Concurrent City Council, Public Financing Authority and Pension Trust Board Meeting June 4, 2013

0:00:16um Regular meeting of the city council of El Cerrito and we will let the record show that all city council members are present we will start with a pledge of allegiance to the flag or observation of a moment of silence led by council member benicini thank you of the United States of America and to

0:00:40the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right and I'm going to start off the item two which is our Council and staff Communications with a report out from our closed session we just concluded a closed session regarding labor

0:01:06negotiations and we provided direction to staff um with that I'm going to continue with item 2 and staff Communications I'm going to call forth two of the El Cerrito Youth Baseball League teams that I understand placed first in the uh Memorial Day tournament down in Fremont

0:01:28is that correct Fremont and we'll start with the eight and under Golden Bears can you Golden Bears step and come forward please [Applause] now their head coach is Mike debellis Mike I don't know if you have any words that you want to say about how your team performed uh if you wanted to use the

0:01:58microphone we do have we are recorded and hopefully the camera will turn onto these uh young men uh and and so that everyone can see them at home as well you know I would just say it's uh it was a fantastic opportunity to coach these guys they um they they played really

0:02:15well they played together they enjoyed playing with each other and that was a huge part of it and we had to come back from our last two games in the semi-final in the final the championship game and they stuck to it they didn't get down on each other or on themselves

0:02:27and um that was a really great great part of it and it was just really nice to be able to coach a great team with great parents and we had a great time so and winning helps so it does it does so yeah they were fantastic great congratulations gentlemen [Applause]

0:02:51and uh on this in the same tournament the 10 and under uh funder did equally as well if the Thunder's team would like to step forward and their head coach Doug Price Hanson if you no words okay great what oh you do you have a few words excellent yeah that was a great group of kids everybody

0:03:20contributed um we only had we didn't have many practices to prepare for the tournament so it's a tribute to them to come out and uh in a championship game great pitching and defense only let them have one base runner the whole game so uh they did a great congratulations

0:03:42congratulations congratulations to you too and I understand that you that both teams are uh made up of of players from all sorts of different uh you elsewhere youth-based fellow teams that you guys are a traveling squad or a um what's the right word I'm looking for

0:03:58all-star teams and we'll be seeing you guys uh probably over the next uh 10 years as you guys grow up and become better players so thank you for coming and we'll see you again [Applause] okay uh Mr Friedman do you have any uh Council announcements no councilmember benassini I'm happy to

0:04:28make just a few uh all of these items are on the city's calendar but I thought I would highlight a few public sessions that are coming up one is a presentation on the proposed single-use bag and foodwear regulations has to do with the single-use plastic bag and food wear in

0:04:44our restaurants that'll be a public meeting on June 11th at 7 pm in the council chambers I also wanted to note that on June 14th we've talked about this before El Cerrito library and Contra Costa Library System will be celebrating a hundred years in in operation and that will be at the El

0:05:00Cerrito library at 7 pm uh the next day June 15th is the Avenue art walk and that's on San Pablo Avenue also listed on the website should be a good time starting at the El Cerrito Plaza and I'll just mention one more we can mention this at the next meeting but East Bay mud is going to hold a public

0:05:19meeting on the large pipeline construction and environmental review and that's on June 26th at El Cerrito High at 6 pm and that's going to be a really major project that will impact the city as they replace these pipes along some of our major thoroughfares there will be a lot of

0:05:35construction that will have to be dealt with in the city so this is a good opportunity to learn more about the plan for construction and that's again on June 26th at El Cerrito High School at 6 pm thank you yes council member Abelson okay I have a few things first of all I purchased participated in

0:05:54a meeting on the state of El Cerrito City trees in this room that was almost as full but not quite as full as this room was a moment ago with all these um fantastic baseball players um and um it was really interesting because it was talking about the new software that was used to do that

0:06:17project and um and how to Value trees and uh so it was really I thought an interesting presentation and what was particularly interesting to me is just how interested and enthusiastic the audience was about the whole process so um that was a particularly interesting

0:06:41one and Stephen pree our arborist uh LED that presentation as did the um contractors uh who also I think provided the software and so I think you'll be seeing a lot more of that in the future and I certainly look forward to it and was very impressed by the audience

0:07:03participation in that process um yesterday I participated right here uh in a flag raising ceremony for the gay pride month celebration at City Hall and if you look outside on your right now you would see that flag flying um so that was really interesting and then today I

0:07:30participated in a somewhat similar event over at the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors and so I was given a plaque to bring to the city and so I'd like to present that to the mayor there and so this is uh their plaque they actually had people from each of the five

0:07:58uh areas of the Board of Supervisors present Flags to their supervisor and so I assume that those will be displayed in the local offices of the County Board of Supervisors and uh then another one was given to the county itself so um and then they gave out some of

0:08:20these and we were the recipient of one of them I think because we also well we were already flying the flag at that point and they were not so we we actually beat them to it and I was very proud of that fact um on um May 22nd I went along with mayor Lyman to the Exchange Club officer

0:08:46of the year award and the officer being awarded with Sid hubs and I actually sat at the table with him as did the mayor and he it was really interesting sitting with his family he has a great family and we were very lucky to have him as is my thought coming out of it on

0:09:07Friday May 31st I went on a tour of the Madera School uh party along with um Todd gross who I think I saw oh no that's right you weren't there I'm sorry excuse me it was one of your fellow board members Randy Enos excuse me who was also there and several other people and it was third graders leading

0:09:33the tour and we saw all of the gardens that they had produced and this this is all vegetable gardens and if you ever get a chance to go up to Madeira and look at their Gardens it's really interesting they and they have they do sell the produce at the Kensington

0:09:52Market Farmers Market that's held on Sundays when it's available I believe so that was really an interesting thing to do and um then I'd just like to thank all of the members of the boards commissions and committees for coming to our recognition dinner on May 31st it was

0:10:13really nice and I was especially pleased that we had a local business providing the food and I thought it was really good food so I'd like to thank City staff especially Cheryl Morris and I'm not sure who else but Brooke trainer Brooke trainer for doing all of the work

0:10:32to make that happen and um I think those are all the ones I have great councilman Bridges okay well I I like going last because I get to scratch off a whole bunch um I do have a couple though um on Memorial Day May 27th I had the privilege of uh representing our city

0:10:53um at a the Richmond Museum Association uh runs the um or yeah I guess they run the SS red oak Victory which is a um a a ship World War II uh ship that's been turned into a museum and uh at this celebration this year they rededicated the El Cerrito Garden clubs blue star

0:11:17Memorial which recognizes uh Veterans of all wars and there is actually a blue star Memorial outside city hall right under the flagpole that is flying uh the Gay Pride flag so you can do two for one um so at that Memorial uh I learned more about what the red oak Victory does and

0:11:40when they're open and I would encourage everyone to go and I wrote down the hours it's Thursday Saturday and Sunday of course I wrote them down and left that paper somewhere else Thursday Saturday and Sunday 10 to 3 and the recommended donation is five dollars and

0:12:02I would recommend going and that was May 27th on uh June 2nd uh which was Sunday just two days ago uh vice mayor Abelson and I represented the city at the Portola School groundbreaking this was a monumentous occasion uh obviously uh board uh board member uh Groves was there and it was fantastic

0:12:30for us to be breaking ground on this new school that is going to provide our students a wonderful safe and technologically uh forthcoming learning environment so it's fantastic that's scheduled to open the most important part in 24 months it was said 20 but I'm gonna hold you guys to

0:12:5224 fingers crossed I see them fingers crossed um let's see on uh now for upcoming events that I'd like to make sure that people are aware of uh in addition to East Bay mud holding the public meeting for uh work in our streets they are on Tuesday June 11th a week from today they are

0:13:14holding a public hearing 1 15 p.m in their boardroom on 11th street with regards to increasing our rates they are increasing our rates roughly eight percent a year for the next two years uh to cover increased costs that they're having to deliver are nice clean water

0:13:34so that's one thing if you are going to oppose the rate increase you need to get your comments to them by that time 115 Tuesday the 11th um on uh June 15th one of the ones that wasn't covered by all of our other friends talking about things that are coming up on that weekend is the fabulous historic

0:13:59movie uh movie theaters of East Bay so it's a moo it's a um Historic Society and Friends of the Cerrito theater are presenting an event it's 10 a.m to noon it's free and probably like everything else um at the Rialto you probably need to get a ticket or you won't get in so I'm

0:14:19I'm sure you can contact David Weinstein um David Weinstein at yahoo.com d-a-v-i-d-s-w-e-i-n-s-t-e-i-n yahoo.com to make sure that you can get a reservation and um the red oak Victory is having a pancake breakfast on Father's Day June 16th 9 A.M to 1 p.m uh and it's for a good

0:14:51cause it's a fundraiser and for just a small amount more you can get a tour of the of the vessel and make a whole day of it it's quite it's quite an interesting vessel and and the tour is quite uh entertaining and last but not least um because it's quite some distance out

0:15:16but it's still not too early to start talking about the 100th anniversary of the library system in Contra Costa there is the July 21st from noon to five and pleasant hill on 147 Gregory Lane is the Centennial Celebration of Contra Costa Library may I yes you oh yeah I just quickly

0:15:42also mentioned I forgot to mention the bike bike the bridges event is this coming weekend on June 9th which is benefiting Special Olympics the police officers have been doing this for a number of years and it begins at Martinez Waterfront Park registration is at 7 30 a.m the bicycle distances are 25

0:15:58miles 100 kilometers or 100 miles and all no matter which distance you select you do get to go over several of the scenic Bridges around Martinez Waterfront Park so it's a great event and it's a it's a healthy event you'll feel good at the end any staff announcements

0:16:18okay um okay um with that we will move on to oral Communications from the public oral Communications for the public is our opportunity for the public to speak out on items that are on the consent calendar or are not on the agenda at all um I do want to uh we do have a time

0:16:42limit it's three minutes we do have a light system that helps us keep keep you on track and I will help you as well um I do want to let everyone know that we will be pulling item 5C and we will be hearing that at the beginning essentially we'll treat that as a presentation so we'll be hearing that

0:17:02around the time that we transition from item four to item five do we have any so if you are here to speak on item 5c you'll have your opportunity um at a later time in the agenda do we have any public speakers I have two speaker slips the first is Dean hayanga thank you mayor Lyman and city council

0:17:30members my name is Dean hayanga I live at [address removed] in El Cerrito I have a compliment and a concern my compliment is to Chief Moyer and Lieutenant Keith for organizing the home security Expo last Saturday the Expo gave residents useful information and a chance to ask

0:17:50questions to get answers to important home security issues Lieutenant Keith particularly deserves credit for organizing and overseeing the Expo my concern is with one of the vendors at the Expo it seems strange that at an event focused on Resident Safety and Security

0:18:10there was a vendor from an organization that is an avowed threat to our safety the National Rifle Association the NRA's policies and lobbying efforts put you your spouses your children your grandchildren at risk of being killed by gun violence police Chiefs and Mayors across the

0:18:31country support gun safety legislation which the NRA consistently blocks NRA policies about assault weapons high-capacity magazines and background checks facilitate the killing of men women and children in cities across America yet we find that organization invited to

0:18:54and allowed a table at an event sponsored by the city of El Cerrito to say that the NRA representative is there just to promote gun safety denies the NRA's hypocritical positions on guns a local member may talk gun safety but the organization he represents facilitates criminals in the mentally

0:19:17ill getting the guns and magazines which put your police officers and members of your families my family and the families of everyone at this meeting in danger now I don't know the position of the mayor council members or police chief on assault weapons high capacity magazines

0:19:36or background checks maybe you agree with the NRA about not checking criminal backgrounds or making assault weapons in high capacity magazines easily available maybe you think El Cerrito residents will be safer if we all carry guns everywhere we went including into

0:19:53meetings like this however if you don't support NRA policies if you think background checks on all gun purchases should be implemented if you think assault weapons and high-capacity magazines have no place in a safe community then why would an organization such as

0:20:12the NRA be invited to any city-sponsored event I hope that the home security Expo is put on every year to help create a safer El Cerrito however I urge you and the police chief to refuse the elect to allow the NRA or any organization to participate whose policies endanger residents lives and

0:20:36make our community a less safe place in which to live thank you thank you thank you well said Tom pandas good evening mayor Lyman members of the council and City staff my name is Tom pandas and I live at [address removed] in El Cerrito as we know the oloney greenway has been

0:21:04under serious construction the green one was of course once the right of way of the Santa Fe Railway the historical society was aware of several important remnants of the Santa Fe along the greenway so we contacted Jerry Bradshaw Nevada Ortiz to see what could be done

0:21:18to ensure the safety of these items so important to our history Jerry and Yvette immediately contacted the construction company about this while construction was taking place in the areas where they were these items were located construction fences were always set up around them

0:21:34while I hesitate to declare a complete Victory major Construction in these areas is over and the Santa Fe remnants have emerged unscathed I'd like to both personally and on behalf of the store Society thank Jerry and Yvette for being so proactive about this and always being

0:21:49ready when something new came up thank you for your time thank you is anyone else here to speak if not we'll move on to item four which is a presentation by Dr Denise nolden welcome oh you do well feel free that microphone should work do we know if that computer is already

0:22:23warmed up it looks like it is you were here early you're prepared foreign microphone's not on yet I don't think is it on now okay um it's my pleasure to be here tonight I'm Denise Nolan I'm the president of Contra Costa College um all of about 11 months so um I'm just pleased to have the

0:23:03opportunity to come and introduce myself and reintroduce you all to the college I just have a short PowerPoint and I just wanted to go over some information about the college we are in the midst of a mission uh revision of our mission and and on our way to strategic planning not

0:23:21only as a college but as a district so I'm going to just briefly review with you hey there we go okay we as I mentioned we just changed our mission slightly and it was uh quite a undertaking we surveyed a number of members of the public as well as the College Community and we wanted to make

