City Council Closed Session and Regular Meeting May 21, 2013

0:00:00start the uh regularly scheduled meeting of the city council of elero uh here on May 21st um with the Pledge of Allegiance or a moment of silence led by uh council member Bridges to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God

0:00:26indivisible with liberty and justice for all and I will start item two oh actually let the record show uh that all five members are present um I will start out the council and staff Communications uh with a report from our closed session uh which was a matter on um a 7 acre privately

0:00:52owned parcel APN 5051 42048 that it buts the hillside Natural Area we uh gave staff direction to negotiate um and that concludes the report out from closed session um any other report outs uh council member ailson then Bridges but it's oh sorry not report any in under

0:01:16item two yes um I wanted to um announce that the last showing in elero in this room the city council chambers of the healthc Care movie will be held tomorrow uh May 22nd at 2:30 p.m and it is will be followed by a discussion there was a um one held on Saturday and I understand

0:01:41that the attendance was quite good wasn't able to go to it myself but I do plan on being there let is to say here um tomorrow so I invite the public to please come and there is no charge for admittance thank you council member Bridges I'd like to report out that that

0:02:00um council members uh benini Freedman and bridges gave up um were honored to be present to recognize stge of their 100 anniversary and presented them with a proclamation it was quite a Gaya event and I received a personal tour of the new building by our own Al Miller and

0:02:21that was quite um quite a treat and um my favorite souvenir of the day was a pen that was made out of paper fantastic any other uh Council report uh no report but I just wanted to publicize the police department's event that's coming up on June 1st which is a home

0:02:42to 4:30 at the community center you can come and hear uh tips from police officers about how to keep your home secure and uh not a Target fantastic um any staff reports seeing none uh no staff staff reports we will move on to item three oral

0:03:03Communications from the public what about the recycling and environmental resources oh sorry it was me that's right Melanie you're supposed to help me with this sorry I do have one announcement um and I I thought it was under presentations but I'll take it at this

0:03:19time we um proudly received an award from the Associated Bay Area governments and I have it here in my hand um this reward was for Urban Design for our recycling center as part of the U award ceremony there is a short uh video that we will take a minute to watch at this

0:03:45time we're Green City trying to do the right thing by by the environment which is reducing truck trips reducing vehicle trips queing up disposing of things properly and that's the volumes the volume that little bar yeah it is yeah there you go that's down the other

0:04:10way y keep yeah y keep going yes oh drag the bar go up onto the right below the Charles Shaw bottle label there yeah there you go I think you've purchased one or two of those in your day here exactly two buck CH there you [Music] go we're are a green City trying to do

0:04:46the right thing by by the environment which is reducing truck trips reducing vehicle trips and also disposing of things properly and that's a community-driven thing and and it's highly wanted highly desired by our residents and we've tried to meet their needs the recycling center takes over 40

0:05:06items including medicines Electronics all of your standard recyclable products paper aluminum Plastics and we Source separate those and and in the process we are able to serve our residents needs here in elero in an urban center it's not miles for them to go to to

0:05:26accomplish these things it was a very conscious decision to put education in the title historically this is known as the El stre of recycling center but we wanted it to be more than that and you see that uh the number of residents that come even businesses that come but I

0:05:41think what makes the center um especially wonderful for the city is all the kids that come and that we're doing our best to organize classrooms and tours and bringing this into the kids curriculum in redesigning this facility our first and foremost goals were functional we wanted to make sure that

0:05:59our crew creu could operate safely and that people could feel that it was a welcoming site for them to come and utilize and that they could see easily what they could do here and they could learn more about what they could do so in putting out our request for proposals

0:06:09we were looking for the most sustainable design that we could get um Nolan Tam provided a lead PL and panal provided a lead Platinum facility one of the things about this project that was so unique was that it was design buil you almost never see a project of this size and

0:06:25this type that a city would put out there as a design build project and decided that they would have an Innovative approach and they say we we have a budget and we would put it out there for design build teams to compete and show us what they could do for the amount of money that we had to spend on

0:06:39this and see how much could they get so they wrote up a very detailed list of functions that they wanted to achieve on the site and then they left it up to the design teams to figure out how to do that the elero recycling center started off um on the site um it's a unique and

0:06:54uh well loved by the community and this site Was An Old Quarry and the horseshoe shap shaped Quarry really lent itself to the circular shape that became our design and concept behind the design the circular form solved a bunch of sort of technical practical problems for us in

0:07:11terms of separating the people who would be in the center of the circle and the operations who would be on the outside of the circle but also it really became a metaphor for the whole idea of the place which was sort of the circular sort of movement of materials through

0:07:23this recycling process we wanted to get as many sustainable features into the project as possible that we could possibly fit in within our limited budget we recycled everything in the building that was possible to be recycled and reused in this facility for the materials for the new facility we

0:07:39use materials that had recycled content like steel aluminum and also were sustainably grown like wood and other materials and we sort of inserted into the program this large storage tank so we could catch water on the roof and then reuse it for flushing toilets and

0:07:53watering the landscape one of the unique aspects of the recycling center is the administrative building which is a modular building fabricated in Sacramento by Zeta communities um that allowed us to give an enhancement to the project of very tight construction the

0:08:09city of elero recycling environmental Resource Center is intended to be a One-Stop drop off for all things recyclable or reusable Under the Sun our goal our intent is to make it safe convenient and accessible for people to find a home for the things that they don't want anymore rather than just

0:08:27disposing of it in a landfill so we take the approach of making sure with pictures and multilingual approaches that we're showing folks exactly what goes where so again it it adds to the convenience and it makes it uh much more accessible to a wider audience some of

0:08:41the most notable achievements for the recycling environmental Resource Center is um pretty significant increase in the number of people that are using the facility historically speaking we were seeing somewhere between 2300 users now we're seeing peaks of somewhere in the

0:08:56500 to 600 range on our busiest weekend people in town really like the center from early on it was founded by volunteers volunteers have remained involved even though it is a city run operation The Exchange Zone the book Zone began informally with people coming

0:09:14to the recycling center and not wanting to throw a book out so they would put it down and then it gradually became organized the Boy Scouts again volunteers built on bookshelves and there was a book exchange so we think the relationship between our priority Development Area and the things we do to

0:09:28make Elsa a more um sustainable interesting accessible place um are very very interrelated so as you can see here by looking around not only do we uh create an environment where people can bring their recycl recyclable goods their hazardous waste or materials they

0:09:44can exchange but they can also learn about other environmental stewardship efforts around town so we think it really provides an opportunity to connect them more not only to elero but to the Bay Area we appreciate receiving the Urban Design reward because we feel

0:09:58this is a great model that other Urban cities should take up and provide this type of service close to their residents homes so their residents can continue to to do the types of things that will reduce waste and save the planet I want to thank the residents of Els Sero and

0:10:17our staff for collaborating on such a dynamic project the design of the project is not only beautiful but it's incredibly functional and everyone should come and visit and see how it [Music] works thank you and I I'll repeat myself I want to thank staff and the the builders the

0:10:47designers um all for putting together a a beautiful project that won us our Urban Design award so I'm going to leave it up here for the rest of the meeting so whenever I get my here my camera shot you guys at home can see it so um settled though yeah I've got to I've got

0:11:05to give it um so with that I'd like to move on to item three oral Communications from the public uh first Speaker Al Miller good evening mayor Lyman council members I just wanted to thank you uh council members that Jan has already identified for taking part of our

0:11:29a humble ceremony Saturday and also acknowledge that city manager Scott Hannon and assistant city manager Karen Pinko were there to help us also uh one of the things that I think our board is probably most thankful or proud of is that our state senator Lonnie Hancock uh was present uh and

0:11:50gave us a combined resolution from assembly member Nancy Skinner and Senator Hancock acknowledging uh the 100th year of service that we've been providing uh that's important for several reasons it gives her another chance to come to elero although Siege is larger than

0:12:10elero it it brought her here and the more events we have learned we and the sewage uh transfer committee have learned that the more times we can get politicians involved in what we're doing when we're doing it well rather than we've just dumped X thousands of gallons

0:12:30in the bay somewhere uh the better off it is when we need uh uh legislative help in solving some of the problems we're up against so thank you all again for coming and remember the comment I made when we were having an open house for strategic plan 2017 isn't that far away thank you

0:12:52congratulations on your 100th anniversary any other speakers yes mayor there's three more Ken so I am Ken Solin and I live at [address removed] I've had the privilege of uh the fortune of living above the Busby property for the last 26 years and I thought i' just have give my input that

0:13:15I'm totally supportive of the city's buying this property I think uh it would serve our community very well it's a beautiful spot up there in the elero Hills thanks good seeing you again Ken um next speaker Paul Young hi uh my name is Paul Young I'm a resident of el Sero I also live right

0:13:38above uh Busby property and I am also very much in support of the city acquiring our property I've got a Blog called backyard Critter watch and I've taken pictures of wildlife in my own backyard which is almost adjacent to the property and if you guys would like to

0:13:54see other reasons for purchasing that property and helping out the wildlife and and people in the area why take a look at that blog so can you give us the blog slowly please backyard Critter watch c r i t t r thank you that's a we've seen deer we've seen raccoons

0:14:15we've seen foxes we've seen um turkeys coyotes turkeys yeah turke squirrels any mountain lions I'm sorry any mountain lions not yet but I hope to I want to see one too but I want to be in a car when I see it next speaker please Tom panis yeah wouldn't it be cool good evening mayor Lyman members of

0:14:51the council and City staff my name is Tom panis and I live at [address removed] in elero I'd like to thank the city council for for approving at its last meeting the resolution the staff put together regarding sca7 this is Senator W's constitutional amendment to reduce

0:15:05the percent of vote required to approve a local library Lo local library funding measures if SCA makes on of the ballot and voters approve it then we will see a significant enhancement of Library services to begin to take place all over our state I sincerely appreciate the

0:15:20council's vote and feel it was important for the council to make this statement but we cannot just leave it there when the election with this measure goes before the this measure goes before the voters approaches only if we actively participate in educating the voters

0:15:33about this measure can we be assured it will pass more locally I believe the council's already aware of this but I'd like to bring up to the Public's attention something new at City Hall and at the recycling center at the top of the elevator here at City Hall and also

0:15:47in the lobby at the recycling center there are beautiful new benches West Coast arborist the company that does tree trimming here in town built these benches what makes the benches so special is they were built using wood uh that West Coast arborous trimmed off

0:16:00trees here in elero the benches are one of a kind and if you haven't seen them you should take the time to admire one or both of them the next time you're at City Hall or the recycling center thank you for your time this evening right thank you very much I have no other

0:16:14request to speak at this time okay great um with that we will move on to item four which is presentations we have three presentations uh the first is uh a guest um she is a director of the Bay Area Rapid Transit officially known as Bart um please welcome Rebecca

