you um with that we will move on to item five comments and possible direction from board of directors and council members so this is our opportunity for uh wrap-up remarks or any type of guidance specifically with regards to

1:53:55for example the Portola the existing Portola area and I'm thinking in the report the subcommittee report out we talked about a lease between the district and the city and so if there's any thoughts on that concept that uh the two prospective staffs can go away with and please

1:54:20include that in your remarks I don't know if uh council member uh Friedman would like to start or pass um just very briefly I'm very encouraged by the history of collaboration between the district and the city so I think we have a solid foundation to build upon

1:54:38and I'm excited to see the plans for the new and renovated facilities within our community and want to emphasize what all of my colleagues have been saying about the need to make all the facilities available to the general populace in El Cerrito whenever feasible

1:54:56Boardman marinos uh just quickly thank you everyone for coming number one we don't always get a ton of folks this is a great turnout the other thing is continue to work together for what our students need okay the conversation we had about the writing the other

1:55:15conversations we've had remember our students face a markedly more competitive world than they did a few years ago it's very important we continue to all work together we don't have to agree but we still got to work together thank you councilmember bridges yeah I think this has been been very

1:55:33helpful what's interesting about residents is they don't really understand that the city council really doesn't have any vote for what goes on at the schools and we get comments and ask about it all the time what's happening with this what's happening with that why is this being

1:55:48done we don't really always know so I think it's been really valuable for us to hear because there's so many projects coming forward on exactly what's going on again thank you for the comments from Al and Michael about the use agreement um fortunately I am the park and rec

1:56:10Commissioners um and their liaison from city council to the park and rec and I've been listening from the baseball players from the soccer players from the tennis players how the facilities have been locked they haven't been used for the general public we used to be

1:56:28able to reserve for free through the community center I think that the use agreement has been ironed out I don't know that it's a written policy yet so I think I'm going to hear a little more update about this so um I'm feeling everyone's pain about this and I hear incessantly about it at the

1:56:47park and rec commission so thank you for bringing up residence council member benassini thank you I won't Echo all the comments of Wonder at how educational it is for us to hear about these mate these are such a major part of our city you know we we don't have a ton of projects

1:57:02going on in El Cerrito we're quite built out so when things go on at the schools it's a really big deal to us and I just might Echo the The Joint use um uh uh singing that's been going on about how we need more joint use agreements and and when I I even think beyond the groups that want to use these

1:57:18facilities to the individuals the council member Abelson was speaking of I can go on to UC Berkeley's um football stadium that is you know quite an expensive facility and I can run up run up those steps and do my exercise there so I think we can try to come up with just as open as a of a

1:57:35feeling on these campuses and to have these be as valued by non-student athletes as they are by student athletes so thank you so much and thank you for all of the wonderful information on all the programs going on in the schools it's really great to hear what goes on

1:57:49inside the buildings we hear a lot about the buildings but when we hear from our our teachers and our students and our principals that really gives us a sense of the life that goes on there so thank you for coming tonight board member Groves I just want to thank

1:58:01my colleagues Madeline Cronenberg and Janet Abelson for bringing the Stars program to life this is a fantastic opportunity for our kids to experience learning in the 21st century what it really means to uh to work and I'm looking forward to seeing this thing grow and grow and and maybe we see the

1:58:20recycle center tapping into our our Environmental Studies program over at El Cerrito High we have we have a lot of opportunities to to engage our youth in meaningful learning outside the traditional classroom so let's let's see let's see this move forward thank you

1:58:35very much great thank you uh council member or Premier Pro tem Abelson yes I want to uh thank uh everyone for putting together this session I think it's been really really interesting really helpful in understanding and I think it really does help when we all come together and

1:58:53um and talk about the things we have in common and about working together I think it really makes a difference and I think we have to really kind of think Charles because I think he was the one pushing that at least from where I said you are so thank you Charles thank you

1:59:08for doing that and I hope that we continue doing this I think it is invaluable and it gives us an opportunity to work together in a really constructive way rather than one of us calling up and complaining to somebody about something or another just working together like this I think is a really

1:59:27great foundation and I think it's the best thing we can do for our community and in particular our our students so thank you thank you uh board member Ramsey yeah I want to thank everyone for tonight for me knowledge is key anytime that we're able to share information it creates a better

1:59:47relationship brings less skepticism about what we're trying to accomplish in our purpose and our methods and having that level of transparency I think is critical to the success in collaboration that is vital when it comes to educating our kids and making sure that they

2:00:06become proactive citizens in their future I know that my daughter who's graduating this year along with Todd and going off to the east coast my daughter will be going to Sarah Lawrence's daughter to NYU we're excited about that and knowing that they got a great first

2:00:21class education here in the school district in attended schools in El Cerrito throughout I do want to point out some things that we're not discussed tonight but I think are important for the viewing audience as well as the council and the people here watching the

2:00:36sitting here watching tonight we are reinstituting an elementary music program here in the city of El Cerrito so all of our elementary schools program which will strengthen the music program then that flows into Portola and then in the high school it's critical in

2:00:54the district next week at its board meeting we'll be voting to implement that through the feeder feeder School concept so that we're able to have that take place I also want to mention that because of the huge success here in the city of El Cerrito one of the highest

2:01:11rates for the parcel tax renewal as well as the bond measure you've heard about that but things about keeping Athletics going so that you hear tomorrow they're actually hosting a playoff game at El Cerrito High School the a first that we wouldn't have had without the success of