0:23:52our mission much more focused on what we felt were the important things that we do at the college and uh you know highlight the very diverse communities we serve in West Contra Costa County and of course all others seeking quality education the college equitably commits its

0:24:08resources using inclusive and integrated decision making processes to foster a transformational educational experience and responsive student services that ensure institutional excellence and effective student learning our mission is really important that we clarified

0:24:25every so often so that we make sure that the public is assured that we are providing services that benefit not only our community but our region and as well as the state we do serve five cities and seven unincorporated counties in West Contra Costa County and uh although

0:24:45approximately uh 14 of our students reside outside of the service area we serve the cities of Richmond San Pablo Hercules Pinole and El Cerrito and the unincorporated communities include El Sobrante Rodeo Tara Hills Crockett Rollingwood Port Costa and Kensington

0:25:06as I mentioned earlier we serve the majority of the students we serve come from our service area um as of fall of 2012 there's some data here that I provided so about 84 of our residents come from the zip codes located within West Contra Costa County the other students come from areas

0:25:26outside of our immediate service area some from the Diablo Valley College in in San Ramon Center service area and Los Medanos College and Brentwood service areas a few from Alameda County although I know we do send quite a few of our El Cerrito residents to Alameda County like

0:25:43Berkeley City College to go to school so they probably have a larger percentage of students from our service area and attending Alameda County schools and we get a few from Solano County and and a negligible number from San Joaquin but we do serve the majority of the

0:26:01residents in this service area we are a diverse Community Contra Costa College is probably one of the most diverse colleges within this particular region we serve a population that looks a lot like our service area we have um pretty much uh equal numbers of various ethnic groups within the service

0:26:31area and the majority of the the largest ethnic group that we serve are Hispanic student population and that qualifies us to be what we call his Hispanic serving institution meaning that we get Federal funding that provides us with additional supports to work with the that particular population

0:26:50in addition to some other types of funding for other populations that we serve I wanted to talk a little bit about the benefits of attending a community college oftentimes I hear coming into the service area I'm actually I grew up in Berkeley so I'm from this area and I

0:27:10recently worked in the Sacramento area and a lot of times we hear folks talk about Community aware or refer to community colleges we used to refer them as junior colleges but we like to be known as community colleges now and the taxpayer dollars invested in community

0:27:25colleges within a region yields about three dollars in taxes from economic growth um increased earnings of community college degree holders um because uh those students do earn degrees is probably 20 to 30 percent higher than those with only High School diplomas and also it creates increased

0:27:44employment opportunities for those with some post-secondary education or training for instance with the location of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab second campus students that prepare themselves with the technical degrees that we offer will stand up greater likelihood of being able to be employed

0:28:00and get those type of gainful employment opportunities as Investments go college is a good bet but earning an associate's degree is even a better bet than actually earning a bachelor's degree so a person that has a an associate's degree has a greater likelihood of increasing their salary

0:28:20than than even a person with a bachelor's degree and also the Price Is Right at 46 dollars a unit the annual cost of fees to attend full-time at Contra Costa College is one thousand one hundred and four dollars compare that to the CSU at six thousand four hundred and twenty two dollars for

0:28:40a full-time student annually as well as at the UC that doubles even from the CSU uh thirteen thousand two hundred and eighteen dollars we like to point this out because we do offer the first half of a baccalaureate degree at the community college and by coming to a

0:28:58community college to do the first part of your degree if you're into saving money and I think many of us are we think that the the price is definitely right for earning a degree our courses articulate well with UC and CSU as well as other colleges and universities

0:29:14around the country and we just want to point out that we think that we are a really good uh a fit for some and that they should consider content attending a community college as their choice for the first two years of a four-year college degree and also that we do have

0:29:31financial assistance the state of California offers tuition assistance for students through the Board of Governors fee waiver to help in addition to Cal grants and other types of Federal Aid is is available to students that qualify we also support Economic Development

0:29:51we're involved in a number of efforts the career Pathways development it's an emphasis with middle and high school students we work with a number of the career academies within West Contra Costa Unified School District where they are a great partner for us we have many many

0:30:09majors and and certificate programs that match up well after completion of a high school academy and coming to the to the college we also have many activities that we direct with national state and Regional Workforce Development initiatives such as the recent grant that we were a part of the

0:30:31TAA the trade adjustment agreement act grant that what brought 14.9 million dollars to 10 colleges including uh Contra Costa College and the two other colleges in our district as well as UC Berkeley and Cal State East Bay we have several business and Community Partners there's a list here Chevron

0:30:52Kaiser East Bay mud Richmond Bill spark point and and the list goes on just to point out that not only are we business and Community Partners with these folks but we have many others that we partner with in the community and that's part of our mission to to ensure that we're

0:31:08offering every opportunity to students who come to the Community College not only to be gainfully employed and trained and to go out and to be competitive in the job market but our Community Partners are really a valuable resource and really really important for

0:31:24us and so we wanted to highlight some of those tonight we also are compete for Grants our College is very well known with the National Science Foundation as well as the USDA and other federally funded grantors that they look to colleges like Contra Costa College who focus on stem

0:31:46programs science technology engineering and Mathematics we with through our center from for science Excellence we'll manage about four hundred thousand dollars in Grants this year we will all total have about 3.2 million dollars in competitive grants that we've we've

0:32:02received either through the state or the federal government or private donors such as Chevron we also as I mentioned earlier are Hispanic serving institution and we received a grant of 3.7 million dollars to support students who are entering into the stem disciplines and

0:32:18that's the science technology engineering and math majors we assure institutional Excellence we have regularly regularly had our accreditation status reaffirmed um I think some of you have been reading about City College of San Francisco and they're having some challenges and

0:32:36that's just not a an issue that we've had at the college we do pride ourselves on having done well year in and year out and we will be undergoing our next uh accreditation visit with uh 2014. we also regularly review our programs much more than other institutions I've worked

0:32:56at about five different institutions in Contra Costa College reviews their programs much more frequently than than other institutions that I've worked and so we review them we validate them we make sure that the recommendations are followed by the programs and we annually

0:33:12go review our programs and make sure that we're continuously improving them our courses as I mentioned earlier are articulated with high school career academies and colleges and universities around the country we have nationally recognized programs in journalism our Advocate new student

0:33:30newspaper has won awards for the last 15 years um and and they just do a wonderful job we have nationally recognized science and music programs our vocal Jazz performing group won the downbeat best vocal performance award this year so we were really excited about that and we

0:33:50also have Premier programs in nursing automotive technology and culinary arts our sports teams are very competitive our our football team this year won our conference and also a bowl game and after their first game they came really a long way to do that I have to say

0:34:09what's on the horizon for Contra Costa College we are in the midst of breaking ground for a new what we're calling College Center the College Center will provide us with new facilities we also have recently renovated our music building we didn't start out to renovate

0:34:25it fully but after we took the walls down the Interior Space needed to be completely redone so we will have a new music building and a new facility that will be opening up newly redesigned facility opening up in the fall and our College Center and I just have a few

0:34:44photos I'll show in uh this College Center will if you haven't been on our campus it'll really be an entry point or entryway to the College Community and it will replace our cafeteria and our Student Activities area so it'll be directly adjacent to our library and

0:35:04it'll it will extend out into the to the what we now know as sort of the entry point to the to the college we will have we will house our culinary arts program which some of you may have been to our Three Seasons Restaurant they will have a new restaurant space as well as new

0:35:21instructional space the new administrative offices will be located in the building and cafeteria space as well as space for Student Life in the bookstore our Fireside room will be replaced and it will be replaced with a new room that not only will the college benefit from

0:35:40but folks in the community will have an opportunity to use this space by reservation reservation and our three level classroom building which will of course be state-of-the-art and we're looking forward to that the three seasons rest restaurant will look like one of the nicer restaurants in the area

0:35:59that's just a rendering that we have of the Three Seasons Restaurant um this is not the greatest picture but this is one of the instructional spaces and and the good thing about the newly built facilities is that the technology in there is fabulous and you can really

0:36:15make learning come alive for students so we're really excited about being able to house um more than just uh one large group of students in a learning environment that we currently have on our campus this is just a rendering of the student activity space our students really

0:36:32deserve to have a nice space to come and lounge and to study and to to talk with one another and they're also going to be able to access have online access and wireless access in this space and uh that's it I just wanted to just briefly give you some highlights about

0:36:49what's happening at the college and introduce myself and invite you all to to come out and come by and if there's any questions anyone has I'll be happy to answer them great any questions happy to ask just one thank you so much for the presentation um I've been hearing that community

0:37:06colleges in the coming years are getting are anticipating more funding from the state and greater course offerings is that consistent with what's planned at your college yes we are going to be able to increase uh we our course offerings by about 25 30 which is huge a lot of

0:37:24students were dismayed because they came to not only our colleges but colleges around the state and they were unable to get the classes that they needed so through the budget process that the governor has proposed he's also giving us opportunities to do more online course

0:37:40offerings in addition to augment the course offerings that some of the ones that we lost we not all the way back in terms of where we were but some of the course offerings and we've been able this year we were able to hire six faculty members which was really huge we

0:37:53haven't had an opportunity to do that and so we're in the process of you know doing that as well great thank you and I I also wanted to to say that Janet Abelson has been a great uh friend and partner with us she's on our foundation board and and work with us on a lot of

0:38:11the programs so so thank you Janet my pleasure it's it following up on uh council member benassini's uh question um it was my recollection a couple years ago we had a presentation I believe the nursing program was effectively oversubscribed that there were essentially more students than you had

0:38:29opportunities to teach them is that still true in and I believe culinary maybe this the culinary arts program may be the same way are you finding that there are certain um programs that are are very popular and and are having difficulties uh serving all of the applicants that asked

0:38:49to be educated in those topics we like most pro programs nursing programs in the state are are over subscribed it's primarily because of the ratios of Faculty to students you have to have very small faculty student ratios and you have to have lots of facilities so

0:39:06there they are very expensive programs we received a grant from the state that allowed us to while we're below an all-time high of about 60 students we are able to serve about 40 students in the upcoming year which without the grant funding that we received we would

0:39:21be probably down to about 24 students so that was really good that's temporary money anytime we look at augmenting the the nursing cohorts it's really an expensive proposition so we do what we can our nurses are highly valued the community that's one of the programs that was that

0:39:42I was talked to about when I came out in the community you know about our nurses and how well they do so we you know we want to try to keep that program but it is extremely difficult due to cost and and then just the Staffing ratios and the and the facilities we do need to

0:39:57upgrade our facilities because the technology is changing rapidly so not only for nursing but in all of the stem disciplines those are areas that we're having to be really challenged by because we need to make sure that we are getting the best possible education to

0:40:11our students that we can and so hopefully we'll be able to upgrade those facilities in the near future right no other further questions thank you very much Dr Nolan for coming this evening with that we will move on to item five and we'll take out of order item five C

0:40:33first um and um what I'd like to do is maybe read a few things from the proclamation that we're considering um whereas the Board of Supervisors of a contra costa established the Contra Costa Library System a hundred years ago July 21 1913.

0:40:52whereas Mrs Alice whitback was appointed to serve as the first County librarian August 14.

0:41:001913.

0:41:02the libraries quickly grew to Encompass 33 community libraries and else reader was established by Faye brennaman in 1913. in 1925 the El Cerrito and Contra Costa Library began their partnership Arrangement whereby the county provides Library services in a city-owned

0:41:20building whereas the county library is an important cherished institution in the city of El Cerrito and county-wide providing essential services for children students families and seniors including homework help literacy programs computer access and other resources

0:41:39over the course of its Hundred Year history the Contra Costa Library has been the recipient of numerous State and national awards including the coveted Institute of Museum and Library Services National medal last year and is well positioned to meet the needs of the

0:41:55community and now into the future the city of El Cerrito looks forward to continuing and enriching the successful partnership between the city and the Contra Costa Library and serving the needs of the residents of El Cerrito as a community place for excellence education and Innovation

0:42:10for years to come now therefore the city council of El Cerrito of the city of El Cerrito hereby commends and congratulates the Contra Costa County Library for providing 100 Years of exemplary service to the residents of El Cerrito and Contra Costa County so this is a proclamation

0:42:31recognizing the 100th anniversary of Contra Costa Library which I announced earlier will be celebrated July 21st um I know that the El Cerrito librarian Liz Ruland is here I don't know if you have any words we did have a presentation from the County librarian last time so I don't know if

0:42:51you have any additional new words that you want to present she wasn't she wasn't ready for this so I very briefly I'd like to again invite everybody to the party next Friday seven to nine pm at the library we'd love to see everybody there great thank you thank you very much

0:43:18can I have a motion uh supporting this Proclamation all those in favor say aye aye with that I'd like to it is the friends of the library here to sort of stand up and take a photograph we'll we can come down really quickly if there's any desire we the proclamation is signed

0:43:38actually I'm going to sign it right now it will get mounted and be available for presentation in the near future see seeing no desire for a photograph okay all right you guys want to go down with me no you no you can go you go let's set a new tradition yeah yeah the suit's really nice to me

0:44:04there's so many of them we don't want to make the picture too wide angle yeah right get closer get close [Applause] foreign moving on to item five a five b and 5D move adoption of the consent calendar items five a b and c which are a b and d d can I say that backwards okay which is

0:45:13minutes for approval um B which is support for assembly Bill 323 green waste food scrap recovery and composting in 5D which is to amend the fiscal year 2012-13 annual approach Appropriations limit a second you have a motion in a second all those in favor say aye

0:45:36absentions opposed let the record show passed unanimously we'll move on to items seven policy matters fiscal year 2013 2014 budget presentation from staff and preliminary discussions we will be considering this item at our next meeting as well on June 18th thank you mayor City Council Members I'm

