City Council Meeting November 19, 2013

0:00:06um it is I am calling to order the El Cerrito city council meeting of uh Tuesday November 19th 7 P.M uh let the records show that all five council members are present um and at this time we will move on to a moment of silence or the Pledge of Allegiance led to us by council member

0:00:29uh benassini [Music] and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice see I'd like to report out of closed session that we are continuing uh both our employee performance of the city manager and we had a brief conference with labor

0:01:07negotiators today um is there any other Council Communications I have a number of can either um have been a number of places and I can either sort of work it into my reports at the end or do it now I would like to work at least one of them in uh now sure so why don't you want me to

0:01:35just do that one and then do the other ones as part of that other question and that one is that um I'm chair of the Contra Costa Transportation Authority as a as a function of being on the city council somewhat and on Friday we opened the fourth Board of the Caldecott Tunnel

0:01:54which was the um use something like the largest second largest trans tunnel project in the United States uh in some time and and it was a really interesting event and um it should actually um help which I think I mentioned before not with a major commute but with the

0:02:21reverse Direction so it was extremely well attended getting in was a as a premium to the ribbon cutting ceremony and it actually opened about four in the morning and I actually was there also and it was really special to be able to do something like that and so

0:02:45anyway I just wanted to share that and the rest of it I'll mention later great councilmember bridges any announcements I'll bring up two at this time that I think are important to the community one is a talk about health care reform the town hall meeting hosted by assembly

0:03:10Mentor Nancy Skinner a supervisor John Joya and the California NAACP it's Sunday November 24th so this Sunday that's coming up 1 30 to 3 30 p.m and that's at St Peter's Christian Methodist Episcopal Church 5324 Cypress Avenue here in El Cerrito again it's 1 30 to 3 30 at 5 30 53 24

0:03:36Cypress Avenue and it's a town hall meeting about Covered California and um the other one that I'd like to sort of alert everyone to uh actually it's two of them I guess um this Thursday uh November 21st at 8 A.M here in City Chambers we will be getting presentations from

0:03:59um both a pro Proposition 13 group as well as a reform Proposition 13 group so those will be presentations and if I saw my emails correctly on December 19th at 8 am also the West County Mayors association meeting there will be um is it Skinner Nancy Skinner will be

0:04:25coming on uh that morning to talk to us about the Redevelopment agency so those those are my announcements the staff have any announcements this evening that concludes item two brings us to item three which is oral Communications from the public all persons wishing to

0:04:44speak should sign up we do try to curtail our remarks to three minutes we do have a lighting system in front that is for this purpose uh green is go yellow is one minute red is please wrap up uh the purpose of the oral Communications at this time is to address us on items that are on the

0:05:06consent calendar or not on the agenda at all um if you wish to speak on one of the agenda items the public hearing or the policy items you will have an opportunity to speak during those items do we have speakers we have two speakers mayor Al Miller good evening mayor Lyman council members

0:05:35staff I came to speak on agenda items well I now have two comments start with at least one first the first line of the background and discussion paragraph on the agenda bill says the city operates a municipal storm water sanitary Source system I believe that's inaccurate Steve Sanitary District

0:06:02operates the sanitary sewers and El Cerrito Kensington and Richmond Annex and I believe the city operates the storm water system or storm drains a reason I wanted to mention it is that too many people in our city don't understand the difference between your sewers and hours

0:06:23more importantly since late October the West County times has run articles focusing on several West County Wastewater District board members compensation during interviews conducted as part of that reporting one of the directors Leonard Battaglia made several totally

0:06:40unacceptable mean-spirited racist remarks that were quoted in these articles because of these remarks the West County Wastewater District Board of Directors passed the resolution at its November board meeting censuring board member Battaglia the be it resolve Clause of that

0:06:59resolution reads now there therefore be it resolved by the board of directors of the West County Wastewater District as follows the board of directors censures director Leonard L Battaglia and publicly rebukes him in the most forceful way possible for the deplorable comments he made