2:01:27the parcel tax counseling service keeping our libraries open maintaining some level of class size reduction we really really thank the voters in the residents here in El Cerrito they have been the Bedrock by which we have these campaigns without the support here in

2:01:43this community none of this could happen so it's really critical to know that it's very much value and so I think that is also something that's important the ivy league connection program is still vibrant and active here in this community and we've expanded Johns

2:01:59Hopkins actually use so you talk about the theater program we also have universities that visit University of Pennsylvania was there last year Dartmouth College other schools have come and they use the theater frankly for their entire East Bay information session not just in this area but for

2:02:15the entire East Bay because it's been such a viable critical and our kids are applying we have now over two dozen kids who are out in these schools on these campuses so we're excited about that but the most critical important thing that we have is tomorrow and many have

2:02:31recognized or know about it but tomorrow the State Board of Education will be voting to approve and ratify the recommendation from Tom turlex in the California Department of Education on the debt limit waiver we are very hopeful and optimistic that that will be

2:02:47ratified by the state board next to tomorrow afternoon which will allow us to issue the remaining Bond measures that this community votes for measure D in measure a if we get the five percent for 12 years I believe that we will and this means that these projects will

2:03:04happen they will be accelerated and will be exciting because every single School will be done in El Cerrito by the time we finish this up it'll be a 20-year Renaissance and it will mean that going forward this community will have taken care of their safety issues their their

2:03:22fire protection systems and their Educational Systems here in the city of education so I just want to congratulate and thank the residents here for having the commitment and willingness a place I call home the city of El Cerrito thank you thank you I'm going to let uh

2:03:39board president uh Cronenberg have the last remark so I'm going to make my remarks now and I I want to really thank the board for coming out tonight it really is Meaningful as uh council member Bridges has pointed out are residents um sometimes blur the line between our elected officials and it's

2:03:57really important for us to have these dialogues where the public can truly understand the the differences and the similarities that we all share um tonight was a great uh opportunity to emphasize the interrelated relationship between our two jurisdictions we had

2:04:15excellent examples of of the interaction between the district with our intern program the Stars program and with the writer coach connection those are great examples of how the community touches the the school district but the school district allows us to those

2:04:32opportunities to do that I want to really it's still on our screen you guys can't see it the fact that 285 million dollars was invested inside El Cerrito cannot be overlooked with the respect to what it has done to our property values to our community values and and so it is just

2:04:53something that we need to thank this the both the voters of El Cerrito as as board member Ramsey has said but also the school district for your commitment and follow through on those board uh on those Bond measures so I I really want to close by saying uh as a member of the

2:05:13subcommittee I really and and this joint committee really look forward to a continued relationship a growing stronger relationship um it can only benefit our communities where your students come um and I want to two topics that we didn't touch on that I want to um

2:05:32emphasize is I want to thank you guys for continuing to support on the Stu the school resource officers creating a safe environment for our students is is essential and to that end I I actually want to recognize that some of those safe environments that you guys are

2:05:47creating through the Morehouse project at the high school and and this special needs area that will be introduced into the elementary school again another place where you guys are creating safe environments for our youth to find themselves and hopefully find their way

2:06:06forward to be productive members of our community so I thank you very much for coming in all the things that you guys have done so I will quickly wrap up here first of all I want to to mention our uh conspicuously absent board member Ms merrymother who who is not here tonight

2:06:25because she was not feeling well and called me just before the The Joint meeting to to express her her regrets not being able to come and we didn't get a chance to really notice the fact but she's not here but I know that she would have very much enjoyed being here and

2:06:42participating in this um the second thing about participation is it's something that you may many of you have attended but I want you all to know and especially everybody watching on on TV um we're in the in the throes of something El Cerrito has been doing and

2:06:57that is a strategic plan um any of you came actually on on Saturday to our our last strategic plan uh Town Hall that we held in El Cerrito but if you haven't come to one of our our meetings and you have we still have a meeting tomorrow night in Pinole and another meeting at Kennedy on Saturday

2:07:17which you are certainly welcome to go to and if you go to our website the uh schedule for those meetings is at wccusd.net just click on strategic plan but if you don't want to come to the meeting and you still want to have input you can input you you can always email

2:07:34one of us you can email me you can email Dr harder we will we will listen to you but we but you also can email through that strategic plan there's there's a a link there so please do this is a city that is filled with Innovative thinkers this is the city that that came up with

2:07:51the Stars program before anybody else this is a city that wants to see the success of its schools and wants us to work together and I know all of those ideas are percolating out there and it would be really really helpful to have them before we write the plan then hear

2:08:06them after we've written the plan okay so that is well I hope my hope is that nobody leaves and I don't leave an idea on the table right if there's some way that you think that we can do it better there's some way that you want to give us a pet on the back whatever it is

2:08:20you want to do now is the time to do it because the plan is going to be developed by our very uh um very unique hard-working team of Consultants who are helping us put it together and the one thing I will tell you is we will work hard to make sure that this plan is not a go on up on the

2:08:38shelf and stay closed plan this is a plan we're going to keep on our agenda we're going to keep looking at we're going to look at the things that it directs us to do and we're going to keep doing them that's the one thing promise I make to you so don't let me start

2:08:51doing something you don't want me to do let me know what it is you want to do so that we're all clear on what that is so we can really all work better and I know El Cerrito is is a font of of ideas so please keep them coming and with that I really thank you all for inviting us

2:09:06tonight and um I hope we get to come back again sometime one thing that was left out was that this is our first year that we've been out of state takeover so we now have local control we no longer have a lot of people may not know that we no longer have a state trustee we are