0:46:16Scott Hannan the city manager uh once again I'm pleased to be here tonight uh to present the two third 2013-14 fiscal year operating budget for the city of El Cerrito as unfortunately has been the case for the last two or three four years um it's always challenging to put these

0:46:38types of budgets together between State takeaways unknowns a lagging economy it continues to be a challenge but with that largely in sort of conjunction with the work the council's done on the recent strategic plan which you see throughout the budget document we are really trying a staff

0:47:03and I've tried this throughout the budget and in the city manager's letter to really focus on all of the accomplishments and and there are many that we have undertaken in the past few years as well as look to the Future and really focus on on what we do as a city

0:47:20our core functions and how we're going to be long-term sustainable as a city as a city government um each year we try to make the book better as we as we like to highlight and we'll do this at the end we have one number of budget Awards over the last few years but we we try not to rest on

0:47:42that and as you go through the budget book which is also posted on our website hopefully you find it even more user friendly particularly we try to reach uh people who are not used to reading budgets and and we do look at a lot of City budgets and try to make it very

0:48:02user friendly and hopefully all the information is readily accessible and transparent and easy to follow so with that I'm going to walk through this budget presentation I will do my best not to read it to you since it is over 80 slides but bounce bounce up and back between some bullets and my own

0:48:25thoughts what we want to cover is a overview including the Strategic plan goals our accomplishments as a city our goals for the future our city finances including our operating budget where where hopefully you've seen our sort of additional emphasis on our special funds this year typically we

0:48:50spend most of our time on the general fund but we want to spend more time on our special funds and I'll get into that in the future um talk a little bit about what each department is planning for the future and then discuss where we go from here hopefully you will get and the public on

0:49:08the next slide will get very familiar with our strategic plan and when the council took that on and the staff I think worked worked very hard to help make it a reality with the council we wanted to make sure that it was a living document and really did provide the

0:49:27framework for what we did in the future so since it was only recently adopted we really tried to scramble and incorporate it as best we could into this year's this year's document hopefully you think we did that pretty well and we've really tried to uh balance our budget objectives with the

0:49:46Strategic plan so I wanted to spend some time going over our accomplishments by goal area beginning with uh exemplary government services and as we go through this obviously all of our departments strive to provide exemplary services but we've chosen to focus on some more than others

0:50:06but I wanted to make sure everyone understood that although it may be intuitive um as you can see we've won numerous Awards and have been recognized by people who use our services outside of our services including a number of parents press Awards as I already alluded to we once again won the award

0:50:26for excellence in financial reporting operating budgeting and a distinguished budget award we recently won uh as we've talked about our ABAC growing smarter together award sustainable Contra Costa government leadership awards for our recycling center and another thing that we've done more

0:50:45and um and recently as you know the council held a joint meeting with the school district board we are trying to solidify and put a greater emphasis on working with our regional Partners including the school district and as we mentioned at that meeting we're launching our first interformal

0:51:05internship program with El Certo high school and we're meeting regularly with Bart staff to really focus on our BART stations and and the future and particularly as it relates to Transit oriented development excuse me additionally we focus on community engagement and

0:51:23what you see on this list is largely focused on the recreation department which has over the course of a year over 70 000 transactions that's of all kinds but that is that's incredibly high for a city our size they've recently launched an e-newsletter we do numerous

0:51:42celebrations through the rec department but as you know though additionally we have four we do our city newsletter which isn't listed on here and we also have 800 Twitter followers so um we are trying to move more towards non-traditional um uh ways to communicate uh

0:52:02over the past couple years the city clerk's office has started the passport program which has been I think exceeded all of our expectations and really feel the need in El Cerrito and we're also trying to stay ahead of the technology and this may be a little Arcane but our

0:52:23I.T Department recently did install two virtual servers with a desire to move more towards cloud computing and saving money and worked with the police department to work on fingerprint readers and report writing software so our officers don't have to come back to the station

0:52:41to do reports and can spend more time in the field where I think we all want them to be additionally and a key goal is achieving long-term Financial stability with the council's direction we refinanced recently a number of our vehicles and Facilities which reduced

0:53:05our interest rates to probably historical lows and freed up additional money uh and savings we also as we've talked about uh and I'll cover this more in detail initiated and litigation ultimately prevailed against the state of California when they tried to claw back

0:53:251.7 million dollars related to the Redevelopment agency dissolution we think by sort of sticking up for ourselves really helps with our long-term Financial sustainability we're in the process of upgrading our payroll and HR systems to provide better Financial controls and be able to

0:53:46account for all of our positions our varied positions both temporary and part-time and seasonal better than we have in the past and as you recall at the end of last year we created we finished a rate review and contract extension for our franchise garbage provider which resulted we think

0:54:06in reduced increases more franchise fees and more stability uh going forward we already mentioned the finance Awards we've won but we want to keep harping on that since it is budget night um the last couple years we've issued tax anticipation notes in order to better manage our cash flow and we

0:54:28anticipate doing that again we are improving our fee based programs trying to recover more of our costs again in recreation use our space better and in one case try to get the splash park open more and making it more accessible and user friendly and as you know and is a

0:54:51theme of this book continue to be very successful in achieving uh grants for the city which is really supplementing everything we do a goal that was really prominent in the council's goal setting was to develop and deepen a sense a place and Community we we do that through a lot of uh

0:55:15different ways but a few that we wanted to highlight was in Economic Development we've really expanded our entrepreneur training and this year launched our small business Workshop series which we believe both were very well attended and we're working on the city's PDA that's

0:55:30priority Development Area which is largely San Pablo Avenue where we hopefully have cleared our hurdles to get finally get started on our Ohlone Gardens mixed use project on Portola and the Eden housing project next door which have been Tangled Up in there again in

0:55:48the Redevelopment dissolution and we've started uh the pre the pre-development phase and the entitlement phase for a project around the Del Norte BART station otherwise known as the Mayfair site which is a site that we have been focusing on for decades and hopefully will provide a

0:56:05catalyst to other things and the north end of town assuming it hopefully hopefully in assuming it gets built um and again our staff is trying to participate uh both with the County Transportation Authority and other Regional players to make sure that we are always in the loop because funding

0:56:27is going to be much more directive in the future than maybe it has been in the past and we always want to be well well positioned additionally we've talked recently about our Urban Greening plan and the urban Greening task force which again goes to community engagement and trying to get

0:56:43as much inclusion as possible and we hope we're now starting to see the finish line on the San Pablo Avenue specific plan and we've recently talked about this and are taking a much more holistic approach to how we look at San Pablo Avenue and we've managed to get

0:57:02and secure the funding that we talked about and had hoped to get and we just continue our Partnerships with Community groups related to open space bike and ped and I'm just every opportunity essentially we can get and as you see as you look through the budget book and

0:57:20even throughout this presentation I didn't actually do the math but it's it's almost staggering if you look weekly about how many meetings we're holding somewhere on any given week of of the Year staff is trying and obviously that's with the help of the council and our

0:57:37boards and commissions to to give the public any every opportunity we can to get them engaged and understand what we're up to in terms of the Public's health and safety I think it's important when you look at this and this was something the council discussed a lot two years ago it

0:57:54was at Public Safety goes beyond just police and fire and that's why I have group things um the way I have in certain areas we've talked about social media already and hopefully uh the council and the public are following the police department on nixel and if you have you've seen some

0:58:11recent postings that hopefully that were really helpful and other activities that the department is undertaking is trying to stay ahead unfortunately of some of the unfortunate occurrences we've seen nationally by increasing their specialized training and flexibility and

0:58:33um that goes a lot to our chief and our desire to be ready in all circumstances we also implemented this past year all new radios for Public Safety and into some of our other departments which was largely funded by a grant that our fire department reached out and did for

0:58:54Contra Costa County as the lead agency which you can see affects some of our some of our numbers in the fire department but that communication system finally allows all of the First Responders and aluminum Costa to talk to each other hopefully seamlessly we've talked about grants we received

0:59:14our recent grant for new breathing or apparatus that's something that we typically would have to pay for we got more of our firefighters trained by grants additionally we've gone through a firefighter recruitment process and recently hired three firefighters and I'll touch on

0:59:34that more later um and I already touched on the grants additionally you've heard a lot about our canine program and our Coda has gotten through his training and is actively deployed in the field in spite of some of the challenges we have in police which I'll touch on later I mean we have hired a

0:59:57number of new officers many new officers in the last two years we've recently deployed a new incident command vehicle which responds to high profile events and we've increased our vacation home check program which hopefully residents take advantage of uh when they go away to please feel free to

1:00:17contact the department and let them know that they're going to be away the next items are largely Public Works projects but I think it's really important without going through all of them that these relate to Health and Wellness in the city our staff has done an amazing job finding grant money for

1:00:37safe routes to schools safe rights for safe routes to Transit and have made a number of improvements both on San Pablo Avenue on the Arlington and all around the city and some of that is underway and I'm sure you've noticed it additionally uh a lot of what we do in our street

1:00:56program which is funded by measure a also goes to making the streets safer and more accessible and again here's a list of more of the grants that uh that are related to accomplishing those goals of health and safety additionally uh staff Public Works staff is working

1:01:26diligently with Bart staff on their earthquake retrofit program which you know we know how disruptive that can be and we're trying to work with barn and stay ahead of that and again you know at the risk of being a dead horse I mean it is it is really um an accomplishment how much grant money

1:01:45our staff seems able to able to find in terms of the environment and environmental sustainability um we're in the process of completing um our tree inventory which was something else that was Grant funded and our and implementing new tree management software related to that in terms of Engagement

1:02:06there was a meeting this past weekend on the topic with over 80 people attended we've done storm drain trash captor devices we've talked about our solar procurement program home Energy Efficiency programs converted wherever possible lights in our own facilities

1:02:26and of course the council adopted our climate action plan only last last month um we're participating in the star communities pilot program and we've implemented a mandatory commercial Recycling and we believe we're getting around 100 percent compliance now and are excited about that

1:02:49as you'll see throughout the book we've tried to find a way using colors another new new thing we're trying um to emphasize how each department is striving to achieve the goals identified by the council and again it's to some degree it's strength of achievement we don't

1:03:16as you can see when you look at exemplary Services all departments are striving to do that we've we tended to focus on a couple as doing a little bit more because that's maybe more of their core core Services just like police and fire have the Dark boxes as well as

1:03:31public uh Public Works and safety so hopefully for the council and for the reader as you go through the book you find that helpful as a way to um ensure and I'm sure it will evolve over time that we are bringing forth only projects and programs and services that

1:03:50are consistent with your goals another thing I I touched on um if you go back one I think there's one skip unless I'm out of order maybe I'm out of work right sorry um to the next slide we also made an attempt related to this to show how we spend money within the

1:04:15general fund um in each goal area and when you look at all funds which is something that we didn't do here but we will be doing over time the pie like a lot of things balances out a little bit more but we wanted to show uh how in sort of the first pass we we think we are spending

1:04:36our resources against the council's goals I alluded to this so we talked a little bit about this when we were here last month and I wanted to bring it up again because this is something the staff has been working on internally for more than uh about six months now

1:04:58and some of the themes that I identify here really play themselves out in the budget book and for those of you who've read good to great and that series some of these terms will probably be familiar but in terms of our 20-mile March I tend to tie that to our core services and

1:05:17this budget when you look at how it's spent in terms of what got funded and what didn't get funded um we're really down to I don't want to say Bare Bones because I think we do better than that but we're really down to you know what do we think we need to do as a city and there's not

1:05:37a lot of extras added into this budget and over time it's gotten those extras or room for additional projects have gotten less and less in terms of getting people on the bus and and in the right seats I'll talk more about we've reorganized a number of places in the

1:05:53city and our that goal was to find a way to be more efficient essentially with less people and and also rewarding the right people in terms of what we call what or what we call the brutal facts it just seems every year we talk about one five six seven hundred thousand dollar take away

1:06:15or unforeseen expense that the days of the just uh what could be defined now is very large growth year over year in property taxes and sales taxes just not there and although our Trends are are Positive Growth is slow and as we've talked about the cost of doing business particularly

1:06:38around Personnel costs and particularly benefits as opposed to salaries continue to increase at a higher rate than our revenues tend to and finally what are our big bets and I mean this is uh reflected in our budget but uh maybe more reflected in the grants we get

1:06:59um what we're trying to do what we continue to try to do is figure out how to best use the re use the people and the resources we have for the biggest bang for our buck and the best outcome and hopefully we're doing that in terms of the city organization and I will touch on this as we go through the

1:07:18Departments the Department's in the right column that are shaded in purple are ones where we've made significant changes to and so you can see it it really touches a lot of the city and again I'll go through that as we go through go through each department but our goal is is trying to

1:07:39uh wherever possible be more efficient to utilize resources where we have them cross-train employees even more get out of any mentality that exists around siloing and not cross-training and and I think we've been very successful that in the past but it's just really required

1:07:58us to to go even further this year and um uh in doing that I think and I hopefully the staff thinks we can continue providing that exemplary service at the levels that you have in the budget um it in some spots it's going to be tight and it's going to be challenging

1:08:16but we certainly think it's doable the next slide is essentially a snapshot of our operating revenues and this is all funds and as you can see um are let me back up as you when looking at the revenues for all funds it it it's paying some much more difficult um description than when you when we

1:08:44just look at the general fund we'll which we'll do because it includes um Grand funds and one-time money you get these big swings in variations um that come in and out but overall what we'll talk more about is that our property taxes are up slightly our sales taxes are down significantly and I'll go

1:09:09through this again and more when you look at our intergovernmental revenues that's a significant portion of our budget that is outside funding grants our SRO program our property tax and lieu payments which is a big uh big piece of our revenues now you can get it you can see a fairly

1:09:30good representation of how we pay for what we do on the expense side we'll go through more detail as we get further in the presentation but you can see that overall our expenses Citywide or have been trending down that's largely because we've completed some big

1:09:52projects particularly the um uh main components of our street repair project their recycling center and the biggest fluctuation is related to our the ins and outs and the accrual versus cash of a lot of our grants and timing and payments when we go through the general fund I

1:10:15think it'll be much much easier way to follow and look at how we are doing relative to the past and going forward so I'll come back to this in a lot more detail in a second in terms of on the next slide we've spent a lot of time over the last few years discussing fund

1:10:33balance a lot of the decisions of what to include and what not to include always keep that number in mind based on the feedback we received from Council last month a clear goal of this budget was to keep the number above 10 percent which we're projecting that we will do

1:10:53uh so um in in looking at this the other point I wanted to make you see that our reserves were over 11 then they dip and then they stabilize that was largely from moving the money we had restricted reserves which were which by our accountant were classified in that 11

1:11:16and a half and then they're being moved out next fiscal year which is more consistent with the way we've reported it over time but that if if there were concerns about why that went down that's why you can see that number on top that 598 000.

