City Council Meeting August 20, 2013

0:00:00doing everyone um I'm going to call to order uh the city council meeting uh of the city of El Cerrito for August 20th item one is the pledge of allegiance to the flag or observation of a moment of silence your choice mayor Pro tem Abelson will lead us I pledge allegiance to the flag of the

0:00:28United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all item two is Council and staff Communications does city manager or do you know of any staff Communications today I'm going to start on my right Mr

0:00:54Friedman no councilmember thank you I'm happy to make just a couple of announcements good evening everybody uh one announcement is that El Cerrito is one of nine cities that recently adopted a checklist-based solar permitting process this is something that had been

0:01:08requested not only by staff and doing review but also uh residents as well as solar installers to make this process a little bit more streamlined so this will put us in line with those other eight cities in making solar permitting an easier easier process and our solar fees

0:01:25are among the lowest of all the nine cities I also wanted to mention that the library the Contra Costa Library will be holding a town hall meeting on September 9th that's Monday in this room at 7 pm there will be Refreshments served and you can come and give input to the

0:01:39county on what sorts of services you'd like to see in the future in terms of Library services also you can sign up now on the city's website for the golf Dynamo challenge this is a event that the city puts on every year it's at on September 9th as well Monday all day at the Mira Vista

0:01:58Golf and Country Club and the um the event benefits the David Hunter scholarship fund which is a great cause I also wanted to mention the city is putting on a walking tour on August 25th and this is a great uh um chance for residents to come on a walking tour of

0:02:16the Northern Hills of El Cerrito and to give input on how bicyclists and pedestrian Pathways can be improved and that's also on the city's website August 25th from 1 to 4 and it includes almost a three mile walk the walking tour so um bring your come with your strollers

0:02:34your bikes to to make it all the way around last thing I wanted to mention is that some of El Cerrito firefighters along with other firefighters from Contra Costa County were deployed to stanislaw County to help with fire problems in that area so I just wanted to recognize

0:02:50their absence and wish them safe safe Journeys and safe firefighting and that's it for me thank you council member Abelson announcements uh not today okay um with that we will move on to item three item three is oral Communications from the public this is on items that

0:03:10are not on the agenda or that are on the consent agenda I do have an announcement that we will be pulling item 5G from the consent calendar for discussion so if you are here to speak on item 5G it would not be during this time we do limit our oral comments to three minutes there is a

0:03:32light panel in front of the podium green is go yellow is one minute left and red is please stop or yellow is one minute left right and red is please stop um with that are there any uh public speakers we have two speakers at this time Tom panis is the first good evening mayor Lyman members of the

0:04:09staff and city council my name is Tom Panna and I live at [address removed] El Cerrito foreign announcement that the library is preferring that people sign up either on the city's website or through the county library website um a recent survey the city indicated

0:04:27widespread support for a new library but it'll be a grievous mistake to just build a new modern new library as Tina selig wrote in her recent book about Innovation the biggest failures of our lives are not failures of execution they are failures of imagination I'm not

0:04:41talking about bigging up building a big extravagant Library I'm talking about creating a unique place that caters to the diversity of our community in a fiscally sound manner how do we get there by investing a lot of time and energy up front I'm willing to do that and I trust others are

0:04:54willing to do that also we have a mind-numbing number of choices to consider let's partner a few of those thousands census statistics tell us that we have a very large Asian Community why shouldn't we be the home for a County Library Asian collection those same

0:05:07statistics tell us we have the highest percentage of single-sex couples in the county why shouldn't we be the home for a County Library LGBT collection we have many people in town for whom Google would love to have a borrower would love to have a more robust relationship or we

0:05:20can ask Google to wire our city with fiber and help with the library we have many sites from which to pick for example will we evaluate building a library at the Plaza BART renaming the station to Plaza Library and repairing the station to look like a stat like a

0:05:34shelf of books we have a town very interested in the Arts shouldn't our new library include a modest space for Library literary events Well non-library Services be delivered out of this building I'm not afraid to discuss these questions with the relevant parties and

0:05:49I'm not afraid to fail but let's consider the source these ideas came from a dull old engineer in El Cerrito we could do a whole lot better than that Tim Hurston talks about the third third he tells us if you want something brilliant you should throw out your first wavel ideas because they're too

0:06:06obvious shop worn and stale they're not at all brilliant once you get over your loss of the first round of ideas then generate a second wave they will be better and more inventive but the third wave will be the keepers if we want to create something bigger than ourselves we have to be willing to

0:06:21be uncomfortable and to entertain new ideas and Fringe thinking an amazing Vision will will arise if we nurture it Justin Brady wrote In The Wall Street Journal real creativity is messy chaotic sometimes even disgusting and reeks of failure experimentation and disorganization

0:06:39in my experience over the years I know that our city manager and assistant city manager aren't real wild about chaotic failure and disorganization not that our council members are either but if we aren't willing to stick out our necks be truly truly creative and

0:06:54embrace failure as a way to a higher goal if we aren't willing to do the hard work to learn from and convince every person and every organization in this town that this is their library then we're going to end up with a beautiful new library that might be a failure

0:07:08let's break the bounds of conventional thinking and Library planning what kind of future do we want in El Cerrito as Alabama case wrote the best way to predict the future is to invent it thank you for your time this evening Ralph boniello hi Ralph ponyello city of El Cerrito

0:07:30good evening mayor and members of the city council and fellow neighbors I'm here to announce uh as a I'm a member of friends of five Creeks which is a local Watershed conservation organization and Creek restoration organization and I'm here to announce that next Saturday

0:07:46August 24th at 10 A.M we're hosting a work party at Cerrito Creek at Hillside park or I'm sorry at Creekside Park which is um at the at the end of Santa Clara Avenue in El Cerrito and if you haven't been to Creekside Park it's one of the probably underappreciated gems in El Cerrito I

0:08:04invite you all to check it out sometime but we'll be there uh picking up trash at the park and along the creek and removing some invasive plants there and we have a variety of long-term projects going at that site so I invite all anybody who's interested in Creek issues

0:08:20in El Cerrito to come join us again that's next this coming Saturday at 10 A.M at Creekside Park here in El Cerrito thank you thank you we have no presentations this evening that brings us to item five which is adoption of the consent calendar um we have pulled item 5G for discussion is

0:08:44there any other items that would like to be pulled seeing none I'm looking for a motion I move adoption of the other items which are items 5A through 5f and 5 h through in 5H second the motion we have a motion it's been seconded to all those in favor please say aye

0:09:06let the record show that it passed unanimously um for item 5G would miss Malik Zeta please come forward and provide a brief presentation item five JG for those that are uh following these authorization for short-term cash loan from Municipal Services Corporation

0:09:35that are entering into a loan agreement with the MSC for 575 thousand dollars this is a short-term cash loan while we wait for our property tax revenues it's no interest loan and it will be repaid before the end of the fiscal year great thank you any questions for staff

0:09:55can I have a motion yeah I move approval of item 5G actually I guess I need to ask if there's any public speakers on this item I have no request to speak thank you we have a motion second emotion it's been seconded all those in favor please say aye aye no opposition no abstentions or well

0:10:12council member Bridges abstains I'll let this record show that they pass unanimously all right that brings us to item six uh tonight this the city council will hear an appeal to the city council to the city council by uh Chong Jin Li uh Dinah and I apologize Diana for

0:10:37mispronouncing your name in Jose William fingato Richard and Pauline Lee and David zimonek of the planning commission's approval of a conditional use permit to allow a wireless telecommunications facility near 851 Seaview Drive um first would the council like to disclose

0:11:00any Communications related to this appeal that took place outside of this meeting that you want to make sure is in the public record I would just a couple of communications to relay I received several detailed emails along with all the emails we received just from folks voicing their opposition or

0:11:18approval of the project but I did receive some detailed emails one from Chong Jin Lee one of the um one of the folks making the appeal and it was a detailed email that provided ideas for alternatives to the project and in addition to the text that he provided me which included how signals

0:11:39could be relayed um on Moser Lane how perhaps at T could use some of the city's existing infrastructure to place their fiber optics along the infrastructure up up through the hills or also to to consolidate the antenna into a larger antenna he also provided a number of

0:11:58pictures that provided images of other Das networks that are in um in lamp poles or in other sorts of devices that kind of hide hide them a little bit more than he thought the current proposal um allowed so that was one detailed email I also received a number of

0:12:16comments from Mary renfo which I believe everybody did receive about the sequa her concerns with um a full environmental analysis not having been done and the last one I received I'm not sure if others received this was from Mr kenmins from ATT and he provided me copies of the postcards

0:12:33which support ATT which are now in our binder so we did receive those now publicly I just wanted to disclose those because I received those before the meetings to make sure everyone was aware of that that's it thank you and and to that end so that everyone knows what we

0:12:46are looking at up here we do have a collection of supplemental Communications and Miss renfro's uh email from 10 a.m this morning is is supplemental to that set of communications we do have a copy of the appellants presentation and we also have a binder that was

0:13:10submitted to us from at T that uh has numerous attachments many of these attachments were in our um we're in the package that was delivered to the public but we will be asking ATT to at least um go through some of the new additions that they've made and if I can mention

0:13:31the binders in the front if anybody wants to review it now and um so I'd like to take an opportunity to outline the process for this evening's public hearing first of all I want to thank everyone for coming um that that's very important that you guys are here uh to participate in the

0:13:51community process after opening the public hearing I will request a presentation from staff who I see is already standing by ready following the staff presentation the council will provide an opportunity for both the appellant and the applicant to each make a 10-minute presentation

0:14:08at the conclusion of their presentations uh we will let's see when when do we get to ask questions I'm reading a script I apologize um we will hear from anyone who has signed up with the city clerk if you have not submitted a speaker slip please do so now they're the blue slips uh

0:14:26being held up in the interest of ensuring that everyone who wants to have an opportunity to speak remarks will be limited in their duration and that will be determined once we have a collection of speaker comments it'll be either two or three minutes after the public has spoken I will then

0:14:44provide the applicant and the appellant each five minutes to respond to the public comments after everyone has had an opportunity to speak at the public hearing I will seek a motion to close the public hearing um Mr Woodruff at what point does the council ask questions of either the

0:15:03appellant or the applicant um the Apple the the council members can ask questions of the applicant and the appellant during their presentations for the purposes of clarification and and obtaining greater information of use to the council and and we will not deduct

0:15:17that from their 10 minutes is that correct that's correct okay um therefore we will now begin the public hearing and uh Miss Kavanaugh Lynch would you like to begin your presentation thank you very much Mr Mayor Margaret Cavanaugh Lynch development services manager

0:15:36I thought I'd start tonight's presentation with a brief chronology on January 10 2013 new Singular Wireless doing businesses 18 T Mobility submitted applications for six Wireless telecommunication facilities on existing utility pools in the city of El Cerrito planning staff reviewed the applications

0:15:55with the city attorney and determined that pursuant to the El Cerrito Municipal Code chapter 1928 that both a conditional use permit and a design review application would be required to review the applications in order to allow the bodies of decision to consider each separate location on

0:16:12its own merits each location was treated as a separate application the staff reports for both the design review board and the Planning Commission discuss all the locations in one report to avoid excessive duplication but each received its own findings and each had its own

0:16:26resolution on May 1st 2013 the designer View Board conducted a preliminary conceptual review of the applications the El Cerrito zoning ordinance specifies that applications which require both Planning Commission and design review board consideration must first be presented to the the design

0:16:43review board for preliminary conceptual review at this meeting the board doesn't make a formal decision or recommendation but rather gives comments that are forwarded to the Planning Commission for use in their consideration of the project on May 13 2013 the applicant withdrew

0:17:00one application for its Wireless telecommunications facility on June 19th the Planning Commission held a public hearing took public testimony and after a thorough consideration of the facts and evidence and the comments received acted to approve each of the five applications

0:17:16in each case the Planning Commission made all the findings required in two different sections of the El Cerrito Municipal Code so one under the general use permit findings um that are required for any use from it considered into the city of El Cerrito and in a separate set of findings that

0:17:34are specific to telecommunication facilities in what we call the section of the code of 19.28 on July 1st the Planning Commission approval of the application near 851 Seaview Drive was appealed to the city council by the list of appellants stated by the mayor previous to this

0:17:55although not part of consideration for the appeal itself it should be noted that on August 7 2013 the design review board held a public hearing and took public testimony and after their thorough consideration of the facts acted to deny the design review approval

0:18:10of the other four applications to not necessarily germane to this appeal but just to be clear that that has occurred prior to this hearing date next I'd like to present the context that the Planning Commission had before them when they considered the utility uh

0:18:27the the telecommunication at near 851 Sea View first and foremost um as most of you are aware there is the federal Telecommunications Act the regulation of wireless communication communication facilities excuse me by local jurisdictions is governed by the federal Telecom Telecommunications Act

0:18:47of 1960s of 1996 I'm sorry as well as by local ordinance the Telecommunications Act prevents local jurisdictions from prohibiting or having the effect of prohibiting the provision of provisional Wireless services in addition the ACT States that cities shall not unreasonably

0:19:08discriminate among providers or functional equivalent services under the act the city must allow all Wireless providers a means of providing coverage to our city this does not mean that if the city permits ATT to install the Das nodes on utility poles that the city would be

0:19:26required to waive the public review process for similar sites of other Wireless providers any future proposals for wireless telecommunication facilities would be subject to the public process that is called out in section 19.28 of the municipal code the Telecommunications Act also

0:19:45prohibits cities from regulating Wireless telecommunication facilities based on health effects or concerns the ACT States quote no state or local government or instrument thereof May regulate the placement construction or modification of personal wireless service facilities

0:20:02on the basis of environmental effects of radio frequency emissions to the extent that such facilities comply with the fcc's regulations concerning such emissions so that's the first large rather National legal context in which the Planning Commission made its deliberations

0:20:20in El Cerrito every decision of the Planning Commission is also weighed against the context of our general plan and our zoning ordinance which is specifically Point 1928 to avoid reading the findings made by the Planning Commission that night we've actually provided some slides and

0:20:39hopefully then the public can see as well these are starting with the general findings that any use permit in the city of El Cerrito have to make uh the deciding body has to find in favor of these findings in order to approve a use permit so that's the general findings which start out in

0:20:56section 19.34040 um and then in addition to those findings the um Planning Commission on the June 19th hearing found that the section 19.28.060 A and C uh and as we scroll through you can see that they made the findings for each of those Criterion uh in order to in fact

0:21:25approve the uh location in front of them that evening so that sets the the discussion that went before the Planning Commission Now to I'd like to present the specific project that's under appeal before you this evening the proposed Wireless facility near 851 Seaview drive is part of the proposed

0:21:51distributed antenna system or Das Network in the East Bay Hills ATT is currently processing applications for other portions of the network in the cities of Oakland and Berkeley as well as Contra Costa County namely in Kensington the Das networks typically consist of

0:22:07lower powered nodes connected to a common connection point however each of the proposed Das nodes will be connected to the att's existing fiber optic optic infrastructure at the site of each poll the applicant currently operates a wireless communication telecommunication

0:22:28facilities at the El Cerrito Plaza at a church located at 6830 Stockton Avenue and at the Super 8 Motel on 6009 Potrero Avenue despite these facilities the applicant has noted that the Topography of the East Bay Hills presents coverage challenges the applicant has decided to pursue the

0:22:50Das Network as a way to provide a more consistent coverage in the Hills the proposed nodes would provide both voice and data singles using both 3G and 4G LTE technology the applicant has provided propagation maps to show the coverage gaps in the El Cerrito area

0:23:10locations for additional Wireless to telecommunications in the portion of El Cerrito where this facility is proposed or currently limited the area is almost exclusively residential with the exception of public facilities such as Huber Park and El Cerrito High School

0:23:29the Das node is proposed to be located on top of an existing utility pole through the use of a seven foot extension the two proposed antennas would be approximately two feet tall and would be mounted at the top of the pole extension the top of the antenna would sit approximately three feet above

0:23:47the top of the pole the complete installation would therefore increase the height of the existing pole by 10 feet all equipment for the facility would be mounted on the pole and at this time no equipment is proposed to be ground mounted finally I'd like to turn our attention

0:24:05to the discussion of the appeal itself the applicant excuse me the appellants submitted a 10-page appeal describing their main concerns in nine points the complete 10-page appeal is an attachment to your staff report that you have before you this evening for tonight's report I would like to

0:24:25present a summary of the appeal basically summary Point by summary point with staff's response Point appellate Point number one the antenna are not to serve the residents in the vicinity but if we're relying signals up into the Hills the city of El Cerrito um staff must rely on the applicant to

0:24:47respond to technical discussion points the applicant has informed the staff that although a t is seeking to deploy the Das across a large portion of the East Bay Hills each node would function as an independent site providing wireless coverage to the immediate area

0:25:02the proposed nodes do allow calls from moving vehicles in transition from one facility to another just as the macro installations do appellant points two and three um they really build on the same issue point two was alternative installation methods are available and at T is aware

0:25:22of them and three at T singular should pursue relaying signals from the closest optic fiber base station and the most direct route up the hills through less densely populated areas using the half Mass installation method staff response the applicant is responsible again for submitting the

0:25:40most suitable installations to fulfill the needs of their particular telecommunication companies need to serve the clients of our city and as part of the initial review of any Wireless telecommunication application staff discusses each application with applicants to identify the least

0:25:57intrusive method of constructing any of their proposed installations to that end there are many telecommunication installation sites throughout the city that are invisible to the public in support of that policy the zoning ordinance establishes a much simpler non-discretionary process for

0:26:13applications that are not visible or as you see in the municipal code we call the stealth locations things that can appear inside existing church towers for example don't require this level of review the appellants note that the neighboring community of Kensington in the

0:26:31neighboring community of Kensington some of the installations are mounted halfway down the utility pole in this example ATT revised their initial submittal for sites where it was feasible to lower the elevation from the antenna on the pole the antenna projects off the side

0:26:47of the pole below the existing PG e lines the California Public Utilities Commission or cpuc requires a minimum separation of six feet between the proposed Das antennas and the existing PG e lines the applicant has informed staff that the height of the antennas at this site

0:27:05in question is as low as possible to still meet the mandated separation requirements and their goal of providing the needed coverage appellant point four the immediate impact of the proposed antenna extended on top of the utility pole will ruin the view from the hills

0:27:21inevitably destroying property value lower property value will result in a loss of taxes to the city step response none of the findings required by the municipal code for wireless telecommunication facilities I apologize I really should work on that word identify property values as a specific

0:27:42item to be considered in making a decision however the potential for aesthetic and safety impacts of a wireless telecommunication facilities to decrease property values is recognized in applicable case law as a legitimate basis for concluding that a proposed project would negatively affect the

0:27:59public health safety and Welfare the applicable case law also instructs however that such a conclusion must be based on substantial evidence in the record moreover the evidence cannot consist solely of speculation or assertions of individuals without the expertise or

0:28:15experience necessary to form such valid conclusions thus the city council must consider how much weight to give the opinions expressed by the appellants regarding the effect of the proposed facility on nearby property values as well as any contrary evidence in the record for the

0:28:30hearing including this staff report and any potential opinions provided by technical experts during this hearing staff researched this issue and were unable to identify any existing study provided that provided conclusive evidence that the Das antennas have a negative impact on property values

0:28:48further the appellants have presented a hypothetical regarding the effects of a decrease in property values resulting from the proposed facility but their letter does not contain evidence that such decrease would actually occur therefore the city council should

0:29:01consider what way to give the evidence in the record regarding this issue if it finds that there is evidence to support both positions it may add its discretion determine which position it believes to be better supported if the city council bases its decision in part on this issue the council must

0:29:18identify the evidence in the record to support its conclusion and explain the quote really the analytical bridge that connects the evidence to the conclusion that it can or cannot make the necessary findings in El Cerrito staff has noted that some Criterion that is commonly used when

0:29:36establishing has noted some of the Criterion that is commonly used when establishing home values home values in our city and in most cities rise and decrease in price based on the recent sale of other homes comparable with comparable lot sizes and house sizes other items that appeared to impact

0:29:54housing prices include the reputation of the school districts the views the walkability or connectivity of local amenities and crime statistics as evidence to this statement staff notes that when a new residential listing is placed on the real estate market these are the types of

0:30:09information listed on the sales information and used in an appraisal when financing is being evaluated staff has never seen a notation of a utility pole or a sell site in particular in the assessment of a housing value in the end the city council is not required to reach any conclusion

0:30:25regarding the property values it may base its decision on whether there is substantial evidence in the record regarding other issues that support the city council's ability to make or not make the findings for the proposed facility the larger issue of damage from the view

0:30:43of the view from the hills was discussed by members of the Planning Commission during their public hearing it was noted in the meeting that many Commissioners as well as the staff had visited the utility poll near 851 Seaview and had felt while the installation was not visually pleasing

0:30:59it did not appear to be substantially blocking the view of any dwelling however no commission member or staff person had the opportunity to view the poll from inside the adjacent residences pellet points five and nine the Kensington Planning Commission has denied the applications as of February

0:31:182013.