2:09:22out of bankruptcy we've paid our loan off we are now fully vested and back into local control and this is our first year doing that the last time we met we had a state trustee that is now complete and final we now have local control back with that it's uh my pleasure to adjourn

2:09:39the Joint City Council West County West Contra Costa County Unified School District Board of Education meeting and we will continue our recess of the city council meeting for the next three minutes while we allow the dice to be reformatted thank you city of El Cerrito and start with Ida or

2:15:14resume with item two which is staff and Council reports uh no staff reports Council report Rebecca benacini I'm happy to briefly announce a lot of the upcoming things that I think are probably are on a lot of our lists Spike to work day is this Thursday from 7 to 9 and many of you may

2:15:37know that the greenway path is now open behind the El Cerrito Plaza which is wonderful rather than going along extremely scary San Pablo Avenue I also wanted to I also noted that the Stockton Avenue stroll is on May 10th and that is from 6 to 9 pm and then the city-wide

2:15:55garage sale is coming up on Saturday um and there are a number of other things and I'm sure Al Miller will talk about The Siege celebration perhaps in his um comments but that's coming up on May 18th on Saturday the Hundred Year celebration that's all I wanted to

2:16:10announce council member Abelson um I don't know I think I have anything to report as I've mostly been out of town but I am back uh great uh councilmember Friedman and okay uh let's see the one that is that I need to do at this point is a history movie I apologize I have many

2:16:48things to announce in our item eight but there is one that I would like to to take advantage of at this point uh I apologize uh the healthcare movie um this Healthcare movie is Saturday May 18th uh 10 30 a.m or Wednesday May 22nd at 2 30 PM both of those Healthcare

2:17:17movie screenings narrated by Kiefer Sutherland and it will be held here in City Hall in this Chambers so I just want to make sure that everybody knew about the Health Care movie screening no charge uh yes correct no charge 65-minute documentary tells the real story of how Health Care system in

2:17:39Canada turned out to be so completely different from the one in the United States um and it's still a ways away but Saturday June 15th 10 a.m to noon also free at the Rialto Cinemas uh another movie It's The Fabulous historic movie about theaters of the East Bay and

2:18:00um that is being sponsored by the El Cerrito Historic Society and Friends of the theater um so those are two things that I definitely wanted to announce at this time um and then another one that is a uh item that we will be providing here at City Hall uh East Bay Regional East Bay

2:18:25Municipal Utilities District is uh has a campaign going on right now are you earthquake ready and so there is a flyer that they have you can go to their website www.ready.gov and you can learn more about uh what you need to be ready for an earthquake and how much water they

2:18:49recommend that you have available for uh for you during an earthquake and the um I'm going to do it now because it's really worthy of it um on April 18th uh council member benicini and I went to the Associated Bay Area government's lunch they have a twice a year a regular

2:19:16meeting at this particular regular meeting they provided Awards and El Cerritos recycling center was awarded the Urban Design award and we will be presenting the movie at our next council meeting I was getting a nod so there will be a the actual abag took a film about our recycling

2:19:45center and it's about a little over five four minutes long and we'll be showing that at the next one but we do have a brand new award that can be seen up at the offices at the recycling center so that's something we should be very proud of our staff and and actually our design

2:20:04build team for that award because it really recognized us for the functionality and beauty of the recycling center so that's uh the avag award oh let me do this one too um East Bay mud uh is you probably all have gotten a flyer from East Bay mud that went out to all Property Owners

2:20:34um East Bay mud is uh entertaining a rate increase that rate increase uh is approximately I want to say it was about nine percent this year and eight percent next year and it is a rate increase that will go into effect starting July 1 of this year uh the uh it's a prop 218 rate increase

2:21:01which means it is uh based on uh one vote per property I believe is the way they're doing it and uh more than 50 percent of the property owners need to object for it to fail so that that is uh a rate increase the um public hearing for the comments comments in opposition and the public hearing on

2:21:33the uh rate increase uh comments need to be due to East Bay mud by June 11th and they have a public hearing at their regularly scheduled meeting on June 11th and that concludes my reports for item two somehow my agenda okay with that we will move on to item three

2:21:59oral Communications from the public do we have any speakers I guess uh Tom panis good evening mayor Lyman members of council interview staff my name is Tom Patterson I live at [address removed] in El Cerrito it's fairly well known that I've been in favor of preserving the Contra Costa

2:22:29florist building on February 5th of this year I suggested the council that members of the community should be at the table and mitigation is discussed regarding likely adverse impacts on the Contra Costa Forest building caused by the Eden Housing mixed-use senior

2:22:42apartments project there's our scoping meeting with the Eden housing project a couple of weeks ago on April 22 at that meeting I presented similar Sentinel sentiments regarding mitigation in the form of official resolution of the board of directors of the elsewhere Historical

2:22:56Society the staff and Patrick angel of uh pmpmc's principal on the project requested that I submit proposed mitigations directly to them I am now working with members of Contra Costa Japanese American Citizens League to do just that and we hope to present a list of proposed

2:23:12mitigations to the city and PMC within a week the project team suppressed for possible mitigations is a step in the right direction but I still believe the community will be best served by having advocates for the preservation of this historic resource at the table when

2:23:24mitigation is discussed it's been suggested this cannot happen in El Cerrito because our code or existing process does not provide for it I'm not convinced that Richmond successfully provides for it either but they've done it regardless in any case I'm thinking about wording on this topic

2:23:38I can add to my draft historic resources ordinance in a similar vein during a conversation at the April 22 meeting the team from Eden Housing commented that one of the reasons it was difficult to include the residential portion of the former Contra Costa Forest building in The Proposal