1:11:33um was in the budget in reserves part of this calculation and then next year it comes out but our goal in developing the budget was to have a balanced budget which and you know one could argue twenty five thousand dollars is not very material on a budget this size but it is

1:11:50it is a black number and not a red number um and it was a real challenge to get that number black and keep the reserves over 10 percent so uh hopefully that is it is consistent with Council policy and um uh it's our hope and expectation that we'll we'll be able to stick with it

1:12:13next year to get into a little more detail about the revenues and I think what gives a better snapshot of our revenues on the next page when you look at the general fund our overall our revenues are relatively sound what hurt us is the big fall in sales tax which is

1:12:36almost a million dollars the the two-thirds of that is related to what is essentially a true up and how our sales tax is calculated um and how it relates to What's called the triple flip which was something that was implemented a number of years ago which is essentially swapping property

1:12:53tax and sales tax and because of the timing of the payments and what's estimated versus actual at any given time you can get a true up that goes the wrong way and that's what that's what's happened in sales tax This is Our Hope and expectation that that was a one-time

1:13:10true up um additionally in there we have re-calculated how we account for receipts related to Home Depot I know this has come up over the years it it has to do with the way the Board of Equalization essentially collects the sales tax and over the years they have

1:13:30continually changed how they do that and we have responded sometimes really well other times we've waited to see how it shakes out and again we're so we're switching on how we we're trying to be much more conservative essentially and how that money is handled but overall

1:13:46um our revenues have have done okay I mean we don't have the growth that we've seen in the past but in most categories um we have seen two three two to three percent growth which you know in many places people would love to have those numbers so um we are projecting a small increase in

1:14:07property tax which is for the first time in I think three years um and and we do think the number is realistic based on all the information that we have but as has been the case in the past um For Better or Worse we'll probably find out um a week or two after you adopt the

1:14:24budget what the real number is and we're just generally not successful getting the real numbers any quicker Scott can I ask a question on the sales tax then that you were speaking about from FY 2013 to 2014 so this does not reflect um any indication that taxable sales in

1:14:43the city went down by that sort of percentage no not at all thank you um our sales tax numbers actually if you look at the bottom line or we have the interim sales tax we've actually projected it up a bit right I our our sales tax is up um you have to account the challenges

1:14:58you have to account for the Guitar Center leaving which actually has a relatively big player by El Cerrito size standards um you net that out and then you look at how everybody else is doing and we were we're our sales tax was up but so we have this one-time hit offset by the

1:15:16loss of a relatively sales tax generator um but overall the numbers would have gone up without the one-time hit okay um Scott you said that the true op costs us a million dollar difference here is at some point in the future when it chews up will it true up to give us more

1:15:37Revenue um I think well the true up is about 600 and change of that million okay um anything's possible um we don't um I don't think so um I know there have been trips that go our way um but uh we certainly won't project that um we're projecting that that true up will go back to sort of normal levels

1:16:04um and then we'll go back to our sort of inflation factor for sales tax so that's our that's our expectation and the trip looks backwards right like this means at some point in the past they did it the state did a bad projection over allocated too much to us and now they're

1:16:18taking it back because they're getting it's based on that it's based on our share of the county higher years actuals then um timing of Collections and then a look back to True up did we over collect in El Cerritos we're taking it back okay and essentially it's taking back what

1:16:35was believed to be an overpayment um I'm gonna get I just want to touch on expenditures and then um we have slides that get into a lot more detail but I just wanted to Overlay revenues and expenses to just reiterate that again expenditures are a little bit less than revenues and

1:16:57um why don't we why don't we go forward and I'll have a lot more detail on that on the next two slides I want to talk about personnel and on the second slide I talked about is going to be slightly different than what was in your package just to make it cleaner on this chart

1:17:14which we showed a month ago you can see that we have been carrying it you know 10 plus vacancies for um at least back to 0910 it probably goes back I'm sure it goes back before that but that's when that's when vacancies really became a significant portion of how we balance the budget

1:17:35um when you I will point out before we switch slides the recreation department budget includes and has always included um part-time permanent employees so in one of the things that we're working on doing as I mentioned earlier as we Implement our new HR System is to

1:17:57convert them and account for them a little cleaner it doesn't really have a budget impact but I we expect this numbers to change over the course of this fiscal year and maybe even when we do the final budget book the numbers will be a little bit different when essentially we have

1:18:15all of the positions except for these 14 are full-time bodies these 14 will get trued up into essentially ftes um we typically budget that way but um you'll see it you'll see a change in the budget book in terms of how we how we account so it's a work in progress and you can see

1:18:36that if you go to the next Slide the numbers uh in the Total Line are consistent with what you've seen you know in the budget book so I think the key points are that um we have eliminated five positions not 19 positions when you factor in the 14 the actual number will probably be somewhere

1:19:01less than 14 but I think the the big takeaway from this is that we once again are holding 10 positions vacant and when we talk about vacant we're talking about positions that are not filled on July 1st and will not be filled on June 30th there are obviously other positions

1:19:18throughout the year that we anticipate filling and have accounted for that so once again um you know it's our hope over time um we've modeled that we would fill some of these positions um but you know until our until our sort of revenues come back and and uh we

1:19:41look at other things it's going to be difficult to to fill those positions um so again you know I'll talk more about that as we go through this in each of the Departments I've already alluded to this a little bit and for those who have sort of lived through this grief the dissolution of

1:20:01Redevelopment still lingers there's not a better way to say it we have said for a couple of years that the ultimate impact to the general fund is about six hundred thousand dollars plus or minus that depends on property tax assessments available funds all sorts of things

1:20:17related to dissolution and cash flow and um enforceable obligations and all these Arcane things and bureaucracy that's been created around figuring out what's life like after Redevelopment what we have done consistent with Council Direction and Council action is

1:20:38the municipal Services Corporation budgeted and paid to the city this fiscal year honored the co-op agreements for 757 thousand dollars that money we requested from the state as an enforceable obligation to be reimbursed and was disallowed so that's something that we're going to um have to

1:20:57have to deal with as I alluded to early that 598 000 have rounded to 600 000 that is related to Grant from the municipal Services Corporation that the council and the MSC board approved last fiscal year will be able to move that money forward um to offset the cost of the economic

1:21:17development programs on the assumption that that disallowance I mentioned above is going to happen again um we I already alluded to the settlement and that we prevailed in earlier in the earlier this year I think if it was this year December and okay not quite um

1:21:37and we expect unfortunately that we're going to staff and our attorneys will be coming to the city council probably this month to seek Direction on pursuing litigation again I think it's important to point out when I I certainly don't say um litigation lightly but over a hundred

1:22:00other cities are now have now filed litigation against the state for similar issues including the league California cities and that number isn't in addition to the original I believe 28 which we were one of that all settled so it really goes to sort of the mess that was

1:22:16created created by this unfortunately skip over the next slide as I realized was a duplicate but I didn't pull out because I thought it'd be more confusing for people who want to see graphically how our revenues come in you can see we largely rely on taxes funding from

1:22:35outside agencies and charges for services which which is pretty consistent with how most cities run I mean there are different splits within the taxes but our our Revenue basis is pretty consistent and this is total revenue it's not General funds so this is the 40 the 40 roughly 40 million

1:22:53dollar number correct yes um in terms of I I touched on some of the revenues um overall our revenues were budgeting declined in the general fund by about 300 000 licenses and permits decrease building fees are down um it's a mix of less a little bit less activity and smaller activity

1:23:20accounts for that in smaller care there are some other smaller changes here and recently the council and the master fee schedule approved a three percent fee so as I've alluded to our revenues are relatively sound if it weren't for the big the big takeaways and a couple other things that just were

1:23:40essentially unforeseen if you look at the next slide um you could we could skip this too if that's okay again this is another dupe I duplicated the two of them um in terms of how we spend our money you can see when you look at all funds The Pie gets more balanced

1:24:05um the amount money you spent on Public Safety overall becomes a little bit smaller but you can see that our capital outlay is is still relatively strong but I always have to preface that with there's no there's essentially no general fund money contributing to that

1:24:23so we always we need to look to special funds like our street fund and our outside funds and continue to be constantly prospecting for Grants and um based on some of the uh information we currently have on we're working on grants for next year we think we're going to be as successful or even more

1:24:44successful in the coming fiscal year so you know we are we are excited about that again the value of this pie is about 45 million if I remember correctly yes so this is where when I was alluding I want to get a little more into the assumptions um we've assumed a modest increase in pers

1:25:06rates excuse me however as we look outward um two years from now we know pers has just taken actions that will affect the affect the city all cities that have CalPERS in the range from 2 to 11 percent per year for over five years so we we anticipate significant pension

1:25:25increases on top of where we already are our health and dental costs are up significantly largely for medical related to Kaiser we pay uh we pay we cover medical costs for the Kaiser rate which is typically the lower of our two health plans but that rate was up by

1:25:45four just over 14 percent um alone uh next year in terms of our cost of living adjustments we have Labor groups that are in currently in agreements and overall the increases were relatively small some were as small as a third of a percent um and police up to three and a quarter percent for

1:26:11SEIU however the three and a quarter percent in SAU is offset by furlough days and additional pension increases so the change in overall salaries is relatively minor across all of the city staff once again which has been the council's direction and certainly my hope we

1:26:31haven't included any reductions to the current Workforce which to some degree is very unusual into it unto itself in the last five years we will keep 10 vacancies again and we have we believe met all of our obligations to our Collective bargain agreements in this budget

1:26:52additionally um in a little more detail and Personnel I wanted to talk about the police department um it's it's hard to miss um when you see salary Savings of over half a million dollars in police um unfortunately that number isn't wildly different than what we've seen

1:27:10over the years in the police department 440 000 of that is related to our projected salary savings um that essentially takes a look at where the PD is staffed now where we think people are going to come and go over the next fiscal year um and then estimate how much money is going to be saved as a

1:27:34result of all of the ins and outs that we anticipate but it was also important to point out that if there was no hiring freeze-on and police police is free to recruit if we reach a point where the department is able to hire at a much faster rate than we've been able to do so in the past

1:27:54there is a possibility that we'll go over budget on on this line item and depending on how we're doing in other areas or with our revenues we may need to come back to council to have a discussion about that but I wanted I felt it was important to understand the the difference between

1:28:11what I talked about earlier which are vacant positions and estimated salary savings they're they're not the same it is our hope that um at some point around the end of the fiscal year that police gets to full Staffing or close Additionally the fire department just

1:28:28hired three uh new employees and are fully staffed on all of the engines the what we are doing consistent what we've done in the in the past is rather than fill what we call our three coverage positions which essentially is one extra person per shift we're going

1:28:46to use overtime and that results we believe in about 150 000 in savings by using over time instead of hiring three extra folks and Scott just to clarify we hired three new firefighters to fill retirements yes okay thank you in terms of non-personnel um all the projects we've talked about the

1:29:12projects in the book that we've shown as funded will go forward but again there's no general fund contributions for Capital where we felt appropriate either because of fluctuations in workload or cost savings or a reluctance to either add new positions or fill positions

1:29:33we're relying more heavily in certain areas on contract help um a big uh hit that we were not anticipating is related to our liability and property insurance costs typically at the end of the year we true up and see a significant rebate from the municipal pooling Authority just based on all of

1:29:56the complex ins and outs and how insurance is calculated they have strongly recommended that we don't assume that we're going to get any rebate this year so we felt it was important to error on the conservative side and assume that we're not getting any rebate the net impact of our insurance

1:30:12increases and the lack of a rebate or about a 270 thousand dollar change from last year we have added The Debt Service payments for our solar procurement and we have lowered the utility costs throughout the Departments where we believe the savings are going to occur and we hope uh that

1:30:34not only will it cover costs as we've talked about it will exceed the cost of the procurement over time we've used no unrestricted general fund Reserves and as I mentioned earlier we're using a prior Grant from the municipal Services Corporation to cover essentially all the

1:30:54costs of the economic development program next year as I've already alluded to on the next slide we've had some significant reorganization the Community Development Department which is essentially what we've had for much of the history of El Cerrito is we are reforming and that consists of

1:31:16two divisions building and planning and what we're calling Community sustainability which is a mix of some our environmental staff and our Economic Development and housing staff which have been Consolidated in that group Recycling and solid waste functions which traveled with environmental

1:31:38services are now moving to Public Works and being combined into what we're calling a new operations and environmental services division and essentially that's all of the top of Schmidt Lane and our hope is by grouping Recycling and maintenance together we'll have opportunities to share to

1:31:58cross-train and to gain some more efficiencies by having more bodies to utilize as as we have different needs um additionally we have created a janitorial division we because we're 24 7 shop I mean we actually um our custodians are out all the time seven days a week in the evenings doing

1:32:22setups and takedowns um they're helping in any number of ways so we've tried to consolidate that in one place and we've eliminated our con we will be eliminating our contract um uh janitorial services which we've had for a very long time but we felt that we can be much more efficient by