0:31:19as a result singular has now reduced its plan to install antenna in Kensington singular has now proposed to place a macro Tower in El Cerrito to reduce the number of antennae it placed in Kensington and 0.9 steps into that by saying El Cerrito stands to lose singular's stands to lose as singular

0:31:37has revised its plans for Kensington Stafford response it is true that a new application has been made to the city of El Cerrito to add a macro Tower to the top of the Mojo corridor it is also true that at T has reduced its number of proposed sites in the unincorporated community of Kensington

0:31:56while these two facts are concerning they have no impact on the decision of the Planning Commission that is the subject of tonight's appeal appellate issue number six the antenna violates the city of El Cerrito's Wireless ordinance specifically section 1928 040 which again is the wireless

0:32:15telecommunications section staff response that section of code establishes the requirements for a wireless telecommunications facilities in the city it states quote all Wireless telecommunication facilities subject to this chapter shall be located developed and operated in compliance with the

0:32:32following standards unless the zoning administrator or the Planning Commission approves a use permits subject to the findings in section 1928.060 as previously stated the Planning Commission upon reviewing the application with the city attorney determined that the application required

0:32:49both a conditional use permit by the Planning Commission and as well as a design review board approval the planning commission's June 19th conditional use permit made the findings contained in section 1934040 which in general English is the standard use permit findings

0:33:07as well as the findings in section 1928060 since the Planning Commission approved the use permit subject to the findings the the the standard that they're calling out in section 1928 is not applicable basically the findings are made in Greater detail by the Planning

0:33:24Commission appellant issue number seven insufficient time was given to this matter and the due process from the public hearing to the Planning Commission decision was unclear to the residents as compared to the Contra Costa procedure public studies should be conducted

0:33:41as a matter of background the Contra Costa County and the city of El Cerrito have very different paths the review of discretionary projects ATT submitted applications for nine Wireless Das nodes for Kensington to Contra Costa County in January as an unincorporated Community Land Use

0:33:59decisions in Kensington are made by the Contra Costa County Planning Commission Kensington also has an advisory body called the Kensington Municipal advisory Council or kmac in February the kmac considered the applications and recommended the Planning Commission denied them all

0:34:20the applicant subsequently revised the applications to withdraw three nodes and determine that for the two proposed nodes it was feasible to propose an antenna mounted to the side of the utility poles they came at considered the revised applications on July 30th 2013.

0:34:36the committee recommended that the Planning Commission approved the two revised side mounted installations and recommended that the commission commission denied the remaining four applications the Planning Commission for Contra Costa County has not yet considered these

0:34:51applications when Staff last spoke to the county staff the applications had not been scheduled for a Planning Commission meeting as a separate jurisdiction from the county the city of El Cerrito was governed by its own municipal code section 19.32050 of this code stipulates the

0:35:09required legal noticing requirements for public hearings held by the Planning Commission all legal noticing requirements of the planning commission's public hearing of the June 19th meeting were met the notice was mailed to all Property Owners within 300 feet of the subject utility

0:35:25poll on June 6 and appeared in the West County Times on Friday June 7th in addition pursuant to section 1932.050d zoning administrator has the prerogative to require additional notice in this case because the proposed sites were in the public right-of-way and therefore did not have

0:35:45addresses or personal numbers staff posted hearing notice on the subject polls so they are readily identifiable to the public also notable the appeal in tonight's staff report provides what appellants were able to gather by the appeal deadline when the appeal was submitted staff

0:36:01informed the appellants that this was at as this was a de novo style hearing the council will act on all the evidence and testimony provided including at tonight's hearing so in essence the appellants have had the right to gather and present evidence right up until this

0:36:16evening's hearing when you when you actually close the public comment we have only one more repellent point and then a conclusion so thank you for bearing with me appellant Point number eight most families are concerned with electromagnetic field the antenna will

0:36:35stand as a constant reminder of EMF it will create a tremendous mental stress to the families we included a signed Petition of 28 families in the vicinity staff response it is not unusual that members of the public have concerns regarding the possible health effects of

0:36:51wireless communication equipment however as stated earlier the Telecommunications Act prohibits cities from regulating Wireless telecommunication facilities based on health effects or concerns um finally although not part of the formal appeal uh staff received comments regarding the

0:37:13possible improper use of the categorical exemption to sequa Steph felt that adding this discussion to the appeal report might assist the Council Members in their deliberations this evening the basis of the charge that staff has heard is that the project has been

0:37:27piecemealed by the city and the applicant since the city processed five applications for wireless devices at the same time the charge maintains that all the devices should have been considered as part of an overall project for SQL purposes staff also believes that this line of

0:37:44questioning excuse me of questioning is related to a possible concern of the cumulative effects of these applications and the fact that that consideration is being ignored in an unpublished opinion from not from 2012 this California court of appeal considered a similar charge arising from

0:38:03the approval of approximately 40 Wireless facilities attached to an existing utility poles throughout the city of San Francisco because the decision is unpublished it is not citable as a precedent but the facts are similar to the current matter and therefore the ruling is instructive

0:38:20for the council this evening in the ruling the court disagreed with the residents and upheld the city's determination that all the facilities included in the Telecommunications Company project fell within a categorical exemption to sequa which applies to the construction installation

0:38:34or conversion of a limited number of small facilities structures or equipment further when a project is categorically exempt the court confirmed no environmental review is necessary and the project May proceed without any SQL analysis or compliance whatsoever finally the court acknowledged that the

0:38:53exemption must be denied if a fair argument can be made that the cumulative impact of the successful successive installations of the same type and same place will result in result in a significant adverse environmental impact however the court concluded unless there

0:39:09is a fair argument that future installations will be located within the sensory range of the other similar equipment the categorical exemption here is not negated by the cumulative impact exemption staff does not believe that there is evidence in the record to support such

0:39:26an argument so that is the concise version of the staff report before you I'm here to answer any questions that you may have of the project planner Sean Moss is also here and together we hope to be able to answer staff questions this concludes our report thank you very much uh

0:39:44councilmember Friedman any questions for staff not at this time councilmember Benson I'll just ask one at this time um thank you Margaret can you talk about the process the staff went through to determine the Str whether or not the plans proposed by a t would pose a

0:40:01potential Danger on the utility polls in the event of an earthquake or what process will be gone through once they're installed if they are to be installed certainly in this case the utility poles are the property of PG e and um at an entitlement level it's we don't

0:40:21discuss structural analysis of existing polls however anything added to a PG e utility poll comes with PG e being the party that is responsible for making sure they are safely attached and as earthquake sound excuse me as the utility polls are currently okay thank you

0:40:42councilman Ray Wilson any questions for Steph um I have some questions I was just trying to figure out who the right party is to ask them of um maybe I'll try you out first if that's okay and you follow me if you're not the right one um the first one I had uh was I was

0:41:02trying to understand the um the the uh impact of the surface area of this application and I saw that there were some before and after in various things but they weren't always presented in a way that were helpful as helpful to me as I would have liked so what I'm kind of wondering

0:41:29now is it kept talking about um Southern El Cerrito or South El Cerrito um and um is there can you describe the coverage area of this proposal certainly uh Sean would you mind pulling up the propagation map for that or so we can show you that area and and we state that the

0:41:58purview of the city is to allow an application that was basically fill in the gaps in in the purification Maps um as far as how this service works in the technical aspects of it I would uh defer that level of the questioning too my question is more uh what is the area of

0:42:16this application you know what area is it covering exactly because it was kind of hard I mean it was actually I agree I agree and um so maybe maybe we can dim the lights and and so I can we can see the slides a little better um and then I can I can try to explain

0:42:34the the propagation Maps okay uh so these are our three propagation maps that the applicant submitted as part of their application uh the the first is uh a map showing the existing their existing wireless coverage um the stars on the map denote the locations of the proposed Das nodes uh

0:42:59the uh you'll see that the city limits are are shown uh sort of in red or orangish color on the map um the all these these Stars show um all of their proposed nodes in the East Bay Hills so it's it's a little bit can you please use the mouse to indicate some of the things that you are

0:43:16highlighting right thank you so this is even less readable than piece of paper I think but what I'm kind of wondering is where I'm wondering how much is in El Cerrito how much isn't um and then the what color represents what in what okay now because it kept changing what color represented what

0:43:39okay oh it was rather hard to follow I had to explain as best I can using the the mouse pointer um so that you'll see this line here is the city limits where um it's there's there's sort of an orange line here if you look at your screen the mouse is actually showing

0:43:56what's on there yes exactly thank you so this line here that's on the east side right correct over by the cemetery right so all of all of these stars that are on the uh west side of that line um I no not not for this presentation the applicant has informed me that they

0:44:21actually have a slide that's in the binders that you receive this evening but maybe they have an overhead that they can present to to clarify this would it be better to have them do it that was why I asked that I wasn't sure who I should ask the question is it part

0:44:35of your presentation I see your head nodding so we can skip that until then and um that might um help and um I I had a question about would it be necessary maybe this isn't this is an applicant question never mind um I mean yeah an applicant um experience two um

0:45:03I think that's all the questions I have at this time thank you thank you um if I understood your presentation correctly a private property owner could potentially put something on their side of their house roof that looked like a chimney but it would actually potentially be a concealed antenna and

0:45:24they would not go through any public use permit uh process there's actually two layers to that if somebody put a uh architectural element on a commercial structure that would require that totally concealed the antenna within that would require designer view board

0:45:44approval um honestly if somebody did that to a residential structure that may be considered a stealth without drb because our design review board primarily speaks to commercial and and so that's what I'm saying is that right now at 8 50 uh Sea View if that owner decided to put up a chimney

0:46:06looking thing that was a stealth antenna they could is that correct the um the the wireless uh chapter of the zoning ordinance does set up different standards for residential zoning districts versus non-residential zoning districts as far as Wireless telecommunications facilities

0:46:27um so I I don't um you know off the top of my head I don't know the nuances of those um but I I believe that it because this is a because it would be in a single-family residential zoning District I I don't think that that would be allowed without planning permission

0:46:42approval okay great thank you um and uh then my other question would be um let's see no it's a question like like you it's a question for the applicant um with that uh I'd like to move on with the public hearing if we can um is there a representative representative of the appellant present

0:47:11uh I'm sorry excuse me Mr Mayor I'm sorry to interrupt but um we actually the the staff had actually asked me to cover a couple of legal items in addition prior to moving on to public comments and I apologize I apologize to you for interrupting and for delaying

0:47:25the public opportunity to speak but we felt that given the legal complexities involved that it would be helpful if I covered a few points for the benefit of the council and the public this evening um and I will try and keep this as brief as possible there are four general areas

0:47:39that I do want to cover um one is um just to um uh re-emphasize some of the points already made in the staff report regarding the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

0:47:51um there are two and that within that there are two things that I want to highlight one is that federal government in enacting that law preempted local regulation of Wireless telecommunications and other telecommunications in a number of areas it left control in some areas but but

0:48:08significantly preempted the ability of local governments to regulate these types of facilities among the types among the areas that the federal government said local governments could not consider under any circumstances as a part of their deliberations is the effects on human health of

0:48:25electromagnetic fields and radio frequency emissions they've basically said that as long as those facilities are operating within FCC guidelines that local governments can't consider those factors in making their decisions about permitting facilities additionally what the courts have said

0:48:43in interpreting that provision of the law is that um EMF and I'm going to end up using EMF and RF interchangeably um just as a matter of of discussion but what the courts have said is that that EMF can't be used as a that other factors that local government can

0:49:03normally use to make decisions about land use issues can't be proxies for EMF in other words um if residents Express a concern about the effects of EMF on property values if local regulations allow for the consideration of property values as a general welfare item and making a

0:49:24decision the the local government can't use those property value factors in making their decisions when they're really acting as a proxy for EMF considerations um the other thing that I want to want to touch upon regarding the Telecommunications Act is not about what

0:49:44um not exactly about what the what local government can't do but about what the intent of the law is and and how that bears on on The council's deliberations Tonight one of the primary motivations of the law was to um enhance competitiveness among telecommunications companies

0:50:02um the the federal government believing that greater competition would result in benefits to Consumers um in pricing and and scope of services um but in attempting to ensure that um telecommunications companies were able to compete one of the things that that the federal government attempted to do

0:50:20was to limit the ability of local government to discriminate among providers and one of the things that they found to be potentially discriminatory is to prevent Wireless telecommunications providers from filling gaps in their coverage when other um when their competitors were

0:50:39potentially already providing service in that area and so the way the Telecommunications Act is written it is potentially discrimination against um an applicant Wireless telecommunications provider to deny a proposal to fill a gap in coverage when the applicant can demonstrate that such

0:50:58coverage Gap exists that the proposal will fill that Gap and that it's the least intrusive means of doing so so those are all factors that that that the applicant Bears the burden of demonstrating for the most part I don't want to get into technicalities of all

0:51:13this but but basically that's the the structure of it um and I also although I and I'm sorry I I skipped over one subpoint that I wanted to make regarding um uh the EMF considerations and that's that as I did mention um local government can't consider those as long as the proposed facilities are

0:51:31operating within FCC guidelines local governments can require regular reporting to demonstrate that approved facilities are in fact operating within those guidelines um the next area that I wanted to touch on regards the process for this hearing so that both the council and the public

0:51:47have an understanding of of what you're doing tonight this type of hearing is referred to um in something that lawyers love which is Latin um it's called the de novo hearing which basically means that the council isn't just reviewing the decision that the Planning Commission

0:52:03reaches to determine whether or not it committed error basically all of the issues in the appeal are before the council tonight and all of the evidence that's submitted is available to you to review in making that determination however um the the even though a cenovo the the

0:52:22scope of the the hearing is limited to what the what the appellants actually raise on appeal so even though the Planning Commission heard five applications together um the appellants chose to appeal only one of those the one that's in front of you tonight and so the other the other

0:52:43approved facilities are not part of the appeal tonight because they were not raised by the appellants additionally in reaching a decision the city council has to base its base its determinations on the evidence that is in the record that includes the written materials that were provided to you in

0:52:59the staff report anything that's provided to you tonight during the public hearing and the oral comments that are provided in reaching your determination you are required you it has to be based on substantial evidence in the record um and what the courts have said as a

0:53:15rough definition substantial evidence is more than a mere sintilla but it is less than a preponderance um within that range it is not precise but within that range um is all that's required and finally as it was mentioned in the staff report you have a series of

0:53:30findings that you are required to make um and um while the the Planning Commission um uh resolution and the resolution in front of you lay out a series of explanations for how the evidence that that was in the record at the time the resolution was written would bridge the

0:53:50gap between the facts and the required findings if you want to either um uh reject the staff recommendation or make some other determination or just in essence decide that you can't make some of the required findings you need to be able to explain how there is an

0:54:08insufficient evidence in the record for you to do that alternatively if you wish to alter any of the findings you need to be able to explain how the evidence in the record supports that altered finding um very briefly um because I know that there have been some questions raised

0:54:23about it um the there as some of the city council members will recall there was a moratorium on um the issuance of some Wireless telecommunications facilities permits in the city um for two years the purpose of that was to provide staff with an opportunity to determine whether or not the wireless

0:54:41telecommunications facilities ordinance that's already in place um was adequate to um the current form of technology and other types of app and other issues that are raised in applications that are coming before the city during that two-year review period ultimately the staff concluded that

0:55:03um that that the the ordinance as it exists is relatively state of the art it was drafted in 2008 and although technology has changed somewhat it is not the ordinance isn't so out of date that it isn't functional for the city staff also concluded that there weren't

0:55:18significant measures that could be taken that would radically alter um the way that wireless facilities are being rolled out in El Cerrito um and certainly there were not enough to justify bringing changes to the council um and so ultimately the the moratorium was allowed to lapse without bringing

0:55:36anything forward to the council to consider because staff ultimately concluded that the ordinance was sufficient for the applications coming forward the last thing that I want to touch on briefly is sequa there's actually a significant amount of information in the

0:55:49staff report so I don't want to belabor this point um but it was staff's conclusion based on their expertise and experience in this area that there was not sufficient evidence to demonstrate that there would be a significant negative environmental impact or cumulative impact that would

0:56:09preclude the use of the categorical exemptions for each of the five applications that that were submitted or that even considered cumulatively that the impacts of each of those five would would preclude the use of the categorical exemptions or even if each of those five in El Cerrito was

0:56:25considered in conjunction with the other similar facilities that at T is applying for in the East Bay that even that would result in a sufficiently cumulative impact or that there would be anything distinguishing about the totality of those applications that would preclude

0:56:39the use of the categorical exemption um so and I want to point out that it's not the case um that that just because there is more than one categorically exempt project of a similar nature being processed at the same time that that necessarily will result in a cumulative impact

0:57:00um and finally as was discussed in the staff report it's our view that the SQL guidelines and the case law that exists in this area supports staff's approach of dealing with each k each application individually and their conclusion that the categorical exemption supports

0:57:15um the um supports applies to each of the five applications um so ultimately the council has to agree with that determination but that was staff's determination based on the evidence that was submitted and I will those are in my remarks and if the council has any questions for me I'm

0:57:34certainly happy to take those at that at this time yeah this question may be for Ms Kavanaugh Lynch how many existing DS Das Towers in total do we have in El Cerrito from all carriers the staff would have to actually have to research that I don't know the total

0:57:56number of dis city-wide the project planner may have some additional information on that we we don't have any uh we currently don't have any of uh Das nodes in the city okay how many cell phone facilities that maybe aren't called bass do we have uh that I would I do have a list but I I

0:58:17would have to look it up I I don't know if the top of my head okay and how many does a t have currently they should be able to answer that right ATT has has three I believe three sites in the city so they have uh one-sided El Cerrito Plaza one side at 6830 Stockton

0:58:36which is the the church uh near Stockton and and Richmond uh and they have the soup a site at the Super 8 motel at 6009 Potrero um also is there any precedent for carriers going together to jointly have a facility so that there would be less impact on the community in terms of

0:58:59multiple sites from competing carriers the ordinance actually suggests that as a Optimum idea co-locating is strongly encouraged in our or in our zoning ordinance however the applicant for reasons that they can explain stated that's not possible in this in this