2:23:51they explained adding the footprint of the structure of the project made it more challenging to comply with the city's open space requirements uh I believe in when they say this but I feel compelled to sit compelled to say that the very idea of preserving a prized historic resource should count

2:24:08against the developer and complying with the open space requirement is logically perverse perhaps kafka-esque so I'm adding this topic the topic of this untenable practice to the to-do list for my draft historic resources ordinance as well regarding historic Visa's ordinance although we

2:24:27had a setback with a strategic plan I'm still hopeful that we will adopt one during my lifetime thanks for your time this evening thank you any other speakers Al Miller good evening welcome to the city council meeting in late May 1913 uh stage Sanitary District came into being

2:24:53in 1914 they actually started building sewers that means that 2013 is 100th anniversary of the Steve Sanitary District our formal celebration of that event will be Saturday May 18th at the Steve Sanitary District office it's that attractive new looking building you go

2:25:15by on your way to our award-winning Recycling and environmental resource Learning Center and it'll be open there from one until three I mean one until four uh we will have light Refreshments uh a musical interlude hopefully uh a chance to not only meet your elected officials of the

2:25:36Sanitary District but they uh we'll hopefully will have uh elected of your elective representatives in our state Senate and our assembly as well as hopefully your city our city anyway I hope everyone will come by and see our site get a chance to look at our equipment maybe learn how we take care

2:25:57of your sewers uh and do it very quickly I wanted to add a comment on the writer connection earlier in your previous meeting you heard the wonderful effects it was having on students and on the schools and help cementing the school Community relationship having had the opportunity to spend some

2:26:22time in the classrooms I think that there's another advantage that didn't get mentioned too many people I believe especially people my age remember the schools we went to and when we hear about any problems in the schools today we relate those to the schools we

2:26:40remember those schools don't exist anymore the communities that supported those schools don't exist anymore we're in our current time with 108 plus people in the writer's connection going into the school spending the amount of time you heard that they were there

2:26:58these people now are knowledgeable of what's going on inside our Middle School inside our high school today so when they come back out into the community and they hear their neighbors talking either wondering or complaining Etc here we have currently informed people that

2:27:16can talk intelligently about what the school is like and maybe start a discussion what it needs or why we should support more what it needs so I think that's of a benefit that gets overlooked too long one last comment I wanted to make about the Health Care movie and I've seen it a couple of times

2:27:36and I urge everyone who's interested in the health care or wondering about the lack of Health Care to see it and if anyone is uh wondering why a very popular movie and television actor Kiefer Sutherland is emceeing the movie his grandfather Dr Sutherland was the creator of the

2:27:58Canadian Health Care system that the movie is about Mr Sutherland is a Canadian keither is a Canadian citizen thank you thank you any other speakers the last speaker is Lisa motoyama good evening council members I'm here to speak about a consent item so um I am

2:28:23here my name is Lisa motiam I'm here representing both resources for Community Development and East Bay housing organizations ebho is the leading advocacy Coalition for affordable housing in Alameda in Contra Costa County and I'd like you I'd like to thank you for recognizing ebhoe and

2:28:43affordable housing week and for your commitment to affordable housing in the city of El Cerrito resources for Community Development is the developer of Ohlone Gardens El Cerrito's next affordable housing development that will serve 55 families so one of the things that the city is

2:29:01collaborating with ebho on is that ebho received a small Grant from MTC and the HUD sustainable communities Regional planning grant program and they are partnering with El Cerrito to explore affordable housing policies and funding strategies post Redevelopment including

2:29:16land value recapture and public benefits zoning so ebho and all of us really need the local leadership of local government to show that affordable housing creates strong families and strong communities with benefits to the environment and the economy and one way that you can also

2:29:31show this leadership is through support of Senate Bill 391 the California homes and jobs act which will create a permanent source for affordable housing in California and I'm here also to give you some materials and invite you to join us at any of the 20 affordable

2:29:46housing Week events happening between May 10th and May 19th and we have also here's some invitations to the kickoff celebration on Friday May 10th in Oakland and at that time we'll be proudly displaying our Proclamation from the city of El Cerrito so I hope that you can make some of the

2:30:04events thank you Miss Moto Yoma thank you very much for eloquently highlighting that item I was two going to emphasize it make sure that people knew where the website is it's www.ebho.org because it is very important for us to recognize our part of the Greater Community the greater

2:30:28East Bay development of affordable housing in the in the larger Marketplace so thank you for emphasizing that so eloquently for us uh any other speakers seeing none we will move on to uh there's no presentations tonight so we will move on to item five which is our

2:30:51consent calendar we do have uh items five A through five L um the item that uh the last speaker Miss Moto Yama was talking about is item 5c affordable housing week Proclamation one of the other items that I want to make sure everyone knows that we are taking up is the landscape lighting and

2:31:09assessment District resolution intent to order improvements and set the date for a public hearing of May 21st is there any other items that anyone wants to at least emphasize uh or make a um we would we have a request to pull item G reduced summer city council meeting schedule so we'll entertain that

2:31:30any other discussion on entertain a motion at this time for items five A through five F five H through five l so no no by Ableton Freeman um all those in favor say aye aye opposed extensions seeing none it passes unanimously um we'll take up this time item 5G reduced summer summer city

2:31:54council meeting schedule I've already sent a memo staff that I'll be absent and out of state for August 20th if you thought you wanted to reschedule that otherwise I will be out of state um and I August 20th and I will be out of uh State as well on July 16th but I

2:32:12see no reason to reschedule around the two of us I will entertain a motion at this time for the reduced schedule move adoption of the reduced schedule a second moved and seconded all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed absentions let the record show it passed unanimously

2:32:32um that brings us to item six our public hearing for the master fee schedule revision for this for the coming fiscal year of 2013-2014.