0:16:39saltman good evening thank you for having me here tonight um I'm very excited to get to represent Els Sero as well as many other cities on the BART board I was elected in November and represent Bart District 3 which covers most of elero um basically all of Els Sero that's east of the BART tracks and

0:16:59then several other cities in Contra Casta and Alama County um and I I ran for the BART board because I've been a longtime Transit and environmental Advocate and B is so important for our region for the environment the economy and our communities um and I have several priorities on the board the

0:17:16number one priority of mine is reinvesting in Bart's aging infrastructure and expanding our capacity um if you ride Bart you've probably seen that the trains are getting more and more crowded which is a great thing more and more people are riding Bart um but the system's old it's

0:17:3340 years old now and just like when you have an old house or an old car you have to start replacing and repairing pretty much everything and at the scale of Bart that becomes very expensive so over the next 10 years we project just for our highest priority um investment needs to

0:17:50just keep the system at the state of good repair it is at now we need about $6 billion and we're putting some money towards that every year about 120 million from our budget every year and uh the Metropolitan Transportation Commission is contributing as well but

0:18:07there's still a large gap um so this is my big priority because if the system falls into this repair and we start losing ridership pretty much any other initiative we do won't really matter we have to keep the basics of the system running um so I'm really pleased that

0:18:24this is the priority now of the BART agency and it's a personal PRI priority of mine one of my other priorities is working more closely and building better Partnerships with the other Transit agencies um I don't live right next to a BART station so I'm very familiar with

0:18:41the fact that you need to get to a BART station so I often take AC transit buses or I walk um but I want to make that easier for people right now it's people are very incentivized to drive our parking is very cheap at our stations and taking a bus is more expensive often

0:18:58the trains and the buses don't meet up at the right time um so I've started working more closely with AC Transit and we just restarted a joint committee between Bard and AC Transit that I'm on where we're going to coordinate more closely and make the services work

0:19:13better together and I want to work with some of the other Transit agencies and Contra Costa as well um my third priority is to Foster open government and public participation something as a Transit Advocate before I was on the board was a little bit frustrating to me

0:19:30was that it was very hard to participate in Bart uh decision making um our board meetings are at 9:00 a.m. on Thursdays it's very hard for the bulk of our writers working people and students to come and talk to us or even just follow what's going on um so one of my

0:19:49initiatives has been to uh have late uh evening meetings um so we're going to have our first evening meeting actually this week this Thursday um May 23rd and a second one on June 13th both of them to discuss our budget and several other items um and I'm hopeful we've been

0:20:06getting the word out that people who are interested in hearing what we're doing and giving us feedback will come to those meetings and that's just one of my initiatives to make us more accessible to the public a couple other of my priorities include I think one that's

0:20:22probably very important to you is uh a continued focus on Transit oriented development and know there's some projects in the work here in elero and I'm very interested in helping in any way I can with that um I think more and more people want to live right near

0:20:36Transit so we need to work on that and as well as work near Transit um and my last priority is to uh have Bart run later in the evening on weekends this is probably a more long-term priorities because there's some operational difficulties to do it um but I am very

0:20:53pleased that we are discussing this Thursday uh pilot late night bus service that would be additional to what AC Transit offers um to supplement that as kind of a start in that direction um so those are some of my personal priorities and I wanted to just briefly talk about

0:21:11a couple of exciting projects that are happening at Bart that I thought you might be interested in um one uh you've probably heard about is we're working on getting new train cars we've ordered 410 new train cars we project that we will ultimately need a th but that's part of

0:21:29the funding Gap that we need to figure out um but the design process is currently happening and in the next year we're going to be doing a public process doing Outreach uh finding out what people want from the new cars um and it's a great opportunity because like I

0:21:45said the system is 40 years old and a lot of our trains are that old so they were designed for a time when people thought every single person would have a seat on BART um it was designed for just a very different time and so now we have the opportunity to design for the next

0:21:5940 years so we're thinking about making more open layouts um for more room to stand still about as many seats um more uh information in the cars and outside the cars on destinations and where you're going and where you are um so it's it's a pretty exciting process and

0:22:18you'll start to hear about the public meetings coming up soon and the cars will start to arrive and be used in 2017 the other project I wanted to mention is a kind of long-term visioning process that Bart is involved in right now that's known as Bart Metro um and

0:22:36there's two parts of this one is kind of looking at Bart operations and how to deal with our growing ridership um and to create some more frequent service so we're looking at some uh creative improvements uh like being able to potentially split um trains at particular stations to make them go off

0:22:57in different directions adding some additional areas where trains can turn back and go the other directions so that the core areas can really get a lot of service um and the other side of it is this Vision study which is going to have a robust public process over the next

0:23:13couple of years where we're we've taken some input on potential infill stations and extensions um just kind of gone out there and said let's see what all the ideas are and put them on the table at this Point staff is reviewing those seeing what's feasible seeing what makes

0:23:32the most sense for Bart service and then we're going to go out to the public and have public meetings and find out more about what is going to be the priority what we're facing right now at Bart is we have to prioritize between our state of good repair needs and investing in

0:23:48you know additional service expanding the system and we're trying to look at it all in a very comprehensive way so I think it's a very exciting process um so that's what I wanted to talk to you about and I'm happy to answer any questions sure I've got a quick one

0:24:04hopefully for you um how frequently can cars go through the 12th and 19th Street uh stations in the southbound Direction because as you know there's only one track in that direction um so I'm just curious is does that is that going to be a long-term bottleneck for the system

0:24:21and how closely together can the trains get in that in those in that bottleneck yeah so the the bottlenecks are there and trans Bay tube and they're they're similar um I don't know the exact timing at the 12th and 19th but in the transbay tube right now we can run 24 trains an

0:24:37hour um and it has to do well somewhat with how many cars we have we have a limited capacity of cars but even if we had more cars our train control system is 40 years old and so while it works fine and it's very safe um it shows the cars kind of in blocks and so we can't

0:24:57tell we can tell if they're within one block but not if they're right next to each other or spread out at the other end of the block so if we got a new train control system which is one of our priorities we'd be able to run them safely closer together and we'd be able

0:25:11to run 30 trains per hour and hopefully 10 car trains per hour through the transbay tube instead of 24 so it' be a big increase and I don't know exactly how that translate to 12th and 19th but it'd be similar yeah cuz 12th and 19th you've all you got the Fremont bound

0:25:26trains or and the Newark you've got all the southbound trains or the ones going into the city you've got them all there so it obviously um is more trains then actually goes through the trans Bay tube um going through those that one those followup question is that 30 and One

0:25:44Direction or 15 in each Direction 30 in One Direction per hour yeah uh Janet yes I have a a a question about um the development that we're interested in doing around uh one of our BART stations and and maybe you know at some point in our other around our other BART station

0:26:04and along our PDA our um um priority Development Area which is the entire length of s Pabo Avenue in elero and I just wonder if you could U briefly address uh Bart's commitment to working with us on that process sure I mean what I can tell you is Bart is prioritizing

0:26:24Transit oriented development and is very interested in working with local governments to make that happen and I personally am very committed to it uh I know cities have been struggling with how to fund these projects and how to move them forward and luckily the econom

0:26:39is getting a little bit better so hopefully it will become a little bit easier but with the loss of Redevelopment that's been difficult um Bart has made it a priority in the state legislature to work on bills to not necessarily replace Redevelopment but to have similar funding sources so that's

0:26:55something we're doing at the state level but here locally we're happy to work with you and please let me know how I can help and a follow up on that on that question thank you for the presentation very informative um we've been hearing through my work at UH at meetings at the

0:27:10conquered the downtown conquered station that Bart has really relaxed their idea about replacing parking on these sorts of developments um you know where there are surface parking lots currently so I guess I don't know if you want to um have any comments on that but I think

0:27:24that we're uh we find and we're Developers tell us that projects are much more feasible when they don't have to replace a lot of parking yeah um I think there there was a thought at one point that Bart has had a hard and fast rule that all parking had to be replaced

0:27:39from talking to staff apparently that was never a hard and fast rule but Bart has become more open to having developments that don't replace all the parking um we still do need some parking replace because the reality is for some people driving is still the only good

0:27:55way to get to Bart we need to improve some of the other Transit connections first um but we we do want to move towards a a place where we don't have to have as much parking and we're very open to that especially if we can make the development work in a way such that the

0:28:12Riders who are currently parking there would be replaced by the people living there or working there so we'd still have the same ridership number or more um even with fewer parking spaces um so thank you I also want to thank you for coming cuz we um are a little city with two stations so we

0:28:32pride ourselves in having relationships with people like Bart and the school district and what have you and it may be tonight later that we may um adopt our climate action plan so I had a couple of questions about um does Bart have many or any um electric charging

0:28:50stations you know I don't think we do right now and that's something we've been talking about um and we're trying to see if there are any grants available we're I was recently out in DC for a transportation conference and we were meeting with uh the energy department

0:29:09and other people out there and so we were pursuing these ideas so it's kind of just at the starting point but it's something we're talking about and looking into and very interested in right and I I thought your comments were um very interesting that one of the

0:29:23problems that people have getting to Bart and even probably in Elo is is that um you know there's not a lot of support from the hillside down to the Avenue or to the stations and um it would be nice if there could be a partnership to have um like bike stations I was in a city

0:29:41recently where you can throw a credit card in and get a kiosk for a bike and you can go over to the Plaza then go to Barton and whatever and not involve vehicles at all which I think is very cool um and then I also liked what you had to say to support the transitor and

0:29:57a development because um you know there's a very interesting article in the paper a couple days ago about the new what we're calling the Millennials and you know these are people born um in the 80s up until 2000 and a vast majority of those um young people don't

0:30:13drive don't have cars support public transit and a lot of them don't even have driver's license and I have one kid that sort of fits that category so um you know this is important you know for us to pursue so then thanks for coming uh council member benini uh just

0:30:33one more question I wanted to um just draw your attention to the aloney greenway and all the improvements that we've been putting in there and the sort of idea that there will be more sort of recreation areas that will be underneath or right adjacent to the tracks and that

0:30:46will be such a I mean it's just it's already a wonderful amenity but we're trying to add to that so that people can linger a bit more and maybe it's just not not uh not only a transportation Corridor but also an open space amenity for the city so our so another interest

0:30:58I think we have is in keeping the trains they're they're a wonderful sound to many but in keeping the trains as quiet as possible for that sort of um use as well as our we have so many multif family apartments that are right adjacent to the tracks and people have

0:31:12noted a market decrease in the sound once the tracks are ground so I might just call your attention to that as another infrastructure need yes we're we're very aware of it and luckily Bart a couple years ago I think bought a second track track grinder and so now is

0:31:28doing the track grinding a little bit more frequently it still gets loud um the other thing we're looking into and we won't compromise safety for it but for the new train cars we are looking into the wheel design and if there's a way to design it so that it won't be as

0:31:44loud part of the reason it's so loud is has to do with the safety reasons and keeping it balanc which is obviously the most important but we are trying to figure out if there's some solution thank you um I've been reading that uh Richmond is taking a position in opposition to