0:59:17project thank you any other further questions for staff or City attorney seeing none we will move on to the appellants presentation is there representative from the appellant is it please come forward and you'll have 10 minutes to put your presentation together do you need time to load it on

0:59:45the computer how about some assistance from staff thanks thank you really weird power point [Music] good evening welcome Mr Lee thank you Lee of [address removed] I'm here to uh hopefully a grand or peel since the Planning Commission they were really uh business own neighborhood and came up

1:00:33with a conclusion that is the antenna will be compatible with our living environment uh I would like to show you our neighborhood a little bit more uh this is from my neighbor's front porch and when you walk out the front porch that's what he will be seeing and if the antenna is up that's what

1:00:55that's what he will be looking at and that's a and everybody would agree that's a tin can that's what I saw and sometimes sometimes someone's bad joke that put on the pole now this is for another neighbor and this number is just moved in less than a year ago from an outer town and a very

1:01:16nice neighbor is a couple and they have had a lot of favor to the flavor to the neighborhood and we will enjoy the company a lot and guess what they have to look at from gig deck to the French door now it's something very distasteful and it's another antenna it's

1:01:37this is an ISO and right in the line of vision now going up one street above us you see that that Paul is right in the middle here if I pinpoint it with my mouse here foreign people from far above can still sit now every day we go through this road here going down it's going it's you can

1:02:05see probably it's on slope and the thing right in front of us is the antenna it's a constant reminder that there is an antenna there and it's there to greet us when we come back from school or work and my kids will look at it everybody's kids would look at it we'll look at it

1:02:23and that will if that thing is there there will be kind of The Testament of the decision made by the Planning Commission now as you know the topology of El Cerrito Hills no matter where you walk you see a pole that is really standing up and that's the kind of pole that ATT looked

1:02:44for because there's clear lines of sight I'll call them the outstanding pause this outstanding pole can be seen from far and everywhere up or down left or right wherever you're coming from you can see them and with 10 feet above those outstanding pole you can I can

1:03:01guarantee them they're very obvious now the desired billboard rightly rejected the four other antennas and I think that really have narrowed down that is this visual clutter and we cannot agree more now the digital impact is make worse by the topography because Topography of this area is hilly

1:03:26the antenna operates by lines of sites and this means that this giant Pawn will always be in someone's line of sight as well and this is cumulative this is a visual impact it's an environmental stress NOW essential mentioned the antenna is actually can be in someone's line of

1:03:50sight this is quite amazing to me have you learned in so many places enable scene and antenna that I can look into it's ridiculous it has to be way above our heads or other side everything that with this kind of antenna set up the whole project as we call it together

1:04:10with other antennas as unsafe for the community now let me explain why it's answered this is a constant as you know else reader is a lot of areas in a lens like area and we have a constant line movement and when we call this the land of laning poles we kind of love it but you know

1:04:32but when Paul shifts with a power density shift too complexity is so radiation from the radio frequency now FCC does regulates power density however FCC only inspect facilities that's above 200 feet tall they're not concerning themselves with anything lower and the cpuc California Public

1:04:58Utility Commission does not inspect the polls at all now the question is who will monitor the ongoing compliance with the Federal Regulation and that makes us worry now I want to show you something awesome yes can we have the sound okay so now I'll show you this is

1:05:19on Dwight Way Berkeley a similar antenna and this is an EMF detector now what you have to look at if it's above two milligaus 2.0 here is above the power density guideline of the feather up FCC and keep watching it you see that it's very close to two already [Music]

1:05:47and that's the antenna see we see here the two there now it's 3.7 4.0 3.8 for 3.7 and that is 3.7 roughly put it four it's not twice the EMF in Miracles is twice of 2.0 but it doesn't mean it's twice it'll turn the power density that's about 4.5 times of FCC limit

1:06:20now let's bring the cursor to home Stockton the Chinese Church oops excuse me sorry started with 2.3 now it's getting 2.6 2.8 2.7 2.6 this is ridiculous now this can be this hot soccer Hot Spot can well be somebody standing there it can be somebody's bedroom with a baby

1:06:53sleeping in it it can be some elderly with pacemaker walking through and not knowing stopping there talking to a friend and this has no visual warning now another thing is that as you recall this is called d-a-s antenna distributed antenna system it's a system it cannot be persecuted it cannot be

1:07:18processed as one single antenna it's a big project an auto Interlink and they have cumulative effect why because the relay signal to each other and the large houses in El Cerrito if not in the Thousand will be under the line of sights of all these telecommunications

1:07:36relaying signal now this disguise the by having separate application that these guys the impacts of the whole project and applicants submit a separate application for each antenna this is improper peace Milling understate law the project is of all the antenna it should not be analyzed for

1:07:54its visual hazardous and should be analyzed for its visual hazardous and other impacts and project alternative including a no projectemic should have been done before a SQL exam no I we think that antenna are necessary we leave that we know and they shouldn't be better evidence of a single

1:08:14significant Gap in elsewhere residential area because we already have a lot of options now ATT have this propagation map and actually by the way kind of changing a little bit they want to keep tracking it now they say that there is a gap they have to prove it you know I don't know whether I should

1:08:37listen to them or not why because only website they said they have good coverage already they have 4G coverage I mean it's from the same company now which one should I listen to if I if I even choose to listen to atnt which one should I listen to that's ridiculous we need a solid proof

1:08:57from a third-party independent study before we can accept this and the city is not able at this time to adopt a normal term as I understand because of its prime moratorium expired and this doesn't mean the city must approve the project by all of you the project is ugly it's unsafe as I've

1:09:18shown you and we therefore urge the city first to Grant an appeal and deny the antenna located on 851 Sea View Drive as well as other antenna they might be still pending in the project now employee independent third-party Consulting with the full knowledge of the residents to conduct studies on

1:09:44Elliot alleged signal gaps ultimately for designated location this is what we really would love to be out of the residential area and to craft the most protective audience for the residents cause of the study as you wouldn't wear away can be and should be paid by the

1:10:01wireless operators as we have of applicants now they can pay for it now we should work towards a comprehensive Wireless ordinance to control the placements of Wireless facilities in the least intrusive designated locations for co-locations by the way for any project that is approved we have to

1:10:22ensure that I hope the city will ensure that ongoing monitoring of the power density because there is a very very serious Hazard because we cannot see him thank you very much thank you Mr Lee [Applause] foreign [Applause] thank you at this time we would like to have is

1:11:18Ken mincer Ken uh from external Affairs for ATT to have 10 minutes and Mr Lee I want to thank you very much for staying inside your 10 minutes thank you Mr Mayor members of council my name is Ken Mintz I'm the area manager of external Affairs for ATT here in Contra Costa County we're pleased to be

1:11:43with you this evening I'm going to keep my presentation relatively brief we are here in El Cerrito as a company to fill a significant Gap in wireless coverage with the least intrusive means possible that's what we're sending out to do on this particular site on Sea View you

1:12:05can see from and this information is in your binders as well uh before and after picture and existing and proposed site what I really want to start with though is uh why we have this significant gapping coverage if if you were to look at a report that was done by the CDC it was just turned

1:12:26out a couple months ago in the second half of 2012 over 38 percent of the U.S population has removed landline telephones from their homes they're using a combination of broadband and wireless capabilities now that's a large number almost 40 percent of the U.S populations have cut the cord on

1:12:49regular landline telephones from the first half of 2012 that number was already up two and a half percent to the second half it's an increasing number is is growing steadily as a company we're putting a lot of emphasis across the entire country on ensuring that we're meeting the demand and the

1:13:08expectations of the U.S population um more people are using their mobile devices for a home for uh services in addition to voice high-speed data texting video conferencing with the strong adoption of smartphones and just this past week report came out that worldwide more smartphones are now being

1:13:32sold in regular voice on mobile phones customers are using Wireless Broadband applications and growing numbers with this they are expecting the same level or greater reliability than they would have received in their landline systems this means when they have an

1:13:49emergency at home they need to know with confidence that their phone is going to work when as a company we start to look across our territory at where we have coverage gaps we set out to try to fix those gaps and we're talking about two different Technologies one is the 3G and

1:14:07one is the 4G the third generation UMTS is what it is is pretty much prevalent across the country right now and what you're seeing is a continued growth now in what's known as four generation 4G LTE or long-term Evolution technology here in El Cerrito we identified a

1:14:27gapping coverage for 3G service as already exists as we are also working to deploy 4th G LTE technology in the community this particular site on Sea View resolves both of those coverage gaps issues for our system in that particular neighborhood I'm going to switch now to a propagation

1:14:49map and this one we is in your pack and I wish we had it in the original application what we see here and if you look right there that's what we refer to as node three that's our site at about 851 Seaview Drive now let me explain what we're looking at the Green

1:15:14areas these are known as in-building service that is what we're trying to that's our objective is to get this whole thing green that's where you're able to use your telephone from the first floor of an indoor residence or building if you note then the next area in transit service

1:15:36that's when you're out moving about outside of a building and then outdoor service that's just general service so yes in our marketing brochures we're able to demonstrate that we have coverage in El Cerrito however we have a significant gaffing coverage when it

1:15:54comes to in-house service the type that people are demanding from us more and more right now and it's a growing need so when you look at this particular map you see that the area right around this proposed site is red it only has the outdoor service now that does not

1:16:15mean that a resident couldn't pick up their phone and be able to utilize it it does mean that it's going to be somewhat unreliable indoors it might work sometimes but depending upon time of day depending upon the specifics of where they sit relative to other towers and

1:16:32antennas in the neighborhood they may or may not get a consistent signal it also can have to do with time of day when the time of day is other people are using a a lot of the the Broadband portion of this network they may have much more difficulty making a call

1:16:49now if you look at what happens when we apply just this Note 3 we now turn this area from red to Green um I would just point out that unlike what was stated in the appellants documents this is not an area we're not putting something into this neighborhood to cover some other area we're talking

1:17:12about the specific several block neighborhoods surrounding this particular pole that's the area that we are focusing on um our other applications are doing similar things in other communities in other neighborhoods but specific to Note 3 it goes from the red to the green

1:17:30right around that particular neighborhood now in getting there how do we identify the need we've determine using industry standard propagation tools to identify areas in the network where signal strength is too weak to provide reliable in building service quality the information is developed by

1:17:49many sources it's very complex engineering But it includes terrain and cluster databases which simulate the environment and then propagation models used to simulate the signal straight given those train and cluster variations now how do we choose this particular

1:18:06site we had a comprehensive alternative analysis that looked at a number of sites within this specific neighborhood to see what worked best from an engineering standpoint from a structural standpoint on particular polls as well as aesthetic issues what we found was and and it's in your

1:18:27report as well a number of alternative sites that we found were not viable because either it did not provide the engineering support from a propagation map perspective we did find Visual impacts greater visual impacts at all of these other sites and there were also

1:18:45issues with particular telephone poles or utility polls depending upon the amount of use on that pole by PG e and others there has to be a safe climbing Zone on those poles there also needs to be clear separation as required by what's known as general order 95 Geo 95

1:19:05of the cpuc which sets out the requirements for how polls are used and and where things are allowed to be on the polls is very specific areas for telephone for cable for electrical use we need to create an area on that poll that provides a safe zone of separation

1:19:24and as well as the safe climbing Zone this poll does not have the separation that would allow us to place it lower if we try to place it lower we also find our engineering issues with the propagation of the signal on that particular pole it has to be at the height that we're referencing here

1:19:45seven foot extension the two foot antennas two foot and 10 is about this big on top of the pole it works for this particular Pole we also did look at Moser we looked at it from a dance perspective a distributed antenna system perspective what we found was the propagation did not cover this

1:20:09area which means that if we were to put something on Mosier for this neighborhood we would require yet another antenna someplace else within this specific neighborhood to close additional Gap we also looked at the possibility of putting what's known as a macro onto Moser similar to an

1:20:26application we have higher up on moles or on on Terrace right now if we were to do that it covers an area that creates a certain amount of um of interference between other sites because of the Topography of El Cerrito we have to be very careful when we put anything

1:20:46up high on this side of Hill that we don't get interference from other things actually across the bay and that's the type of issue that we're seeing because of the signal strength of the large macro antennas we went with the as in this particular neighborhood because

1:21:01we're looking for a very focused neighborhood level of service because of the topography if we put on Mosher there's a big goalie right on the side of Moser we can't cover into that area as well and then the the next area over uh just some other quick points um

1:21:25on our conditions of approval with the Planning Commission we identified that if utility poles were to be removed and undergrounded we would work with the community to reassess how we continue to cover Wireless needs so these would not preclude this particular site would not

1:21:46preclude future undergrounding of the poll that it sits on it doesn't make it such that we could never replace that pole now where underground services of other types because we put this antenna on top of the pole uh also something that gets brought up occasionally is the use of micro cells

1:22:05or what's known as fem2 cells these are small units that people place in their in their homes uh it runs off of their internal internet service uh provide phone services um it's a good product for inside someone's small home but it's not something that will provide the level of

1:22:21support to cover the neighborhood so an individual might use that as a supplement to their own individual service within their particular home but when we're talking about the community we need this type of system in the neighborhood specifically in order to be

1:22:36able to cover this significant Gap I'd also point out that in addition to El Cerrito and Kensington on other unincorporated County uh we're also looking at Das installations across the Berkeley and and Oakland Hills for the same reason it's topography wise but I

1:22:55would also point out that other communities that have this technology in today include Palo Alto and Beverly Hills Mr minutes please start concluding okay I'm sorry I was watching The Green Light yeah I'm not sure that that was set for 10 minutes okay so um in that case I apologize I I thought

1:23:12the light and I'm just rambling on here um I'll stop my comments there uh we're more than willing to answer questions I have a number of subject matter experts with us this evening uh one of which is Bill Hammett from the uh engineering firm of Hamot and Edison they produce

1:23:29the EMF report that's included within our our packet uh Bill Hemet is considered an expert in that area he's a third party and he can answer any questions you might have about EMF exposures great thank you councilmember Abelson any questions for the applicant um let me go through my questions and

1:23:50see which ones uh seem to be in this area um so I'm a little clear from the various pictures that I've seen exactly how large this um dis ulation would be so it would would the pull are you waiting for I'm waiting for something I'm assuming it's coming up maybe yeah

1:24:29we're trying to anticipate your question what I think I was yeah anticipating your question yeah so I was that's what I was that would be fine so I guess this is it over on the left in this I actually would just like it in English if that's okay um so the poll will Logistics be a

1:24:56vertical upward extension of the um what I think of as a telephone pole but I believe it's a PG e polling correct what we are proposing is it's a joint use poll uh PG e has specific um um you know it's their poll however there are joint uses on that poll in 1810 but anyway the shape I'm kind of

1:25:20interested in the shape of it sure so it just vertically extends upward right correct this adds a seven foot extension on top of the existing hole you put on it what I'm thinking of is a station that that's the Das itself I believe uh what what you get are here's about the

1:25:38the existing top of the pole so this is an extension of seven feet right that's just to get the height and then the height away from the electrical wires that creates are our separation as required get up to the top and then you that's where the Das is correct that's

1:25:54where the antennas are there are two antennas uh two foot high each is that the Das uh well it's part of the whole system so there's an antenna uh and then there is ancillary equipment that sits lower on the pole so there's um there's a like a backup battery pack okay so

1:26:18um I don't know what you words you can use to describe it but like diameter height of these two objects that's what my real question is you have the specifics uh did you want to know that the dimensions of the antennas themselves yes they're about four feet long

1:26:39the dimensions are long means High I'm sorry two feet two feet long excuse me uh two feet long um and uh High exactly and um these are this these are the specific uh Dimensions about a a foot uh wide and about 10 inches deep this wide meat diameter or is this a

1:27:04round thing or is it a vertical thing or it's a cylinder right cylinder is more yeah or um it's it's kind of uh rectangular I guess okay and so the um Dimension looking um not the height but the other two measurements of that rectangle oh excuse me and I'm I'm focused on the wrong uh is

1:27:34that that exhibit excuse me yeah the um I guess that's focusing in on here uh the the antenna is is here uh excuse me uh my apologies I was focusing on the uh the the radio cabinet um the uh the antennas is depicted here as you can see uh approximately two feet

1:27:55long um eight inches deep and uh about 11 inches uh wide so um given the approximate Dimensions but was showing the the uh the wrong exhibit there okay and that's the object that's at the top of the pole and then the object that's um down the pole yeah the object that's down the pole we

1:28:22have this is the the um radio unit which is approximately four feet long um there's a battery backup unit which is approximately uh two feet by two feet by a foot and a half there's also a uh a PG E power meter below that uh there's a a fiber plug and uh there's also a emergency shut off

1:28:54switch I think I'm gonna go back to the I actually was just trying to get uh the outside dimensions I don't know if does are those all separate items those are all separate items that's right but um can you go can you go further left on this graphic please no stay on that page

1:29:11yeah and just go to the far left side there you go that's the answering package there if you can go to the top half of that page go the top half now yes that's the that's a three-dimensional rendering okay of the of the package so the Das is all of that what that means this is a gas facility

1:29:31node so uh the Das refers to the um I guess collectively multiple nodes but what we're proposing here is one at issue here is one Das facility one node okay correct want to use the right words okay so at the top is the antenna and then down a ways is the um Power could I call it and layman's

1:30:01terms there's yes the so so here we have the the seven foot extension Plus the antennas that's the the vertical extension from the existing pole then down below um we have the the battery backup unit we have the radio cabinet um this is a fiber demarcation unit it's

1:30:25basically just it houses a a plug for uh where the the fiber optic cable uh meets the facility and then down below next to each other we have the the PG e meter and the the shutoff switch and I would just add that those sit on the pole starting at a height of about

1:30:50eight feet up to about 16 feet those those other units okay so that let me see if I have any more questions for you I was just trying to better get a sense of the um size of of the of it in um with numbers I guess okay so um so there wouldn't be any uh stabilized

1:31:22or it would I mean would there be any stabilizing like guide wires or anything added to this system the node uh as part of this installation no there is not that particular poll however does have a guide wire already on on it um and let's see you've already answered the next one

1:31:54let's see the next one let's see so if if the area were to decide to decide to Underground and they were responding to do that then um it would just happen and then you would take down your equipment and um start all over again it's one of the conditions of approval

1:32:23okay but that okay I just wanted to State it that way okay and I think that those are my questions right now thank you councilmember Benson thank you thank you for the presentation one uh point you made kind of was a bit confusing to me so the propagation map explanation was

1:32:41really helpful if we want to go back to that one so you mentioned that Mosier was considered but rejected for the reasons that you stated and you know not sufficient coverage but then you also said that the macro site was considered but that was rejected because of

1:32:53interference but we've also heard that at T is considering proposing a macro side on Moser you know in lieu of the three sites in Kensington so could you explain that why why one might work in the future but it doesn't work at this point sure and I'll I'll try to explain it because mine is a

1:33:11simpler view than if I have my engineer come up uh what this works is different Rings okay so you look at the geography they establish a ring of area that requires support um not before this body tonight we have an application pending for a co-located facility on tourists above Moser that

1:33:32area is to support an area that cuts across Arlington the north side there Arlington along El Cerrito and a part of Kensington when you come further down that's the area that we looked at for should there could there be another macro site another large antennocyte on

1:33:51a different high tension PG e transmission line that's where we found that it would be too much from a propagation perspective to of an area that it would try to cover that would create interference possibly for the one up further that's supposed to be doing its job as well as interferings down to

1:34:14some of the other sites that we have in town today okay so like the Stockton thank you that's fine I I thought it must be something having to do with where it was on Mojo that you were talking about um okay another question on the Das node so you have this existing is this the