2:32:45I see we have a staff presentation good evening mayor Lyman and council members I'm Laurie Trevino the economic development manager the action before you this evening is to conduct a public hearing on the proposed Master Fee schedule for fiscal year 1314 and to

2:33:03adopt a resolution approving the proposed schedule the Masterpiece Schedule includes all of the city's user fees charges for services and the business license taxes and is revised annually adjustments to the fees and charges for services are intended to cover changes in the city's

2:33:22costs of covering costs of providing programs and services to the extent that's possible over the last few years fees and charges for services have generally increased between three and five percent in recent years the commonly used Consumer Price indices have increased by

2:33:40by close to three percent but the city's costs have increased at a higher rate in the case of business license taxes the annual adjustment is based on a formula that's specified in the municipal code and I will talk a little bit about that later um so just talking generally about the

2:33:58adjustments um the the fee schedule reflects a recommended three percent increase for most fees that is intended to cover the increase in Personnel costs as well as cost related to Investments and Technology anticipated in the coming year some fees have been adjusted by

2:34:15amounts other than three percent um or held constant with the current level and factors that might have caused these varying adjustments could be market conditions that call for some sort of a competitive pricing changes in Staffing in an area or just the re-evaluation of a cost of a service

2:34:36um miscellaneous recycling police and fire fees have remained relatively similar to last year I did want to note that since the release of the proposed fee schedule the police department has asked to delete one of the fees called street closure permits for after hours

2:34:57which is on page four of the fee schedule as it's a fee that they do know they no longer use um the recreation fee schedule reflects generally a three percent increase with the exceptions being where there could clearly Market driven fees for rentals um and certain types of services that

2:35:20they have and they have introduced some new fees for adult swimming lessons and child care drop-ins as for development fees which is Public Works Planning and Building Department the last fee study was completed in 2004 and there have been numerous changes to the processing of development

2:35:39applications since that time particularly since we built the new city hall with the um a One-Stop service area and you know technology has really changed so um and there were some significant increases in fees last year particularly um actually for most of the building

2:35:58um of the development fees um so due to those significant increases as well as some reorganization that is happening and Staffing changes there have been lots of different approaches to the development fees this for this update Public Works engineering and planning

2:36:15piece are mostly following the three percent General increase we've introduced several new hourly rates for new positions that have been hired um building permit fees for new construction have remained unchanged from 12 fiscal year 1213 and then other building permit fees are

2:36:36following the three percent increase except where there were some very obvious variations between the costs of processing certain types of permits and the fees that had been established for those permits and then last the business license tax since 1989 the city has increased the

2:36:54business license tax rates according to a formula that's prescribed in the municipal code however around 2005 there was a calculation error that resulted in rates being increased at a much lower percentage than was specified so the cumulative increase in rates that

2:37:10would have been permitted since 2005 was about 24 but at the actual cumulative increase in rates over that same time period has been about nine percent so in order to correct the rates um we applied a cumulative increase to the base rates from 1988 to bring it to the

2:37:28correct rate for this current fiscal year um it looks huge because it's um you know if you apply uh 15 years worth of CPI increases you get 100 increase over 1988 it's a 14 increase on a one-year basis it's also important to look at the dollar figures however um based on this proposed increase

2:37:52um a sole proprietor would pay somewhere between 25 and 35 dollars more a year um and uh business with 10 employees would pay 88 dollars more per year um also it's important to note that because of this calculation error businesses have been paying a reduced rate for the last eight years and this

2:38:11proposed change does not um include recapturing any taxes that would have been charged since 2005. the proposed increases only apply going forward um office that are in the schedule with the exception of development fees would become effective on July 1st development

2:38:32fees become effective 60 days following Council approval which in this case would be July 7th and if you have any questions I'm be happy to answer them before you do the public hearing any questions I do want to point out that we in in response to questions that you guys

2:38:54receive from us prior to the meeting did prepare a very detailed description of what you just highlighted in the business license tax rate correction so we we do have an additional piece of evidence in the record that does reflect what you just eloquently summarized

2:39:13any questions for staff um just one question so that the error that was made in calculating the business license taxes from 2005 was made every year until now is there sort of I hopefully we've identified how this was made and how we can in the future make sure that when we're applying

2:39:32there's so many cpis out there I know that you have to be really specific in which one you're you're pegging yourself to so I just like to hear a little bit about that you know it was just a it was purely um calculation error and it's I think a new eye catches things that others

2:39:49didn't see and that's all really it was it's not something that was really systemic EQ any other questions um can I ask one more I'm so sorry um so can we talk about the scale of the business license in terms of the revenue that we receive every year I think I looked back on the

2:40:10budget and it's gosh is it maybe 680 000 it was quite a large number in terms of how much we receive from business license taxes or sorry business license fees except it was about 650 675 000.

2:40:23it's around plus or minus 700 000. yeah okay so a 10 or 15 percent increase on that is eighty and eighty thousand dollars I projected something along those lines okay thank you I just want to have a sense of what the scale of the money is that what we're talking about

2:40:38before you get away though I see you preparing um in the miscellaneous building uh permit fee section section uh Roman 11.