1:32:43bringing it in-house and tweaking some of the Staffing we had and Recreation is going to take over that charge um the administrative Services Department which was relatively news morphed back into the finance department which uh preceded it because we wanted to as I've said before I wanted to

1:33:04really ensure that we have a very strong focus on the city finances and since the staff is relatively small didn't want them split having to work having to also deal with human resources which has moved under the city manager's office now so when you look at um just the general

1:33:27fund which is largely our day day-to-day operations you can see that most sales tax most not with the exception of sales tax most of our Trends are are relatively positive um and hopefully those Trends will continue over time and and get better as more Economic Development and more there's a

1:33:49little more Improvement in the economy more things happen in El Cerrito we we hope to see the revenues go up at a little higher rate than they are they have recently in terms of expenditures which I've already talked a lot about um you can see a lot of these changes are

1:34:09related to some are related to the reorganization others are related to some one-time movements you can see a big change in finance that has to do with how we recorded last year the salary savings and the two-year service credit was recorded in finance so that's

1:34:26like a two hundred thousand dollar number that comes out additionally uh in public works we've moved where we have a an additional Reliance on our special funds um something that we're we're going to try to scale back next fiscal year but um particularly as it related to the

1:34:49refinancing and moving money around in the storm drain fund Public Works is relying even more heavily on those special special funds and in Community Development we've talked about moving money into the grants fund related to Economic Development so that's been some

1:35:04of the larger swings when you when you peel the onion and you look at the Departments more closely you can see that they're largely expenses are largely flat in most cases or down and when you look at the pie just for the general fund and you back out Capital you can see that the public

1:35:23safety pie slices of the pie are much larger and bigger pieces of our uh general fund and and certainly consistent with with any other full Ser full-service City like El Cerrito and on the next slide you can see over time that the bars are remaining relatively constant there's been a bit

1:35:47of a shift in the last four years towards police because so when you look at a one percent shift in the general fund it's a significant um significant amount of money but overall we're staying relatively constant in how we spend how we spend the funds we have Scott could you just expand a bit and

1:36:07clarify what you've said on one of the previous slides and that was that our expenses are largely flat and I just want to make sure I understand so in a previous slide we talked about all of the benefit costs going up and we're not proposing the landing midi off so we

1:36:20have the same same staff level as we did last year so just to make those two fit together is the change then that we've had a number of retirements so that the people who have backfilled those folks who have retired have a lower salary and even though the benefit goes up you know

1:36:34the the proportion of the cost is a bit less so we're able to keep expenses flat that's that's a part of it as we've talked about the there the groups largely had small increases to salaries the benefits cost us up um uh pers is up this year relatively small it's been offset by reductions in

1:36:56Professional Services some savings with less expensive employees using in some cases contractors instead of employees we have now filled um a greater number of positions to offset some of that so I think when you look I'm not saying there's no way no increases but they're relatively small

1:37:16and where we can we've um we've offset it if you go back if we go back to the slide prior to this you can see overall in the general fund the expenses have gone from roughly 29 1 to 28 4. so I mean where where we could we've we've trimmed or or reprogrammed funds to try to use outside funds as

1:37:41I've alluded to okay thank you so probably the most uh what seems to be the most watched slide in the budget presentation based on the feedback I've seen over the last day or so um throughout the budget process we ask the Departments to put in essentially what they would like to everything they

1:38:07would like to do and then we back out what we can afford because things are on this list does not in any way reflect our our desire to want to do them um it really came down to um we we scrubbed every line in the in the budget and felt that if we went any further anywhere we really would be

1:38:30either need to reduce the head count or really decrease the service somewhere um So to that end these things were probably in any number of iterations during the last two months but ultimately came out and obviously the council when they when they consider the budget in the whole

1:38:52and they consider the reserves and consider how we have proposed a fund what we do um you can consider any or all of these um we talked about a number of these things when we were here last month or the month before I mean we would love to be able to put more money aside in our

1:39:12reserves for rainy day funds particularly when we excuse me when we talk about these unforeseen takeaways or things that come up every year um but we didn't feel we we could do that um while we tried to push the reserves over 10 it would have been nice to go even higher but

1:39:30we just didn't see a way to do that we think where we are inadequate and this comes through in the CIP and some of the slides we are not contributing enough money into reinvesting in our facilities and and if we ultimately if we can't do it through the general fund

1:39:49then you know maybe we need to look at additional funding or new funding sources to reinvest because if we don't start reinvesting more whether that's our current facilities or new facilities and as we learn with the streets it's going to keep getting more and more

1:40:03expensive um it was certainly Our Hope to fund a library needs assessment and we also were hoping to bring an architect on while some of that is obviously funding um we're also concerned about the time you know what is the proper timing and and while um there's a lot of interest in a new

1:40:26library obviously where the library is going to go when uh we will be able to have a strategy to fund it um there's still some question as to whether this fiscal year is the right time to do this or not um it is certainly My Hope and I think the staff's hope that

1:40:50if the library were to go forward and as we do this and we will need to do these things and if that is a desire of the community and the council um the needs assessment and the architect is is going to be needed sooner rather than later depending on our timing if if

1:41:05ultimately it's the council's direction to go forward with some sort of Revenue measure to get this done um there's there's been a recent request for Library hours we did not include that um that would that is an ongoing expense and it it has a very wide range from 25

1:41:22000 to 125 000 depending on how many hours you want to add and and it really came down to are we in a position to add additional services to what we do now um while the city has chipped in and funded some additional hours over the last number of years um well there's there's obviously no

1:41:42objection conceptually um we did not we just couldn't find a way to do it and we certainly didn't want to get ahead of the city council in in doing so um sort of a more Arcane one is a lot of how we set our fees and do our spending and our overhead is based on a Model

1:42:01that is somewhat dated um while we try to update it um we were hoping to have sent money aside to bring in an outside consultant to update the studies we didn't in the grand scheme of priorities we pulled it out it is our hope that we might be able to do some of this in-house this year so

1:42:21stay tuned um we'll we'll see this is related to the public works and the facilities we think our play play fields and playgrounds could use more attention than they're getting and in actuality we've pulled back in our maintenance budget as as I'll allude to um and it was at least my hope that the

1:42:44management and unrepresented folks who haven't gotten a cost of living adjustment in some time will I'd be able to find a way to do that but ultimately I just couldn't so to go through I'll try to go through this relatively quickly we'd like to touch on all of the Departments you can

1:43:00see City management um and as I said uh this this year Human Resources moving into um City management and our HR manager will report to the assistant city manager and in terms of our budget there are no additions um no we've reduced our Professional Services budget

1:43:24significantly to account for some of the things we did last year that we haven't budgeted for this year um we are squeezing our City attorney and are going to try to um maybe be a little more conservative or thoughtful of unfortunately um what we bring to the City attorney as

1:43:46well as you know everyone who works with him at Myers Nava I mean um I hate you know to some degree our City attorney costs will be what they will be but um Skye and his folks are really a great resource so you know we reluctantly pulled it back a little further and I

1:44:05already talked about the insurance increase which really inflates the HR number so in terms of our new or new and improved Community Development Department you can see visually what it's going to look like now the environmental analyst the housing program manager the economic development

1:44:25manager essentially make up a division um and I also think it's important to point out that the building official Position will remain vacant and we are Contracting back a few days a week or Contracting with a firm uh where we've talked about where we've brought in a

1:44:42really experienced building official to work with the staff work with our new Planning and Building manager and spend spend this fiscal year really looking at the Staffing and and so we get a better handle on you know what is the best way to staff the building uh division going

1:45:00forward so we didn't feel comfortable we didn't feel there was both a need or the timing is right to refill that position to look at some of the workload as you can see in planning it's it's relatively constant planning activity is a little bit off this year but overall it's still the

1:45:21division is still very busy in terms of building we already alluded to some loss in fee Revenue while you can see that the bar all the way to the right is down it's still higher than it was only two and three years prior so there is um for a CDR size there is a real

1:45:42significant amount of building activity which I think is a really great sign of people's willingness and desire to live here and reinvest in their homes and uh hopefully those numbers will will continue to inch back up and the the bigger projects will will also start to

1:45:58happen at a little and a bit a higher rate but overall um the building numbers are quite sound in terms of inspections um they're down a bit again that's somewhat related to activity we're also um in the building division trying to really look at what we inspect how we

1:46:18inspect how many inspections each permit takes and I think it's a goal of the of the division to try to reduce that number over time not because there's less activity but to try to make it more efficient and a little more streamlined for folks who pulled permits uh with the

1:46:33city both residents and businesses so I think that's a process and that number going down isn't necessarily um a bad thing related to our the other division we wanted to touch on our Municipal energy use and we're proud to say that that number is is going down and certainly

1:46:54for us as a city as the solar panels come online throughout this throughout our city buildings we I think we'll see a much bigger Trend downward so we really do as staff has alluded to with a climate action plan we really want to show as much leadership as we can in regard to community

1:47:13engagement you can see the number of meetings that uh have typically been going on this number will pick up as activity picks up but whether it's workshops special events or meetings to try to get community input um there's there's quite a substantial amount and that's that's a theme

1:47:35throughout all of our departments now in terms of their budget there's been a really a real renewed effort um in economic excuse me Community Development and Public Works essentially our first floor of City Hall to try to do more interdepartmental coordination more across training

1:47:57increased customer service with essentially less people and be able to deal with the the public and regardless of essentially regardless of what department you work in um regardless of what type of permit you're looking for whether it's more of a public works permit or building permit

1:48:16we'd like to make that even more seamless and allow employees to be able to help help regardless of what they historically have done so essentially trying to tear down even more silos which are which are frankly are normal in cities but we don't see any reason why staff can't

1:48:37broaden what they do and cover for each other much more and so public work you'll see that in Community Development and Public Works we have reduced staff and not filled position uh in both departments and um hoping that we can make up the difference by combining what everybody

1:48:58does we do have more Contract Services in some areas to hopefully support our grants support the new programs but again it was an area that the department would have loved both this and Public Works would have loved to add two new full-time people to deal with sort of

1:49:16with our activity but we just didn't feel we could afford it nor did we want to increase the head count for new positions Finance um is relatively small department but obviously very important and as I said our goal was to um have Finance focusing on the finances

1:49:38and the budget of the city to that end you see there's a new manager position that is a that is a position that is being moved out of Economic Development into Finance to both deal with the success or agency and the Redevelopment dissolution as well as special projects

1:49:56help with budgeting help with performance help with forecasting all things that we think we could do better um so it so again that's I mean that's largely an emphasis on finance and as we said we moved HR uh out um so the focus could be essentially on the numbers

1:50:20in terms of the budget um and you can see there's significant changes those are related to that's where the payments for the solar procurement are housed although those costs are offset somewhere else Finance is picking up the expense we've had that transferred position and

1:50:38because of the way we budgeted the salary savings and the service credit buyback program last year the change looks significant but the department is actually going back to where it essentially needs to be in terms of the fire department essentially uh Staffing Remains the Same

1:50:58as I already said we are all the line staff is full we are just elected not to you do the three over higher positions in terms of the workload um fire remains remarkably consistent year over year and uh if you go back even further it it sort of just hums along and I guess all things considered

1:51:17that's that's a good thing we have some an increase in what we call good intent calls which as we've discussed in the past are calls where largely if no one's sure how to get help or where to get help the fire department will go give them a hand and that's a wide array of things from flooded

1:51:38basements to uh helping move things around the house um it's just if we if we can help and we're not on an emergency call the department tries to do what it can in terms again of community engagement that's a big piece of what our fire department does and you can see here

1:51:57sort of all the touches it had largely with younger folks during the during the year you know again at the risk of being super redundant Community engagement is something that's a big big focus in this budget and that goes across all departments in terms of the budget you

1:52:17can see a big change that's largely related to last year we got the grant for all the radios and as the Fiscal Agent we had to record the radios essentially for all the fire departments much many of the fire departments in Contra Costa County that's one time in one time out and so

1:52:35the fire department's budget settles back to where it where it essentially needs to be um as you know in the past the department can jump up or jump up depending on OES office of emergency service calls where we'd go on Mutual Aid calls and well it's not reflected

1:52:54here the department did that a a lot last fiscal year and unfortunately are expecting to do that a lot this fiscal year both because of fire and because of the cuts and closures of fire departments around around the area in the state there are four total vacancies one is

1:53:13the office staff but that's we plan for that that is because of the relationship with Kensington and shared Staffing we just choose not to eliminate that position I've already touched on the vacancies and overall the budget is pretty status quo um the police department uh I think one

1:53:39of the changes we want to highlight which the chief could certainly talk more about is um for the first time on our chart you can see csos which are community service officers which are new positions that will be created this year in an effort to provide more flexibility

1:53:54and Staffing and assignments in the department and hopefully able to free up sworn officers to do to do more things that we would like sworn officers to be doing and that's those those additional people are reflected within the police department's budget overall and I'll we'll talk more about

1:54:12that in a sec the um overall the total incidents uh while down a bit are still really significant when you think about a city our size they seem to have flattened a little bit about what's of I think more concern of the department is on the next slide when you really look at Priority One offenses

1:54:33and those are the ones that we tend to be well for obvious reasons are most concerned about while our numbers are down compared to Prior years um the trend over the over the last year and into this year is not is not great um that's not necessarily an isolated El Cerrito as

1:54:53you've probably heard and read Around The Bay Area and particularly the East Bay and there are many factors that play into it um but we I mean there is certainly a concern that the numbers between 2011-12 are up um and so far in 2013 they're looking um as bad or worse

1:55:13and again there are a lot of reasons that play into that but it's something that obviously we're very concerned about in terms of the department as we talk about every year the cost of our external Services goes up at a rate greater than inflation um and that's reflected in the