1:34:29existing yes the existing and then the the later sorry why is this green okay got it so it's red and then it gets green because of the implementation of the desk are can you talk about what else the Das does so this this point being made has to do with sort of the radius that's

1:34:45served given the topography and all that that this node will where it will bring service to is there anything else that it does like we've heard a lot about relaying of signals from one dash to another could you talk about what service that's providing if that's

1:35:00providing service to people in transit who are you know in their cars on their Bluetooth thank you it does all of those things um cellular from the time it started you know is based upon a what can be considered kind of a honeycomb type of a setup and it's a handoff from one

1:35:18antenna to the next so that's why when you're traveling in your car you're not losing your signal because there's this handoff between antennas and so what happens here is the same thing happens with Daz as it does with our macro units there's this handoff from one antenna to

1:35:35the MX as you're traveling down the street for instance so when you leave this neighborhood you get picked up by the next one down just as when you're traveling down the freeway okay I would point out um that uh a couple of other maps that we didn't cover when you talk about what

1:35:52it is that this does um the map before was talking about the 3G service filling the significant Gap the other one that I mentioned was the 4G LTE service and I just wanted to point out very quickly uh here's a map uh the in-building service on on this particular map for 4G LTE is in the blue

1:36:13uh the white is the area that we're trying that we have a significant Gap currently we're trying to fill as you can see with node three um there's a little bit of blue there's a lot more blue Down Below on the other side of El Cerrito but this whole area is is not covered uh when we go to this

1:36:36particular Daz you can see how this particular neighborhood within El Cerrito is what gets the benefit of of having both the 3G and the 4G through those antennas on Sea View okay and I think just two more questions I know there's a lot of members of the public waiting to speak

1:36:54um thanks for your patience one more having to do with the design so you talked a lot about locations that were considered to fill this Gap can you talk about any other sorts of ways that at T has considered but maybe rejected trying to mitigate the visual impact

1:37:11that um that the appellants brought up you know several times sure well the main thing is we're facing a challenge with the topography so as mentioned we have other macro cell sites here in town as mentioned three different sites one of them on a church in Stockton it's in a

1:37:30steeple so it is stealth and it's covering that section of of town this area we don't have the benefit of those type of structures within the particular search ring area that we're trying to cover now and that's why we're we're using utility poles if it weren't for

1:37:48utility poles we'd have to look at putting up a poll someplace so you're talking about potentially creating an additional um visual impact in the community and we're trying to avoid having that happen one of the things that we did look at I just mentioned again briefly instead of

1:38:05extending the poll one possibility and and this is what was referred to in Kensington we're on a couple of sites we actually took another look and reduced the height took it out on what's called a side arm and had a couple of the antennas come out from the side lower

1:38:22down below the electric lines rather than above them in that separation zone uh and let me just correct for everyone in Kensington first those applications have not yet gone to the Planning Commission and only one of the two was proposed to move forward by the came act

1:38:42so it's not like they just accepted this either when we looked at that alternative of going below the electric lines we found there were multiple issues with that first we didn't have the zone that we needed in order to make that happen uh so one alternative could be that we we

1:39:03put in a new poll and increased the height of all the wires in order to create a Zone and I'm not even sure that that works in this area because when we lower the the what's known as the rad Center on the pole of of what we're trying to accomplish here uh we don't

1:39:20get the coverage that we need at a lower height so that's why we're at the height that we are on this particular pole okay so it sounds like design options there was one that was considered and rejected the half Mass was considered but rejected or the other design aspect from

1:39:35a um an aesthetic standpoint that we've looked at is whether we can take all of that equipment that's sitting between that eight foot and 16 foot level the battery pack the uh the battery the radio and put that into a ground-mounted facility of about a five foot cabinet

1:39:52what we found on the street in Sea View there just isn't a wide enough area in the public right-of-way to allow for that type of Cabinetry to exist on the sidewalk okay we felt that it was less intrusive to actually be up on the pole in this particular case okay and the

1:40:11last question I do understand in terms of locations you did consider Huber Park and tell me if these are consistent with this node for this for this node other locations considered for the no that would provide the same service were Huber Park Sunset Cemetery were there

1:40:29any other locations well it um as Ken mentioned uh Moser Lane right okay so that one technically didn't work did the other two technically work but were rejected for other reasons they're too far away to cover the um the significant Gap so both of those yes okay

1:40:47thank you that's it thanks uh several of my questions were asked by my colleagues but I have a few others uh is this Das system considered um Cutting Edge cellular technology yes this is considered state of the art and that's why there's non-existing currently because it's just been

1:41:08developed within the last but yes okay and what happens when the next advance in technology comes will these units become Obsolete and would there be a less obtrusive way of delivering that technology it's hard to to uh figure what is going to be coming next and when next is coming there are things

1:41:33on a drawing board you know the technology is moving smaller and smaller however when that would be available and how it would be utilized when available that's hard to say um we call this odas for outdoor distributed antenna systems there's also much more prevalent is indoor Daz and

1:41:52you find these same units being used in large venues like shopping malls Office Buildings Arenas and this is the technology that that lights up those type of uh areas for large use in a densely populated area okay and I previously asked a question about co-location of other cellular

1:42:12companies and they said that you would explain why that would not likely work uh in this particular case to fill this specific coverage Gap there are no other uh alternate sites that would allow for co-location but if another cellular company were were to come to you and PG e in the

1:42:34future and saying we have a gap in that area also could they co-locate on this Paul uh if if a another utility were to come and ask about it it would be coming through the city's application process to planning just like any other application that you would as a city

1:42:52have full review and decide uh it's um unlikely that you're going to have a couple of carriers on a single utility pole however just given the size and the dimensions and the requirements on their puc Geo 95 of the requirements for what can be on a pole how how much you can

1:43:10put on a pole at the same time the macro site that we have pending before the city on terrorists above Moser that's a co-location with a competitor so where possible we do our stock and church site I understand there's a um there's another application pending for another

1:43:30competitor co-locating at that site so where we can we definitely look to those first and how much weight will be added to the poll as a result of this installation takes place um I I don't I don't have the the weights offhand but um these are engineering tested and uh

1:43:52will stamped drawings engineering stamped drawings will be submitted for issuance of an encroachment permit so they're compliant with all uh structural and Engineering requirements well my concern is for seismic activity and also the appellant mentioned that there is a

1:44:15landslide in that area and I lived a few blocks from there so I I know a lot about that what's that situation with adding that weight to the pole and it's structural Integrity in the event of uh shifting around we follow the guidelines as established by the puc in Geo 95 they

1:44:35will allow us to put anything on the pole that is not going to be structurally sound can I just ask a follow-up to that one I remember in your application you say that you will have a maintenance worker coming out I know I don't remember how often quarterly or something what will they be will they be

1:44:50checking for any structural deficiencies or changes um no well it it could be that they would do that but but more likely what they are is a technician who is looking to make sure that the unit is operating properly um battery backup is still running efficiently that type of thing

1:45:11uh the the poll itself is a PG e responsibility um my last question is how many existing or potential customers will this uh unit impact I I can't say uh exactly I can't even estimate uh what I can tell you is the area that we look at for Daz covers several square blocks you know so it's

1:45:36not a large area but it's hard to say what the customer impact will be uh particularly because it's not just about covering households it is covering who anyone who's passing through that neighborhood you know we'll hear from some neighbors who say well I don't I

1:45:50don't want this because I'm an ATT customer with the white benefit well you know we're a large con company and and they could very well have uh you know people visiting them who are ATT customers or people walking down the street or ATT customers and so it's hard

1:46:05to estimate uh what the usage is but that is one of the things that we do measure is to make sure that we continue to meet the capacity needs as well as the coverage needs for each of these units Council memory evilson I have a follow-up question that I just want to

1:46:25ask because I want to I'm kind of trying to understand what more of the technical stuff I guess the um if another [Music] um competitor were to locate co-locate on a poll assuming it were possible what would that do to the what was referred to earlier as power density

1:46:48um in each case in in probably macro is a better example than the daz in terms of co-location uh our engineering folks have to determine to make sure there's no interference between carriers as well as interference within our own network when we establish the actual settings of

1:47:04these so that's one of those things that they they have to calculate before we do anything not sure if the wondering was as we saw that in the um presentation with the video and it was showing a number that went both up below and above 2.0 so I don't know what that was

1:47:30um representing specifically if Mr if Mr Hammond is present maybe he can speak to this if you'd like him to answer that we can ask Mr Hammett to come up and he's standing behind you right there uh thank you be happy to answer that question good evening uh mayor and council

1:47:46members my name is Bill hamott I'm a registered professional engineer in the state of California I manage a firm with 20 a regular part of our practice is the calculation or the measurement of RF exposure conditions as Engineers our job is easy what are the numbers how do they

1:47:59compare the standard you saw the video that showed uh numbers going from 1.9 or up to 3.7 I want to be really clear that that was not RF what he was measuring he instated he was measuring in Gauss he's measuring power line frequencies power so uh you know he's probably getting uh

1:48:18ignition noise from cars going by or he's measuring power line frequencies he's not measuring RF and it's really important to be clear on that I know your city attorney indicated he was going to talk with both the terms EMF and RF which is a a good thing to do RF is one piece of this huge

1:48:36electromagnetic spectrum and so what ATT is going to produce from these antennas is a small amount of radio energy that our phones would be able to pick up and get communication so instead of something four to five times the FCC limit which is what he was purporting to

1:48:53say that's definitely not the case our calculations are at the highest level any place and this is in your packets is one half of one percent one half of one percent one half of one percent of what of the federal limit okay and and you say that's measured somewhere obviously these these antenna

1:49:11are not in place so are you using similar installations to base that uh statement on both uh in particular I'm using calculations based on the manufacturer's antenna pattern and the worst case operation that and that ATT would be using in terms of the power that they propose to operate in addition

1:49:28um they have deployed similar antennas uh at a few other locations as this new technology is is implemented uh this new way of serving neighborhoods and we've taken measurements of those and confirmed that indeed it is small on the order of a fraction of one percent and

1:49:42if so oh sorry I was just going to answer the question directly now I'll kind of led up to it I ask another question on top of that so you said one percent but those numbers were like to let's say two so is it one percent uh or is it I I want usually compare a percent

1:50:01to a percent or a number I'd be happy to do that okay so the numbers that you saw in the video have no relevance to what's going on those were measurements of a different substance power line frequencies uh the the overhead power lines that's what he was measuring

1:50:14measuring and units called Galaxy called it power density which is the proper term but he was using Gauss which is in a different frequency range here we are talking about power density so percent if this is a half percent and another carry were to come on the pole and do

1:50:28something very much the same you get one percent a half plus a half is one you'd still be a hundred times or more that's the highest level at least 100 times below the limit even if there were room on the pole for two carriers to co-locate so one equals 100 uh one percent is one hundredth of the

1:50:46limit so by definition a limit is a hundred percent councilmember what you said is correct okay one the unit one is worth a hundred percent correct so you're dealing with 0.01 which is one hundredth uh yes by that terminology that's correct I need to be in the same unit good good so

1:51:07too small and still small okay and um and then at the frequency and so in terms of the thing that the um is it the puc regulates the puc regulates that um power I'll call it power entity I that that you are which is the power density correct power density is the

1:51:35correct term it's not it's not the puc that regulates it okay who regulates it um the FCC does at the direction of the U.S Congress in the 1996 Telecommunications Act that was discussed they directed the FCC to adopt a standard and that standard would apply throughout the country uh and preempt

1:51:52any local jurisdictions from applying any standard tighter than that one so when I reference the standard where you know 100 times 200 times below the standard so um so what other things are the um make that number go up besides um Das modes nodes uh the things that would

1:52:13make that go up would be things that people have in their own homes if you have a wireless router in your home that produces radio frequency energy so it can talk to the laptop and those searches things your cordless phone microwave oven all those things are also

1:52:27sources of radio frequency energy in values more substantial in most cases than what you would get off of the Tower okay um see if there's a follow-up question I don't know that um I I think I'm getting my question answered well good and I'm certainly happy to address it from any number of

1:52:46issues just one follow-up and that is there were some photos shown you know you might be measuring this at ground level um there were some photos shown of course of people who have houses that are actually up in the hills and they're actually looking right at it is there

1:52:58much variation in the power that one field or receives based on the elevation that you're located at yes there is variation both with the elevation change and with the orientation of the antennas the antennas in general are pointed up and down the streets so off to the side of the antenna toward

1:53:16the house even though someone in the house may be looking at the the a cylinder a canister or see the little panels they're probably oriented up and down the street not directly at the house it the system doesn't work if it's pointing the power into uh into a residence or into a building because

1:53:33they want to disperse it up and down the street so to answer your question the highest level that we calculated at any location even if even if it were oriented directly at the house is 1.2 percent okay So when you say 1.2 percent you're dealing with a number that's .012 is

1:53:52this micro watts per centimeter squared milliwatts and that's that is a measure of energy it's a measure of power density correct and and so when you say 1.2 percent you're dealing with a number that's .012 milliwatt per centimeter squared um that's correct with one small caveat

1:54:14but that is correct the the caveat is that as an engineer I gotta you get let you get the hit the caveat happy to the um the standard uh is frequency based and so at some of the Bands uh ATT has four different bands they can use and some of the Bands the limit is one at

1:54:31some it's a little tighter 0.58 to 0.48 so we take that into account so the number is actually smaller than the 0.012 milliwatts per square centimeter that you calculated that would be correct with the limit we're one but it's tighter so that number is actually

1:54:45lower okay so you're so on on your uh signed uh submittal there there's a table that does list 0.58.57.47 and most restrictive 0.2 you're not using the lowest when they're you're using something in the middle that's 0.58 0.57 is as you are one that you're calling 100 exactly right okay

1:55:09um again what you've done is some obviously you do ground measurement or measurement field measurements um for for PG for sorry a t um but what you presented in this uh application was a predictive modeling uh analysis is that correct that's correct and I should have mentioned that we work

1:55:32for ATT we work for att's competitors we work for cities we work for landlords our job is really simple what are the numbers and what we did in that instance where we were measuring at elevation we used a tall ladder to measure at 16 feet above ground and we went along and

1:55:48measured around one of these first facilities the Das facilities that was put up and confirmed with the calculations showed based on the antenna patterns of what the levels would be and so these numbers that I've got in the report here are conservative when if measurements were taken we know it would

1:56:03be something less than those levels that would be called a model verification essentially or or you know baselining your model active capabilities is to do that kind of measurement you're not going to do that kind of measurement for every installation correct I see no other questions I'll ask mine

1:56:22now that we're talking about doing some form of measurement or field verification uh Mr Mintz what what are your thoughts on uh providing us with some sort of routine uh monitoring to verify that you're complying with the FCC regulations yeah we we we do that um you know at whatever is a condition

1:56:48of approval in terms of you know once uh uh site gets installed uh if there are any changes to that site or on a regular basis um you know we'd set a uh a pattern of when uh there should be typically a post post construction um EMF analysis uh could be required as

1:57:11a condition and we would accept that condition that would be a one-time condition if I if I I know the language I know the the deal here I'm not I'm not certain I'm content with a one-time um so I'm wondering if Aunt I was going to let you suggest a frequency of

1:57:25monitoring I'm wondering if annual is acceptable um I'm hearing a couple of times a couple of times annual how about annual for the first five years yes um Mr attorney Mr Woodruff is that something we can that's a uh would be overriding the conditions of approval

1:57:48that was previously approved by the uh Planning Commission is that something we can do I assume it would not be overriding them it won't be adding it could be it would be an additional condition of approval and that is within the scope of the council's authority and

1:58:00hearing the appeal tonight excellent thank you um going to your Gap analysis and uh those that are in the audience there is an additional document that was submitted as uh item e in your notebook this evening and it's assigned affidavit is probably not the right word

1:58:21it's at least signed testimony from one of your radio Access Network area for managers um presumably uh bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Cal State Fresno um but uh what are your thoughts on getting an independent Gap analysis that was requested by the appellants

1:58:46it first of all I don't even know if you if your your technology may be such that you don't know have competitors or you have independent firms that can even test your Gap Gap analysis that would be a one that would be a one-time thing have someone come up and introduce yourself

1:59:04hi there I'm John debene I'm an attorney for ATT um I'm happy to answer that question there are firms out there that do such analyzes um we have worked with them and to the extent that they have licensed Engineers certified registered engineers in California and um and they're willing to

1:59:22sign a non-disclosure in order to have access to our information we're happy to share information about propagation signals in our Network and our modeling that said we think this one's very simple and we've provided um pretty clear expert testimony about the extent of the issue here so

1:59:41it's your call we'll be happy to to um have a third party look at this we would suggest that that be a condition of approval or of denial of the appeal as opposed to something that would delay the application because of the FCC shot clock correct I understand the FCC shot clock that's a

2:00:00new term on me okay hang on but but it I believe there's a condition of of an another condition in your land condition use permit is what I'm hearing your proposal is we are willing to accept that to the extent you want to add that as a condition again we think the record in

2:00:19front of you is is absolutely clear and there's no reason for such an analysis but if you want one we'd be happy to do that I certainly appreciate your perspective now you can tell me what the shot clock is okay so so there is a requirement in 332 of the Federal

2:00:34Communications act for um cell citing decisions to be made without an unreasonable lie zoning decisions such as this and the FCC interpreted that requirement as being 150 days for a new site application 90 days for a co-location application we talked a little bit about what collocation is

2:00:55with this application I can't remember exactly where we are with a shot clock but uh to the extent that do you know Matt the um it seems that we're within the shot clock the the shot clock was paused uh it was initially filed in uh January uh there was a pause where additional

2:01:16items were requested so I believe the staff report uh deemed it complete on March 5th so March 5th would have resumed your clock but the FCC shot clock actually doesn't quite work like that the the shot clock doesn't necessarily turn on when the application is deemed complete by the municipality

2:01:39um the shot clock starts the FCC set up these these detailed rules in order to balance the needs between carriers and municipalities carriers needs to get things built quickly and municipalities to review applications balanced huh they'll try to do that that's an

2:01:54interesting term you use and in order to provide that kind of balance they they allowed the clock to start but then any questions that are asked in the first 30 days the clock pauses until those answers are provided that may or may not match up with the determination of

2:02:07completeness the point here is I think that if you added as a condition of approval and you've approved the site we can go forward and do the analysis while we're working on the building permit and the like and it doesn't have to hold anything up and it doesn't create a shot

2:02:21clock problem if alternatively you were to hold the appeal that potential could create a problem with the shot clock that answer your question does thank you um the question of the mayor about his his um so it'd be monitoring for five years once per year and what would be

2:02:42monitored um that would be monitoring the RF values in the neighborhood we certainly would be interested in stipulating the you know they can't go just one location and read the RF there so they would obviously have some sort of uh you know monitoring plan for the RF that they

2:02:59would have to submit as and be approved thank you um let's see do you have any installations of this type view of photographs we saw a whole bunch of photographs of of what the before and after by the appellant and I'm just curious if you have any photographs of

2:03:18similar installations before and after that would allow us to get a perspective of uh you know how accurate the um the photographic evidence from the appellant is this is your simulation I'm looking obviously right yeah the photo Sam is I think the photo Sim is the the most

2:03:37reliable information that we have I think that the uh I believe the staff report uh may have referenced other similar such facilities from other carriers um but um this photographic simulation is is the most uh reliable I do not have with me any uh photographs of of

2:03:58um other facilities the appellant did provide a photograph of a installation and I can't remember what they provided as the address for it um was that a representative in your mind was that potentially representative it was during their video of the it was at Dwight Way yeah yeah that was a I