0:07:18about African Americans and Asians as reported in various media sources effective immediately director Battaglia is removed from his position as a director of the West County agency that's a jpa between the West County Wastewater district and City of Richmond and uh

0:07:39and from all district standing ad hoc and other committees on which he sits the board of directors demands that director Battaglia immediately resigned his position as the Director of the West County Wastewater District because of these egregious comments made by director Battaglia I urge you to make

0:07:58it clear that the action you are about to take under agenda item 5B is based on the professionalism of the West County Wastewater District staff and management who will be performing the work previously done by East Bay mud and in no way condones the remarks of Mr

0:08:17Battaglia the complete resolution and the accompanying West County Wastewater District press release concerning these remarks can be seen on the West County Wastewater District website at HTTP colons backslash backslash www.wcwd.org thank you thank you next speaker Liz block

0:08:55good evening my name is Liz block and I live at [address removed] in El Cerrito thank you for allowing me to speak before the council I'm a longtime El Cerrito resident and also I've been involved with public education as an administrator and school psychologist and teacher for over 30

0:09:17years I also participate in a local organization all our kids which is a local network of parents and other residents who are committed to creating high quality public schools for all kids in West Contra Costa County several weeks ago you may remember that I delivered almost 200 letters to you

0:09:43from residents of El Cerrito and Richmond in support of summit Charter School having a public school in El Cerrito at that time the West Contra School Contra Costa School District had not approved summit's application to operate a charter school in the district

0:10:05however a much more thoughtful and dis intelligent decision was made recently when the Contra Costa County Board of Education approved summit's Charter application all our kids vigorously applauds this decision and believes the County Board genuinely put the interest of Children

0:10:29First in approving the summit Charter School application in support of the county County's Charter approval I would like to place this statement from all our kids in the council record as you know Summit is very interested in opening a 7th and eighth grade middle

0:10:53school at 1800 Elm Street on behalf of all our kids I am once again calling on the city council to welcome Summit to our wonderful Community to be an important part of its future in creating a public education system where every child has access to high quality education

0:11:16thank you very much thank you for your comments any speakers Jacqueline majors hi good evening um thank you mayor and the city council board I'm Jacqueline Majors I do the community outreach for the West Contra Costa Unified School District so I'm just coming by to let you know that I

0:11:41have distributed the flyers for the El Cerrito High School stadium update so we'll be starting the project School construction I think it is in December so the teams have been been picked and the flyer has all the little updates and I'll leave some flyers downstairs but I

0:11:57just wanted to give you the update that I have done the community update for the school thanks and it says here the estimated completion date is the summer of 2015 so it'll be ready for the school year in 2015 2016.

0:12:12I I would probably be shocked that if they told me if I answered that one correctly um that is the anticipated construction completed date I'm just putting in the record that it's on the written yes it is document it is as long as the construction crew is on date and do what

0:12:26they're supposed to do agreed agreed yeah right thank you um any other speakers no mayor great thank you um with that we'll move on to item four which is uh presentations we have two presentations this evening uh the first presentation is from kids for the bay uh

0:12:47and is is it Mandy billing no it's you're not Mandy bullying I will introduce her okay and it is uh Mandy billinge um good evening uh mayor City Council Members my name is Melanie Mintz and I'm the City's community development director and I'm proud to introduce

0:13:06Mandy billing founder and director of the nonprofit organization kids for the bay the city and kids for the bay are entering into our ninth year partnering to fulfill the provisions of the city's clean water program or national pollutant discharge elimination system

0:13:21permit um issued by the state Water Resources control board to provide clean water education to the city's residents and especially in the case of kids for Bay to Elementary students um according to the permit these Provisions believe that informed knowledgeable Community is critical to

0:13:37the success of the city's clean water storm water program an informed Community also ensures greater compliance with the program as the public becomes aware of the personal responsibilities expected of them and the public education program should mix use a mix of appropriate local

0:13:51strategies to address the viewpoints and concerns of a variety of audiences and communities including minority and disadvantage disadvantaged communities as well as children and so I'm going to turn it over to Mandy now and I'm also going to give the city clerk their