0:32:03expansion East unless it goes from the Richmond station they don't want it to come from the elero station and turn them into a Spur uh what are your thoughts on this my thoughts are that it's maybe kind of too early to figure out alignment or anything like that um in

0:32:22the BART Metro study like I mentioned we're going to be looking at all of these extension ideas including a second trans Bay tube including some you know further East County extensions and Livermore and all all of these possible potential extensions as well as potential infill stations like maybe one

0:32:41in Albany um so we're going to be looking at everything and I think that's really the place to be looking at this is the context of all of the projects that we have to do historically Bart and I've in the past been a little critical Bart has kind of gone gone forward with

0:32:57one project and not necessarily considered the impact it would have on the whole system which is part of the reason we're in the situation we're in today where we have this $6 billion funding need for just repairing the system so I think we've learned from those mistakes and are moving forward in

0:33:14a different way so I think it's appropriate to study Ward and everything else within this broader study looking at all of the system needs thank you and and just just so you could help us remind us what this broader study is it's you're calling it Bart Metro yes

0:33:29and that that has this Vision which would include looking at any type of expansion in an organized manner yes and the other thing I I didn't mention is that we're going to look at all sorts of Technology um so Bart is started to do this with the East County Extension eard

0:33:46it's a slightly different technology that's cheaper um same with the Oakland Airport connector it's a slightly different technology that's cheaper but we're going to be looking even into Light Rail into bus Rapid Transit and thinking about bart as a system and not

0:34:01as a technology um and so I I think that's a good way to move forward with limited transp transportation funding so it's it's exciting one last comment by council member abon well first of all I'd really like to thank you for coming um because I think that you uh present a very

0:34:19balanced approach of what's going on at Bart and I appreciate you're coming and doing that um one of the things that I'm concerned about um as as chair of the Contra Custer Transportation Authority is that we have to worry about the funding of all projects um in our County

0:34:38and what we're finding right now is there's a basically not much money out there for anything and so will bart be um given that there's a limited amount of funding available will bart be looking to make sure that it's really got priorities straight before making

0:34:59decisions about how to spend um you know what what funds to go after how to really spend the um energy at Bart um on what what projects in light of the um minimal funding available yeah that's that's a goal of mine and I I I do think that's a goal of the agency as well um

0:35:23we have a neest general manager she's been there for about a year and a half I I think she's fantastic and I think that's a goal of hers and I think Bart really sees that we're part of a big bigger Transportation Network um so we don't want to suck up all the funding

0:35:38and have other you know agencies fold that wouldn't really help us and it wouldn't help the region um so that's that's very important at least to me and I think to the agency as well um but this is the environment we're in right now there's limited funding there's less

0:35:54funding from the federal government less funding from the state government and so we're all trying to Grapple with that and I hope we can do it together instead of fighting against each other I had one other comment just a small one um on your way out if you go um to

0:36:08your right out the door there is an electric charge extension in our parking lot um which you're free to you know I don't really know much about it because I don't actually drive but uh the um anyway it's open to the public as I understand is that correct soon oh I it's it's under

0:36:29construction or yes system the system has to be turned on so um we're trying that ourselves so thank you very much for coming this evening have a great evening with that we'll move on to item 4B which is a proclamation recognizing Prospect Sierra's Green Ribbon Schools

0:36:52award um there are two representatives from uh prospects here here if they would come forward I'm just going to quickly read a few things here Prospect Sierra is an independent k through eight School located in elaro and was recently announced as one of 64 United States

0:37:10Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools um the Green Ribbon Schools recognizes uh schools that are exemplary in reducing environmental impact and costs improving the health and wellness of the students and St and providing effective environmental and sustainable

0:37:30education uh which incorporates stem which is science technology engineering and Mathematics um Civic skills and green career Pathways um there's more in here about some of the things that you did with uh harvesting rainwater to um serve at the Avis Gardens uh the

0:37:50kindergarteners uh Creek restoration project um student Le implementation of school World Wide waste reduction um so I I definitely want to thank you very much and recognize you with this Proclamation from the city of bels Sero do you have any words you want to say

0:38:08and then we'll take a photograph um mayor Lyman and council members thank you so much I'm Katherine den and I'm head of prospect CR School we're on two campuses we serve um about 470 students kindergarten through 8th grade um our kindergarten through fourth grade campus is um at Tapscott Avenue up

0:38:27aill and um our Middle School campus 5ifth through 8th is on Avis at the intersection of Avis and moer and uh we're celebrating our 30th Anniversary this year we're really proud to be the only Private School in California to receive this really prestigious award um

0:38:43it came with a very rigorous application process uh we had to show that we were um meeting green standards not just in our facilities but also in our curriculum in our uh all of our programs really and uh we have just a great amount of gratitude for everyone in our community

0:39:02who has contributed to this through the practices through the policies through the uh buildings of our schools and so on um over the the entire life of our school I am happy to introduce you to a person who was key to this process and in our school Community who's helped us

0:39:21remain green and become green and that's our facilities manager Steve Harrington Steve thank you mayor mayor linman and council members um I'm proud to stand here and represent Prospect Sierra it's a great place to work um our kids are our main um source of inspiration and uh they continue to

0:39:43inspire us thank you great thank you it's nice to have uh another green uh business in the in the city so with that we'll do a quick photo [Music] it's the mayor's enough right usually your choice go for it go for it we're camera shy you guys come on picture Tak I agree but it's like

0:40:14tradition since I've been here we all go and I change all the tradition I agree gone all right uh our third presentation this evening is a library update um this is presented by Barbara Flynn uh County librarian um so I think you have a few words to present to us mayor Lyman and city council members

0:40:53uh thank you very much for allowing me space on your agenda this evening uh first of all I'd like to start out with some El Cerito Library events um I want to give a big thank you to the city of El Sero for their wholehearted support of the rotary volunteer day and

0:41:10as you know the rotary volunteer day was at the library and um volunteers cleaned up the landscaping and other outside things and also donated time within the library so it's a big thank you to the city and to the Rotary and I don't want to forget all of our wonderful Library

0:41:29volunteers because we have a lot of them and they are very dedicated and uh are there all the time for us and also our wonderful friends group who never stop working for the library so I'm wrapping that all up into one big thank you for everybody uh another thing uh I was very

0:41:48happy to learn that the city of eloro is also celebrating a 100th birthday uh cuz I think 100th birthday is are great things so just a little reminder that uh there will be a celebration at the library on June 14th at 7 p.m. and this will be in honor of the 100th uh

0:42:08anniversary of the city of El Sero and lastly because summertime is almost here uh the annual summer reading program uh called believe it or not reading is so delicious kicks off on June 8th and this is a reading program not just for children the way it used to be in the

0:42:28old days whatever the old days were uh but this is a program for all ages so all the way up to your oldest senior can participate in the summer reading program and uh the kickoff for that as we have every year we have a reading Festival kickoff it's at the Lesser

0:42:46Center on June 21st and our speaker this year is uh writer Michael pollen and unfortunately if you were still hoping to get tickets we are sold out and have been for quite a while so it should be quite a Gaya event but please don't miss the many many many summer activities at

0:43:05the library uh for the summer reading program now on to other Library business uh as you all know I'm sure uh the kusta county library was one of five public libraries in the country last year to receive the Institute of Museum and Library Services medal and this was in

0:43:27recognition of all of our Innovative services to the community and one in particular was discover and go and some of you may know discover and go that's the wonderful program whereby citizens can get free or greatly reduced passes to museums they can do it electronically uh there's nothing to go

0:43:48to the library to get or go to the library to bring back it's all done electronically and as I love to say you can do it at 3:00 in the morning if you have insomnia and you suddenly remember you know I really wanted to get to that museum now right on the heels of that

0:44:03imls award which was a medal and it was $5,000 it wasn't a lot of money we received a grant and the grant is big money it was for $84,000 and that was so that we could extend the reach of discover and go uh when it was put forward a couple of years ago the idea was always that it

0:44:28would be a California library program not just a County Library program and we already have 19 uh other partners other libraries in this part of the country however we are now going to be able to extend our reach to the County of Los Angeles Public Library uh I believe they

0:44:49have around 90 branches down there and we are going further up north and we're going to include Monterey and SA Sacramento and that's all being made possible by this wonderful $84,000 Grant uh now that brings me to our 100th birthday celebration ours being the libraries which means it's mine and

0:45:08yours and the whole counties and our celebration will be on Sunday July 21st from noon until 5:00 p.m. at Pleasant Hill Park in Pleasant Hill on Gregory Boulevard uh we'll have the entire park and it is a big Park and the teen center so that if it's really hot people will

0:45:32have a place to go into to cool off a little bit and we'll have music games storytelling and entertainment in short something for everyone and even if you can only stay a half hour or an hour I really encourage you to come on by we're right off the freeway and there's also

0:45:50good public transportation uh to get there as well last but not least uh as you may have heard uh we are beginning our strategic planning process as you know uh the last strategic plan that was done was done in 2006 it's a great plan very robust uh very stretchable we're

0:46:12still using parts of it but uh let's face it data from 2006 is very old data and if that was not bad enough as we all know here the whole world changed in 2008 not only the United States and the state of California but literally the whole world changed in 2008 when our

0:46:36monetary systems started sliding uh and we're not out of the woods on that yet but hopefully we're getting there so what the reason I'm telling you about the Strategic plan is we will be coming to you because we're planning to go out into every city town and unincorporated

0:46:54area and meet with the citizens and find out from them what they need the library to do for them it's a very ambitious undertaking but I firmly believe that it is something that needs to be done and we will welcome and need your help and cooperation we're planning to do the

0:47:15Outreach portion uh probably in August and September if our plan holds true so we'll be in touch with the city before then uh to talk with you about the best way to reach your citizens the best places to do it best times of day we know that we'll be doing either focus

0:47:33groups or town hall meetings and in some cases we will be doing direct interviews with people to get the information that we need it's a very important project and we think that all of you and all of the other communities will be very happy with the outcome and last but not least

0:47:53why do we care and why do we bother father and why am I here and why do they pay me my salary and it's because libraries matter and they matter to everybody and I just want to take another minute or two to talk about a couple of the ways that libraries matter and I do it by age so for a young child

0:48:13what is a library and I mean a young one a little one what is a library a library is a place to go for story times for crafts and to learn how to coordinate eye and hand and to learn colors and numbers and to reinforce all the things mom and dad do at home for a student

0:48:32it's a place to get homework help to borrow a book and yes to socialize with friends for a young adult looking at College it's a place to learn about the colleges and even more important sometimes it's a place to learn how to get the money and the help that you need

0:48:48to get through college in these days for a young mother or father especially the mother or father of a first child it's a place to get information about some of those child rearing questions that nobody seems to really have the answer to but it helps sometimes for a person