2:04:19believe it again I don't know for sure a a T-Mobile facility in Berkeley and um the proposed facility uh differs from that facility uh for example the facility portrayed uh showed a what's called a ray Dome antenna which is not what we're proposing we're proposing to uh panel

2:04:43antennas and so the the difference the difference being that Ray Dome is 360 and panel is directional is that the idea it appeared to me what was shown and I don't know exactly what was what that was but yes it appeared to me that that um there was a ray Dome concealing the

2:05:02what I would presume again this is a lot of speculation is in Omni antenna uh shooting in all directions I really I don't know what uh that was it was a a miniature facility um on a joint utility pole or it appeared to be uh so in that sense we we too are proposing a miniature uh

2:05:26telecommunications facility on a joint utility pole um but uh again you know specific to this application the photographic simulations and the drawings um are uh you know present the best information of exactly what we're proposing um and and finally you did provide us a

2:05:47document here for our review it was on the dice when we arrived um is there any additional uh details in here that you want to call to our attention to make sure that it's not only in the record but that we're aware of it during our decision making sure just just real quickly

2:06:04um the cover letter uh is from Mr debeny our our attorney and it outlines uh quite frankly a lot of what the City attorney spoke to at the beginning of the meeting during his remarks so I direct your attention to to those points about the FCC requirements and those

2:06:22type of things uh the other one uh that Mr may you referenced was under e which was the radio frequency statement uh from harpal uh uh one of our Engineers as well as the exhibit attached to that which talks more to the propagation Maps and and also the maps are actually the

2:06:49ones that we've shown here are in that report as well so that's why we would want to have those as part of the official record right thank you any other questions for either the applicant or the power I can I'm sorry if I can just add one other bit that under item H uh we do have uh a

2:07:10listing of uh supporter cards that came to us from resonance specifically from El Cerrito uh who have indicated that they wish to see improved Wireless services in uh El Cerrito specifically and I just point that out that's the uh the last tab in your binder thank you we had over 100 residents who

2:07:34submitted information to us um and how did you gather those did you send postcards to El Cerrito residents and then they turned them back in or uh most of these were submitted to us from people visiting our store here in El Cerrito great thank you um with that we will uh

2:08:02move on to the next phase of this public hearing um let's see yes um I am uh we're going to guess that we have quite a few public speakers we have 12 mayor 12 okay with that um we will proceed with three minutes per person uh for uh the next roughly half hour um we will be calling many names at the

2:08:30same time we would like you to line up behind the podium so that we do not lose time between speakers so um I will be asking the clerk to read out three names at a time when you hear your name please go to the back of the room and line up behind the podium behind the speakers so that we can

2:08:48proceed in a timely fashion we will be allowing three minutes per speaker if you are repeating what you've heard a previous speaker say please do not repeat it just for the sake of repetition please add a new uh point or A New Perspective or a new uh thought be therefore I'm asking you to be

2:09:09respectable of everyone's time as to the best of your ability with that would you please call out the first three names yes Diana and I'm going to apologize on yeah I'm gonna apologize on her behalf I know I missed pronounced it if you could be so kind to educate us

2:09:31when you get to the podium and if you would allow the clerk to announce two more names Paul menkes and Judith Rosen uh we're gonna start the light so if if you could I hope you can see the lights they aren't on yet so we will go hopefully now thank you good evening my name is Diana chaspy I

2:09:59live at [address removed] I find the proposed ATT project unsightly ugly and a serious Visual and aesthetic light to our neighborhood I believe it could contribute to the deterioration of the landscape I've lived in El Cerrito for over 40 years I love this city and I would hate to see

2:10:22these ugly facilities forced upon us I'm confused by the Planning Commission staff's report of June 19th in which they state the project will be an attractive amenity to the city my question is attractive to whom certainly not to those of us who live in the neighborhood

2:10:40or tenth theater antennas sitting precariously atop a utility pole with an ugly box hanging from it I find nothing attractive about this the commission also states that the project would not adversely affect the livability and possible development of the neighborhood it would certainly

2:11:00affect our lives having to view this ugly site constantly and worry about the safety aspects as well as the health concerns the commission states there would be no adverse effects on neighborhood development I know of nobody who would invest in a neighborhood that reflects

2:11:17such negative Visual and aesthetic values needless to say property values would be reduced I know that you're unable to consider the health concerns due to outdated laws but there is a real concern on the part of the public the World Health Organization states there is little

2:11:37information on the effect in Children and adolescents and the question of potential risk is unresolved they also state that data on long-term effects are scarce and when data are scarce the absence of evidence of harm should not be interpreted that no harm exists further research is needed in

2:12:01this area My Hope Is that you will uphold the appeal and deny this entire project thereby giving the city and a t time to study other options and I'm sure there are other options and provide the best solution to serve our wonderful Community thank you very much thank you

2:12:28and and allow the clerk to announce uh the next three names please Judith Rosen Allison shimada William Pamela fingato great thank you thank you Mr mayor council members staff and fellow citizens my name is Paul manx I am a recent uh um Elsa reading Al serration welcome

2:12:56I did just want to say that as a someone who was moving into El Cerrito that one of my concerns definitely was the view in ascetics and I know that's one of the things that El Cerrito has built into its uh into its laws they've got uh you know there there are regulations concerning

2:13:18trees and certain trees that can't be uh planted in the Hills because of height Etc and I feel that this is uh certainly a bias here uh that we're seeing um the Aesthetics and having polls was certainly a part of my decision to buy where I did because of you know the relative uh um

2:13:42unobstructed views that I get I certainly uh did not look at certain houses because of the views uh with those polls so I just wanted to say that also I live at [address removed] which is uh near 851. uh also um as an ATT customer I have a great signal in my house I was awakened at 3

2:14:0647 a.m this morning with a call I am a manager of a technical support group and we support uh software at major corporations that demand 24 7 service so I need to have great service and that service is there I appreciate that at T wants to improve its service and I have no problem with

2:14:26that I do believe um that in my business uh you know that we have to listen to our customers and when our customers are saying that you need to come back with a different solution you need to go back to a different and come back with a different solution and I urge you the council to

2:14:46listen to your customers and to tell your vendor you know to come back with a different solution for this thanks [Applause] go ahead and we've got enough people lined up behind you go ahead my name is Judith Rose and I also live at [address removed] with um what's his name anyway

2:15:13my points that I want to make are really primarily it's safety and then equity and Aesthetics in that order and as other people have said that we live in an area this area in particular it is a slide Zone and that poll itself not only does it have a guy wire but even with

2:15:32the guide wire and the pull not with the additional height it still is not fun you know so that just says what what additional stresses will there be on that poll with the additional weight how far off plan will it go and I'm going to show you a picture here and it just

2:15:48shows this is outside my dining room window and the point of this aside from the fact that it is ugly is um this secondary pole those are right next to each other and it's because having one pole there wasn't enough for PG e probably because of the Leaning or the

2:16:04height and there's two poles right next to each other and as a geriatric nurse um you know I want walkable neighborhoods and I want uh you know the sidewalks where the hills are steep they're very very narrow and I want as I age to have a sidewalk that is not impeded by pools where I can take my

2:16:22scooter and still get around and have perhaps my tenant next to me and if we have increasing numbers of poles that perhaps have to be wider at the base in order not to lean with all this additional weight at the top I'm feeling that I'm not going to be in a walkable

2:16:35neighborhood and be able to age in place um so in terms of the equity I've also been impressed by the fact that you have a law that doesn't allow you to have chain link fences and I'm con I I guess I want Equity if you're going to say that I have to have Aesthetics I want

2:16:51our corporate citizens also to Maine Aesthetics and this pull with the additional height does not have the same spirit that you're requiring of me as an individual Citizen and then the last which is um in terms of ultimate reasonable alternate locations uh you know there

2:17:12are other locations La Moser and you know our our neighborhood most of those lower levels they're they're Subterranean I mean not even my neighbors can see inside of my lower level and there's not going to be a line of sight and so the reasonable thing that every level in a house that's in

2:17:26the Hills should have cell I mean or Wireless considering the topography I don't think that's a reasonable expectation I thank you very much for letting me be a citizen of the city and to contribute great thank you [Applause] my name is Allison shimada I live at [address removed]

2:17:51Seaview Drive I am here because I have never stepped inside of this chamber in all the years I've lived here I've been a lifelong resident of el Sarita but I'm very concerned about this issue um I do not wish to live in a city where the procedures and the process is not

2:18:08clear to all of us I do feel that the staff is overly anxious to proceed with this process without all the residence input and I disagree with that wholeheartedly I've spent my life as an equity fund manager I have studied the behavior of companies and I find it appalling in

2:18:29line of questioning that they cannot answer certain questions that I think are vital to this argument including the weight of additional weight of that pull to that poll and other Vital Statistics which they keenly avoided in that conversation I find none of the

2:18:43arguments remotely convincing to me from and I am I would like to argue that I think it is in the residents best interests that the council represents the views of the residents I feel that the city planning did not take that into consideration adequately and we had very little time to consider all

2:19:08of these issues I wonder why they are so anxious to push this forward it is very suspicious to me and I there were conflicting arguments the staff provided the argument that this is a relay to Kensington and the Kensington surrounding communities are concerned about this and therefore

2:19:28they're going to put bigger polls in El Cerrito yet then the applicant made the argument that it affects the immediate area if we don't like the service of a and t we can choose other carriers this is a 179 billion dollar company if they cannot figure out another way it's

2:19:47inadequate in my opinion that is not the behavior of a mega company like that so I am totally unconvinced I don't care about the competitiveness of their com I'm not interested in supporting the competitiveness of this company in particular I think it needs to be part of a comprehensive plan from

2:20:06this city the only way that the residents will have a voice is through the council's decision and I think that that is the role of this Council that is what we live in this city for thank you thank you please uh please read off the names of after the both fingados the next three

2:20:29names after Mary Johansen Paulina Lee and Mary Shaughnessy please great thank you welcome good evening my name is Pam fingato and I live at [address removed] I'm asking the city council to deny use permits and reject reject the proposal to add an extension poll with

2:20:52telecommunications facilities to the utility poll at 851 Seaview Drive I attended the design review board meeting on August 7th the proposed project which included four sites was rejected because it not only it did it did not meet the standards for preserving uh are

2:21:11promoting visual Aesthetics of our neighborhood and that Alternatives should be sought I feel that the addition to the pull out in front is intrusive and it's a visual eyesore I believe the council should deny the reposal The Proposal based on the same criteria noted by the design review

2:21:31board I also believe there needs to be an environmental study done on the safety of these extended poles during an earthquake the sidewalks in El Cerrito the streets and driveways are uplifted cracked and constantly moving just one block away on Moser Lane the hill is always sliding

2:21:51and the sidewalk is halfway down the hill this has been a problem since I've lived here which is most of my life during the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 we lived here and I watched the utility pole rise up and sway Dangerously it added with an additional 10 feet

2:22:10uh it could even prove to be more deadly in a similar situation in emergency situation the poll will fall and there will be no cell phone coverage at all so are we totally defeated by adding this poll thank you William Penn got her at [address removed] I spoke from the Planning Commission

2:22:40met so I I've covered most of these things but that one particular poll does have a huge crack on the concrete after the earthquake I've never I've never once seen how the total from the ground to the top how tall it will be nor the weight they seem to have lots of

2:23:03other information here but seems like that's kind of Elementary uh to come up with and and then and a silver structural engineer and or seismic and it might take those measurements in consideration okay my wife spoke before me she got my most most of everything

2:23:31aesthetically these things are really ugly and it's not in the just the eye of the whole I mean it's I've never once heard a person say they look nice they can do a better job here they with a location and the design and it's there there are better alternatives to this particular

2:23:55uh appeal that's it thank you thank you [Applause] hi my name is Mary Catherine Johansen I live at [address removed] just um four houses away from the pole we're talking about um as I've been sitting here listening to all this tonight I'm looking at the Seal of the city of El Cerrito behind

2:24:28you and the view from many of our homes is is almost like in that picture and it's achingly beautiful and part of the reason why we live here in the magic of El Cerrito and I don't mind looking at the houses of my neighbors I I like my neighbors and I don't mind looking at trees but

2:24:50there are no giant antennas in that seal and um that's not the the dream and the goal of El Cerrito my husband and I bought our house in 2001 we have two young kids and and we love living here and until now I've I've really felt pretty pleased with the direction and vision of

2:25:11El Cerrito um I must admit I've I've never read the Federal Communication Act of 1996. I've never even read the general plan of El Cerrito or the zoning I've I've trusted in my elected officials to look after those things and maybe that's naive but until now I really have had trust

2:25:31because many of you have have done wonderful things like get our streets repaved and pay for new schools and I that's why I I really feel like there's a breach of trust because um there's been very poor communication about this whole antenna thing I found out about it through my neighbors and

2:25:53I'm I'm so thankful to Mr Lee and and my neighbors who who gathered the money to appeal this process because um I was out of town at the June 19th hearing and many of us didn't even find out about it until another neighbor put bright pink um signs on the polls that didn't look

2:26:12like lost dog um warnings I mean maybe maybe um it fulfilled the warning and communication fulfilled some legal requirement but it at least it wasn't sufficient for me I think that um we should look into Alternatives have these antennas not in a residential area

2:26:32I get great at T reception within my house Hoover Park is a half a block away from this poll and there are great views from Huber Park and that's an open space and um so I don't think that ATT is really giving a very um unbiased view they they are kind of evasive in their answers as far as I can

2:26:55see and these postcards did they really explain that antennas would be put in residential areas I I don't think many people would choose that um um and also another concern is I'd heard that there might be fans on these um and there might be some noise and I wonder about the maintenance workers it

2:27:15said in one of the documents that somebody would have to be up on the poll and I don't want somebody up in the poll every month looking at my kids in the kiddie pool in the backyard so um there are a lot of concerns and I hope the council members will um look at them

2:27:28thank you thank you can you please read the next uh four names yes we have Paulina [Music] pardon me some other and Austin rhorda and the last speaker slip I have is Mary Renfro great thank you good evening everyone my name is Paulina Lee and I reside at [address removed]

2:28:09the picture that my neighbor Jin show with lots of tree with just a little bit of the power pole and after the extension I see the poll that is from my house my husband and I moved from San Diego to El Cerrito a year ago exactly one year ago we had an opportunity to purchase

2:28:32another property at Seaview at Moser and Terrace Drive as you all know there are three Mega sites up there so that was the reason why we decided not to pursue that particular opportunity we found our Dream Home on Sea View Drive if we have seen such plan a year ago

2:28:55from the city council we would have not purchased this property if you go ask a realtor whether or not they if you go ask any realtor they will tell you that for all home search there's a few that you can choose or any any prospective buyer can choose view partial view or no View

2:29:23if your argument that partially blocked you by an ugly poll does not affect home value please explain to me why all Realtors have such tools to help them to filter out unwanted property do they have too much time to waste do they have nothing better to do I used to work from home after I moved

2:29:49to El Cerrito I basically was home-based using an atnt cell phone service 24 7. my house is pretty long and my office is all the way in the back of my office and of my house and I had absolutely no problem in terms of cell phone signal and by the way I do not have a landline

2:30:11as well someone someone brought up the fact that safety is an issue and the fact that else and ATT cannot even explain to us in terms of the weight how heavy it is it makes me really concerned and thank you for bringing all the um response card there are a total of 16

2:30:39pages I counted there are a total of 59 of them and using a wonderful at T service while I was sitting in the back I did not find one card that is from our area there are areas there are cards from north of Patrol Berkeley Kensington an address that cannot be found

2:31:06if you look at the heading of the cards they say either a t wants to improve wireless service near you or at T wants to improve wireless service in Berkeley I think we are looking at 851 Seaview Drive in El Cerrito particularly please begin to wrap up your comments

2:31:30um other question that I have for atnt is in the map they show how this particular poll would give us the service then how about the Mac the the macro structure on top of um Moser I like to know how that will benefit our service thank you [Applause] good evening city council mayor

2:32:03my name is Mary Shaughnessy and I live at [address removed] or have we as we have discussed I live in node three I am also an A T customer who has no experience of poor coverage in my area I respectfully submit to you that my dog died on August 7th he was old and grumpy

2:32:30but we loved him and my husband myself and two small boys were heartbroken that they may sound familiar to you because that is the day that the design review board met to review four of the five proposed Towers so instead of staying home and comforting my two small Boys by telling

2:32:49funny stories about what a good old boy our sweet freeway was my husband dutifully came here to express our family's concern about a plan of installing cell phone towers in our neighborhood and as you know the design board recommended to deny those applications

2:33:07yet because of the piecemeal application process that somehow states that each of these applications must be considered separately and because of the confusing and forgive me the seemingly rushed process of how the approval happened our neighbors were only able to appeal the

2:33:25Seaview Tower and so that Tower is not included in the recommended denial thank you today was the first day of school instead of lingering around the dinner table listening to my children tell about their day and their new teachers I am here expressing my concern about the

2:33:44one Tower at Seaview forgive me for leaping to conclusions however it's difficult for me to believe that ATT is proposing this tower for the sole benefit of those of us living in node 3 or that this project is being proposed in isolation yet this is how we are being asked to consider it as if the

2:34:03antenna is a loan project and not a part of a larger plan to build more and more will this Tower be less of a blight than the four that were recommended to be denied no yet we are considering just this one when the other four are now off the table at least temporarily more and

2:34:21more applications are being filed whoops excuse me and it is likely a t will be appealing the antenna that the design board denied or changing the location slightly and reapplying again this makes me fear that my family will be back again probably on back to school night again on my son's

2:34:41birthday and then again on Halloween going through this process again and again playing whack-a-mole with an improper piecemealing of this project it is hard for me to believe that there is not a better solution this is not in anyone's best interest we are El Cerrito

2:34:56we built a world-renowned recycling center we can solve this problem I love my cell phone I gain a benefit from cell phone towers I am also happy to keep my landline if I believed which I do not that my reception would be unreliable from a t in an emergency I see you scrolling down so it looks

2:35:20like you saw the red light thanks I would like for our city to develop a comprehensive plan for the placement of cell phone to antenna involves the city citizen involvement and takes into consideration the coverage needs as well as the quality of life of those who live here we the

2:35:36residents of node 3 are not challenged by topography we love the topography it's why we live here and we have choices the law does not force us to offer ourselves as a market to a t or to offer our children as future data points for the study of cell phone ray exposure

2:35:52I might also like to add that the Gully that runs along Moser Lane which is a proposed coverage breach is part of a slide and the only beings living there are deer I'm sure they would not mind a breach in coverage thank you [Applause] hi everybody uh Dave zemanik [address removed]

2:36:18drive thank you very much for providing the service that you do for our city um so uh I'm the one one of the people who had the other I had the poll that will come up in front of my view of Oakland we're not discriminating against at T Verizon provides service to our area

2:36:34they don't have anything on the poll I just don't understand when their engineer was asked last time why they can't provide the similar coverage that somebody else provides in the neighborhood it was basically a three-minute non-answer there was nothing there is there a proof that

2:36:47there's a disparity versus their customers I haven't heard it this is going to be the consistent theme what we really haven't heard how many sites do their competitors have sounds like they don't know um you know harmonious somebody who's harmonious I think it maybe was even our

2:37:03Planning Commission which is uh just killing me we have view ordinances in El Cerrito there's a reason we have view ordinances people value the view it is a factor in the home values um the Planning Commission states that this doesn't affect property values forgive me does the Planning Commission