0:14:04annual report and I think you'll see that our partnership with kids for the bay really provides a unique opportunity for the kids in our schools to learn firsthand about what happens to storm water and what its impact is on the bay so Mandy thank you and thank you for having me

0:14:26here tonight to talk with you my name is Mandy billinge and I'm really excited to talk with you about kids for the bay we're an Environmental Education organization and we partner with schools and families throughout Contra Costa and Alameda counties we have over the past 21 years partnered

0:14:50with 64 000 students and delivered our programs to 64 000 students and partnered with 2790 teachers who have graduated from our programs and we've been very happy to partner with the Clean Water program here in El Cerrito and Steve Sanitary District also funds our Watershed Action Program in

0:15:15the El Cerrito area and in the Watershed action program we have the goal of connecting school students with nature getting the children and their teachers and the families out of the classroom to explore the local Creek or the local Bay habitat and for many of our students

0:15:38when they have the chance to go to the local Creek and use the net and catch a mayfly name for catch a water Strider and discover what lives in the creek it's actually their first time having the chance to do that to really connect with nature and explore in nature and

0:15:54also to observe what they find the Aquatic invertebrates in field microscopes and to really be scientists and do Hands-On activities in the outdoors our students also do water quality testing and check out the health of the creek so they're really getting a sense

0:16:13of whether the creek is healthy or not and again going on bay field trips for a lot of our students it's the first time that they got to hold a crab or touch a sea squirt or really experience the tide changes of the San Francisco Bay and see San Francisco in the distance in the

0:16:31Pacific Ocean and really get a sense of what our Watershed is made up of and how everything's interconnected another goal that we have is to get Hands-On science into Elementary School classrooms and California is unfortunately rated towards the lowest of all the states in the nation in

0:16:53science test scores at the fourth grade level so we're bringing Hands-On science into the classroom for the teachers and the students and the students get to do investigations and experiments and really learn about the San Francisco Bay Estuary what lives there and how this

0:17:09ecosystem is a really special place that we all live near another goal is to inspire environmental action and you would be really surprised at how excited our school students are to get out of the classroom and clean up their school neighborhood once they learn how plastic garbage can

0:17:30impact the animals living in the bay and the ocean and how the storm drain system connects with their local neighborhood they will just get out there and each class will collect more than a thousand pieces of garbage and be really proud of that accomplishment they also take home interviews and teach

0:17:51their parents how to reduce pollution to the storm drain system and make pledges with their families to reduce pollution as well our students also really enjoy planting beside our Creeks here in El Cerrito and we've partnered with friends of five Creeks to get the families out and

0:18:10planting beside the Creeks as well as partnering with El Cerrito the city of El Cerrito to do Creek cleanups as well the students are also really excited to make posters and display them around their schools to teach everyone about keeping the Watershed clean and healthy

0:18:27um another of our goals is to have a lasting impact and the schools that we partner with we partner with a grade level team of teachers and get the school principals involved as well as the parents and it's professional development for the teachers they learn how to teach the

0:18:44lessons and activities in the classroom as well as in the outdoors and we provide the equipment for them as well as the curricula so that they can continue teaching aspects of the programs themselves after their training with us so um we're going to show a short video and

0:19:01then I could answer any questions if you have any questions thank you would be covered with water but today they're exposed that means they're uncovered we get to explore today [Music] kids for the bay connect children with nature and takes them out of the classroom into the outdoors to explore

0:19:51and discover the world around them for skeleton trip see how they're starting to move and wiggle we've been working with kids for the bay for the last couple years and they've supported me so much with the Hands-On aspects of Environmental Education with the science

0:20:05of curriculum that have made kids just Blossom out here that probably is the Amplified I identified a water Beetle because I saw something round and it had antennas but it had like short legs [Music] low-income Urban schools are surrounded by industry and pollution