0:49:06out of work it's a place to go to use a computer to search for a job and even more important it's a place to go when you find the job and you're getting ready to apply for it and you see the three words on the screen that you don't want to see apply online only and if a

0:49:25person has no internet service at home how are they going to do that uh for the person facing home foreclosure libraries can be a place to go to a halfday or dayong home foreclosure Clinic to learn from real estate people lawyers and others of that type how to either keep

0:49:45your home or if you've uh come to the point where you are losing your home what to do next for all of us it's a place to borrow a book or a DVD a place to meet other people to attend a book discussion attend a program or in our busy busy busy World a place to just

0:50:04sit and relax with a newspaper a book or a magazine for our community the library is a Cornerstone and an anchor and a place that none of us can really live without and that's just the start of the list you can all add more to that and for all of us it is free but unfortunately it's not free to

0:50:27maintain and we all realize this only too well so we thank you members of the city council and taxpayers of the city of elero for your continuing support of libraries and for all that you do to help us continue on our journey is it worth the cost that's the next question

0:50:46and my answer is yes and yes and yes again is worth it to our community to our children to our grandchildren and to each and every one of us there's no price that can be put on the library and what it has to offer and what it means for each of us and for our great country

0:51:07and I would like to end with a quote from former New York Daily News columnist and author Pete Hamill who says it much better than I ever will be able to and I quote in hard times libraries are more important than ever human beings need what books give them better than any other medium since

0:51:28ancient nights around prehistoric campfires we have needed myth and heroes and moral tales and information about the world beyond the mountains and the ocean today with books and movies more expensive than ever and television entertainment in free fall to the lowest

0:51:49level of stupidity free circulating books are an absolute necessity they are quite simply another kind of food for those without money the road to the Treasure House of the imagination begins at the Public Library end quote and if I may add for all of us the road to the

0:52:13Treasure House of the imagination begins at the public library thank you thank you Miss Flynn you're a tremendous advocate for the libraries and I want to thank you very much for coming tonight and I want to also acknowledge that is the Elso librarian behind you yes I want to acknowledge and

0:52:31thank you for coming this evening as well thank you with that we'll move on to item five um in I'm going to be pulling item 5B for uh a separate vote um and on item 5c the Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month Proclamation there was a a uh minor uh typographical error that

0:52:58was corrected uh so the the final Proclamation um does reflect a a change in um the the presentation of I think it's 27 uh 207 million asian-americans and Pacific Islanders in the nation as opposed to California I move items 5 a 5 C as corrected and 5D we have a motion second seconded by

0:53:28ablon um all those in favor say I I uh abstentions or opposition Sor yeah exactly thank you let the record show that it passed unanimously we did pull 5 b you could have just abstained on 5B um with that uh we have item 5B yes the City attorney did advise me that I

0:53:48should explain I'll be abstaining from item 5B uh due to the company that I work for having a subcontracting Rel relationship with one of the firms we are potentially awarding contracts to Jacob's Engineering um consistent with government code 1090 due to the size of

0:54:04my firm due to the fact that I do not own any shares in The Firm um and due to my long tenure at our firm you all can award this contract I just cannot vote on it great we uh is there a motion so moved second that's been moved and seconded all those in favor say I I uh

0:54:24oppos position uh abstention one one please show that there was a four yes one abstention with that we will move on to uh item 6A uh this is a public hearing uh in a public hearing we open it up for um staff and the public to discuss we'll close the public testimony and then move

0:54:49forward with discussions um so this is a public hearing confirming that the diagram and levying an ass assessment for fiscal year 2013 2014 for the Landscape and Lighting assessment District number 14 the rate is set at $72 per residential uh parcel and for the other

0:55:32classes of properties those are described in further detail in the reports the city is required to accept the engineers report which we did which council did on May 7th and then conduct a public hearing to hear any comments from the public any questions of Staff seeing none uh we will uh move to

0:55:58the um public hearing I open the public hearing at this time any public speakers I have no request to speak I move that we close the public hearing second uh seconded by uh M council member fredman um all those in favor of closing the public hearing I I opposition extensions

0:56:21seeing none it passed unanimously um were there any written comments received uh I did not receive any okay that's a new one I like that with that um is there any discussion or motion from the council or or comments at this time I I just have one comment um having been

0:56:46here several years ago on Council um it's been a longstanding situation that um the lad only provides for a portion of what is actually um needs to get done within the city on our medians and lighting and all the things that it does cover and we probably and I I think that

0:57:09it's over $500,000 that we expend um more than we take in to provide the service and I would imagine that that's probably a very modest number it's probably much higher than that that's my only comment and to Echo that I think when I joined the Council it was um about

0:57:27$300,000 U gap between our expenditures and our income on landscape lighting assessment District expenses and only in in just 5 years it's grown to a half million so it's it's uh it is something that we we obviously value uh making sure that we have good Landscaping in

0:57:47our parks and our street lights um so we continue to make a commitment to this uh just a point of history that those that are watching at home I know all of you here know this um in 1988 we didn't have street lights um so the landscape lighting and assessment District was

0:58:03what was passed to allow us to turn the street lights back on so this is uh something that's important for uh all of us uh this landscape lighting assessment District so um with that is there a motion move adoption second all those in favor say I I I opposition extensions let the record

0:58:32show that it passed unanimously um we will move on to item 6B uh this is also a public hearing same format as the previous uh this is the fiscal year 2013 2014 strain storm drain annual report and fees staff presentation good evening mayor L lineman and council members I'm Lori

0:58:55trino your economic development manager um this is a public hearing on the uh um upon conclusion of which you will uh consider a resolution to approve the fiscal uh fiscal year 201314 storm drain annual report and direct uh direction to on to collect the storm drain fees on

0:59:17the property tax role in 1993 the voters of elero approved an issuance of revenue bonds for a reconstruction of the storm drain system and the city council adopted an ordinance um to collect storm drain fees that would pay the debt service on those bonds the ordinance set

0:59:34the fee at $58 for a single family home and um other amounts for other types of properties the ordinance also provided that the fees would be collected on the property tax rooll um you see the there the uh storm drain annual report contains a description of each property

0:59:53that is being assessed and that prop that report was prepared by the engineering firm NBS Local Government Solutions um the city must conduct a public hearing to consider the method of collecting the storm drain fees um the hearing is not for consideration of the

1:00:08amount of the fees um the city council needs to determine whether a protest exists for the method of collecting the fees and as of uh this afternoon I'm not aware that any were received um the public hearing also provides an opportunity for property owners to contest the fee amount that is

1:00:29based on the actual use of their property and I don't believe that any owner owners have protested excuse me contested the method of the amount that's being assessed to their property um the adoption of the annual report does require the same two-thirds vote that was required to enact the

1:00:44ordinance originally and if approved the report will be filed with the county auditor controller um so this the fee would remain at $58 for for single family home and that generates nearly $700,000 a year and um in revenues that are used for Debt Service as well as capital

1:01:04projects uh could I CL just just to clarify that $58 per single family unit plus all the other land uses pay uh an equ a share based on sort of their equivalent usage of the storm drain system and I don't have them off the top of my head but they are in the in the

1:01:19first page of the executive summary there it's $43 per unit for a multif family unit um residential unit um and then $870 per acre for commercial property $46 for institutionally used property and $11 an acre for vacant land golf courses and cemeteries great thank

1:01:44you any other questions I I do want to take this opportunity to point out uh it by the way thank you for the report um and and please pass our uh appreciation on to NBS it's the report is very well made um I do know that many years ago there was a protest uh to the fees by people who

1:02:08um reside on carlston so every year I go through to see um how they're dealing with the carlston on the very first page of the parcels um you'll notice a a series of zeros on the carlston um and that's because these homes drain into Richmond they don't drain into El cero storm drains and so

1:02:31um I want to really uh point out how detailed uh the report really is because they actually pay attention to um partial lots and which direction the partial Lots drain so I do want to um you know pay attention that recognize that the engineers really are doing their job um any questions for staff

1:02:52seeing none um I'll open it up at this time for a public hearing are there any public speakers to this item no request to speak I have a motion to close the public hearing I'll move second moved and seconded all those in favor of closing the public hearing say I

1:03:08I um are were there any written Communications that have been received to this item no um any comments motions thoughts um actually I have a comment and Mr venho I if you could just tell us the last time we raised this fee I'm sure you I didn't see it I don't think I it has not been

1:03:32raised since 1993 that's what it's covering Debt Service isn't that right it's a flat Debt Service yes so great uh I move the resolution it's been moved second seconded all those in favor say I I I uh opposition none no abstentions let the record show that it passed

1:03:53unanimously uh uh let just make sure we're on the correct page okay we're going to move on to policy matters item 7A uh is a policy matter it's the extension of the Eden Housing exclusive negotiating rights agreement with Eden Housing good evening mayor Lyman members

1:04:15of the city council I'm Hildy M housing program manager um I'm here tonight to request that city council consider a resolution approv an extension of the exclusive negotiating agreement with Eden Housing for the negotiation of a disposition and development agreement

1:04:33for an affordable housing development at 10848 and 10860 S Pablo Avenue next door at the former tradeway property um the uh original project proposal was for a mixed use uh residential development with approximately 64 units of housing affordable to very low and low-income seniors and about 5,000

1:04:58ft of commercial space for the Samuel Meritt College clinic and a small retail space uh Eden Housing submitted a revised proposal in December 2011 um consisting of 63 rental units for seniors in the same affordability range very low and low income and um approximately 2,000 ft of commercial

1:05:20space for the clinic and 1,000 ft of retail space and retaining as a historic cultural resource the mabuchi Flor shop which is the small stoneface structure facing SE Pablo Avenue the last extension of the uh exclusive negotiating rights agreement was one year ago in May and since then

1:05:40the city and the successor agency to the former Redevelopment agency have been working on resolution of property transfer issues um related to dissolution or Redevelopment um the city submitted a housing assets transfer form to the State Department of Finance which was

1:05:57part of the process uh set up under dissolution and in September of last year the city received notice that we the department of f Finance had no objections to those transfers so relying upon that and discussions with um title companies the developers indicated that

1:06:16they are sufficiently comfortable with the condition of title of the property to continue and proceed with entitlements work for the project which is good news um so with the resolution of those title issues um Eden housing's been proactive in resuming entitlements

1:06:31and environmental review work um that is currently underway um so the requested extension will allow time for the completion of that work and for the negotiation of the disposition and development agreement the estimated time frame for completion of environmental entitlements and

1:06:50negotiation of the DDA work is 6 to 9 months uh so staff would be coming back to the drb to Planning Commission and then ultimately to city council for consideration of those various approvals in the fall of this year around Thanksgiving um the developer intends to

1:07:08apply in December of this year for federal housing funds from Contra Costa County those are competitive funds that are awarded through um a competitive process every year so they are seeking to have their project approvals in place uh prior to that time as it in increases

1:07:24their competitiveness for those funds so staff is recommending that Eden housing's made satisfactory progress under the exclusive exclusive negotiating rights agreement to maritan extension and that this will allow sufficient time uh to complete environmental and entitlements work uh