2:40:49um there's quite a variety of changes but some are up by double digit percentages I think there was at least one sixty percent increase although it was uh I think the dollar value was quite small you know it's a it's a rounding issue the um the percentage that's applied is three percent and I

2:41:08did not show you the for some reason the column that says actual increase after rounding oh you is it cut off yeah no that's that's in section Roman 12.

2:41:19um yeah well I'm dealing with the section Roman 11 miscellaneous building permit fees there's quite a variety of increases I did did want to point out for those at home that there are was actually quite a significant set of reductions in here for simple things like uh deck repairs new decks window

2:41:36replacements some of these have as between 40 and 60 reduction in fees so we we are being responsive to comments from the public we are looking at our rates um and trying to make them reflect the services that we're providing so uh we just wanted to point out that we have a

2:41:58wide variety of of rate reductions so not everything was a rate increase this year so I just wanted to make sure that um you pointed that out but and I think in your testimony you did say that that was to reflect um a reevaluation of the cert of the cost of doing business is that correct

2:42:17reevaluation of how much time it actually takes to inspect or plan check or or process an application yes so so I think what you were thinking I was asking was in Roman room well Roman numeral 12 Mechanical plumbing where the rate um last fiscal year or this current

2:42:37fiscal year is 12 for example gas Outlets um I didn't know we had to pay for that I'm curious who gets more than five gas Outlets but if you were getting more than get five gas outside the outlets as an example it was twelve dollars it will be twelve dollars and that last column

2:42:53says it's a three percent increase and I'm I'm was trying to figure out you you're saying it's a rounding error I think in the fee structure I'm probably 11.49 and 12 dollars and three cents or something yeah you know okay so so that so it is actually a three percent

2:43:09increase even though the rates we're looking at are not increasing so I'm just curious if we need to get a new schedule 12 because this says it's 12 now and 12 in the future so I'm trying to figure out um you know if if we have a if as Council we need something

2:43:31different in our packet or if we have to make a a motion that acknowledges that the actual numbers that are here are not accurate if if what you're describing is true [Music] I met a bit of a loss yeah so I was hoping that the last column was wrong and that the rates the rate columns were

2:43:54correct but what you've described is that the rate columns are not reflecting the rate columns are not reflecting the Precision that we charge the fee columns the fee columns are correct but they're rounded so you're not seeing the Precision they're not reflecting the Precision

2:44:15that we're being that we're actually charging so I'm I'm looking now at this I know I saw the City attorney the rounded amounts so that so you're right the resulting increases are not always three percent okay so so it indeed it's indeed that we can say that the last column is

2:44:36inaccurate yes the previous the two columns for current fee and proposed fee are accurate yes that that makes me happier thank you the procedural me is happy any other questions I'm going to go back to my script thank you um questions from Council mayor opens up

2:45:02public hearing uh I'm at this time I'd like to open the uh this item up to a public hearing are there any speakers on this item I have no request to speak mayor well public testimony part is closed I now ask for a motion to close the public hearing it's still moved second all

2:45:22those in favor say aye aye aye opposed abstentions let the uh Records show that it passed unanimously um any discussion motions on the uh fee schedule for fiscal year 2013-2014.

2:45:39I have approval of the master fee schedule revision with the one Amendment on the uh item that was removed from the police department yeah it's uh item number it's the second fee under item six in Roman section Roman numeral section two police right that's been made it emotions been made

2:46:01with uh the correction to the fee schedule and it's been seconded all those in favor say aye aye opposed abstentions seeing none passes unanimously we have no item seven policy matters this evening that would take us to item eight Council assignments and liaison

2:46:22reports council member Friedman would you like to start us off [Music] uh council member benesini already talked about the Stockton Avenue art stroll this Friday at six to nine PM it will also be repeated in September that's all I got the council member Bridges

2:46:41um social design review you for a T and T Wireless facilities that will be placed in a public right-of-way um in six sites Gelston Seaview bellra Calusa Eureka and Seaview this will um this was just a conceptual design review they didn't really have too many comments about it these are extensions

2:47:12on pre-existing PG e pulls they primarily had some comments about whether we could change out and and ATT doesn't have any jurisdiction over there because there's some sort of shared utility agreements that they have for antenna placements but they had comments like

2:47:32can we move from wooden creosol based looking not so aesthetic things to maybe something that's a non-conductive steal and whether that would conflict because it would stand out in a neighborhood as because everything else is wooden Etc et cetera so there's a little dialogue

2:47:52about that but it was just a comment they made no decisions were made about that and that will come back to them um as it goes through its process on Wednesday April 24th the park and rec commission met and as we have already reviewed um in our packet tonight they did

2:48:12approve the 2013-14 Master Fee schedule for their Recreation Department and um I'm not sure what the status is of this but there is a there was a delay in the solar panel placements because of the uh the lines that need to be placed for nine they have to dig down nine feet and

2:48:35they needed 11 and there were some issues there so the Project's been delayed I don't know if there's any staff update on where that's going um as reported out a few minutes ago there the staff has heard from the school district about a shared use agreement for our facilities

2:48:54at the time of the meeting um this was hot off the press there was maybe now there's a written agreement in hand but there wasn't at the time of the meeting I don't know what that looks like so I can't really report out about that but I plan to review what that was

2:49:11so that that's indeed good news and [Music] um they launched their for all residents they launched their website um so that's a little more information and we have um a good number of children that are um 802 children are cared for and are um programs for child care so that's a

2:49:37big number and I think that's all I have to report for them councilmember Bridges who launched their website the recreation department and they had a survey that was I guess only 16 Chris Crowley report 16 responses um for um you write a comment about that I don't think it was