1:55:33Department's budget that we remember we contract out for animal control for dispatch for records management those are the sort of the big ones um I've already talked about the salary savings one of those positions were related um the the department is intentionally

1:55:49keeping a office position vacant for the fiscal year and that's largely that that's largely the difference between the 440 and the 570 again the 440 is our estimate of salary savings to we to double check that number we've gone back and looked at what we budgeted for

1:56:09salary savings over the last five years and probably for unfortunately we've exceeded that projection for the worse I guess each year so we're somewhat comfortable with that number but again there's a there's obviously a chance that the department can do can fill the positions faster

1:56:26than we anticipate the executive assistant uh to the chief is being reclassified to an analyst position and that's really consistent with what we've been doing as a city for probably a decade is trying to get more data driven and more specialized in in the analytical area

1:56:45and the hope is that the focus can be more on crime support crime analysis support and the department continually tries to work with its West County Partners um and I alluded to the csos as an attempt to try to go beyond really limited um positions and go to a broader use so

1:57:08there's a lot more flexibility in how they're how they're deployed depending on demand in the department um and Public Works the the biggest change as I've alluded to is this is the new operations and environmental services division um I also thought um at this chart was a good time to

1:57:32maybe stop and call out a couple things a couple people um we are excited about I mean I've talked a lot about in the budget letter and I've alluded to tonight that we are transitioning and in our upper management largely our department heads I mean we've had a fair amount of

1:57:50turnover in the last couple years and um through this budget through this budget and this chart I wanted to highlight a couple things um one we've already gone through the Community Development slides and I think you already realized but we're excited that Melanie Mintz has been appointed

1:58:11interim community development director for next year and that's Melanie's done a great job and worked her way up quickly through our organization and um I want to allude to Melanie but also I wanted to lead to in public works we all I assume everybody knows maybe not

1:58:29everybody that's listening but our Public Works director is has retired although he's still been around helping us out during a transition and um through this budget we will be appointing a vet Ortiz our engineering manager to interim Public Works director starting in July and um finally on this

1:58:48chart the one of the reasons we felt really comfortable in combining the operations in maintenance and recycling is because of the great job Garth shells has done and he is going to get promoted and appointed provisionally to lead that new division um when you look at those three folks in

1:59:09addition to our recent appointment of Lisa as Lisa Malik Sade as our finance director and I know it feels like Chris Jones has been here a lifetime but our Recreation director is also relatively new that we're you know we're talking about significant turnover but

1:59:28we're really excited to be able to have done that from within so I just wanted to pause there and and highlight that because uh it it really Pops in this chart so so going forward if you look at engineering um you all know from all the projects around town engineering has been very busy and it's

1:59:51also the area we've probably suffered uh the most with losing staff and struggling with how to how to deal with all of the projects we have and the changing workload and that's why we've come to the council a number of times recently for on-call Professional Services to help backfill

2:00:12um all of the staff in public works particularly because of the grants our workload goes up and down at times and um all things considered to be felt more comfortable going with contractors in the foreseeable future than uh more staff so to that end as I'll touch on

2:00:32one of the engineered positions is again we'll remain vacant for another year in terms of other things the public works department has worked on you look at our maintenance division which sort of vacillates between six and eight people um it's remarkable what they do they're

2:00:53out um 24 7 if needed you look at that small crew even though it's supported by some contractors you look at the street lights the paving the street trees the maintenance orders the Clean Water program The Catch basins our traffic requests helping take care of our

2:01:11facilities medians everything we need we is done by such a small crew which makes it that much harder to report out that we're keeping two of the positions vacant next year based on retirements and I'll touch on that again in a second going back to the theme of community

2:01:31engagement you can see this group also has had just consistent community events volunteer events our recycling programs and of course the recycling center has become a magnet for Community activity and Community engagement well I've alluded to some of this the the associate engineer position is not

2:01:54getting filled um we're relying more on Consultants on an as needed basis we've talked about the reorganization and as I just said the maintenance division expenses are down by about 150 000 because we're holding two positions open only about we've only backfilled

2:02:10about 60 percent of that um to do some targeted landscaping and seasonal work um so um it's a real I guess mixed report in public works I mean we would love to be doing more we think we're able to keep up with the workload and keep up with what we have on our to-do list but

2:02:28we think um in my opinion of all the Departments that uh um are trying to do more with less so to speak Public Works is probably doing doing more and more with with less and less and um you know we'll touch on we've touched on the restricted funds and I'll talk more

2:02:46about that but um we have that over Reliance I think now on our special funds to backfill some of the stuff that general fund used to do and public works really gets the brunt of that moving on to Recreation um this is how the department is funded you can see in a number of spots we have

2:03:07something called PT purrs if you add those up that's the 14 positions I was talking about those are those are not necessarily full-time positions but um you can see them on the org chart and as as the budget evolves even this budget we're working on how best to report

2:03:24report the temporary the permanent temporary people what we always like to point out and the rec department always likes to point out when you layer revenues and expenses on the same chart and you look at the amount that's not covered by fees which is essentially backfilled by the general

2:03:43fund and you really focus on that green line that green line is started a downward push in 2008 and continues to go down next year and what that means is that as the recreation department continues to become more self-supporting there's more money available for other

2:04:03things and it's really a testament to the department and particularly Chris Jones the rec director who is really trying to look at everything they do ways they staff be more flexible um and and squeeze out um new Services every year new programs um with less and I know that's that's

2:04:25sort of a theme but it but it it's true when you look at their budget and you look at their head count but they're still managing to um more or less do it on their own so um kudos to the rec department and how it affects the rest of the city the next slide talks shows a little bit

2:04:43about adult programs and I've gotten a number of comments on that last bar wondering what happened we implemented new software that's what happened and the way it tracks enrollments and classes is different so in the past where certain classes were a few dropped

2:05:04in six times for the same class that was six now it's one so there's not a right or wrong but um that's that's why overall enrollments are very strong in terms of Youth Services you can see in the after school programs and the summer camps it's yeah it's almost amazing how strong the

2:05:29programs are for a city a size all the things from the after school programs at our rec department essentially took over over time and our camps which continue to do well and grow and as we understand it enrollments are up this for the summer for this coming summer so again we're really excited we

2:05:53think a lot of the Outreach that the department is doing in conjunction with the Outreach we do city-wide in addition to the word of mouth and the awards the word is getting out that our you know our programs are really cool and it's a great place to send your kids

2:06:08and so we expect a great summer and if you want to go check it out school ends over the next two weeks and you should drop in on the community center uh around one o'clock when kids are moving all over the place and to make it even funner we have two Capital program

2:06:23projects going in the parking lot and on Moser um it it'll it's worth the price of admission to see what it's going to be like the next two weeks um so you should check it out in terms of the Swim Center um the the center continues to do really well um we were we were sort of brainstorming

2:06:44about in some areas while while some some things may be down we think it could be a hangover from what was a really bad weather year last year and hopefully um when it comes to Aquatics the weather really drives a lot it's hard to get people thinking about um swim passes when it's 50 degrees out

2:07:04um to the to their credit if you happen to be a member of Groupon the department put a Groupon out this week and I believe we have over 400 takers I think as of this morning or this afternoon there were over 450 buyers and what's exciting about that we can already tell that many of those

2:07:26folks were not in that list of folks that have already come so it's really the desire to get folks into the facility that haven't been there before and sell passes in areas where we're already out there Staffing the pool but we have spots particularly as it relates

2:07:39to families and families swim that we could we could um we have we have capacity so that's that's also a good uh a very creative way to get get the word out um the budget has a two percent reduction in payroll costs um we are the department that that reflects savings as I alluded to getting rid of

2:08:02uh contractual custodian services and backfilling with only a smaller amount um uh the iwm fund integrated wastes and Enterprise fund is picking up a little bit bigger piece or holding one position vacant and we're we're projecting better Revenue again um more uh like we've tried to do in other

2:08:26departments we've tried to put a little more funding into staff training we probably historically could do a little better job in the rec department and there's a slight decrease in Swim Center hours in the off season um moving on to the CIP I will try to get through this really quickly

2:08:45um we tried to sort of describe our CP CIP and how it relates to the council's goals in terms of exemplary Services we look at all the projects that we're partnering we and all the community input that we try to get before we actually build the projects and do the projects and I think

2:09:05that results in dramatically reduced stress for the people who are most impacted by it long-term Financial sustainability we always have budget controls we're using outside Consultants more and pursuing just constantly pursuing Regional opportunities sense of place and

2:09:25Community we look at promoting strong neighborhoods with our projects different opportunities for recreation and Leisure and then we of course have all of our CIP projects many of which are either which are either awarded or going to construction soon a lot of them are

2:09:43around the greenway and the BART stations in terms of health and safety I'm not going to repeat this but a lot of the grants and a lot of the projects we take are directly related to health and safety and in terms of sustainability so many of the projects are trying to Foster and

2:10:04encourage pedestrian bike and Transit travel um and we're trying to make our own operations more more efficient uh solar procurement jumps to mind you can see on the next slide our our active projects are is down um and our funding is down but the funding has a lot more to do with how we were

2:10:27funded we had the recycling center we had our street program we had big chunks of money that we don't necessarily have right now so we have smaller projects and we are projecting a fair amount of projects um for next year which I think everyone will notice and we hope over time that

2:10:45number is going to continue to grow but as you can see in terms of the capital outlay we are holding relatively constant um but where projects finish the number continues the number will go down and that's consistent as in the past so um with that um what we're asking of the council based

2:11:12on everything you heard tonight the budget book feedback from the community feedback from the financial Advisory Board who are had one meeting on the numbers received the budget book They're meeting again this week with the entire budget book um obviously we have bent over backwards to

2:11:31try to be consistent with your mission vision and goals and is this budget really consistent with Council policy beginning tonight I mean I'm obviously here as our a bunch of Staff we're happy to take any questions clarifying comments anything tonight if for some

2:11:50reason we can't answer it we will go look it up and get you an answer as soon as possible and then at the next meeting we've essentially allocated the night if needed to take any questions comments changes and hopefully adopt at that meeting if for some reason that doesn't

2:12:10work the council can continue the item to it dates that week or the following week obviously consistent with the brown Act uh finally um and we've touched on a lot of this I want to thank the residents and the businesses in the city who really do support us and and really show their

2:12:33trust in how they support us the council for all the work you've done um on the Strategic plan and all of the guidance and support you give the staff the Fab I already mentioned our all of the staff who have really stepped up and do everything they can to make El

2:12:52Cerrito a great place the department heads for all of their leaders leadership and dedication to the city and the sort of Team who's been working the last week or two Lisa Karens Kari uh and Jeff to try to get this all uh all pulled together on the schedule we had hoped for

2:13:15so with that we showing off our two recent Awards and are open to questions comments or clarifications thank you councilmember Bridges well um you know unlike Rebecca a few meetings ago who said she was relishing the budget that's what she got elected for I read the budget book with Etc and

2:13:37then Tums and I have to say that you know the margins in this budget are so thin it's frightening it's totally frightening to me um you know we already talked about this is based on projections the unforeseen things that we can't account for a lot of those things have already been

2:13:58discussed tonight liability and property insurance you know 270 270 000 um the the poor sales tax triple flip almost a million dollars you know in 2010 we collected 11 million dollars in property tax this budget's predicated on maybe six million dollars I mean you can kind of see where this is

2:14:25going um that it's it's real Slim for every dollar property tax we get we get 22 cents in the city of El Cerrito you know a hundred thousand dollars forty thousand dollars fifty thousand dollars going to some of these unmet needs you know those are really some margins and yet

2:14:43we accomplished what we set out to do no staff reductions and no cut and services and we ended up with a 10.32 fund balance which is not a lot of money it's only it's under three million dollars you know I think some of us would probably like to see that at 15 or higher than the 10.32 but you have to

2:15:04maintain a sense of reality um you know and aren't we so creative I mean we go out we get all the grants I.T people have gone out the cloud we've got csos I mean we're doing so many things that are saving us money you know our resident's past measure are in 2010. what would you be without that

2:15:27I mean there's just a million things what police have contributed but fires contributed you know we've reduced our staff almost ten and a half percent like what over five or six years I mean it's just all these things and yet no cuts no layoffs you know I think it's an amazing thing

2:15:45it's an amazing thing plus it's a really nice budget document to read you know with a strategic plan the staff again came through did it pulled it together you know I think it's it's pretty amazing but again there's a lot of uncertainty um and a lot of unknowns you know if

2:16:02we're so lucky to have a couple police officers fall on our lap um that we could hire you know some of this that thin margin is going to be gone again so um those are just my you know observations um I have to admit that by about page 30 I I didn't need any more Tums it was

2:16:22starting to clear up a little bit it was it was all good um I did have one question for staff as far as the solar Investments do we have any idea when we might see when they're going to get plugged in and we're going to see some reality um I don't know if we know that answer

2:16:40yet looking at Melanie but okay I hope they're going to be plugged in before the end of this fiscal year so I think we're going to start seeing it at least some of them soon Finance might know more than me Melanie mints interim community development director we actually have already plugged in at

2:16:59the public safety building and so it's just a matter now of getting the meters and PG e working so some of it will hit the and the recycling center is also the second phase of that project is also done as you know Community Center is happening so that one will hit next

2:17:13fiscal year so the energy will start to be produced and again Lisa might be able to discuss more kind of the phasing of the savings versus the the first uh Debt Service payment another question about the swim center and um their their use of solar that's not used for the pool is

2:17:32that correct it's only used for the building more or less and uh computers an English translator so the um the carports are all for the building and for electricity uses but there is also a system that is supporting the pool and I am not as well versed in it as if Maria

2:17:53or Chris were here but we we've pursued both but the current project is for lighting and electricity use and not for uh the the heating of the pole the gas Mr Jones is behind you maybe he has an opportunity to contribute to your response kind of the percentages