1:07:42this concludes my report I'm available to answer questions I also wanted to introduce Ben Brandon who is with Eden Housing and he's also available if you have any questions thank you council member benini you questions thank you for the report I just wanted to clarify

1:07:56one or two items that was listed in the staff report um so one was that we wait we put a $60,000 um cost on our latest recognized obligation payment scheduled to the state and we're waiting haven't or have we not heard back or so since I prepared the staff report uh we actually did

1:08:14receive notice from the Department of Finance at the state that that obligation has been deemed an enforceable obligation and improved so now it's uh approved under this current RS and so it's a cash flow uh question of of will we be receiving sufficient property tax funds to fund all the

1:08:32approved obligations but that's great news that that uh obligation was approved great I was just looking at the next section which said the developer is proceeding despite the fact that we haven't had that sort of reply so they're probably happy to hear that as

1:08:45well um can you just remind me um just a quick summary you've mentioned they've met all of their Milestones I don't want you to list the Milestones but generally they've been working since was it 2011 on um the various studies for squa and going to planning and can you just

1:09:01describe the boards they've gone through sure um so uh we uh selected them in 2010 and entered into an exclus that the exclusive agreement in 2011 uh and since then they've held several Community workshops to gather input they've um performed various due diligence studies on the property

1:09:22including soils and geot Technical and also prepared um an additional historic resource evaluation and so all that feedback they also had a conceptual meeting with design review board to gather information on on uh possible alternative designs and So based on that

1:09:38feedback and that additional analysis they provide they prepared a revised proposal which is ultimately what they have submitted to planning for um for their planning application great thank you any other questions no with that are there any public speakers on this item no

1:09:59speakers okay uh I'll bring it back to the Das for uh comment and discussion I'll move the resolution we've had a motion to move the resolution do I have a second second I have a second uh any discussion I'm very happy to hear about this timeline 2013 it will be it will be

1:10:20great to have sort of resolution and to get this thing off the ground this year or to get you all at least the the DDA in place if if all if all approvals go well yes I'm looking forward to a project uh moving forward and I know you're in the squa phase and we'll see

1:10:36how that comes out here shortly um with that I'll call the motion all those in favor say I I I opposed extenstions seeing none let the record show that it passed unanimously um and that will bring us to item 7B uh this is a policy matter to consider adoption of the elero climate action

1:11:00plan and we received a presentation hard copy of the presentation so I I know there happens to be one oh that's not a good scene there we go la in the chambers uh well Karen's um bringing it up um my name is Maria good evening U mayor Lyman and members of the council

1:11:29my name is Maria Sanders and I um am with the Environmental Services Division and I've been the lead staff on developing the climate action plan um which we call the cap for short and tonight uh we're asking city council to adopt a resolution adopting the um elero

1:11:46climate action plan and as a reminder staff released um the climate action plan to receive public comment in mid mid-February and at this time we also provided council with an overview of our process and the contents of the draft cap um tonight I'd like to give a a

1:12:03quick snapshot of the cap for the benefit of audience members and also to Briefly summarize the results of the P public comment period um so uh why did we prepare the climate action plan um the city council has consistently shown commitment to the issue of climate

1:12:19change and um supported both the development of the climate action plan and um and also the goals of uh the state's uh global warming Solutions act which is also known as ab32 and similarly the um Elso public has shown a great deal of support for climate action uh we started development of um

1:12:40let's go to um slide number three thank you um we started development of the cap in uh mid uh 2010 and our planning process was in formed by a community inut process that included a um a climate action survey which in involved um uh the participation of 450 residents uh four

1:13:04public workshops to brainstorm and vet the actions that are included in the cap uh frequent updates um at the regular meetings of the Environmental Quality committee and several updates to city council and finally a 32-day uh public review period um once the plan uh was

1:13:22released uh this last February and um I'd like to also mention at that time that we also at this time we went to both the um Environmental Quality committee and the public um and the Planning Commission in April and both bodies took action recommending Council approval of council approval of the

1:13:42plan um the main purpose of the cap is to provide a road map for pursuing ghg our our greenhouse gas reduction um emissions reductions in El C Sero by um um um over the next 22 years um as part of that process in February of 2011 the city council adopted targets uh to

1:14:03reduce uh greenhouse gas emissions from activities in elero um by 15% below 2005 emissions Levels by 2020 and uh 30% below 2005 Levels by uh 2035 and um to that end the climate action plan outlines the goals strategies and objectives um to help us achieve these

1:14:29targets so this is a a chart of our 2005 Baseline emissions inventory and as you can see um the majority of um the majority of our um emissions comes from the Transportation section uh sector at um uh 51% and then these two slices right here are um energy use at 44% um

1:14:51from the commercial and residential sectors oops and here's what our reduction targets look like the red line um on top is uh the um projected growth in ghg emissions in elero and the green line on the bottom is um our reduction targets uh the Blue Line in the center is um

1:15:12represents um reductions uh from uh the state's ghg emissions reductions efforts and that that basically shaves off our growth curve so what we're trying to do in the climate action plan is to close this Gap right here uh the bulk of the um climate action plan plan investigates the

1:15:35measures um that are intended to help us achieve these reduction targets um chapter three of our climate action plan um focuses on CommunityWide measures uh which involve um land use transportation and Community Development goals energy and water efficiency goals and waste

1:15:53reduction goals um under these goals the uh cap advances a whole range of strategies um including education incentives and ordinances that would encourage near term changes in energy use uh Transportation habits and waste generation uh infrastructure Investments

1:16:12that will um invite people to walk bike and take transit more and over the long-term uh development that helps create a more compact Transit oriented energy efficient community that is um structurally less dependent on fossil fuels so in terms of reducing the numbers of vehicle miles traveled um uh

1:16:33the camp advances a series of um go um of what we call sustainable Community goals um that are meant to in the short term encourage community members to use alternatives to driving alone and in the longer term um to create conditions um for the urban form that will make it

1:16:51easier for Els serans to leave their car behind and to also facilitate a vibrant local economy that will make walking and shopping local um more than Norm in Elo in terms of um energy and water use the cap advances goals that are intended to in intended to encourage and

1:17:13incentivize energy and water efficiency and renewable energy adoption in existing buildings and in new construction um there are also objectives here to investigate making electricity for the entire Community more green through a Community Choice aggregation effort and to encourage um a

1:17:32conservation of potable water uh by removing barriers to the installation of um such things as gray um water systems and finally um chapter 3 contains the um an overall waste reduction goal um to continue our Trend in um reducing the amount of garbage um generated in

1:17:56Elso the cab also provides a climate action plan for uh City operations so chapter 4 is a docu um documents the emissions from Municipal operations from 2005 um and that's shown here and um then develops a series of goals and strategies strategies that will make the

1:18:16city operations more resource efficient and environmentally friendly and we are hoping that the climate action plan can be used uh by community members and businesses as they decide to take action to reduce their carbon Footprints since so many of the strategies discussed in the climate

1:18:34action plan will rely on voluntary participation of community members we wanted to show that achieving our reduction targets um at the household level was not a daunting task so in chapter 5 we show residents how these targets translate into actions from uh for the typical household and we also

1:18:55provide a list of Community Resources to help them um uh take these actions um that's essentially the structure of the climate action plan and I'd like to switch gears ever so slightly to summarize the results of the public review process so by and large the comments um

1:19:15during the public review period were positive um many like the form and the content of the climate action plan um comments that are reflect in changes in the cap fell into three categories they were copy edits to provide more definition or Clarity on terms um or to

1:19:31correct typos and mistakes um there were additions that expanded the scope or the definition of a strategy or an objective um for example adding shopping centers and schools to the list of Institutions that we should work with in order to um uh do trip reduction programs um

1:19:49additional strategies that were overlooked um but they were none the less consistent with um and there was additional strategies that we added that were overlooked um they were um nonetheless kind of consistent with the cap and the results of the public input process um for instance uh we had

1:20:06numerous comments um to support the development of an electric vehicle charging infrastructure and since um EVS are an important ghg reduction Strate strategy at the um State and Regional levels and local government does play an important role in facilitating development of stations uh we felt that

1:20:24it was important to include it so in terms of the comments that were not necessarily incorporated into the climate action plan um we had some that were just not consistent with the scope of the climate action plan or that we felt needed additional public dialogue

1:20:41because these strategies were not um brought up during the public input process um there were also suggestions that were already covered by existing objectives or strategies um they were just worded slightly differently um or um they were too detailed and too contingent on implementation issues um

1:21:01uh to be included in a plan level document such as this one so for instance we had tons of ideas um for new incentives that the city could provide um but these were more appropr appropriately investigated during the program design phase um and um we're OB and you know they're obviously subject

1:21:21um to finding a funding stream um so throughout the climate action plan we took care to identify the strategies that are currently aligned with existing City policy programs and projects um and um uh and um to um distinguish that from the ones that are proposed um we found that many of the

1:21:44actions outlined in the climate action plan are already being investigated or pursued as part of um other City efforts um and just listed here and I'm thinking I've stepped ahead there we go um just listed here are some of the plans and um projects and programs that the city's

1:22:02actively working on this year and next and if the climate action plan is adopted our immediate next steps would be um to see where we are um Visa V our reduction targets um by conducting a 2012 um emissions inventory um to develop an annual implementation report

1:22:26which would provide a progress report on actions implemented um or um or towards implementation um recommendations to guide implementation over the next 2 or 3 years and we'd also like to align this report with any performance metrics that would help us monitor success um and

1:22:44implementation of many of these strategies will require outside funding um Andor assistance uh such um as from Grants s ources the utilities and the private sector um fortunately there are funding streams um at kind of the state and the regional level such as Regional

1:23:01Transportation dollars and um the State's new cap and trade Revenue um revenues um that are being aligned with a ghg reduction goal so um you know as with many of our other plans we um we will be able to use the climate action plan to show um that um we've you know

1:23:21demonstrated commitment towards this issue there's public buyin and um and that would just be important for us to demonstrate when we apply for Grants and uh finally I think that that's um my presentation um and I'd be um the version in front of you is the final

1:23:40draft um and um it has been revised based on the public input um so I'm happy to take any questions and thank you for your time I'm going to start on my left it looks like counc member Bridges has a question um I had a question about um the analysis for um the 2012 ghd

1:24:00emission inventory is there budget considerations for reporting back to us and is that a time consuming staff intensive um I don't think it no it's not it won't be a huge time intensive thing um it's something that the last time we did it we did it with an intern

1:24:20um this time around um there's uh enough um data sources in place that um most of the data would be actually pretty quite easy to do so it is um there may be some things like you know the it it seems to me that the smaller the um the you know uh source of emissions you know

1:24:40especially like at the municipal level the harder it is to get those that particular type of data but the real big huge chunks um you know such as residential energy or or Transportation are really quite quite easy to get and quite easy to Crunch and so we would see that sometime