2:50:03Chris Jones Recreation director who actually uh launched our e-newsletter newsletter sorry so yeah and actually just came out with the second one um so and in terms of the survey we did um we inform the public through the e-newsletter as well as through written

2:50:22surveys in the office about a change in office hours moving to a schedule similar to City Hall where we would be open Monday Wednesday and every other Friday from 8 to 5 and Tuesday Thursday from 8 to 6 and be closed the same Friday at City Hall is closed and the

2:50:41results from the online survey as well as the the walk-in surveys where that people most people were in favor the second group was impartial in the third group thought it was a bad idea but the majority either was in favor or didn't care apparently so and the reason for

2:50:57this is we have you know close to 400 families in our Child Care Program whose parents work and so we want to be open later in the evening a couple times a week so that they can either come to the office directly or call us on the phone as well as if we move to a schedule

2:51:17where um the majority of the staff is there the majority of the time then maybe things are a little less chaotic in the office and we could rely Less on part-time help so we would we are planning to do our new schedule beginning May 13th thank you uh council member Abelson um I just

2:51:40wanted to add one item to the note about uh the healthcare movie that's going to be showing which was it was um the showing of that was organized by the committee on Aging uh and and they spent quite a bit of time talking about the details of that at their last meeting so they set it up

2:51:59for those who are interested so that there will be a time on the weekend uh when working people will be able to come to see it and then there's one during the week during the day for um people who don't get out on Saturdays and during the evening so anyway um that that will provide hopefully

2:52:19plenty of opportunity for people to who are interested to come and see that movie and I think that's all I want to report about at this time because I left some notes at home okay I've got one I'll cover one that we went together when it's my turn Okay uh thank you

2:52:35mayor I'll report out on a couple of items first um Mary Lyman already discussed that the ABAC General Assembly took place earlier in April and I attended um the morning session and then mayor Lyman attended the the lunch session where we received the award during the

2:52:48warning session it was just so invigorating I think to go to those sorts of events just to hear what other cities are doing and you get so inspired by all the stories that are told I'll just share a couple of them I spoke with several people who are working in San

2:53:00Mateo County on the Grand Boulevard El Camino Real there and they were actually very they're very interested in San Pablo Avenue and view the things that El Cerrito has been doing in terms of our jurisdiction over the sidewalks as very Innovative and they were very interested

2:53:15to hear that that somebody was there to talk to that I approached them at their table to talk to them about so they were there was a great exchange of ideas there um we also had a number of presentations that were very interesting um on the Fremont BART station at Warm

2:53:28Springs and the kind of Urban Design and land use planning that's going on there around the new me what used to be the new me um the new me uh car manufacturing site which is now the Tesla site we also heard from downtown Petaluma which was there were there's a sort of a tendency

2:53:44there to have a lot of big cities give discussions so it was nice to hear from Petaluma which is a you know smaller town and the efforts they've been having to revitalize their downtown and a lot of focus on the things we talk about like Place making and local businesses

2:53:56and how we can kind of support this sort of exchange of goods and monies among our residents um and the keynote speakers included Robert Reich who's a former Department of Labor um official as well as a current UC Berkeley Professor who is just a great speaker and he spoke about various

2:54:16Trends and how um the one Bay Area plan can help to respond to those Trends including the Aging population and the anticipated move towards transportation and services that seniors may want in the future also the diverging wage Gap and this was in the context of

2:54:33affordable housing and then he also spoke about climate change and just the need to prepare for that in terms of sea level rise but also to try to transform our community so what we're doing what we can to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions um we also the only other speaker I'll

2:54:50speak about is a well-known Berkeley uh planning Professor who showed who isn't is getting on in years and although he didn't his presentation wasn't as dynamic as some of the speakers he had incredible imagery um including a number of a really simple chart which showed one square mile of

2:55:08various cities and um by counting the intersections and the block size and that one square mile You can predict sort of very obvious things like how walkable it is how well people will know their neighbors and he showed various cities including downtown San Francisco and

2:55:24um Venice and other locations and which have hundreds of intersections in one square mile and compared it with some Suburban locations we're in a square mile there might be five or six intersections so it was just this great image that kind of showed how uh how a

2:55:38city is built how it affects um the way that people interact and the kind of the kind of Life they're going to have so it was a really wonderful presentation in terms of of other items that went on none of my commissions have met since we last met is that possible I

2:55:54think that is possible and mayor Lyman and I also attended the mayor's conference but maybe you'll speak about it so I'll let you give that report it is it was the first one I was going to speak to um actually I let me touch on the one that I don't have something in front of me on that's

2:56:09actually a council member Abelson and I attended the league of cities uh meeting on April 25th at Jack London Square um a presentation by the East Bay Economic Development Alliance and the Contra Costa Council on what they're doing to invigorate uh Business Development and business uh work in our

2:56:29area in the East Bay both in in Contra Costa and Alameda counties um and then as council member benicini pointed out she and I attended the Contra Costa County mayor's conference and that was Thursday May 2nd and there we had a presentation from Dan Bornstein with regards to

2:56:53the uh status of pension reform in in California also on this agenda was um legislate a motion to just to support a plastic bag uh legislation plastic bag ban legislation and a Statewide level on ab158 by Levine and Senate Bill 405 by Padilla we took it up we discussed it

2:57:24there was a motion and it was seconded but uh based on the number that we're going to abstain we have moved this item to next month on your behalf based on our prior discussions I was very supportive of this matter most of the other cities have not been dealing with this matter in their waste