2:37:20have any expertise in this area they talk to real estate brokers I went online and learned about this there are appraisers real estate brokers that all say that it affects property values um so it would be a little bit nicer if we had a little more a little better

2:37:33information it's just funny to hear the Planning Commission say something that contradicts an ordinance that we have within the city um when they came back our friends from at T said that this was the least intrusive option right and then Kensington denied it and all of a sudden

2:37:48whoa there's a least intrusive option that actually comes up I'm not convinced I think that there's other things this company generates a 1.8 billion dollars in cash um there has got to be a way for them to find something else that's going to work I think that's going to not be better I

2:38:03don't want my property value taken away right I don't think my neighbors do either I think what we're talking about is we're talking about taking money out of our pockets and putting it into a T's pocket is that really how you want to enter our neighborhood the other thing

2:38:14is your external Affairs have you talked with any of the residents have you said hey let's get down let's sit down let's talk about this let's find a solution lay out the facts um I guess I'm just kind of surprised that we are your customers and yet there was no effort to reach out to us it's

2:38:30just to come in and to come in with the lawyer and the shot clock what is this a basketball game uh I would ask you I know you get paid by ATT Dave Miller is one of my friends he's a wonderful guy he works with you let's forget the shot clock these are human beings here this isn't a game

2:38:46let's talk about this let's come up with a better solution sorry I'll try to get through this as quickly as I can service looks good there's nobody in our neighborhood that complains about it oh the map that was shown last time you guys know this there was no map showing

2:38:57better coverage in our neighborhood now all of a sudden it shows up plus the maps looked a little different to Me Maybe I'm Wrong defer to my neighbors but um I don't think the coverage is as bad as at T is this really really about 4G is that what it's really about that's my

2:39:10question one of them um has ATT proved that they've lost customers due lack of coverage do they have evidence that their customers have a lack of service uh more about the maps time of day factors right explain all this um no one is saying that else that the ATT

2:39:29can install Das locations in El Cerrito but collaboration with the residents um no one from ATT asked me to view the poll from my house I would let you see it I would let you come in come into my house look for my living room no contact um uh independent appraiser so the

2:39:47gentleman who's here Bill Hammett you're going to have to forgive me because there's a rumors wherever you are there's rumors about a wonderful ringer independent consultant that ATT uses so until I see somebody that the residents can vet I'm really not going to believe

2:39:59anybody that comes here who's paid in picked by a t um Please wrap up how many people have femto cells right if it's so bad when tons of people have femto cells we haven't heard about that um I'll pretty much wrap it up there it's just there's so many questions that are

2:40:22unanswered here and I I think it's so reasonable that they work with the residents and the property values are a real thing here um this is something that's absolutely going to affect them so thank you I want to work with ATT I'd be happy to sit down with you guys you want to take my

2:40:35number want to talk let's do it I think the residents would love it if we put this whole process on hold talk to us let's we would like to have an independent I believe they have to pay for that we can request it I'm done thank you very much [Applause] my name is Austin Rhode I live at [address removed]

2:40:57Seaview if you wonder where that is just draw a line from the Golden Gate Bridge through the proposed Tower and it'll land right on my porch so uh nobody looked for my deck to see where it affects my view but it is right right in the way so and I bought that view and it wasn't an investment it was

2:41:15a home and um I I want to keep it I don't want it to be sold and um so a couple things there's going to be two is there going to be two panels on top of the post or one two okay good so not good um two feet by one foot by eight foot so you add that up it's going to be two feet wide they

2:41:35never showed a perspective that shows the full width and and if it's going to go up and down the street then that full width is right right in in the middle of my view and it's so it's got to be probably a total of more than two feet wide given the attachment so we didn't

2:41:47get all the views which was a which was a little disappointing and um uh finally I'm I'm not an engineer but I'm a physicist and and if you can put a poll at 8 51 that serves the power lines on Moser which the new coverage map shows then I think you can probably put

2:42:05a system on Moser that can serve the region where the pole is not that we need it but um I think maybe they got to look at the coverage the potential benefit of of putting these services on Moser where they'd be a little less intrusive thank you thank you [Applause]

2:42:29good evening Mr Mayor members of the city council my name is Mary Renfro I live on balra Drive like one of the Mary's before me said until now I really have had Trust as Allison shimada said this is really only the second time I've come and stood in this chamber but this time

2:42:49too many of my neighbors approached me as I was working in my front yard and said have you heard about the cell towers so for the first time on August 7th I came here thinking oh no I know from cell towers I've been to a million of these hearings they are overreacting my

2:43:05neighbors are not overreacting good as Mr woodruffin formed you tonight is a de novo hearing de novo means Anew start again as Mr Woodruff informed you the applicant must prove two things one that there is a significant Gap in coverage and two this is the least intrusive

2:43:31means of covering that significant Gap it is up to you tonight to decide whether the applicant has convinced you Anew that there is a significant Gap and that this is the least intrusive means the applicant himself said that there's something called M2 service which people

2:43:50could get in their homes that would be small so if they find they don't have enough coverage for emergencies the individuals who want more coverage could do that and in closing I would like to say that it would be a travesty if you let talk of shot clocks intimidate you into allowing sheer

2:44:11inertia carry this project forward I ask you please Grant the appeal deny the project and if any appeal of the design review decision comes forward expect to see us all back here again thank you thank you [Applause] any other speakers I have no more requests to speak

2:44:45any other other questions that the council has at this time of anyone that's out there repellent applicant I'd like to reserve the right task questions once they give their rebuttal if that's okay okay thank you um at this point uh the applicant and the opponent will now have an

2:45:05opportunity for rebuttal I saw a hand in the back what is the hand for oh okay oh you know what's in the tray Karen it's right in front of you in the tray great it's okay thank you please that's that's why we asked the question my name is Marty voluba and I to urge

2:45:29you to obtain and analysis of significant alternative sites I came here tonight from Walnut Creek where I was an appellant for a proposed ATT cell tower I've been through this before with my own City Council I'm hearing the same information tonight from ATT that my city council and 200

2:45:47neighbors heard also one thing stands out we were told by at T that an alternative site at a East Bay mud utility location was not viable because a hill was in the way and in the middle of our hearing photographs were produced during the hearing and it was revealed that there

2:46:06was no Hill in the way it was a clear line of sight city council was very angry and had a lot of questions for at T and this is in the record of the city council meeting if you want to go back and look at it it is imperative that you obtain written independent analysis of significant Gap

2:46:24and alternative sites for Less intrusive locations and one other thing that I wanted to say is that um the second thing is that our Tower was approved after a year appeal a process we did not come across the shot clock our application was not deemed Complete because there was information that at T

2:46:46had not come across with particularly the fact that there was a hill in the site a hill in the way of an alternative site which was not true and we had them go back and provide more information the the tower was ultimately approved after a year after Ken Mintz became the

2:47:04president of the Chamber of Commerce there is deception and bias here and I urge you to seek an independent analysis thank you for listening thank you [Applause] so as I was saying the applicant and appellants will now have an opportunity for rebuttal um and it looks like the applicant will

2:47:30go first Mr Mintz you will have a maximum of five minutes interesting anybody perhaps we should fix 30.

2:47:42is it do we stop at 10 or 10 30. I can't remember okay sorry it's okay just a couple of quick remarks uh first uh we're not here this evening to to review structural analysis however we're more than uh happy to apply to go along comply with the request for ensuring

2:48:12that the structural analysis is done under Geo 95 as I mentioned earlier uh the poll is the responsibility of PG e it's our responsibility to get them all of the information as we're designing that poll and putting it in place and their responsibility to make sure that

2:48:29it all fits Geo 95. so that's something that it will happen absolutely but it happens down the road as part of the process we're not going to put anything on that pole that's structurally unsound there's absolutely no question about it the cpuc requirements are very clear

2:48:45about what is allowed to be on those polls and how it has to be on the poll um the other thing I just say as I've started my remarks you know we have identified through our engineering and through our customers that we have a significant Gap in coverage in this

2:49:02specific neighborhood and we have done an alternative analysis to identify what we believe is the least intrusive means for filling that Gap we're using existing pole structures so we do not have to add anything additional structures in this neighborhood and we

2:49:20have found that there are no macro capabilities on bigger towers that will help fill this need in this particular Community given the topography that is a part of this community um and and what we're trying to do is is clearly work with the community to ensure that we are creating the least

2:49:42amount of visual impact possible to be able to provide these Services going forward and I'm available for any additional questions right um there were several testimony that several testimonies that they had great service within this uh node the service that you'd provide this node it was your

2:50:00testimony earlier and I think the graphics demonstrated that you know the this node is going to provide something on the order of a 500 foot radius for good in-home coverage uh and you know we notice out to 300 feet and there's quite a few that have noticed that they've are

2:50:16your customers with great service in their homes um this doesn't necessarily fulfill or doesn't fit with The Gap analysis that you've provided tonight and I appreciate their their concerns around that or their lack of concern I guess that they feel they're getting great coverage now

2:50:33we want to make sure that they are getting great reliable service now and into the future as well interesting article just a few months back that Netflix is the largest use of Internet services Broadband services from 8 to 11 in the evening it's that type of thing when your neighbor comes

2:50:52home and turns on their tablet using their 3G or 4G network that that could have an impact on on your service in your home that otherwise in the middle of the day when that person's not in the community is working fine there are two aspects here what we've been talking

2:51:09about is coverage and ensuring that we have coverage and that's what the maps the propagation maps are all about the other aspect that we have to be very very clear about is capacity as Theta becomes more and more of a prevalent aspect of how people utilize communication devices like smartphones

2:51:29and tablets it's more than just the ability to make a phone call it's all these other things that people do with their devices multiple devices supporting small businesses in their homes some more supporting their children's education needs being able to get onto these devices to do what they

2:51:49need to for school those are all needs that that use this capacity that we're placing into the community and it's that that we're also trying to adjust to make sure that it's working now and into the future just one additional point in in the section e report from um from the

2:52:10ground one of the things that's mentioned is in the last five years the the amount of data over the network has increased 20 000 percent and over the next five years expects to go up another eight to ten times we're in the middle of a large exponential growth in terms of the

2:52:33ability of these systems to work for people and what we're trying to do is is work with them to make sure that not only they can get the service they're looking for right now but the service they're going to be looking for tomorrow as well and and the Gap analysis how does that

2:52:50measure capacity app analysis measurement now when you do your when you're demonstrating a gap in service how does that how does that measure capacity you're showing us that there's a gap yet we hear testimony that there isn't and you're saying that there is as a result of the data demands I'm

2:53:09just curious how capacity is measured I'm going to ask our engineer to come up and answer that question hi my name is Jimmy I'm the engineer I'm one of the engineers for ATT Jimmy gogis basically when it comes to capacity uh we have tools that show us exactly the

2:53:27bottlenecks that happen uh with regards to our current system and we we know exactly uh the necessary improvements that we need in order to remove this bottleneck that's happening with our data with our Data Network so essentially we're predicting what we'll need in the future as well as

2:53:49now to get the coverage out yes please so what would the experience be so the maps are existing service they don't take into account this future increase that Mr Mintz was talking about we do we do we do showcase what we'll need as well as well in the future okay so so essentially uh we're

2:54:11we're making it stricter so we can see exactly what we'll need in the future so a current customer might say they have reliable service but are you saying they have slower service than they could is that is that what would be the experience of somebody experiencing a

2:54:26gap in coverage other than just a dropped call which we all are kind of familiar with it's not it's not it's not only about drop calls it's about what we expect in terms of in terms of growth in terms of how uh data consumption is is moving forward so we're analyzing it

2:54:44based on that as well we can just focus on what's what's the current status we know what the current status is but we also want to improve for the future as well so do you think the maps that are called existing are not exactly existing they're existing plus a couple years

2:55:03I mean it's existing it's existing right now okay but when we when we showcase we're also focusing on the future as well okay but the existing maps are existing so even though it shows that there's um outdoor service not in building service but we have residents telling us

2:55:22they have in-building service we're just trying to reconcile that I think yeah so so I guess I'm gonna build on that question so this Gap this this area that's red um is at a particular time of day at a at a particular um data demand I mean is it what how are you generating this map when you when

2:55:45you start talking about capacity because I thought we were just talking about essentially energy coverage but now we're talking not only energy coverage we're talking about capacity and so what is this red symbol represent is it coverage or capacity capacity capacity

2:56:02both has an effect on coverage as well so capacity depending on how many people are on the network affects the coverage as well so one way to say this is that the people in this neighborhood use a lot of data unnecessarily not necessarily so so they may have good coverage but they don't

2:56:22have reliable coverage and you want to improve their coverage right exactly even though they they claim they have good coverage but they don't have good enough coverage exactly for other people to come into the neighborhood and use the same network as as well as in the future

2:56:36meaning they're using all the capacity thank you any other questions for the applicant before we go to the appellants uh rebuttal I was just wondering in in thinking about other possible alternatives I was just I wonder if you could tell me your opinion of this idea

2:57:01um what if there were one of I seem to hear a number of people be concerned about views and and the height issue and um we actually do not have anything in this city at the moment that does anything about views except as it relates to tall trees that and those the

2:57:23range of those I believe is if I remember correctly and this is from memory um the ones that are prohibited grow to like over 100 feet I think so it's like another ballpark but at any rate the um what if uh instead of this being on the same poll as all that other stuff

2:57:44that's there now going into that poll through those wires that are there now um there were a new poll very near but not in the same place that we're not so high does that even work for your use just from my opinion uh that's what we're trying to avoid we're trying to avoid adding additional polls

2:58:07additional towers as much as possible so even in the city's ordinance you know you're looking for co-location as one of your top preferable ways of dealing with additional um uh cell antennas so where possible we try to go to co-location we try to go to commercial areas first but we have a

2:58:29gapping coverage in a residential neighborhood right now no I think the issue that semicolocation is sort of where they take up the same space but when it's one on top of the other that's that's that's the part that is well first of all the collect you mean co-location with are the utilities

2:58:49that's what you're I think that's what you're saying um anyway what I'm saying is the height what if I'm just actually I'm really asking you a question which is if it were put on another poll would that signal signal being in a location that would was it that height

2:59:10that that in a different place nearby in the in the coverage area would it even work that's what I'm wondering right now let's see if I can help with that answer if you look at our alternative analysis which is in tab this is in the doctor we just got at the beginning of this meeting yes in the

2:59:29binder that we provided again I'm John demening the attorney for 18t yeah it was also in in our agenda package if you if you look at me enough tab F you turn to our Alternatives you'll see the site I think you're talking about is alternative Ford node zero three e

2:59:49uh how would I find about page four we got a map a cover map I'm confused on how I find the page four discount hold it up sure it's like that is this the cluttered all right no that's a different page so it's it's node zero three e is in Edward yes so it says alternative for I'll keep going

3:00:14through that's the title of the page there's the 3D is the next one [Applause] alternative for node three e okay right and that was the cluttered poll you were talking about wasn't it that's your proposal right yep no that's not our proposal that's not the proposal

3:00:33is the first page that says primary site no this is I believe not my proposal not my the thing this is not my equipment my question is it is not about something that would look like this okay and you were saying put another poll near this one yeah but I didn't mean attached all

3:00:51those wires to it sure understood and your your point was we're part of our point is this is cluttered and we can't put things on it the um no what I'm saying is so so that has an existing height yes I don't know what it is let's call it 10 feet 35 feet 35 feet okay and uh you're

3:01:14proposing to add seven feet seven ten feet with the with the antenna it comes out to be about 45 feet so about 10 if you count that 10 feet incremental is 35 feet you're proposing to 45. what if you went over and had some other poll we started at zero right okay okay

3:01:35so my question and so your original poll that you don't have anything on yet at least not this is 35 right the existing pole is 35 feet okay so what if there were this other poll that whose height is 35 feet with everything attached can does that work for you does it

3:01:54produce the signal that you're looking for Signal depends on two things and and coverage for the significant Gap it depends on two things one is the location the geographic location given the coverage Gap and the second is the height of the antennas so we're looking for in that specific

3:02:11location where this primary site is we're looking for an antenna height of about 45 feet we're in a different location and we had different topography we might be looking at a different uh height of the pole so it takes 45 feet to do what you need to do at that primary location yes

3:02:27now if we were at a different location it might be a little bit up a hill someplace it might be a lower number and and that was evaluated and that's addressed in the uh in that exhibit all of the polls in the area were independently evaluated from their I guess just a not existing

3:02:46polls I'm talking about some spot you're talking about if we were to add that was just exclusively for this antenna let's just say I'm just asking a question depending depending upon the location you couldn't count on it being exactly the same because topography

3:03:05comes into play so the engineering would have to be done to analyze at the location that you'd want to place your hypothetical pole what height it would need to be to get similar coverage but assuming it's on the same topography and it's right next to this primary poll

3:03:22it would be 45 feet that's that's what our Engineers have determined is the height that's necessary to provide that coverage so the wanted to go to a different location it could be a different height level so I'm sorry but the testimony earlier was that you needed to add a

3:03:39seven foot extension to get separation required by puc that that is still the testimony no it's not actually the testimony now is that you need 45 feet in order to get the coverage you've advertised yeah so that's not the same testimony it includes the necessary separation from

3:03:57the PG e wires as well granted but it's not the same testimony either you need 45 feet or you need the seven feet of Separation which is it if we need both that's the point we need 45 feet for the coverage objectives we need the seven feet to comply with a cpuc regulations if you

3:04:16look at the primary site analysis that was done under Section F in the book which is the second page when it talks about the primary site it talks about from the site is acceptable only if additional height can be achieved by proposed poll top extension so yes there's there's two things at play here

3:04:39there's the separation from the electric wires the PG e wires but it's also we need that height in order to make the coverage objective and they just happen to be vaguely the same it's about that right okay and in the same way we also reviewed for this poll whether we could bring it down into a

3:04:59side arm below the PG e lines and we found no we could not meet our coverage objectives even if we had the separation at a lower distance if there was space below the wires it this poll would not work for us do the antennas need to be at the same elevation or can they be stacked

3:05:28the problem with stacking if I if I may that design has been explored obviously if it if they're stacked vertically stacked then more height is required so it would be more visually intrusive um also according to you keep going you just you just gave us an opinion as opposed to

3:05:47fact please stay stay with the facts don't don't tell me what's visually intrusive at the moment please stick with the the facts if you don't mind I'd be happy to answer the question we said we can stack the antennas and I think that's the answer we can work with right

3:06:03shall I continue I like the picture that says primary site um because that actually is a picture that represents my next question okay um and my next question has to do with the cracks somebody mentioned in the concrete um and I certainly don't know directly myself

3:06:24what caused that crack but it's of interest to me that there is a crack right there there if that in fact is the case so what I'm wondering is would that um crack be um I'll call it fixed I don't know what fixed means but in uh when you add all the additional weight created by your

3:06:47system uh to assure that everything is gonna stay up okay well my all of this needs to be vetted through the building permit process right we couldn't build anything that wouldn't pass the appropriate inspections and building code requirements so if that crack needed to

3:07:07be fixed the answer is that we'd fix the crack if if it was required for structural safety that's what would be done so does that mean I need to ask somebody else like our staff that question um yeah and and we would comply with whatever the building department said we

3:07:24needed I just sort of slip in and asked our um owner staff uh get your title I'm sorry foreign development services manager development services manager thank you Mark it's uh on this point the PG e polls are not the city of El Cerrito's purview for Building Division we don't inspect the

3:07:52polls for strengths that's something that's taken care of by the cpuc so we are not uh the city does not and in my experience we do not um inspect these so what I'm actually wondering is correct my answer is she is correct I thought the crack was in the was in the sidewalk