0:20:38kids for the bay teaches our students that everyone has the right to live in a clean and healthy environment we Empower our students to take action [Music] there foreign [Music] students teach their families how to safely prepare and cook Bay fish to reduce health risks from pollution

0:21:34the pollution in the storm drains does not get clean it goes straight to the creek in the San Francisco Bay [Music] yourself [Music] kids for the bay is the best hands-on science program that we do all year what might some a careful scientist be doing great Jackie if it's a female or a male here

0:22:16it says crabs use cutting mouth Parts called mandibles to break up their food so um it gave us the answer that um crabs don't have teeth kids for the bay supported us in many ways from coming in and teen teaching planning ahead of time with us providing us with the materials

0:22:36and in the following years after we had learned the program answered my questions on email very supportive and also encouraging this is clean kids for the Bay has been able to provide Hands-On science lessons for our students and additionally been able to model those lessons for our

0:22:57teachers not a lot of them have that experience teaching Hands-On science so being able to have kids for the day come in and model those science lessons for them has been very valuable thousand inspired environmentalists have completed a kids for the bay program

0:23:16they're helping to take care of our environment these are our future environmental leaders are healthiest to eat and what many fish to try not to eat I think this guy that you gave me just the way to go I'll keep this and uh I'll be mindful of what I'm doing foreign

0:23:40[Music] did anyone have any questions yeah I'll just ask thank you so much for the presentation which of the schools here in El Cerrito do you happen to know are working with your program well we've worked with all the elementary schools in El Cerrito Madera Harding Castro when

0:24:17that was still open and Fairmont and this current school year we're partnering with some teachers from Fairmont School the third grade teachers over there great thank you and uh do you work with middle school students um not at the moment we would like to work with middle schools in the future

0:24:38if the opportunity arises in terms of funding that is thank you so I noticed last year was your 20th anniversary which means that the very first children you worked with are now approaching 30. do you know how many of them went on to become environmentalists well I would say hola students become

0:24:59environmentalists because you know they really do make Behavior changes and they really teach their families and they take action to help with the environment so you know we definitely feel like we're creating inspired environmentalists but we do we have some students who've gone on to be field

0:25:18biologists and you know who we still see in the neighborhoods and things like that so um I think we're trying to really have everybody be environment and environmentalists well thank you welcome that congratulations and thank you for coming for the presentation and we look forward

0:25:37to working with you in our schools going forward okay thank you with that we'll move on to our second presentation um at Mr Mark Peterson uh Contra Costa County District Attorney is here tonight and uh the title says prosecution and prevention of crime in Contra Costa

0:26:02um so welcome okay all right all right well thank you very much for uh having me as I came in this evening I was reminded that I uh perhaps have shared some of this information with you before although it uh I think I would have remembered if I'd been in this building because this is absolutely

0:26:19beautiful but either my memory is fading or uh you know time has gone by very very quickly so even if I have shared some of this information with you I welcome the opportunity to present some of it to you again give you an update as to where crime um Trends I guess I should say are going

0:26:37and then perhaps solicit any input you have for me as your district attorney areas you'd like to see me Focus uh on one of the uh and I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time talking about this but as you remember I spent many years where you're at uh 15 years on the Concord city council and so

0:26:56that continues to serve me very well I believe on uh as your district attorney because I'm very much aware that it's a partnership it's a partnership with myself as a department head in the county but we work with the cities I work with your City Police Department

0:27:11very very closely your chief of police very very closely and I understand the Partnerships that need to exist between public entities and private Enterprise also which I'll share about in a minute one of the ways that manifested itself was in our gun buyback program and I'll

0:27:28share about that in a little bit but that's my background that I bring to the table so to speak the mission statement continues to be the same as you and your citizens read articles in the paper about a wrongful convictions about uh whether it's police corruption when I

0:27:45first became the elected district attorney we had several police officers unfortunately that we had to charge with crimes and they were involved in the drug task force they've all since then been convicted either they pled guilty or they were convicted in federal court

0:28:01so we dealt with that problem but the purpose of our organization my or the District Attorney's office is to seek Justice it's not just to get a conviction it's not just to get a win these still are the six words that I've put on the doors of our office so that