1:24:58l in the latter part of this year yeah you'd come back yeah it would be part of the implementation report right um and then I think the last time when we had our presentation uh of the draft there was a discussion and I don't know who who who you quoted about this but

1:25:15someone was doing gray water um from the washing machines and I don't know if that was something that East Bay mud did you referenced it before and I can't remember what who you said someone was doing that but I was just thinking that um to expand when we talked about page

1:25:3212 and the things that residents do a lot of us have already done that so we want to take it to the next step I was thinking maybe like Earth day of next year that would be nice to have some sort of a a demonstration because I think that would be kind of a cool thing

1:25:44to learn a little bit more about okay it's just something I thought about and then um I was also thinking about when you there were a lot of uh citations about unbundling some of the parking and getting people out of their cars and uh particularly around like Del Nordy and

1:26:02um we also talked a little bit about having a welcoming packet for um energy conservation and um information for new residents but I was thinking we might be able to do something like that with businesses too and maybe involve EDB and have the eqc and EDB work work together

1:26:22perhaps with that because that would be an interesting thing I don't think our businesses well I might be overstating things but I don't think our businesses do as well as our residents I think they they probably need a little more information and help than our residents

1:26:36who seem very motivated um as we talked about so eloquently last time it it affects your pocketbook so there's sort of more in um uh incentive for for us as residents I think so um there was my only comments about it and again as I said last time I really think this is

1:26:55very very good reading and I like uh I like how it was laid out thank you so thank you council member gson yes I just had a couple questions um first of all I want to thank you for um the great job I think you did in presenting this when I read through the the plan I found it

1:27:14very readable and um very understandable and I really appreciate that and because I think I feel like you were working in unchartered Waters creating this document I don't know if that's true or not but I felt like you were and so I I especially think you need to be thanked

1:27:32for that um were you working in unchartered water Waters well it is very very adapted to uh elero it's very specific to elero so so from that perspective it is unchartered but um anyway thank you um and the my next question had to do with the executive summary page 13 which um shows um all of the

1:27:57numbers um and I'm trying to understand what the numbers represent by category so for example at the end of SC2 um there's there's some numbers and um so what are what are those what are those numbers for is that for all of SCS or SC1 and scs2 or is it just for SCS 2.

1:28:22three I'm sorry I actually um left my my actual plan at my chair so hold on one second okay sorry about that page 13 you said Roman Roman 13 in the executive summary um at the end oh yes that's actually you'll notice that um it's uh the the annual tons of CO2 reduced for for

1:28:52everything from SC1 through um SC 4 so it's basically there's so much interaction um at the transportation level between these types of of um so the 10,27 tons that would be 10,27 tons reduced by 2020 from the um many different types of actions that were taking at the community development land

1:29:21use Transportation levels there there's just so much interaction that you can't kind of parse them and pull them apart and assign different kinds of co question was kind of a different question which is if those are the totals why are and it goes through S C4 why why is it weigh up in the

1:29:39middle um it's a formatting issue we just felt like it just showed I mean if we did it at the top then it would people might read it as as only for SE so just our way of of dealing with it Sor okay I just couldn't figure out what that meant and so the the following

1:29:56sections it's the same yes yeah so anytime they're they're um combined as a a one um chunk of CO2 savings um those actions will show up that way the other thing and I don't know if you can answer this or not is I've heard other um people from other cities say that

1:30:15they're working on their climate action plan but I don't know how many have finished and I was curious if you knew of others who have finished in say contracosta Alam County uh well San Pablo finished as a part of the process that we were going through with them um

1:30:33and um alanita county is a special case cuz stop waste.org um is a county agency and they actually um helped um uh do most of the um greenhouse gas or are the um climate action plans for um for most of the Cities there is I think that's my I mean that's my understanding um that

1:30:55they did help Supply um uh Technical Resources to make that happen um I think that now they're actually um just in the process of redoing their um 2010 um emissions inventories to see where they are um you know Visa V their old um emissions inventories so so Alam

1:31:16county is a different case than Contra Casta County and um and I do not know how many in contracosta County but I'm I think there's a handful thank you council member benini thank you um Maria thanks for the presentation as usual very clear um I noticed I I I was very interested in

1:31:39reading through the comments and I noticed several of them were suggesting a more aggressive Target or wondering you know if we could go farther than maybe we're suggesting we can in this plan so I'm looking at the business as usual chart on uh or the chart that

1:31:53contains the term business as usual scenario on page 11 in the executive summary and just kind of thinking ahead to what we may find in 2012 can you remind us how the business as usual uh scenario was constructed and we'll hear I guess what 2012 actually is but do you

1:32:11think this growth that we're showing is kind of consistent with what with the growth that the US has seen in Prior years or the growth that California had seen can you just remind me of that scenario yeah it's um consistent with growth um uh from 2005 like around 2005

1:32:27growth in each one of the sectors and then it also kind of takes a um um a growth um a kind of a population growth scenario for elero so um takes population growth and then growth in each one of the sectors because you know our use of energy usually goes up or our

1:32:44vehicle miles were going up those kinds of things at least in 2005 so it takes those into account and that's where the injections come from um I think that it's um at this point in time just every once I get um annual energy data and our our energy keeps on kind of going like

1:33:04this sometimes it goes up you know 2% sometimes it goes down you know 60% usually depends on how cold a winter it is um but um but uh so we have to kind of see if there's an overall trend but we're staying fairly stable on most of the things that I've seen and then also

1:33:24you know I've been hearing um and we'll see more of that um is that vehicle miles traveled is kind of leveling off and is beginning to fall so I think that I think that in terms of where we are um also you know fuel efficiency is going up um our you know our renewable energy

1:33:42sources are going up as well so um so just the amount of carbon per vehicle mile travel the amount of carbon per kilowatt hours going down as well so I think that um we're going to be somewhere between the red curve and the blue curve um in terms of of our um in

1:34:03terms of our growth curve but I think we'll be closer to the blue curve and and just to clarify the growth was 200 2000 to 2005 was what you were looking at yeah okay thank you no yeah I think so um I'll have to verify that okay thank you any other questions council member thank

1:34:24you uh excellent presentation and excellent work um do we have any statistics on what percentage of greenhouse gas emissions come from cigarette smoke no and it wasn't it wasn't put in here so I I'd be really interested to see that because there is anything onday I

1:34:45had the uh not fun task but my crew and I of going along s Pablo and picking up cigarette butts and hundreds and hundreds yeah garbage also but and it's a major problem for storm drains and litter and uh and I'm sure it contributes to greenhouse gases What number I don't know but I

1:35:07would be interested if we have any uh data on that and and also I want to say that uh unrelated but our uh tobacco ordinance for the city needs to be updated I've talked to the city manager and we're planning on getting to that by the Fall so um maybe as part of that

1:35:26we'll get some greenhouse gas information also my other uh question is on pay this uh handout on what's different from the previous draft is really helpful and looking on uh page 31 the second um paragraph here it's uh says what the changes are and it has mojer

1:35:50Avenue misspelled but then when I went to the actual report it doesn't even have that phrase in there so I think that's a typo okay sorry about that no problem minor point but uh thank you so one of the my questions would be to emphasize that uh one of the responses you gave to council member

1:36:15Bridges already that this is readily available information um I noticed in appendix B 4 which is the uh Baseline emissions inventory for vehicle miles traveled that you're getting this data from calans and and it's intended to be readily available information um and and so it's not

1:36:35necessarily A precise predictor of elero but it's a general predictor of elero right um I did the quick math and and this actually predicts that Els serans and vehicles in elero account for 114 million 114 million miles but that only works out to about 11,000 per household so it's it's you as

1:37:03as big as that sounds it's you know when you start looking at the miles per household it's it's you know understandable um although 11,000 mi in El Sero is a lot of a lot of household um but I just want you to give you an opportunity to re ize that the data that's in here is um readily available

1:37:25and is not that specific yeah there's some that's very specific like the the um data that comes from PG is um readily available um to local governments and it's it's very specific to actual consumption numbers um in the different sectors so that's that's very specific to El Sero um uh

1:37:51the transportation is only as good as the transportation modeling that's behind it um and my understanding is that has changed a bit so that um that there's new data that kind of takes in account um uh um more specific to each City so I'll have to look into that and

1:38:12understand that a little bit more in my next process exercise thank you um and I too want to thank you for this report it's a phenomenal report and if you could remind us was a consultant used to prepare this report uh uh no there was uh some we had um our EPA um consultant

1:38:32do some uh research for us as well and they did help us crunch some of the numbers but but the report preparation was prepared by effectively you and I and I want to acknowledge how uh much that means that the quality of the report and and how good it is um I do

1:38:50want to to um in in implementation which is one of the areas that I did focus on because uh I think the the plan is only as good as we Implement um there I did find a few typos uh there's a reference to appendex M which really should be a reference to figure 6.3 I did go through figure 6.3 and

1:39:10there appears to be some mathematical issues there there were a couple areas that I did want to um ask about though on page 81 for uh waste reduction uh 1.3 reduced landfill waste from construction uh and demolition projects and under the required column it's it's

1:39:37zero for no and two for yes and for some reason the score is one and I'm just curious yeah that was actually um a um that is also another typo um and it it uh it came to my attention but I didn't update it in time it should be a two though correct based on based on the

1:39:58state laws okay right and on the next page on page 82 and actually um the reason it's a typo is because it's actually the two above should be a zero so oh I see so the two that's above should be in that in that row okay great and then on the next page uh on page 82

1:40:20Municipal climate action uh the first uh one under M1 m1.4 reduce annual vehicle miles traveled associated with employee commutes and field workor and again under the required column there's a two and I'm just curious what agency is requiring that is that a Bay Area Air

1:40:40Quality Management District there's a new um AB there's a new law um it's just basically to provide um if you have a if you are a business with over for 50 employees you need to um provide a a commute um incentive so so like Flex work days I like Southern California has

1:40:59had this for that's more a commuter benefit commuter benefit like a tax incentive or something so so that that that's that that one thank you [Music] um and oh it's a question I'll ask now but it really is just to build facts for comment later um I do appreciate that

1:41:30there's chapter 4 is the implementation or the uh item for the city but I did notice that the city's um percentage was very small and I calculated that it was less than 2% yes that the municiple contribution is okay good yeah and that's very typical of of climate action

1:41:49plans and the city's ratio I noticed was significantly different as a result of refrigerant um so we actually don't have Municipal mile or the mileage is much less percentage but the refrigerant uh percentage went up quite a bit um yeah and the reason being and I'm not sure

1:42:10when you I'm not sure if I understand your your comment entirely is a question just to if you could make sure that there is no similar to the pie you showed for how the city is div how the city divides the 2% that the municipality is responsible for under chapter 4 is not divided the same way

1:42:28could you um elaborate on how the how our 2% the city's 2% is divided yeah there's the only thing that's different about it is is that the municipal refrigerants and um that's because uh uh the um there's local there's a local government protocol for for um calculating emissions um that's you know