2:57:50authorities so they had not had prior Direction and that is why this was carried over in this agenda was the um announcement for uh open positions for open positions for the a-bag board of directors and the East Bay Economic Development Association and letters of

2:58:13nomination need to be in by Wednesday May 22nd for both for primary as well as alternates it's a total of eight positions to that end let me move on to the West County mayor's meeting in that one we did discuss we have been discussing and trying to put forward unified

2:58:37candidates for the purpose of these positions these eight positions and uh at the April 25th meeting I did announce that councilmember Friedman is interested in running for the economic development Alliance position Economic Development Alliance and Mr Freeman you were you've

2:59:02been invited by mayor McLaughlin to attend the 8 A.M on May 23rd meeting that that is after the deadline I haven't had a chance to point that out to her um however that'll be your opportunity to introduce yourself to the other Mayors so that we can collectively decide how to best

2:59:26apportion our votes um and also at the West County Mayors we did have a presentation on illegal dumping and illegal hauling in our County North Richmond and unincorporated uh Contra Costa County suffers tremendously from a legal waste activities uh these would be haulers

2:59:47that are unlicensed that pick up materials from various locations take them to a remote part of Richmond or a remote part of Contra Costa and and then consolidate them so they'll take so that their load has a refrigerator a tire some wood and some Sheetrock they'll

3:00:08take it to this location and dump it into four or five different piles the tire pile the you know Appliance of pile the sheetrock pile and and then at some point once they get a big enough load they'll haul it off to where whichever place they feel is appropriate to haul

3:00:24it off to it has led to groundwater contamination air pollution dust there are quite a few complaints they are in the process of enforcing that they have identified 14 sites of which four have been corrected and five are scheduled to be inspected so you can see they're working their way through it

3:00:47but not nearly as quickly as exactly councilmember Bridges not as quickly as I would like if I lived next to it um but that they are working through it um and East Bay mud representative presented um as I mentioned earlier it's preparedness month they've got their

3:01:07rate change but for El Cerrito what's noticeable and I want to make sure that you guys are aware of this as it comes forward through other venues and public comment um they're preparing eirs to replace four pipes the eir will be ready this month and they are ripping up pipes along

3:01:26Richmond Street San Pablo Avenue and Barrett in and around El Cerrito so we have some significant construction that will cause traffic issues in our environment in our Richmond Barrett San Pablo it's uh the simplistic way to say it is Richmond Street San Pablo Avenue

3:01:46and Barrett those are three of the four pipes that they're issuing an eir about in reality it's Richmond jogging over to San Pablo and then San Pablo all the way to Barrett as far as I can tell they didn't provide a map they just rattled off the street names but it essentially

3:02:03as far as I can tell us large diameter pipe the length of the city on various different streets so it's it's something that is coming forward so I want to make sure you guys were all aware of that um that item that's coming up um and I wanted to let you know about this I've

3:02:25I've it was made clear at the I'm sliding back to the uh the mayor's conference it was made clear that this conference that this challenge is not just the mayor's challenge is not just for um Mayors it's actually for our community and it's uh May 18th and the location has been changed uh the

3:02:47location of this east of this Trails Challenge that East Bay Regional Park District is putting on is now in Tilden Park so it's actually a lot closer than the Iron Horse Trail it um and let's see if I've got the current version to tell you where it's supposed to be meeting

3:03:10may have to just send you to a website if you're interested it the East Bay Regional Park District is putting on a essentially a healthy um walking challenge that they're challenging people to get out and enjoy their parks and trails and uh get develop a healthy lifestyle and it will

3:03:30start at a at 11 I think it's starting now at 11 A.M in uh in Tilden and the best I can do is have direct you to a website because I've got the old flyer um and the website would be East EB parks.org and the date again is Saturday May 18th and they are it's a free

3:03:58program and they're trying to get people to come out and discover their trail system in in our regional parks last is May 1st the uh human relations commission met and they are continuing to discuss the 25th anniversary of the Martin Luther King parade and to that end they have asked

3:04:26for additional funding to help with that event they are coordinating uh fundraising so they will be doing a fundraising for that event and they're coordinating that with the city and uh let's see the other item that came up in the human relations commission is a request to

3:04:56um display the um gay pride flag during gay pride week in the city and at this point um we're not in a position to give direction on that matter and so I'm not sure if we can discuss it tonight or if we need to bring that forward to if if it's the pleasure of the majority to

3:05:22bring It Forward at a future time majority of the council would like to agendize it for future discussion and action that would be appropriate but since it's not agendas tonight although it's a ceremonial matter since it's not agendized I think it would be appropriate to put it on a future agenda

3:05:37rather than to discuss and make a decision substantively tonight so the the um the committee um I can tell you that the committee supports uh the the flying in the flag although they did not take a motion to to bring it forward to us because they too didn't have it on their agenda their

3:05:57straw poll was rather supportive so um the question is whether or not we want to bring it up at a future agenda item so what you're asking is that it's display that the discussion could include the flagpole as a potential display location so it it it's um it it its display is what I'm

3:06:22bringing forward as I'm interpreting their discussion um to have us discuss and potentially consider places of display yes yes you could please put that on future agenda likewise pride month is coming up um next month and I've been approached with a a resolution that's being kind of

3:06:49formed and I would like to agendize that okay our next meeting yes and that concludes my report for this evening seeing no other reports I had adjourned this regular city council meeting the next city council meeting is Tuesday May 21st 2013 at 7 pm here at the city council

3:07:13chambers two people