0:28:19all of our employees when they leave our office they see these six words there to seek Justice serve Justice and do justice and that's the idea that I stole from the district attorney in Sacramento Jan Scully because she had these words emblazoned on the doors of her office

0:28:35before I did but I like the idea so much that I put those up so we're happy that we feel like we do a pretty good job at this are we perfect at it no but we do strive to do this as our as our mission statement as you remember uh hopefully remember that we're kind of the Hub of law enforcement

0:28:56if you look at law enforcement and Contra Costa County as a wheel we're basically in the middle of it we have 25 police agencies that send all their police reports to us in the county of 1.1 million people ninth largest county in the state out of 58 counties so we're

0:29:11a pretty busy place your Police Department as well as all the others investigate crimes and do a great job at that but then they submit the case to us and then we decide whether to file charges or not this is what makes up my office we continue to be staffed at about this

0:29:29level I don't remember exactly the date I spoke to you but the good news is our staffing has increased incrementally about three or four attorneys over the past couple of years and that makes a big difference because they are some of the hardest working prosecutors in the

0:29:44state of California we try more cases than most other DA's offices and the number of cases our attorneys have per Deputy district attorney is one of the highest in the state so the good news is you and your citizens are getting a good return for your tax dollar that's

0:30:01invested in our organization we're really a pretty small player we're only 30 30 million sounds like a lot but in the county budget of hundreds of millions were a very very small player these are the priorities I talked about with you before they've changed a little

0:30:18bit and that's what I wanted to talk about with you some that we are going to continue to prosecute the misdemeanors the misdemeanors are uh a big part of what we do even though the smaller or lower level offenses these are the kind of crimes that most of your police

0:30:35officers frankly will be involved in unfortunately they're going to be going through a lot of domestic violence calls they're going to be going to a fair number of driving the influence calls we have a zero tolerance towards domestic violence and that is that if somebody

0:30:47usually it's a man hits his girlfriend or spouse she calls the police the police come take a report uh nine times out of ten uh you know that case is going to be we should say nine times out of ten but the majority of the times those cases are going to be filed even

0:31:04if the victim is not Cooperative one of the things you should know that's changed and that certainly wasn't the case when I last spoke to you is that the courts the court has no political power up in Sacramento so the government is looking for money uh just like he did

0:31:22with your development agency he saw the pot of money that the courts had saved over the years and he went took it completely legal but the courts could do nothing about it so their budget has been just decimated they've closed two courthouses in Walnut Creek so what they

0:31:37what they are doing now is they are trying misdemeanor cases here in the Richmond Courthouse and in the Pittsburgh Courthouse what they're also doing is they're calling jurors from the entire County so your residents from El Cerrito may be serving in a jury panel out in

0:31:53Pittsburgh so in the winter hours that's pretty tough got to get up early drive all the way out on Highway four and they're going to come home in the evenings uh I don't know if you've had emails complaining to you about that yet but I would think that that would happen

0:32:05there's not a whole lot you can do about it because it's controlled by the courts but you should know that that is occurring conversely you have people from Brentwood that are driving out here to Richmond to serve on a misdemeanor jury trial that's because the courts are

0:32:20closing some of their offices and they're laying people off that's one of the challenges that the justice system faces so I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time talking about any specific cases but I wanted to share with you some good news you know a lot of times law

0:32:34enforcement might share bad news and this is some bad news the trends we've had over the last uh well 25 years this is the good news uh those numbers are going down in 2011 there are 27 murders in 2012 there were 18 murders as of today I think we're about 16 in Richmond

0:32:51so Richmond's on Pace to have one of its lowest years ever this continues to be a real priority for me as district attorney West Contra Costa County primarily Richmond not so much El Cerrito because thankfully you don't have this type of violent crime in your city but it's right next to you so this

0:33:07is the very very good news we think ceasefire is working Innovative program where we call in the gang members tell them to stop shooting and killing each other and if they don't then we come down on them like a ton of bricks with Federal uh resources Etc so the good