1:42:50uh uh through the international or through iiy sustainable um cities and then also through um bmid and the municipal that kind of was added after we did our inventory so we went back and we added it in order to be compliant with that protocol that protocol doesn't

1:43:10necessarily exist for um or did not when we were writing it um did not exist for for the community level and it would be very very difficult for us to kind of come up with a an equivalent for the community um so it's that's the reason why it is actually in our overall

1:43:27Community emissions as you know singled out as Municipal refrigerants it's um a fairly large um chunk refrigerants are really um quite powerful as a greenhouse gas great thank you very much any other questions uh do we have any public comments we do I have four speaker

1:43:49slips um I'm going to take this moment to remind everyone that we do have a um time limit on public comment we use a light system that's in front uh green go go uh it's 3 minutes yellow means you have a minute left and red I will ask you to wrap up first speaker please mark

1:44:14Miner good evening mayor Lyman city council my name is Mark Miner I'm chair of the environmental quality committee I reside at [address removed] uh first of all I wanted to recognize and thank Janet ablon for her vision and putting this together uh our Environmental Quality

1:44:32committee is just about 5 years old I was looking for the exact date that we were approved by city council but I think it might be around the May time frame the first meeting that I could find was July 2008 and uh in my archives I found a journal article talking about

1:44:49elsar's environment Al leadership where the city council had approved setting that initial Baseline um of the green greenhouse gas inventory and doing the work to actually find that Baseline so it's been a a 5year journey um also I'd like to recognize Maria on kind of

1:45:09following up on some of the comments you were saying we had a uh a consultant on site you know consultant quality work who really understands the city in and out inside and out so that's kind of unique um combination that you can't buy um with money so I really want to thank

1:45:26you again Maria for for an excellent job excellent job well done um if I could kind of summarize three main points that I heard in the public comment um periods that we had in some of the eqc meetings um first off many many of the members make elero a more healthy more more fun

1:45:46more social more vibrant place to live and even the climate change Skeptics admitted that you know a lot of the stuff in the climate action plan is going to make this a better place to be um a lot of the items fit together like the U um housing near Transit and

1:46:03walking by San Pablo and all kind of fits and grows a lot of the other plant we have in the city like the San Pablo Avenue plant it really is the Synergy pieces are really kind of coming together it's exciting um another point that we heard a lot is that the our plan basically

1:46:21comes out to a 1% Pere reduction starting in 2005 going through 2035 so by that time we'll be 30% lower than we were when we started and that may not be enough to really change the CH climate um but I it's important that we set out and we do something and we measure and we make steady progress year

1:46:47by year I think that's more important than put putting together a plan that's going to get us where we think we want to be without really the actions to make it happen if you look at Maria's plan there's a bit of there's not as much contingency as I would like but all of

1:47:03the items are very realistic as far as how much you can expect to get out of it and it's a very realistic plan if we follow through on it um to achieve this goal so it's um it's a working document it's not a shelf document again I want to thank Maria for for creating that for

1:47:19us and third point is we don't have all the answers that last mile walkability up the hill um you know I only live on SE View and it's hu hard for me to huff and puff to get my bike up to my house much less the the top of Moser so we don't really have all the answers yet but this

1:47:38is going to be a living document a living process the best the coolest idea I heard in that area was electric bikes but we haven't really explored that and that's not in the in the plan today so where we're going from here in the eqc is that we're going to in our June

1:47:55meeting you assuming you approv tonight kind of look at what area what big move the needle item do we want to focus on in the eqc for the 2013 2014 year I don't think that we have the bandwidth to focus on a lot of different things so ideas might include following through

1:48:14and doing research on Compu Choice aggregation CCA you know Richmond's going live with Mar energy starting in July so that's coming right up I know that Albany Berkeley and Oakland are all researching what they want to do on a very serious basis and San Francisco

1:48:31clean energy is coming alive as well so there's a whole lot of activity in our local area groups that we could tag on um and um you know there's other areas we could we look at we're going to pick one big policy item to work on and we'll let you know what what that is and then

1:48:53personal climate action plans reaching out to the community is a really important piece and we're going to be highlighting that at the July 4th celebration working with the community getting people excited about doing their own individual climate action plan so

1:49:07again thanks a lot for a job well done thank you thank you very much for your comments next speaker please Audi gy so uh greetings mayor Lyman council members uh my name is howdy gy I'm also a member of the Environmental Quality committee that um voted to recommend

1:49:34this plan to you but I'm speaking as a um resident and just wanting to reiterate my own support of the climate action plan and I um also want to Echo the um gratitude to Marie for a very well-crafted plan and the hard work um she and and supporting staff did and and

1:49:57putting it together I think it is an impressive document and I um you know urge you to uh to cast your your vote to support it um I think you've already mentioned that you know implementation is the big you know piece moving forward and and so I also just want to take the

1:50:18opportunity to you know um reiterate that I hope that you and all of us will you know take a special um initiative to you know make the implementation of this plan the recommendations of this plan something that we really carry with you know all of our Our Daily Business

1:50:39whether it's personal choices or Municipal choices and um you know there's some very long-term actions that will be slow and and um challenging to to implement um but there's also opportunities that can be faster and have you know relatively uh you know hopefully simple

1:51:02paths to to make big progress and you know one of those that's already been mentioned is is the Community Choice aggregation that you know there may be some issues you know funding the study and getting you know getting it to happen but that's a relatively straightforward you know policy action

1:51:19that can a big impact in the um renewable energy options that are available to you know the uh uh customers in you know buying electrical utility in the city so um yeah once again just urge you to support the plan and carry it forward and implement it thank you very much thank you next

1:51:42speaker please Robin [Applause] Mitchell I'm Robin Mitchell I'm an Elso resident um and I just want to say that I support the city's climate action plan I'm proud that Elso has taken on the challenge of climate change um I think the measures in the plan are practical I think

1:52:08they're achievable and most if not all have other benefits besides reducing greenhouse gas emissions and I think that's really a strength of the of the plan um and I wanted as everyone else to thank Maria for preparing it and um I encourage the city council to adopt it

1:52:26great thank you very much our last speaker slip is for Al Miller good evening once again uh I'm coming with my supportive comments for and acknowledgements in a couple of areas uh one I think it's consistent with your demonstrated achievements in the past of making elero one of the

1:52:50leaders in several areas and Environmental Quality uh is being one uh as you know and most of my friends know uh I've been connected with your efforts to become council members from early on in the projects when they started and I've heard all of you say many times

1:53:12more than once of your commitment to the environment and uh especially the Environmental Quality Bill fre I think this is yet another strong statement in the Fulfillment of those I won't say promises but pledges that uh you're made in your campaigns or even when there

1:53:31wasn't competition in the discussions that went on on your desires to achieve office couple of suggestions I'm ascribing my ability to procrastinate to a lot of the elero residents that live in the city with me and a suggestion that especially in the area in chapter

1:53:53three where you're talking about things related to what individual residents can do that uh the city consider playing a role intermediary role between the business establishments that are going to sell us the new windows sell us the installation that we need uh sell us the

1:54:12recirculating system so we can reduce our use of water waiting for the hot water to get to the sink Etc the the uh contractors that will probably be installing it for most of us and the residents that want to buy it and uh maybe a couple of times a year featuring

1:54:32a uh a display or a uh afternoon in the community center where the window sellers come and tell us how much savings they're willing to give us when we get a car load of a truckload of Windows purchased uh the contractors that install window windows and say yeah

1:54:50when you do that we'll give you this percentage if we all know we're going to be installing a truckload of Windows and you can do the same on the aspect of the insulation you know there's only people certain people that do the installation the meetings would be to

1:55:06inform us what we have to do in the process of getting our house ready to install Windows or to flood our attic with insulation Etc and then put us in contact with the suppliers and the doers and that would encourage just make it easy for us to sign on and say we can do

1:55:23that and as all of these things have been accomplished maybe the Environmental Quality commission can come up with something similar to the green business you know environmental an eqc qualified home I've done all of these improvements to do my part in achieving our climate action plan thank

1:55:41you thank you with that I'd like to bring it back to the Das for any comments uh or thoughts and I will start with council member fredman um I think everything I need to say has been said by everybody here thanks council member benini um I loved reading the comments that were included in this

1:56:06plan because they really reflect the great ideas that our community had and we just heard some more um there's great videos of electric bikes going up really steep hills so thank you Mark for mentioning that and Al just mentioned the idea of sort of bulk purchasing or

1:56:19scholing our purchasing in order to uh potentially get better deals or have a more competitive process for for contractors so I'm so inspired by all the ideas that are out there and I really appreciated um Maria the way that you included all the comments and kind

1:56:34of showed or explained why some were not made um in in this document and why they may be made in other documents but in a broader sense about this plan I just want to make the comment that the reason government exists is to organize our responses to big problems that we cannot

1:56:48face alone so when we come up with a plan like this and we think about the problem of global warming and when we see these little toddlers toddling around the street that are going to be um 90 years old in the year 2100 when there are really potentially very scary scenarios or

1:57:04maybe I won't say scary but I'll say a world different than the one that we know today may exist in the time when these children are 90 years old very likely to be alive at that time we know the the pro the scale of the problem but we can come together as a community come

1:57:19up with some really great ideas on how we can tackle it and I am extremely appreciative of what was mentioned before and that is that many so many of these um responses are practical responses that not only contribute to reducing our impact on the climate but they contribute to other parts of our

1:57:36life of our lives and that's the reason the climate skeptic who attended these meetings was actually not that against this plan um and that was exemplified for me I I heard in another meeting setting a woman stand up and talk about the impact on her quality of life of

1:57:51having a more efficient home just absolutely being comfortable in her home and I and she was almost in tears when she was talking about how nice it was lived in a home for 40 years that was extremely cold and uncomfortable during parts of the season and just making um

1:58:05energy improvements or energy efficiencies not only made her a better um citizen with regard to her climate impact but also made her much happier and more comfortable in our house so there are so many reasons to support this um plan and I am very appreciative of the community members who

1:58:20participated over is it a fiveyear was it a fiveyear process could that really be true um but but I appreciate the the stamina with which staff and the community and all the members with the eqc have participated council member ailson yes I actually just have to make

1:58:37a few comments because um this is is has been a really important effort to me and it's something that um came to be for me uh almost if not maybe really it truly it is the most important thing in our future and I when I think about it I think about the movie we uh recently

1:59:01showed uh Rising Waters where it was a scene from the South Pacific area and it showed it was just water over uh what looked like a shallow Beach but it turned out that had been an island and that it was the Risen Waters that had made it into just land underneath the water of the ocean and um

1:59:29you know I was I've been really concerned and I'm still concerned about that even today I was watching TV for a few minutes before I came here and they were talking about a tornado that was level five EF I'd never even heard of EF but it's the most um serious rating they