3:08:09I did too I didn't realize it was in the poll I thought I heard someone say there was a crack in the sidewalk if it is in the sidewalk then it would be something we'd work out with a building department if it's in the poll or if there's a question about the pole safety that's

3:08:24regulated by the cpuc and um there are detailed uh regulations for pole loading and what can be put on polls and calculations that need to be done um to comply with those regulations and we've heard the citation to that rule Geo 69 we'd be happy to provide you guys

3:08:41and your staff a copy of it and explain how we go through that process but but we we would comply with that process and make sure the poll is safe so I guess I I hear what you're saying about there is a rule and a process however what I'm concerned about is that the thing not

3:08:56fall apart which is perhaps a different thing and um so and I don't really know anything about the details of that particular process so I can't let me offer a compromise if it would help we would be more than happy to inspect the poll as part of putting uh putting any equipment on it

3:09:16not only to ensure that we're complying with all necessary regulations but to ensure that the poll is safe and and adequately sound to handle the equipment okay so that would be a condition we'd be happy to accept that as a condition yeah that you would inspect the poll yes

3:09:32um and and what happens if it's not okay well we'd be happy to ride this staff with a report that says it's okay if it's not okay then we'd have to replace the poll okay PG e wouldn't replace it well it's a jointly owned poll I know there's been some discussion about how the The Joint

3:09:51poll Association works but the way the the jointful association in this area works with PG E when other carriers put things on polls they become co-owners the way that process works so we actually would I think we do own part of that poll right now today or the

3:10:07telephone company at least owns part of that okay okay I think that question got answered so so going down the your your attorney has given us you know a mandate that we have to that you guys have to demonstrate two things uh one is a gap and the second is at least intrusive

3:10:26um but I just heard you say that you would potentially replace the poll and by the way I am that attorney yes yes and pull replacement um you know would eliminate potentially some of the unsightly aspects of the extension so I'm just trying to figure out why that's not considered a feasible

3:10:44alternative to the proposed project well to be clear all the stuff that's on the pole would stay on the pole so we put a new poll in place and all the stuff that's attached would be then attached to the new pole so not we're not proposing to add an additional poll

3:10:59no I understand okay we replaced that one my point is that the actual for me part of what's unsightly is the actual um I think you call it a bayonet that is used to extend the poll and and so I'm just trying to figure out it you know you you just said that there's a

3:11:16feasible alternative to this at least less uh intrusive you know would potentially be putting up a poll that has less profile less lateral profile we've talked about stacking the the antennas that would have a less lateral profile so I'm just I'm trying to get to

3:11:34least intrusive sure and and and granted least intrusive is subjective um but I but I'm just trying to understand what the what is the um threshold for determining least least intrusive we we would replace the pole with a poll of of the same height actually higher 45 foot height right

3:11:56right um to match what the extension would be but you wouldn't have the extension on top of it it would have all the other equipment attached to it and if you want to make that a condition of approval we'll accept that as well that's not what my point was thank you

3:12:09that is so no it's not the the point is that we are supposed to make findings that uh if you look at I think it's our third finding that we're supposed to do we're supposed to make a finding that the that they've considered all feasible Alternatives and and we keep coming up with different things

3:12:25that they're willing to do and I'm just trying to figure out where does this this slippery slope end where feasibility has actually been exhausted so I I'm if I'm no because actually we we need to keep moving so please any other questions for the applicant because we do have a five-minute

3:12:42presentation from that sorry let me see if I have any more they seem to be taking a while um okay Meg I think let's just see you know I think I think that was it oh wait a minute one no I asked that question thank you May okay um there were some there was some concern brought up about the noise

3:13:08coming from the facility and the potential for I'm not sure if it was fan noise or what might be installed can you speak to that please sure we we will be happy to provide a report that shows that we're in compliance with the Sound Ordinance of the city and do you think there will be any

3:13:23additional would that report may show that there's additional sound but that it's within our limits there is sound okay yes there are antenna there are fans associated with the equipment um we believe that we'll be able to give you a report that shows we're in compliance with your rules

3:13:38without curiosity do they run all the time or do they just run on hot days they run when there's a certain heat within the code like your laptop computer laptop exactly okay um there's been a lot of testimony with folks questioning whether or not you need service here given that you

3:13:55have 10 staff here you obviously think you you want service here for some reason and I think the implication that's on message boards and whatnot of folks out there that I just want to directly ask the question I think the implication is that you're not really trying to serve El Cerrito you're just

3:14:09wanting to use this as a relay point up to serve Kensington because for whatever reason so I would just want to ask directly is the primary purpose of this Das node to serve the propagation map that you've shown that shows the 500 foot radius around it or is the primary purpose to use this as a

3:14:25relay point up to Kensington no it is to serve the area right around that node in fact it's a low power that serves in that immediate area as our map shows okay thank you thank you ask a question follow-up question on the The Fan sure how much noise when you're talking about the

3:14:45noise how much what's the decibels um yeah do we have that number handy we don't have the number handy but we will give you a report that that shows that it's in compliance with your rules um and you can put that as another condition on the approval and make sure

3:15:00that we comply with that I was just wanting to know what it was yeah yeah I'm sorry I don't have that many things like me two or I don't think it's two I think it's you know this is a this is equipment um with a fan um and two would not be audible but but I do not know what the actual number is

3:15:20and I would hate to speculate and be wrong thank you is it no somebody um 20 feet away I I I I can't answer that question honestly I can I can't tell you we'll give you a report okay is there an another person who could maybe we it's actually yeah bill can you have you

3:15:49yeah so I bill uh Bill Hammett would be doing the report on the noise associated with this um and he hasn't done one for this jurisdiction but we would be more than happy to provide that report and that will give you all the details that that you need you can make out a condition of approval

3:16:04that we show that we're in compliance with your noise ordinance great thank you um we have a five-minute rebuttal from the um appellant so if we could uh have that at this time please and then we can entertain your motion to uh extend it yeah good evening again

3:16:29you know sitting here about four hours three hours three and a half hours the only two things like here one is no significant Gap there is none it's when you have a significant Gap it's based on the need of 18 you need to relay that information too I'll relay the signature otherwise it would not go

3:16:48through it's based on the desire it's an opportunistic business installation in the rightly zone low density residential area of Elsewhere and that's one thing and second thing we like to stress is that with so many questions and answer tonight and this is a slippery slope as

3:17:08the mayor pointed out there's so much uncertainty I stack that also shows that there should be a study done before the planning commission's approval and therefore we think I'm sure all of us think that spending commissions approvals Grounds was on sale and I we would like this

3:17:32Council to uphold appeal granular appeal and deny the project thank you [Applause] that's another question yes please can I ask just a question of staff there was also a question brought up about a comprehensive plan for the sighting of cell facilities and I believe and maybe 18 T can confirm this

3:18:01for me how old this dos technology is but I think that during our moratorium this dos technology wasn't in place or wasn't deployed and that was around 2009 so I guess one first question is when when was this first sort of be begun to be propagated in cities and then my second my question to you

3:18:22Margaret would be are you aware of other jurisdictions that go through this sort of comprehensive planning process I'm having a hard time myself trying to Envision it given the uncertainty of technology in the future but I'm just curious if you happen to know of other

3:18:34jurisdictions that have tried to draw these sort of hard-line maps that say you neighborhood you will never see this in your area whereas this is the area that we're going to start putting these sorts of facilities in and I'm having I'm trying to Envision what this process

3:18:48would be like at this time I have no um I have not heard of any City in our region um or in the state of California that has a master plan for the future location of telecommunication devices okay I think a lot of it would be dependent on the technology and as it

3:19:07changes and and um uh as as different technical qualities change it would be hard to at this point uh speculate how that might be laid out across our city okay and then I just want to know how long the Das technology has been in place or has been used in this area

3:19:31foreign yet another face yeah my name is Bill Stevens on behalf of ATT and I just want to speak historically historically uh distributive antenna systems have been around since the early part of the last decade I first worked on a distributed antenna system in 2003

3:19:52um it ended up becoming part of a Verizon network it was a bit of a beta or prototype in San Francisco um and one of the reasons that Das technology is in the Forefront today is because it does provide the capacity to fill in some of these Gap areas that the carriers

3:20:15didn't focus on previously in part because fiber is it's an expensive application but the capacity needs today demand fiber that's one of the reasons that Das has become prevalent now so it's been around for a good 10 years but and prevalent since prevalent for just a few

3:20:34years or prevalent oh I think since 2007 2008 okay um Southern California has a number of networks San Francisco's been up and permitted since 2008. thank you just a couple of examples Freeman yeah three questions because I have a comment if you can actually emotion well actually we have a

3:20:58procedure to go through um unless your motion is to extend we do need to close the public hearing I'm gonna make that one awesome okay I move we extend till 11 pm second to motion we have a motion in a second all those in favor say aye aye aye none opposed uh show the measure the

3:21:18motion patches unanimously please um you have a question or a comment um or you're moving on to another motion I'm going off the notes now I'm sorry I'd like to make a motion to close the public hearing my second the motion we have a motion in a second all those

3:21:38in favor please say aye aye no no opposition uh please let the record show the motion passes unanimously comments or questions from the council Mr Freeman yeah sorry to jump again there um to me it's ironic that att's desire is to improve the coverage for the neighborhood yet the people from the

3:22:04neighborhood who are here don't feel that they need that so um that's a real dilemma for us here and I did look at the all the cards from people who want improved coverage and as pointed out they aren't actually from the neighborhood I think the comments that were made it would have been good for a

3:22:26t to schedule a meeting maybe at somebody's home in the neighborhood or Huber park or at the community center had some of these questions uh answered so that's in the past we can't undo that but in the future I think it would be good public process for at T the motion

3:22:49that I would like to make is to deny the appeal with the following conditions first that there be a gap analysis paid for by a t and the those performing that Gap analysis selected by the city the second is that there be an annual inspection for the next five years

3:23:14third is that the poll be inspected jointly by ATT and the city and that if it's found inadequate by either party that then it would be replaced at a T's expense and the fourth that there be a noise report that's satisfactory to City staff we have a motion before we get that

3:23:40seconded I have a couple of questions for the motion maker um in in our resolution um in the specific resolution on the second page there's items seven and eight that I would like to have a discussion on before you proceed to at least find out what your your thoughts are on this in seven there's a

3:24:02sentence the second the third sentence uh it is not feasible to limit the site's visual impact um I'm just curious if if that's a finding you will you feel comfortable making it this time while you're considering that let me let me uh yep while you're considering that

3:24:22number eight um number eight is in response to section 19.28.060 c where we need to find um it is not feasible to provide the service at another location or to incorporate additional measures such as a decrease in height increase in setback change in design relocation relative to

3:24:45other structures or natural features that would further reduce its visibility and I would suggest that there is based on the testimony we've gotten tonight the feasibility analysis that was provided is part of our packet that there is some alternative language that

3:25:03might be more prudent in for number eight to reflect the evidence that has been submitted um I'm I'm taking an amendment to my motion from the mayor please so for item seven I I don't know it you know it's not feasible to limit the site's visual impact um I believe we actually those words are

3:25:29very critical to that particular finding um so I would ask I can't remember which finding that finding is in response to I believe um the proposed the requirement that we have to make a finding the proposed facility will not be readily visible or is not feasible to incorporate

3:25:53additional measures that would make the facility not readily visible as defined in section 1928.040 and so so that sentence I don't believe can be deleted um so I so I don't I don't have a I don't have a suggestion I just had to question if you're if you feel you'll be

3:26:09able to support that finding with the evidence that we've had this evening good enough I'm not sure I understand but what you're saying if it um so so in for item seven that is in response to our requirement in section 19.28060 uh four so so I'm reading now I'm

3:26:43reading now from our our ordinance the proposed facility will not be readily visible or it is not feasible to incorporate additional measures that would make the facility not readily visible as defined in section 19. what okay but what what's being proposed is just to eliminate seven no no what we

3:27:03have to have some finding that basically says it's not feasible to mitigate the visual impact it's not feasible to limit the site's visual impact so we need to have something it's like calling that out that that's a finding that we need to to make this evening and I just want to

3:27:21make sure everyone is comfortable with that finding given the fact that there are there potentially are things like stacking the stacking the antennas although that would increase the height it would reduce it to uh to potentially something that looks more like a pole

3:27:34the whole height up as opposed to having this big wide can at the top things like replacing the pole and not as a condition of of uh site assessment I actually think that the bayonet and all of the foot uh protrusions that they're going to put in order to have safe access to that height adds to that

3:27:58width and visual unattraction Uncle Pleasant so I I personally think that there are things that the applicants already said that they're willing to do that potentially would make it make the visual impact less and I just want to make sure that we're we're stipulating those yeah you

3:28:19make it you make a good point I just want to ask a quick process question so in this The Next Step were this were this project to go for would be to go to the drb is that correct and can staff confirm for me whether or not the drb would have a discussion about the sort of thing that you're

3:28:41asking I'm just thinking the things you're asking are exactly as you said are so subjective and I feel like those are the sorts of things that you really need input on rather than the four of us figuring out whether width or height is more aesthetically pleasing

3:28:54if this um installation is allowed to remain if the so the planning commission's decision goes forward yes the then this would go to the designer view board for the athletic considerations so but I want to make I I want to add and I'm sorry I hesitated earlier only

3:29:11because I wasn't sure whether or not it was one that had already gone to drbs in there so but I want to make clear that the way the city's municipal code is set up the review of the land use issue is separate from the review of the Aesthetics for design review before you

3:29:28tonight is only the issue of the land use that includes issue the requirement to make findings that have certain visibility components but it is not the design itself that's under review tonight so and I and I want to emphasize that that the particular wording of the findings

3:29:48that are required um under the under number four that that commissioner Lyman um read earlier and this is Page four of the staff report the finding is that the proposed facility will not be readily visible or it is not feasible to incorporate additional measures that would make the

3:30:08facility not readily visible as defined in section 1928040 the the fact the criteria there being it's not feasible to incorporate additional measures that would make the facility not readily visible um then the way that that's defined in the related section is um it is not feasible to provide service

3:30:32at another location or to incorporate additional measure measures such as a decrease in height increase in setback change in design relocation relative to other structures or natural features that would further reduce its visibility now that's summarized in a particular

3:30:46way in the proposed finding and the resolution the pros worrying to support the finding but those are the particular requirements of of the actual findings that are necessary to be made so I just want to make sure that the council is focused on the particular wording when

3:31:01you're when you're deliberating on this issue indeed but um those in on page four number four the end of that italics section references 1928.040 and and you were reading from 0.6040 is a typo there is it not I don't believe it is it may not be I would I would look to staff I didn't call that

3:31:22out as a typo because I assumed that cross-reference was at appropriate because o40 is our ordinance for uh I'm sorry I might have been Mis I might have been misreading was never provided in the staff report so I don't know if that is the correct citation or not

3:31:44because 28040 is one of the ones that the appellates did cite as uh something that you know we would be upholding and as pointed out later on the on later in the staff report 040 doesn't apply if you have a finding under 0.60 so I'm trying to figure out if that reference

3:32:02is correct section 1928-040 is the standards for wireless telecommunications facilities if the Planning Commission approves a use permit uh and and adopts findings under Section 1928-060 the standards in 040 don't apply to the facility and those so even even though this

3:32:29particular 060 finding does reference 040 for the definition of readily visible the definition of readily visible is what I'm asking for and that's in o40 and I don't have that in front of me we will locate that but 040 doesn't apply if a use permit is required the definition that's in 040

3:32:53would apply if because this is in 060.

3:32:56this text is in 060 and it applies and it's cross-referencing the definition in o40 I think the finding I think what I'm understanding is the finding itself references section 040 if if the citation is correct oh in the 1928 060 required findings which is what has stipulated their

3:33:34subsection A4 is the proposed facility will not be readily visible or is it not or it is not feasible to incorporate additional measures that would make the facility not readily visible as defined in sections 1928 overall so it's referring back to those particular items that the

3:33:54City attorney pointed to no because what he pointed to was 060c can you go to o40 please and find out what the definition of readily visible is sure or what what definition is cross-referencing while she's doing that mayor can you remind us on the um resolution we're looking at besides

3:34:19number seven what was the other sentence you wanted to discuss actually all of section eight all of section eight all section eight the the requirement that is the the requirement that that Mr Woodruff just read for 060 which basically says that about height increase in setback change in design

3:34:35this this text does not necessarily um reflect the evidence that's been testified tonight so I would say for example in as referenced in both their e and attachment seven I think in our our packet um you know the the applicant investigated alternate locations in this

3:34:56neighborhood including adjacent existing utility poles Blake Garden Huber Park uh the First Unitarian Church uh in Kensington and all of these locations alternative sites it was either not feasible to meet the applicant's coverage objectives or the sites were not visible or were more visible

3:35:14um you know so the California Public Utilities Commission through general order 95 requires a minimum separation requirement of six feet in the antennas and existing electric lines it is therefore not feasible to lower the elevation of the proposed antennas and

3:35:26meet the applicant's cover objective I think that speaks towards our the finding we need to make um with regards to the feasibility of this location compared to other locations um where the the text that's in our current resolution does not necessarily address the feasibility design changes and

3:35:45setbacks that Mr Woodruff mentioned a minute ago looking back at section 28040 there are two indirect references to visibility and I wanted to touch on both of them uh specifically in 040a location inciting all facilities shall be designed and cited to minimize their

3:36:10visibility preventing visual clutter and reduce conflicts with surrounding land uses in this chapter readily visible in quotes means that a person with normal vision can see the facility and distinguish it as an antenna or other component of a wireless telecommunition

3:36:24telecommunications facility and then in subsection e it goes on to talk about design and screening um which helps kind of round out that discussion but I think the definition you were looking for is in the readily visible we just read correct thank you um so going back to to the sentence in

3:36:43seven it's not feasible to limit the site's visual impact um I guess I would can make that binding given well I guess if if there are see I'm I'm hearing testimony tonight that ATT can potentially make some changes that would reduce its antenna-like nature as defined in

3:37:04040 so I'm I guess if we can get a t to make those commitments to reduce its its look like an antenna then then that can support that sentence well why don't [Music] we have another look at alternative designs for the antenna that may be more visually appealing or we could even ask

3:37:34that they present Alternatives at the design review board hearing up until this point we've only seen one design option for the site we've seen other locations but we could ask that they present alternative designs for the drb's consideration that they would find

3:37:48acceptable I mean frankly mayor Pro tem Abelson even put out it's not your traditional consideration of an alternate but a and I understand why you put it on existing polls because it's potentially less expensive but also less intrusive by some people's analysis but

3:38:09it might be a location 100 feet down the street that is not in anybody's view shed or less in people's view sheds that might because of its location within with respect to the terrain because where this pole is if you look at terrain this pole is closer to the drainage than to the nose of the of it

3:38:27so there might be a location that could be 25 feet height and not in front of Italy's house and that would be less intrusive and it's not an existing poll I know it's a new poll but but you know that there potentially is even an alternative that was put out tonight by mayor Pro tem that is less

3:38:46intrusive um it might require a interactive process with the community to help cite that location but it but it there to me there are potentially other less intrusive locations or alternatives so so I that that's why I'm having I'm having a little bit of trouble

3:39:07um you know we do have an analysis for existing polls but we don't necessarily have an analysis that that exhausts it and the imagery we're seeing for this existing pole the design plans which I'm familiar with the design plans and it's not quite for um Mr Z wherever you are it they aren't

3:39:26pointed exactly directly across each other they're actually at Angles to each other they're almost 90 degrees apart so it's not quite you know four feet wide but it but it is it's wide and it's going to clearly look like an antenna at the top of that poll and and I think