0:33:22news is that's working the good news also is that I haven't had to go to the injunction phrase phase there are ACLU and others object to this and people think it may be racial profiling so it gets rather complicated to do injunctions so we haven't done those yet but the real good news I

0:33:39wanted to share with you uh here in the west county is that we see the tide turning we're hopeful it'll be long term but we're going to be very very Vigilant on it and I know that your West County Police Chiefs meet regionally so we meet every month as policies for the entire

0:33:55County almost 19 police Chiefs or actually our memberships hires about somewhere around 25 and then we have you have the West County Police Chiefs that also meet that are tackling some of these issues so that's the real good news uh realignment this continues to be a

0:34:12real challenge for all of us uh don't know where it's going to end up I don't think this was occurring to the extent it was last time I spoke to you but the bottom line is the only people going to prison and when I say prison I mean the old type prison Folsom to hatchupy San

0:34:27Quentin uh Pelican Bay if you commit a serious felony a violent felony or a sex felony a sex felony is kind of self-explanatory a violent felony be like a robbery a serious felony would be like a first degree burglary if somebody burglarizes your home uh if you commit

0:34:43those type of crimes or have those in your past you will go to prison if you don't let's say you're a drug dealer now let's say you uh let's say you sold 12 kilos of drugs you will not be going to prison you will be going to what's called local prison which are our County

0:34:58jails one of Richmond one in Clayton and one in downtown Martinez if somebody steals somebody's car here during this uh presentation tonight or city council meeting and they stole 10 cars before and they've been to prison 10 times before they will not go to the big

0:35:13prison they will be housed locally so it's a huge change in law enforcement don't know whether it's a good thing or a bad thing uh we all should recognize that the state as well as County officials are doing a lot more on Rehabilitation than it's ever been done before I've

0:35:30been doing this for 30 years this is the biggest change in law enforcement that's ever occurred in the 30 years I've been doing this uh the jury still out whether it's a good idea or bad idea but we're doing it um crime prevention these are some of the last things that I'd share with you I'm

0:35:45doing the gang injunctions uh the truancy program I continue to work on that I'm a little frustrated with that uh and I'm trying frankly remember uh whether your school is West Contra Costa Unified School District El Cerrito you've got some challenges uh and it's challenging working with them

0:36:05in some ways uh wish their participation in my efforts was a little higher uh because truancy is a big deal if there are things I can do to prevent crime I want to do it I've been working on Prosecuting crime for 30 years cost 50 000 a year to house somebody in prison if we can just spend

0:36:23five thousand dollars to keep a kid out of prison where forty five thousand dollars ahead of the game this slide says that Chicago study found attendance was a stronger graduation predictor than eighth grade test scores half of life is just showing up so if I can get them to

0:36:39school if I can do things as your district attorney to get more kids in school it increases the money to school district and it probably will help that kid graduate he graduates he's less likely to get involved in the criminal justice system either as a victim or as

0:36:51a participant so these are all the things I continue to do I would like to continue to offer you these Services uh I know you're not the city council I remember when I was on the on the city council I mean I know you're on the school board people would come to me and say fix the schools I

0:37:08can't fix the schools I'm with involved with the city but if there are areas you as the city council would like me to address in your high schools or middle schools please let me know I have a halftime district attorney that's what she's supposed to do half of her time is

0:37:22spent helping in the schools to either address bullying addressing drug use address sexting uh addressing chronic absenteeism you just let us know and we'll we'll show up and work with the schools we don't tell the schools what to do because we're not the experts but

0:37:40we offer our services to help them and then finally we will prosecute parents if they allow their kids to be chronically truant this one uh these are two parents one student a fifth grader Miss half the school year the other third grader missed a third of the school year so that's not the kid's

0:37:56fault I don't care how bad a kid you got you that's a that's a parent issue so I ended up charging two of the parents uh unfortunately their parents were true after we charged them one was late uh one was late uh one didn't show up at all the good news is uh we got her