2:18:11my understanding is that the solar will take care of 75 of the whole Community Center Swim Center complex electrical needs are um filters are run off of electricity which use it a lot our heaters are natural gas but the filters are where most of that savings will come okay

2:18:32okay sure for the pool and what's that I'm sorry the heater the heaters for the pool correct but the filters are for the pool as well yeah thank you thank you councilmember Abelson yes first of all I want to say I agree with what was just said so I won't repeat it I am really

2:18:51concerned about the um how tight this budget is this year I think it's perhaps the um I would use the word trim the trim is budget I think I've seen I think it it looks and feels to me like staff has gone through every department and every line and tried to think of every way

2:19:20including uh reorganizing the Departments to make them more efficient and I really do applaud Scott Hannon and the rest of staff for having done what I think is a very thorough analysis on trying to figure out how to minimize costs and maximize service and I think that is

2:19:43um we can't ask for anything more than than that kind of commitment to making this a better place for our residents to live and um I think that um there are a lot of things that could happen to us there's what the state might do to us that we don't even know about yet there are a lot of unknowns

2:20:03out there still and um we just have you know we'll have to deal with them as they come and um um and I'm very confident that our staff um has the ability to deal with them in a way that will um work out the best for our residents and I've asked actually offline a lot of

2:20:30questions about the document already so I I have my answers already I don't really have at this moment any more questions but I do want to you know reiterate and I suppose support again that comment about how trim a budget I think this is and um I I wish that we had

2:20:52um more to offer because there's certainly a lot of things that I would like to see us do particularly in supporting Public Safety I think I you know I'd like to see more emphasis put on that but I know that we don't have the funding really to do that right now and

2:21:09um I think that's the end of my comments for the moment could I have one more thing and that is on you know on page four in the binder there was a reference made that you know there had been given some staff direction to um start looking at a survey for both a a

2:21:29new perhaps Community Center Senior Center public safety building and librarian you know that we are I think committed to do that kind of a survey to see you know how that pulls out with residents and you know that's going to take place sometime sometime in the near

2:21:45future um and I think that's really important for us to to do because we know that that the money is not in this budget for any of these projects and and if we want to go out for a parcel tax or whatever it's going to be you know we have to find out what what the interest is of our residents we've

2:22:06we've been very successful doing that with the street measures and the pool project and you know we have done well with our residents but um that that is coming forward too and it's mentioned on page four in the binder it says staff has initiated the survey is that correct

2:22:23yes okay uh councilwale Friedman questions for staff yeah uh I echo my colleagues thoughts and commend staff on a job well done on page 42 of the slideshow the items considered but not included I know that in the thinking here wait till we get it on screen no problem there we go okay some of

2:23:04these are kind of open-ended wish list kind of things and others are very specific amounts could be determined I'm interested in those that we can put some specificity to I know we have a good cost estimate on the increased Library hours but I haven't seen a cost estimate

2:23:27for the update of Library needs assessment and preliminary architectural services maybe we have that but I'd be interested in that figure in any of these others that we could have a a specific figure or approximate figure for um I know this is a time of austerity and

2:23:48indeed we've been in times of austerity for several years now if not longer but I think as a community we need to take the vision that's in this strategic plan and see where we can take bold action and move forward on things we know we need and our community and residents

2:24:10need and certainly the librarian expanded concept of a library is something that rated very high in our strategic planning process so um and of course I know that if we fill any of these or put them in the budget it means we have to take something else out and that's where difficult decisions

2:24:33will have to be made so maybe specifically if you could tell me on the library needs assessment preliminary architectural services about how much money would that cost the news assessments 20 to 25 000 the architectural service sort of yeah depends how far we want to get I mean

2:24:53the the thinking behind the architectural service was as we get more into it we're going to need to do as we did with City Hall you know some massing studies some concept layouts and then start doing some elevations to get people excited so you know I don't know the exact timing

2:25:12of that but we think it's an important component as we go forward right we would need that to as you say get people excited raise money give an idea when we do a survey about how much we would have to budget for such a project and um have our citizens rank that among the

2:25:33priorities so thank you I asked my questions during the presentation and I'll hold comment until we hear from the residents great I have a few questions then um and unfortunately they're further back in the presentation first is would be on slide 17 and I really do appreciate you dividing

2:25:56our spending by goal and I just wanted to get a sense of oh some of these goals the spending is substantially less than I would have anticipated and and the one that caught my eye was Goldie facilities two percent I'm just wondering um what is you know this is two percent

2:26:20of 45 million dollars roughly um so it's this general fund but it's just this is just general fund okay so it's 23 million or something like that so what is that expenditure on like what facilities are included incorporated into that give us just a sense because I know this

2:26:44is a new way of dividing our uh dividing our expenditures um I think in the general fund when you look at the Public Works budget it's especially tiny you have to really overlay the other funds but having said that um I think it's just a fraction it's a portion and I'll look to the public

2:27:06works director but I mean our investment to our facilities is sort of limited to um what you describe partly what you describe as a facility I mean we're obviously mowing lawns taking care of the play Fields that's not included it's really what are we spending on the upkeep of

2:27:23City City Hall the public safety building the community center um it is it is pretty small I mean it's it's probably in that neighborhood even um with looking at all the funds and also um if you look at the CIP there's a letter missing which is related to this which really goes to there's no capital

2:27:45projects funded of any kind at this point for our for the facilities so we are we are certainly lagging there okay um my next question is on uh slide 26 and unfortunately I um I'm going to compare this to table one one in the budget book which table one one I think is on page

2:28:2010. 9 page nine and just to look at the talk about the actual the projections versus actuals I just want to emphasize I think one of the things that you said earlier and that is that the the approved number includes some of the permanent part-time employees and so it's more of a head count than a

2:28:49full-time equivalency count and then in table 1-1 we've moved to a full-time equivalency type calculation to moving to the full-time equivalency calculation as opposed to a more of a head count type of calculation for this and I think unfortunately we're we're sort of in the middle I think I think

2:29:15the actual number is the number in on page 10 plus some number less than 14 and well we're we'll we will calculate that before we finalize the book yes table 1-1 is also on slide 27 so if you want to go two slides forward it's it's uh included there so I just wanted to

2:29:39re-emphasize that you know that there are um quite a number of people who work for us that are not full-time and they were being recognized as individuals in our previous way of formatting and now we are just looking at their expenditures they're they don't go away as people but

2:30:02that they are portions do get Consolidated and I too would like to now go to slide 42 which is the same slide that councilmember Friedman focused on um make a comment um sure about we have this screen on but it you can't really see it because the lights are on so the audience

2:30:24is unable to see it thank you um and I wanted my question was slightly different on the needs assessment going back to 2005 2006 we did do A needs assessment which unfortunately is more stale than than current and so my my concern about investing in A needs assessment at this time although the the

2:30:46number is smaller than than I anticipated is you know how quickly will it go stale um you know given the timelines that we are potentially looking at for a library how soon will it go stale which how much of the needs assessment from 2005-2006 is functional well first of all I'm Karen Pincus

2:31:10assistant city manager I spoke to our consultant who had prepared the needs assessment from 2006 and she agreed that an update is necessary there are certainly industry standards that have changed over time particularly with technology as well as kind of doing a

2:31:26reassessment of what the community wants and needs for example at the time um a cafe wasn't really a big deal but but recently we've heard a lot about that happening as a trend in libraries so things of that nature over time I believe would definitely be updated

2:31:45um we can sort of play with the the time frame as far as that goes depending upon exactly how far we want to go with the needs assessment we think that we can certainly rely on some of the data we can rely on some of the resources particularly with the new community

2:32:01group that has sprung up as well as working with the county library who is also embarking on their own strategic plan and doing a lot of their own needs assessment and surveying actually within the near future and so that's a combination of things that we can we can

2:32:17use to fund our or to inform our own needs assessment for our building great thank you um and that concludes my questions of Staff go ahead yeah one thing that I didn't find in the book and it maybe it escaped me in the fine print is I didn't see a comparison of budget to actuals in

2:32:40past years uh our fiscal year is ending at the end of this month do we anticipate that we'll have some unspent money available that we might be able to put to some of these items it's already it's factored in if you look at um let me find the page [Applause] 23.

2:33:17page 23 correct slide 23 I'm sorry slide 23.

2:33:25we have um the second column from the right is our projections for the remainder of the fiscal year and so that balance then is the starting point for next year and we have throughout the book we have prior year actuals for the most recent years we have in the in all the

2:33:46Departments and and the appendix in the back it goes um Department by Department okay but in in terms of a total in terms of a total it's right here so this is showing a three hundred thousand dollar Surplus is that correct yes okay and that's rolled into the spending

2:34:08plan for 13 14. so there's no extra money right no shucks well there is there's three hundred thousand but it's already in the budget I understand so it's not the budget doesn't have any extra money if you've had your ID it didn't work wow it's a different terminology than yeah

2:34:30than my agency uses when we do budget to actual and we end up with a surplus every year too but yeah great um looking for public speakers do we have any public speakers on this item I have one slip Tom panna's right good evening mayor Lyman remember the stat members of the council and City

2:35:07staff my name is Tom panis and I live at [address removed] in El Cerrito I'd like to start by thanking the city manager and City staff for a very thorough budget package and presentation I guess I'd also like to address slide 42 our current Library would better serve our citizens and our families if

2:35:24we funded more open hours if we begin opening on Sundays we'd actually be making it available to an entirely new demographic demographic I was at the Milpitas Library three Sundays ago Mother's Day I was stunned and thrilled by the nature and size of the crowd of the people that I saw there

2:35:39on a Sunday no one disputes that our current library is sadly outdated the time is now to get moving on a new facility Beginning by updating the 2006 Library needs assessment we need to fund those Professional Services in addition at no cost to the city the new library committee

2:35:57volunteers could host charettes and other sessions to engage our citizens in the process I'd also like to remind the council and the staff that the new library committee delivered an excellent review of the 2006 needs assessment that was prepared by a committee of professional

2:36:11librarians libraries empower the citizens Foster literacy and serve as a gathering point for the community we often talk about Place making in El Cerrito experience shows us that always a new library establishes its part of town as a popular and important destination

2:36:29let's get these two items into the budget and move forward on our library Ambitions thank you for this time this evening I'd also like to say that if there's anyone here who would prefer to stand up to show their support for the points I've made instead of speaking

2:36:41this would be an appropriate time to do so thank you all for your consideration of our time by uh showing up and wearing your newly minted I support a new library for El Cerrito Badges and at this time I want to acknowledge the large number of emails that we received in the last 24 hours

2:37:11that were very supportive in in the same tone as the last speaker uh supportive of increased Library hours and A needs assessment with that I need additional speakers no mayor any additional speakers in the audience seeing none uh we'll bring it back to the dice for comments and additional

2:37:34questions uh and guidance at this time we I will remind everyone that we are going to be hearing this item again in two weeks uh councilmember Friedman I think you saved your comments for now um I support the green sticker people and not because I like them as people but

2:37:55because their cause is an important one for our city and so I think we need to find some creative way to expand Library hours and move forward on creating a new library slash Community Center slash Learning Center so you know maybe in conjunction with the group that's working so hard on this

2:38:19project with some fundraising we can move forward on both of those items so I'd like to see in two weeks some options for how we could move forward on both of those other than that I think the budget is an excellent document and I see that it I appreciate the explanation of how many

2:38:40trade-offs there went into this and the leanness of each department in detail is pretty dramatic and not being able to fill those positions means that our service level is not going to be able to expand to meet the needs of our population as well as we would like to

2:39:03so there's no easy answers but I think this is a very good document and just that one area I'd like to see us put some good creative Innovative thinking into moving forward thank you mayor just to follow along with that comment Scott it might make sense at some point maybe in two weeks

2:39:25to talk about sort of the next steps after the survey and I know that we're not going to be done at that point but it might be good to just kind of get together what the timeline is in terms of analyzing those results and then once the results are analyzed where we go

2:39:38from there and I just want to just really appreciate the residents who've come tonight and what an incredible incredible Testament it is to sort of the nature of the dialogue here that you all came and chose a speaker and had somebody speak on your behalf and not

2:39:52only um a great dialogue in terms of the emails we received but also just a really efficient use of your own time so that's that's wonderful too so I have just a number of other of other comments um question on the vacancies we're still holding and this was something we talked

2:40:07about at the last meeting in terms of sort of getting really realistic with what the new normal is and and just for you to think about or to respond to now um with Scott or the other staff members when we're looking at the 10-year projections that are in the budget book

2:40:21is it are we holding these vacancies in anticipation that our tenure projections show that some of them will be filled I think this is just another one of those moments of let's try to be as realistic as possible and are we holding these open because we reasonably believe they

2:40:36may be filled in the near future um or are we looking for other funding sources so just something that I think might warrant a little more discussion we did talk about eliminating some but what what's the right number to to eliminate another comment I wanted to make was

2:40:54that I am very supportive of the cost allocation update being being updated as possible in-house that's something that I agree has been um is is old and I think would really benefit our residents by having that that updated um in another yes I wrote down while we

2:41:11were going through the presentation was I love the engagement section in the budget I think it's really important to track these kinds of meetings and to show at various points in time when we're when we're doing community engagement I also wanted to note the inspection slide that you had and how

2:41:26you noted that that was something that you're looking at trying to bring down it made me think that the Community Development Department in particular the building department you can correct me if I'm wrong this is one of the areas that many of our residents if they're

2:41:38going to make contact with the city I would imagine a large majority of residents make contact with the city through this department so I might suggest that we consider that it looks like the city manager and the recreation department were singled out for that goal area in terms of providing

2:41:52exemplary service I would say that if it's true that most residents at one time or another during their life in El Cerrito will make contact with that department that might be another one to add to we really want to be service oriented um and that and that can rise higher