3:39:41based on our definition we have the grounds to to ask them to consider um you know looking for Alternatives that have less intrusion into the community I think that's the the attorney's letter says something to that attack [Music] that the proposed facility would provide

3:40:04the least intrusive means in relationship to land use values embodied in the local regulations so as our as the opponent has has testified tonight our land use values are pretty clear in our ordinance and and I'm for me um you know I I've heard the I've heard testimony from a t that says they can

3:40:25make changes to potentially reduce the lateral profile of the site to in reduce its intrusiveness to potentially fit with our our own definition in o40 so so I I don't know how to I don't know how to get to that point but adding the fifth condition and that they

3:40:48go to the design review board with alternative designs for this existing poll as well as an alternative that would reach their coverage objectives in a possibility of a brand new poll or de novo poll I like the de novo poll um I I I believe that those uh additional conditions some of those I

3:41:12actually suggested myself are all amenable and given that I potentially can support the proposed seven as written yeah can I ask a question since I think we're just a point where we can switch subjects slightly um I think this question is for one of our staff but and I've been trying I was

3:41:35trying to ask Mr Hannah and that the other day um so or a version of it um so if let's say that uh this was uh passed by the council The Next Step would be that the application would go to drb and um where it could either be approved or denied if it were denied

3:42:02and it can it be appealed question mark and who has it appealed to sorry that any decision of the designer View Board can be appealed to the Planning Commission okay and then the decision can be brought back up to council okay so if it were okay if if there were enough appeals it

3:42:26would be back here that's that's why I was just wanting to understand how the process worked um okay that answered I I just wanted that question answered thank you we have a motion the motion maker amended his motion um with with friendly wording I don't know if I

3:42:49have to reread number eight um for anybody's benefit I'm looking I mean I read out you repeat the question please do we do we have to reread my proposed language for the replacement paragraph of eight if you would please okay um the applicant investigated alternative locations including adjacent

3:43:16existing utility poles Blake Garden Huber Park and the First Unitarian Church of Berkeley and Kensington all of these alternative sites at all of these alternative sites it was either not feasible to meet the applicant's coverage objectives or the sites were more visible the California

3:43:33Public Utilities Commission through general order 95 requires a minimum separation requirement of six feet between antennas and the existing electrical lines is therefore not feasible to lower the elevation of the proposed antennas and meet the applicant's coverage objective

3:43:50that does not reduce my opinion about the feasibility the analysis that you've asked for just that language this language would be stronger for the finding that's necessary we have a motion okay I'm prepared to second the motion I just want to make one quick comment and that is just a

3:44:13thank you all for coming tonight of course we I think we all feel this way we know how it is to leave your families at night and come for hours and hours and we get to sit up here and talk and you have to mostly be quiet so thank you very much for coming participating and I

3:44:24had the same finding that or I had the same thought that councilmember Friedman had that was getting down to this finding of of the Gap analysis and I feel like the condition we put in there we've taken testimony from a t that very strongly says they need this but now we

3:44:39have a independent analysis that will come out for the Gap and we've talked on and on about what might be the least intrusive means of providing this type of service and there's I can tell you there's people up on Mosher and Arlington who just hate macro sites and

3:44:53they would have loved it if at T had come up with a with a Dos smaller type of site so I think that we've talked about types of Alternatives they've said there's no technology that they can provide to us what we are asking them now is to come up with an less interested in measure from an Aesthetics

3:45:09perspective even if the technology is the same So based on these considerations and taking into account all of the testimony the public has provided and all the emails we receive thank you very much for that this has been a difficult decision I think for all of us but I feel like we've come to

3:45:23a point now where we've asked ATT to do a bit more for our community and we'll have another moment to look at their designs at drb so for that reason I'm prepared to second the motion any comments last comments I just would like to awake quick comment and that is to also thank

3:45:44the audience for coming and I have received a number of letters uh mostly on um with concerns but on both sides and I know also how difficult it is to come and leave small ones especially but all ones too um and so I thank you also for coming and going through this

3:46:07um sometimes very laborious process with a lot of rules that have to be followed but the intent of it all is is a good one the thing that's still frustrating though I do have to say this at the end of the day is that a lot of the things that people are concerned about are

3:46:25rules that are passed by the federal government in order to make interstate commerce work and um they don't enable a process that would enable local residents in a local area to really provide opinions to the people who have made the rules that would make a difference

3:46:46to know and I find that quite frustrating and I think it probably whether you know it or not frustrates every single person in this room so I would like to thank everyone for coming tonight again and working with us with within the bounds of what we are allowed

3:47:05to do and um and ask for your support in this as it moves along in the future because if assuming it does pass it's actually not over yet it will go back to drb um and then it and then it'll depend on what happens there what happens next but thank you thank you everyone for coming and before

3:47:28I call the motion I just want to make sure that all the members from at T were listening very carefully to the public testimony tonight you have an opportunity to reach out to the community they have expressed their desire to talk to you and work with you we've given you condition we've proposed

3:47:44conditions that would allow you an opportunity to work with the neighbors and I'm hoping that you will take that opportunity Miss Cavanaugh Lynch I have a couple of questions just to clarify the conditions of approval to make sure staff can practically Implement them please do

3:47:58um one of the conditions added by the council tonight is in discussion above the Gap analysis so I have in my notes a gap analysis of the existing coverage provided by at T shall be prepared by a third-party third-party contractor this analysis shall be provided prior to the

3:48:15installation of the Das site if the analysis shows that no Gap exists what would you like staff to do if there's no Gap then there's no need for the node so so okay so in the condition it will state if the Gap analysis is concludes that no Gap actually exists I believe that's one of

3:48:39the conditions that uh Mr dibeni de Benny has stated is that they need to demonstrate a significant Gap in wireless service coverage if there's no significant Gap then then then they're they're that you know there there should be no need for a node the project would cease at that point

3:49:01basically I mean I think that that probably that the it I'm going to assume that in this hypothetical situation the applicant would would probably not concur with with that Gap analysis and would want an opportunity to be heard before any action was taken I mean I realized that

3:49:23basically that demonstration of a gap is is sort of a precondition to the application even being necessary um but I I think that um in order to um you know it's a little bit of an unusual circumstance so I'm trying to figure out procedurally what the best path forward would be and probably we'd

3:49:41need to come back to the city council for consideration of um of the issue I guess it would reopen it would reopen our our hearing exactly right I mean basically the I mean one way to look at it would be that all of the findings sort of are built upon the the the the the

3:49:57supposition that this Gap exists um and so I think it would need to come back to the city council for consideration about whether or not you can still make the findings does that answer staff's question clearly yes thank you and the last condition that was just added um

3:50:15regarding the applicant will be bringing forward this cell site to the designer View Board they should be bringing along with that submittal alternative to the existing poll visually Superior examples of the existing poll uh alternative to the existing plan for the

3:50:36poll thank you yes there's alternatives for the existing plan to the to the poll and I had in my notes possibly also bouncing on a reflecting council member abelson's comment an alternative poll location that's correct that that is what councilmember Friedman did say that that

3:50:56is one of the alternatives for least visual impact I'm keep trying to use Mr de Benny's words least intrusive means of providing the coverage this would include a potential new poll location sort of a little wrinkle to throw on that so if the drb selected that alternative location then they would

3:51:24have selected a location that has not been noticed you know the residents around that new location had not heard anything about this and that seems like that would be fairly problematic um I'm hoping it would be within within the 300 foot exactly the campuses won't be relevant if it's

3:51:45too far away right okay as I've stated I'm hoping they'll Avail themselves of a public Outreach process we have a motion and it's 11 by my clock we have a motion it's been seconded um all those in favor please say aye aye no opposition please let the record show

3:52:09that it passed unanimously Mr Moss is no wait not Mr Moss is Mr Schultz in the house wait no no well we do have three minutes up there on top so I have a clock I'm going to ask Mr Schultz do you want to do this tonight or do you want to do this another night and I move 7A and seven b wait whose

3:52:44microphone is that I don't know can I move 7A and 7B without a presentation we will not skip public comment though right right we want to skip public comment of course I would second that wait you have to read the title of the ordinance yeah okay I move uh 7A single use beta coordinate

3:53:10[Music] and 7B the foodware ordinance does he have to read the whole the whole ordinance or the ordinance that's in the uh agenda of the ordinance you've got to go to the actual rezos all right okay if anybody finds it before I do go ahead over here that's this one a lot of

3:53:36papers [Applause] okay uh an ordinance by the city of El Cerrito regulating the use of plastic carryout bags and recyclable paper carryout bags and promoting the use of reusable bags within the city that's 7A and 7B is an ordinance of the city council prohibiting the use of expanded

3:54:06polystyrene disposable food wear and encouraging the use of compostable recyclable and reusable foodware second so we have a motion that's been made and seconded at this point I'd like to take any public comment on these two items item 7A and 7B um Maya James Maya James did you remain did you stay

3:54:28oh thank you Maya so it's Miss James we would normally give you three minutes but hopefully you have a short brief remark Maya James resident of El Cerrito in the world still inconveniences are far outweighed by how important this is for the environment I think this is a minor change in

3:54:56behavior that would make a big impact we can do this many cities in the area have already done this and really it's not a question of if we will do this it's a question of when we will do this I think deep down we all know that we can't keep polluting our environment

3:55:15endlessly we know this but we humans have trouble Bridging the Gap between knowing this and making our Behavior match this sometimes we need to put we need a push to do the right thing right thing I think everyone in this room cares about the environment in their own way I

3:55:34think when this is when this does pass no one in a year's time will regret this but instead we will be proud of what we have done and we'll just and it'll just be seen as normal thank you any further comments or uh public testimony we have two additional speakers Ralph boniello and after Ralph

3:55:56is Samantha Meyer so we have a procedural question for the uh for the council we have a motion that's been second on the floor can we take a motion to extend while that motion's open you can okay A Move that we extend until 11 10.

3:56:13we have a motion that's been made and seconded all those in favor say aye aye let the record show or pass unanimously Mr Panella please proceed thank you uh uh mayor Lyman members of the city council City staff and fellow neighbors and residents I'm Ralph boniello I'm an

3:56:31El Cerrito resident and member of friends of five Creeks I support the single use bag ordinance and the food Food Ware ordinance and I'm proud that the city of El Cerrito is taking a leadership role on this issue both in the county of Contra Costa and in the state of California

3:56:48uh these ordinances are ultimately about consumer responsibility and the responsibility to realize the environmental costs and consequences of our consumption patterns and our lifestyles the US EPA estimates that up to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year and less than one

3:57:06percent of these bags are recycled it actually costs more to recycle a bag than produce a new one it costs four thousand dollars to recycle one ton of plastic bags which can only be sold for thirty two dollars on the Commodities market and as long as we're dealing with

3:57:20economics like this we recycling will never be a realistic option a 1975 study by the National Academy of Sciences showed that ocean-going vessels dumped eight million pounds of plastic annually into the oceans and that's a figure that has likely increased since

3:57:38then plastic bags account for greater than 10 percent of the degree of all debris washed up on the U.S coastline plastic bags break down smaller and smaller pieces but do not chemically degrade these pieces get into the food chain with catastrophic consequences on

3:57:54Fish and Wildlife we have whales Dolphins seals and turtles who die from ingesting plastic every day every person who chooses a cloth reusable bag over a disposable plastic bag will save over 22 000 plastic bags over their lifetime plastic bags are made from polyethylene

3:58:15which is a thermoplastic made from oil reducing plastic bag consumption will decrease our our foreign oil dependency China which has already passed a free plastic ban on free plastic bags has estimated that they'll save 37 million barrels of oil each year just from their

3:58:32bands so I'm happy to see this taking place here and I also wanted to point out that the San Francisco Department of environment which deals with their food wear ordinance and their plastic bag band has a vendor a list of vendors of compostable and recyclable Footwear bags

3:58:51and food food service wear and bags which lists over 67 vendors that are available for people for restaurants or businesses to find food where that meets their ordinance that I'm sure that their vendor list will also meet our ordinance and I'd like to give a copy of this to

3:59:08the city clerk to include in the record and thank you too as well for staying this late our next speaker please foreign ER did you stay okay is there anyone else that's here that would like to speak to this item or these two items 7A and 7B seeing none will bring it back to the

3:59:35diocese we have a motion and a second any oh yeah I'm sorry things happen very quickly in the city manager and I were Consulting between items and I didn't so I didn't really have a chance to to really evaluate what was happening I I think that ultimately if the council

3:59:51wants to proceed without a staff report it's legally permissible but I also do feel that that given that these that both ordinances are an exercise of the city's police power they have a fairly substantial effect on the community one that I think this community accepts but

4:00:05that does have a fairly substantial effect that some and I realize you've received a written staff report that provides an adequate record for the action but I do feel that some minimal staff presentation on this would be appropriate just given the significance

4:00:18of the of the of the actions that are before you we will take your advice and uh I want to say take it under advisement nor ignore it but I won't do that Mr Schultz if you could give us a brief presentation something on the order of four and a half minutes please

4:00:34I will do my absolute best thank you honorable mayor council members members of the public viewers at home I'm Garth Schultz I'm manager of the city's new operations and environmental services division and among many other things I deal in waste and recycling here in the

4:00:50city of El Cerrito as well as uh manage the programs for storm water collection and litter and trash control in the community yeah brief overview of what I'll talk about the reasons to regulate bags primarily what you've heard from public comment already is it's there's a lot of litter

4:01:09generated from plastic bags and EPS from and when I say a lot it's you know there's significant components of litter that are coming out of these materials and that these materials in particular are problematic by virtue of their the way they're formed they float readily

4:01:22they don't degrade they cling to trees this picture here that you see on your screens is uh from Cerrito Creek they go into the storm drains into the Creeks into the bay into the oceans we have requirements through this uh the regional Municipal and Municipal Regional permit for storm water which is

4:01:38a Bay Area white permit for clean water to reduce the amount of trash going into these water bodies and regulating these types of materials are one way of being able to get towards the requirements to reduce trash there's better Alternatives in both cases than just continuing to use only

4:01:57bags and EPS foodware foam and they're not easily recycled they're uh they there are some waste issues associated with these both on disposal collection and processing and furthermore these both of these uh proposed ordinances were highlighted in the city's strategic

4:02:15plan adopted last March A Brief Review on the bag ordinance the model ordinance was developed by the regional joint Powers Authority for solid waste recycle more they develop the model they conducted and certified an ear this spring the eiff r found no significant impact as a result of

4:02:34banning single-use bags and found many beneficial impacts of doing so but on the whole no significant impact and ultimately found that single-use bag ordinances like these in other places like San Jose for example a major city that's had this in place for years found

4:02:50a dramatic decrease in both paper and plastic bags distributed free to customers at the point of sale um these are some of the specifics on what the bag Ordnance does but in summary it bans the free distribution of single-use bags at the point of sale for all retail establishments

4:03:08um there's certain exemptions for other activities going on within grocery stores for example things like bulk produce bulk Goods meats can still have a plastic bag it's just not the one that distributed at the point of sale for the purpose of carrying out goods and then

4:03:21it would also regulate a minimum charge on paper bags distributed at the point of sale five cents for the first two years and going up to 10 cents thereafter and then those would be required to be made of recycled content as proposed it would go into effect January 1 of 2014 or the grace period

4:03:42prior to enforcement in July via citations and fines and administrative citation through the municipal code Ware ordinance very similar at the very basis it would just prohibit the use of food expanded polystyrene food wear by food service providers in the city of El

4:04:02Cerrito the definitions are in the code that includes the city its facilities its contractors and the like all other types of foodware have to be recyclable compostable or reusable which is a pretty broad definition and this is also from Cerrito Creek you can see some of the foodware containers

4:04:19in the creek there are some exemptions one of them in particular is for undue hardship in the case that a food service provider can demonstrate to the city manager that they would undergo undo hardship by complying with the ordinance they can be made exempt from the

4:04:35ordinance and then overall the same enforcement and implementation timeline we did really extensive community outreach all throughout this uh spring or excuse me early summer many meetings many emails many postcards we have a range of themes on public comments that you can see here we address them

4:04:55more detail within the staff report and then if these ordinances either or both were to be adopted by the council through this meeting in the following second reading in September we would begin Outreach to businesses and Shoppers do some posters and cards like

4:05:11we've seen in other communities specifically our neighbors to the south in Alameda County do come Community meetings with the businesses the potentially impacted businesses as well as with the Shoppers and again I mentioned a grace period it's important to note Richmond and San Pablo are

4:05:25already on similar time frames for single-use bags and Richmond has a food War ordinance that is more restrictive than the one proposed here in Sao Paulo is considering one in short order uh that is the short version Mr Mayor if you have any questions please let me

4:05:41know thank you uh councilmember Abelson can I get a motion to extend uh so we can make sure that we get your item 7c um uh could I'd like to extend the meeting until 11 20. sure yes well I we don't have to spend that long okay that's true all right fine all right

4:05:5711 20 I have a motion relax in second reluctant second all those in favor say aye I'd like to make a very quick comment if I might I would like to thank Garth Schultz and the other staff who worked on this I have seen uh Garth it's about this uh because I was there

4:06:19too at least at some of them and so I know how much effort and energy was put into this I know what a good job was done and I just want to say thank you once again just to follow up as a testament to how well this process went I I don't know about you guys but I

4:06:33receive very few notices of opposition or you know reluctant folks mostly all um positive comments on this item and I just wanted to thank the two people who stuck around to speak to your comments were very articulate even poetic and very well informed so thank

4:06:52you thanks to staff I know this has been a long time coming um we have a motion we have two motions actually we made both motions did we ever get seconds on those yes yes we got seconds on both of those um can we take them as a single action we take them separately

4:07:11please take them separately um all those in favor of item seven a which is the plastic proposed single-use bag ordinance uh as read by council member Friedman uh please say I I those opposed or abstaining please indicate so let the record show it pass unanimously

4:07:32um all those uh in favor of the proposed Footwear ordinance as read by council member Friedman uh in agenda item 7B please say I I no opposed or abstentions let the record show it passed unanimously thank you to everyone who stayed for that item and uh to staff we have one

4:07:58last item uh no we just we do have them in the sea um how to extend this one on item 7c which I'll try to do in the two minutes that are now or no it's seven years you don't need them all right um my motion I recommend first of all that um we um support the league position on

4:08:28the uh the two resolutions being presented to the conference um and uh the um which were contained in the packet it was presented to us and that I be appointed the um voting delegate uh at the moment no one else has signed up to go so I'm assuming no one is willing to be the alternate we

4:08:55we actually have primary and Alternate already designated but I can't there may not be signed up I think yeah I think um councilmember Friedman is the alternate on Bay division League who traditionally goes to the conference but you have to be registered in order to be an

4:09:12alternate a voting altar are you interested it's the 19th is that right 18th through the 20th 18th through the 20th okay we will certainly you know take your recommendation that that you're our primary okay um I think this might I don't know if this is our last no I guess it's not our

4:09:34last anyway I don't know if we could do it after tonight based on when we're meeting but the so if I be appointed and that we support the league position on the two resolutions that are in the packet we have a motion that's been made and seconded all those in favor say aye

4:09:49aye aye uh opposition abstention not signaled um with that please let the record Show Pass unanimously um I am going to suggest that we adjourn the city council meeting at this time and not take item eight um that we take eight item eight up at our next regularly scheduled meeting

4:10:13um if that's the case we will adjourn sure is that does that work for staff eight we're only doing eight oh eight we're journaling the city council meeting [Music] so so I I move that we adjourned that the city council at this time let the record show it we adjourned it 11 15.