1:59:50can give a tornado and it had occurred I think yesterday and so these events are getting more and more common more and more um um destructive hurricanes um you know you can just see evidence of it all over the place of what's going on in our environment uh you can see the climate

2:00:13changing because it's like warmer in places you don't expect it I mean things are changing and sure you can say that some of these changes are just changes that occur but you know they're not occurring in a way that um sounds like the the world is going to be a better place unless of

2:00:34course we do something about it so um what I think is really important is uh this climate action plan and this is just elero saying this is our small piece of it and and I think that is uh in our small world what we can do about it now we can do other things in our

2:00:55bigger world but within elero this is a plan that I think of as a slow and steady plan uh it's not a glamorous plan it's not a glittery plan it doesn't have that one big thing where we put all our eggs in a basket and hope that it's the one answer for the whole thing this is a

2:01:15slow but steady plan of little steps that we can all take at different levels in our city to make our world a better place and oh by the way as we're doing that guess what individually when we do these things um I found and I've heard other people say it too it saves money

2:01:35and it makes people more comfortable as council member benini said uh you know I mean it's just a good allaround plan it's a good plan for a a positive healthy elero and so I think it's you know I'm very very excited about this plan and but it will require a lot of diligence on the

2:01:58part of the Council on the part of staff on the part of our residents to make it happen in a slow bit steady um careful way and um so I think I want to add my thanks besides thanking Mel or um Maria again um I also want to thank Melanie and also because I think they in

2:02:20particular were very helpful at least from my point of view um you can maybe that's not right but I I think we have a whole team of people in our Environ Environmental Services Division or what I guess was our Environmental Services Division and it's people working

2:02:39together as a team like that that really make things happen so what I certainly pledge to do and what I hope other people here will pledge to do uh and people at home is to work together to make it happen you can save money I just got the lowest uh Bill I've ever

2:02:57received on my pg& bill I can't believe how low it is and uh it's never been that low before but I have been making these improvements and there's some more I can even make so this is real money real dollars you can take to the bank you can go to a Vaca on a vacation you

2:03:15can do whatever you want with it but the point is this is good for the pocketbook and so I think if nothing else that's a reason to implement this plan but the primary one to me is to save the world it really is um and I um want to let's see what else I wanted to mention I

2:03:38think I think this plan has also been thoroughly vetted I've been at many many different forums where that's been done and um it's been widely received in a very very positive way and uh I keep waiting for somebody to really come up and say something negative about it but

2:03:57even our our what I would think of as our one main naysayer he was a really nice man who had really nice comments and said he likes what what the uh what you're proposing uh Maria remember you know I mean he was quite positive about it so that's utterly amazing to me and um um so um we all

2:04:22have a part in it um people in their homes have a part in it people in businesses have a part in it um our PDA on S Pablo Avenue our priority Development Area where we it's our you know sort of our um commitment to do uh focused um transor development and on San Pablo Avenue that's a part of it um

2:04:51and the city government itself that's a part of it we all have to work together and do our peace to make it happen but I really do think we can make it happen and I look forward to voting uh yes on this motion well you can make a motion in a minute council member

2:05:09Brides I can't follow anything further to add from what Janet already said so thank you thank you for the staff and thank you um for Council memb first and I and if you'd like to make your comments you may but I'm willing to um make the motion okay well you guys will

2:05:25be thumb wrestling over there um I do have a couple of comments basically they're reiterations of what other people have said um and and I'm going to try and use the words in the report as much as possible because I do want to pay tribute to the the good work that

2:05:42was done one of the ones that I want to point out is sustainable Community goal number two um this increase this this goal page 27 is to increase ELO's economic base create more jobs encourage greater vitality and more pedestrian friendly economic activity I mean that

2:06:01that's something that is we can do as a a city council and it does so far and and that's how practical this report is so I just wanted to emphasize that this report as council member Aon just said it's really practical it's very achievable um at the very first sentence of chapter

2:06:213 which we've talked about the primary purpose of the cap climate action plan is to identify actions the city and Community can take to reduce greenhouse gas at missions to achieve our reduction targets the city of El Cero's role in reducing Community missions will

2:06:43be to provide leadership and Le and to leverage its policy planning and programmatic functions to encourage additional Community Action as I said earlier um the municipal portion of our contributions the contribution the municipal uh staff and the municipal actions take is less

2:07:05than 2% of the overall so even if the municipal even if we reduced our greenhouse gases to zero we don't begin to to contribute to the overall uh achievements in this goal but it's through our actions our leadership and our policies that we are going to have the impact that we're looking for by

2:07:28encouraging the uh improvements it that individuals do and and there's a simple formula in here that we would actually be able to achieve 15% and we've talked about it insulate your attic uh convert to energy star appliances Drive 19 miles less uh participate in our Recycling and

2:07:48and composting programs these are really simple achievable things that everyone can do and we look forward to all of you doing that and as again it's on page eight um if we reduce that 15% on average each household will save $700 a year straight up there's good

2:08:12Financial incentive for you if you don't do it for yourselves do it for your pocketbook and if you don't want to do it for your pocketbook do it for the next Generation please take action um find something to do in my house we're going to be uh putting in it was actually a suggestion

2:08:30from uh one of the public speakers they're really simple uh the water heater on one side of the house your bathroom's on the other side of the house you put in this circulating pump you push a button 15 seconds later no water has gone down the drain and the hot water is at your at spr your faucet

2:08:49head or your shower head and no water has gone down the drain so it's a really simple thing that you can do uh to to begin saving energy and water um so I that's what my house will be doing that I'm encouraging everyone else to consider something similar um small and

2:09:08achievable okay ladies thumb rest of time you to me oh well thank you well it is my great pleasure to make a motion adopting the climate action plan of the city of Alero the very first one um as um corrected um for um that's it I guess I'll second we have a motion it's been

2:09:34seconded all those in favor please say I I I opposition abstentions seeing none let it be recorded that we pass that unanimously thank you now you guys can all go take Maria out all right um with that we will move on to agenda item 8 Council assignments and liaison

2:10:01reports uh council member benini thank you mayor I'm happy to just report on the Planning Commission they met last week and I was unable to attend but I did debrief with the chair after their meeting they approved a conditional use permit for a wireless an existing Wireless facility that's

2:10:20located right near elero Plaza uh and the Fab will meet next week to discuss the budget numbers great uh council member Freedman yeah the arts and culture commission Matt and I was there and uh it's a really creative group of people and now it the group encompasses more than just

2:10:38the visual arts which is great and among the things talked about is doing another do-it-yourself day with teaching Arts all the Arts throughout the community and also mentoring programs with young people great council member Aon I just have a couple uh one is the committee on

2:10:59Aging met last week and um they so I just want to again emphasize the movie that's was shown last uh Saturday and will be shown tomorrow in this room at 2:30 on healthc care and um the speaking speaker group that's going to occur and it's just an example uh that are committee on Aging uh with

2:11:22its uh expanded group of members now is becoming more and more active and I'm very pleased to see um the work that they're doing and then the other one is the Environmental Quality committee met and let's see here and actually I guess maybe there isn't a whole lot to report because uh

2:11:47you were sort of told by the chair what they be working on and um they're also um working really well together they have an you know they're pretty fully I think they may have pretty much as many members as they've ever had they have fantastic hardly any uh openings so

2:12:06thank you council member riches um I have one item to report on on Wednesday May 15th um I went to the jpa of the user uh of the field down at Bates which is the on the Gilman track and um couple items that um were reported out or that the buring burrowing owl that had been

2:12:29protected on that site has now left it's a phenomena that exists I guess in the spring that they only are there for several months of the year and we're not exactly sure where they go but they're not developers come and relocate them for 30 mil they're very well protected

2:12:47it's just the phenomena um the the other thing I wanted to report out on is that um this joint um Power agreement was um started in 2006 and at that time um each of the five cities um that are part of the jpa were um assessed we going to be assessed about $15,000 a year to uh

2:13:15cover costs and most of that money has actually we've the cities have not continued to put that out in on an annual basis because the money uh has been coming from the user feet fees but what's come to pass is that the infield Turf so this is the artificial turf that

2:13:33exists on that field is probably going to be due to be replaced if not in 10 years uh like 2016 but perhaps even sooner and there will be a um um Financial shortfall for that um replacement so they've budgeted about $750,000 but there that that'll be the shortfall they we don't have a bid on

2:13:57this so we don't exactly know what that cost of replacement will be but probably anywhere from one to maybe1 A5 million doar so there'll there'll be a budget shortfall um of about 650 so we went back to City staff and looked at the agreement and we we do have um a

2:14:18commitment to put $115,000 a year into a budget line item to um pay for our obligations to the jpa we won't be solely uh in responsible for all of these fees they're going to look at the fee structures of the users and probably do and I'm not sure what the number will be maybe a 10% increase

2:14:42in fees to them so they'll be carrying some of the burdens of cost but after we talk to City staff although we haven't been budgeting this money we will begin to for the 201314 budget year which is the cycle we're going to be working on next month um so that was something that was

2:15:01sort of unanticipated I guess you might say um but I think we're committed as a community to support the fields um we'll probably come up with some um potential accounting for who's using field how many residents what ZIP codes they may be in the city of Berkeley actually

2:15:23collects the fees from the users so there will be some things that we'll probably look into a little bit more but we do have this jpa that we're committed to funding that's all I had okay I've got a few to report on and one that I didn't go to the crime prevention committee met um I did not

2:15:43attend and I do not have a briefing for it the tree committee met um they are successfully achieving some of their goals which is to develop a master tree list for the city so that City staff can quickly um assess whether the trees that have been proposed for planting in

2:16:01developments or houses is uh and in our public spaces and our um along our tree along our roads and in our parks are acceptable so that's they're achieving that quite nicely they're uh taking a a um Trip Around Town um and so instead of their normal June meeting they'll actually be doing a

2:16:26uh special meeting where they go around and see some of these planting locations in parks and and along the roadways and medians and planting Wells and uh the like um uh on your behalf I did attend the West County Integrated Waste Management Authority and meeting in the

2:16:46beginning of this month Mon and at that meeting we did have a budget Workshop uh like our organization they have a fiscal year that's July 1 to June 30 and uh they actually they have a two-year program we're Midway through the first year of that 2-year the um decision was

2:17:07that we would not modify the 2-year plan at this time however there was a lot of discussion as a result of the fact in Jan January um the 20-year commitment Financial commitment for the resource recovery facility goes away um there will be changes but we're not we don't

2:17:30know what those changes are yet because we don't know what the uh Authority will look like on January 1 we're going through a process of trying to figure out what the authority will look like that process is supposed to conclude in October and at that time we will revisit

2:17:47uh the balance balance of our budget from January 1 through June 30 um and that is my report out from the Waste Management Authority any other reports seeing none uh I will move to adjourn this meeting let this meeting be adjourned to our next regular scheduled

2:18:09meeting which is Tuesday June 4th at 7 p.m here in the city council chambers thank you everyone for coming