2:42:08especially when you're thinking about things of reducing inspections because that's actually more efficient for our residents and others who are investing in their buildings uh I wanted to point out that the or I wanted to suggest to other council members that we might think about having

2:42:23a study session at some point on the CIP um there are 46 projects in the CIP at one point or another in the slides we talked about having 17 that are active at this point I'd like to just have a better understanding of as we're going through the 46 projects of course

2:42:37funding is always an issue and it seems like opportunistically we're able to get grant funding for this or that project I would be interested to know if there are sort of priorities that the staff goes through in terms of going after this or that Grant opportunity and I think it

2:42:52might it just kind of in my mind along with the other items you've mentioned in terms of potentially setting aside more general fund if possible for um for maintaining our facilities I'd be interested in doing a little bit more work on the CIP at a later date and the last item I wanted to

2:43:10touch on was with regard to Public Safety which other folks have mentioned here tonight and you know recent news with um with crime Trends um and I am con I'm old whenever I talk to people about this of how we're unable to fill positions in our Police Department many people just cannot

2:43:26believe this that in this economy we're not able to recruit people and it's only through various questions I've asked um to Scott and the police chief that it's it's we it's hard to explain why but it's true but I am interested in um hearing whether or not the chief Moyer

2:43:43has anything else to talk about in terms of sort of how to address or how to work as well as we can to reduce crime with the staff that we have and I another speaker talked about the home safety Expo which was held this weekend that that is sort of one great way to spread

2:43:59ourselves a little bit more where you're actually um you know the police can't be everywhere all the time but we can try to inform and educate residents on the best practices that they can take to make themselves safer and I would at some point or another perhaps you can

2:44:12just talk about if there are as we're watching these crime Trends what might be the Contin the other steps that the police department might suggest that we can take to make ourselves safer so good evening I'm Sylvie Moyer your police chief and in direct response to

2:44:28your question council member benicini I think the best response I can tell you is that by the very nature of the selection process of police officers and all the scrutiny and the psychological and physical and other examinations that applicants go through we lose a lot of very qualified

2:44:51people for perhaps other services but they're not suitable for service with the police department the most important thing regarding crime is that while we can't expect massive increases in Staffing what that does is it signals for us that we have to build on already smart practices

2:45:12we have to be more efficient in the way that we deploy our officers and reflect it in the presentation you saw and you heard from Mr Hannon when he said that we are converting a single position of executive assistant to Crime analyst there's going to be some suffering with

2:45:30that change but that suffering is largely going to be administrative support that will be shouldered by others in the department but what it does is it signals not only to this Council in this community and the police officers that are committed to service every day it signals that we are willing

2:45:48to examine resources that are out there for instance Predictive Analytics predictive policing and other evidence-based resources where we can deploy our officers perhaps smarter and more efficiently so we're taking steps like that to get our officers out and directed and and

2:46:09focused enforcement better additionally heard from Mr Hannah when he talked about eliminating narrow scope job classifications like parking enforcement or crossing guard and what we did was We examined the field and we are adding community service officers with broad

2:46:28job classifications that can for instance the story you told quite some time ago about your license plate being stolen in the future you will likely receive well hopefully it will not happen because of our proactive efforts and my safety measures I've taken and

2:46:44your safety measures yes but what you will likely see is for some specific calls or service you will see perhaps a Community Service Officer someone who is fully vetted and trained that will respond and they will be a non-sworn person that can free up police officers

2:47:01to go and enforce other crimes it there's you can't fight with the statistics burglaries are up 44 percent it's alarming to us today we held a vertical staff meeting employees of across the Spectrum at the police department to try and mine for data and have conversations about what we're

2:47:21going to do to impact crime there's not a single answer but I can tell you that we're stepping back we're making effective changes with little or no budget increase to the to the city to continue to examine the way we provide service so it's a little bit of a long

2:47:37answer but I think in examining it you'll see that we're doing everything we can to reduce crime Foster a sense of safety but not impact our city budget in doing so thank you that was very informative and I and I wanted to I'm glad you mentioned the CSO I also wrote down a big yes when

2:47:55we were talking about the csos during the presentation makes perfect sense I agree thank you sure that's all I have for now great thank you um first I want to thank staff for preparing the budget book uh it is as always very readable and for those that are at home that want a good

2:48:15read as best as it can be with regards to budgets this one's actually uh a good read it does tell you how our city runs and how our city uh manages the resources that you you provide us through your tax payments and your sales tax and your property tax your fees we

2:48:35we do use your money wisely as best we can and and this budget book does tell you exactly the answers that question so I want to thank staff um I to um want to reiterate or reinforce what Chief Moyer was just saying as I go around the community they ask about safety

2:48:57um and you know you look at this book and they've got all these pies in there and and the slice that's Public Safety and which includes fire and police um is are the two biggest slices and that is what we get asked about when we go around the community and and so we

2:49:16are continuing to make that commitment to police um one person stopped me recently saying it's a rumor that we are intentionally with you know that we don't have enough police officers and that it was potentially a policy to to have not enough police officers and

2:49:32and I corrected them and said no we we want there is no policy uh reducing the number of police officers there is no policy preventing us from hiring police officers and as we heard tonight it's quite the contrary we're doing our best to hire police officers um and find creative ways to reduce

2:49:52crime and fight crime in our in our uh community so um that's one thing that I wanted to re-emphasize council member Friedman asked for quantification of the items on slide 42 I want to reiterate that request and say that that is something that we should um please do our best to to do in the next

2:50:12two weeks so that we can um make informed decisions about some of the items that are on that page uh including the needs update updating the needs assessment and I I was looking back through my um past agendas that I carry with me to see if I could find the informative

2:50:33slide that Quantified the library hours I could not find that but I did find the uh the comments on the needs assessment which was in given to us not too long ago um and then uh my last uh I also want to reiterate and and I'm not certain we need to do it prior to this adopting

2:50:54this annual budget but I do believe that something in the future a a study session on the CIP because as I thumb through the CIP I see lots of things that were put on the CIP when I was on the park and rec commission and um you know it it if they're really blue

2:51:13sky they're blue sky and maybe we need to make sure that they're prioritized appropriately but if there are things on there that I think rise to our Council um desire and fits the goals and missions that and strategies that we've identified in our strategic plan that

2:51:32maybe they need to be prioritized and funding found for them over time and and last I brought this up I think two years ago and and I'm going to bring it up again now that I'm mayor maybe it'll carry more weight um I want to look at the city council's uh budget ourselves and find if there's

2:51:51ways for us to reduce our uh budget um you know it's not a lot of money it's it just isn't but it's I think that tightening our belt tightening our own belt is is something that's a prudent for us to do to send the right message to our residents to our employees that

2:52:10we too um are sharing in in some of the Cost Cuts that are going on so um I look forward to what suggestions staff brings forward on where we might be able to um we might be able to contribute to uh reducing the budget even if it's I think some people are saying ceremonial or or

2:52:35you know because it's not significant dollars but it but it's I think it's still important to send a message appropriately so that would be my request um my personal request I don't know if that's supported by others but I support it I'm going to continue to make the

2:52:51request um any other thoughts oh yeah please I thought you had major comments before okay go ahead um no the uh one con I mean there's several comments I would like to make one one is that of all of the uh email that I get from residents most of it is on public safety and most of it is

2:53:15concerned about crimes that happen somewhere so um I I tend to think that people are really concerned when a crime happens and there's a difference between a crime happening and a light bulb being out in a light somewhere you know there really is you know it's a matter of

2:53:36safety so I I really do understand that and hope that we can give it it can get better and the CSO program that uh I can't I don't know where the chief is but I think she's out there somewhere um uh really interests me I have had some contact with the csos at Bart and

2:54:02um while I don't know that it would be the same at all it has impressed me that it looked to me like they were helping to take the load off police officers and so I would hope that that would be the same kind of thing they would do here in whatever way they are needed are

2:54:21you though thinking of combining the um the crossing guard um parking with the CSO function or how is that all going to work do you know what I'm asking yes I do and so for perspective about 25 years ago I actually started as a CSO so there's definitely but it is I think it's it is a good idea

2:56:13to to actually get some good statistical data on that which I as I understand is being done now and then use that as a guide and um since I think anything that we would do would probably be funded by money that's not in our budget rather but by some other in some other way I I

2:56:34think that that's kind of perhaps somewhat independent of this particular budget process and um I I think that we can think of it that way but the other thing that we do that I think has brought money to the city um maybe we can't pick and choose which thing it is but we can at least do

2:56:53things we want done are through the grants that we apply for and in that case we just have to go after what's available because if there's um you know if there's grant funding for libraries we can go after that but maybe it's grant funding for um uh intersection improvements that will

2:57:16reduce accidents you know or maybe it's some other thing but you know all of these are things that add value to our city and um we are much better off in our city for having gone after those things in the past years which been which our staff has been really good at doing and

2:57:36it needs to be really commended for and I would actually be interested if it's possible in knowing just how much money has been brought into the city via uh grant money in the last some interesting period of years say because I think it's it's really brought quite a bit of money

2:57:56into our city in May in the very near future bring quite a bit more that is will be considered soon this month actually at the Contra Costa Transportation Authority so um the um so I think that we need to remember that there are those Avenues but they are not part of the budget process and

2:58:18they will will never be part of the budget process in the usual sort of way but they will um they are usually the things that more go towards the CIP for example and we don't have complete control over them like we we do over you know a lot of the things in the in our regular

2:58:38budget but they they are of Great Value to our city so anyway I think we need to keep that in mind as we move forward thank you I don't have anything more to add except for I think the CIP Edition would be a good a good study session and um I don't have anything further to add from what

2:58:57hasn't already been said but I also look forward to Fab's review in two weeks a report from you tomorrow yes oh right important two weeks great with that we will move on to item eight um I want to thank everyone who stayed for the item seven budget session there's you can't see them at home but

2:59:21there's about 20 people back there so I want to thank all of you for staying through the budget discussion we'll move on to item eight which is Council assignments and liaison reports and um councilmember Abelson you usually start us off oh well I have some reports

2:59:39um number and I have some good news actually um relating to the West Contra Costa Transportation advisory committee which has had some difficulty um with pers if you may remember I mentioned previously that uh they had been told that they were they could no longer use the city of San

3:00:00Pablo's per system they had to um disassociate from that and find a different solution so they've been trying to get pers Calpers to evaluate um them as an agency that could be eligible for purse and it it sort of started out and then it sort of nothing seemed to

3:00:25happen and then they seem to start all over again and it became very frustrating because meanwhile the agency is missing some staff members because of people moving on and um so forth and so anyway last week um I went up as chair of wicktech to Sacramento along with Randy iwazaki

3:00:55who's the executive director of the Contra Costa Transportation Authority and used to be the head of Caltrans for the entire State prior to that because he knew somebody in Calpers the number two person to be precise and Jerry Bradshaw who is acting part-time with

3:01:15WIC Tac when he isn't here went with us and we two days later we're notified that we are pers eligible so that's a really big step in moving forward and now uh the WIC tax staff can complete the process of becoming pers eligible of becoming a purse Agency on its own and

3:01:45at that point we'll be able to hire staff to run the agency so we've been running it in a very weakened State you might say so that's very very good news and um um was it it took over six months to make it happen unfortunately but um we thank goodness we had our

3:02:07um special relationship um the other thing I wanted to mention is that the committee on Aging showed uh the healthcare movie um for the second time and there were a number of people in attendance and um there are a number of questions that were brought up about health care and

3:02:28I've heard some interest expressed in the community about the Affordable Health Care Act people don't understand it and so I've heard some discussion that um people might want to have some further follow-up sessions that would be open to the general public just to help

3:02:47people understand the system because it's being implemented as I understand it in stages which will be which will culminate in 2017 I think and it does impact the way Health Care is provided so um anyway look forward to something perhaps happening in that Arena on that

3:03:10um that's my report councilmember Bridges nothing councilmember Friedman nope councilmember benicini Fab met and they reviewed the numbers and we'll get more comments after their meeting tomorrow of the book great I have uh four things to report on uh on your behalf I went to the on May

3:03:3123rd I went to the rodeo Club to speak to them about the Strategic plan and the climate action plan and I can tell you that they were both well received by Rotary Club the day I spoke they did have the I don't I don't know what they I'm drawing a blanket what the actual name

3:03:54is but they had about uh 15 uh El Cerrito High students there and it was the outgoing officers and the in-going officers for the Youth extension of the Rotary Club and and I will tell you that it was good to see so many people starting to get active in our community and and uh taking uh

3:04:18initiative within the community also on May 23rd I it doesn't look that doesn't yeah also on May 23rd I went to the West County mayor's uh conference and uh we um we received we just discussed uh old business which is the state takeaways from the Redevelopment agencies and our new business was

3:04:47actually discussing how to better represent West County in the Contra Costa Mayors Association and we and I presented the short video on the Associated Bay Area government's award-winning video of our recycling education and Resource Center and on two more on um today this morning I went to the

3:05:15chamber breakfast and and presented there and at the chamber breakfast I spoke to them again also about the climate action plan and the Strategic plan but also the single use bag ordinance that's coming out um and also talk to them about some of uh the things on the future which were

3:05:38presented in our budget today uh including new projects along the Avenue and finally um I I'm not sure I hope it's not too late but I will not be able to go to the El Cerrito High School uh commencement ceremony and as mayor I was offered tickets so if anybody is interested in

3:05:59going to um the 2013 commencement ceremony uh Saturday June 8th at 12 30. I do have a invitation that you can call and and get tickets so if you're interested please let me know and I will hold on to that I don't know if anybody is interested with that we will move on to item nine

3:06:24which is adjourning the special concurrent city council public financing Authority and pension trust board meeting and we will next meet as a city council a public financing Authority and a pension trust board meeting on Tuesday June 18th uh 7 PM right here at city

3:06:44council chambers with that we're adjourned