0:38:13convinced that she should comply and now the kids back in school on a regular basis so I once again offer that partnership with you if that's what you would be interested in is working on truancy uh what I'd close out on are the priorities uh we continue to prosecute crime we

0:38:32think that we do a pretty good job at it one of my last slides so is our conviction rate we're number one in the Bay Area that's not just because the DA's are good although we are pretty good uh but we have good judges we have good jurors your citizens that serve on

0:38:45the jurors and we have good police officers we have good police departments we have good police Chiefs and as I mentioned earlier I have an excellent relationship with your chief of police Sylvia and uh you know I see her more than once a month on police Chiefs

0:38:59meetings and we talk about the latest issues in law enforcement what's on The Cutting Edge what can we do better because I believe in Innovation just like she does and I believe in prevention a couple things that I've done since I last spoke to you we did a gun buyback program county-wide I got

0:39:15together with private Enterprise like I talked to you about raised a hundred thousand dollars and we had a gun buyback program in Antioch one in Concord and one in Richmond and we've got about 500 guns I'm not naive enough to think that that's going to dramatically decrease the crime level

0:39:29but if we save one life because a gun's not stolen from a house and used in a burglary and used to kill somebody or somebody's not accidentally killed by a child getting access to that guy and then we're all ahead of the game so we did the gun buyback program uh I saw a

0:39:44slide earlier on the earlier slideshow the Chevron Refinery I charged the Chevron Corporation with the criminal activity as a result of that Refinery fire we they pled guilty first time in to my knowledge that Chevron Corporation is pled guilty to criminal offenses and

0:40:00believe me they they didn't want to do that we find them two million dollars OSHA had fined one million dollars which was the largest ocean fine ever obviously they could afford to pay more but the point wasn't to just find him the point was to make the refinery safer and we

0:40:16impose conditions on them that we believe the experts we brought in believe will make them a safer Refinery for Richmond and certainly obviously El Cerrito which is what you want so we did that the other prosecution effort we did is we did a metal recycling sting

0:40:32we know that cities such as yourselves at least city of Concord I don't know what else there is experience is but we would have wiring stolen from street lights from Parks from schools from county or city buildings and so we did a sting where we went to metal recycling

0:40:46companies brought obviously stolen property to them things that said you know uh Southern Pacific and said Bart on them and these metal recyclers bought the stuff so once they did that gave us probable cause to get a search warrant to then search the records and see if

0:41:02they're complying with the law because they're supposed to not give you that money for about three days they're supposed to get a thumb print a fingerprint of who's selling that property and they were not so myself and George gascon reached a settlement with Sims Recycling which is here on the West

0:41:15End for a four million dollar fine so we are going after metal recycling which is good for your community private Enterprise in public and then finally in Innovation we just finished the police Chiefs Retreat that Sylvie and others were at all the police use got together and talked about the

0:41:32latest issues in law enforcement to make all of us better at what we're doing and I was very excited about the the things we talked about down there so the last point I'd make as I am excited to be here again uh uh and if there's anything I can do I'll leave a few Flyers we have

0:41:50some flyers on truancy and uh at least one on bullying that we have here but the purpose of my meeting really is to meet with you is see if you have any questions or issues uh since we last spoke you last heard from me and if there's anything any new ideas that you

0:42:06have that you would like to see us incorporate or uh investigate let me know and even if you don't think about it here tonight I'm giving you a lot of information obviously if you just want to send me an email or communicate with me through Sylvia that's fine also we'd love to

0:42:21partner in any way with you that we can so if you have any questions I'd love to answer them uh councilmember Friedman thank you very much excellent presentation uh I was on uh jury one time and Martinez and it was clear that the uh perpetrator was guilty but the D.A was unable to prove the case

0:42:44so we had to convict of a lesser charge and afterwards we got a chance to talk to the assistant D.A who was Prosecuting and he expressed that the witnesses had been intimidated and threatened and that's why he couldn't prove the case I know this is far from uh atypical

0:43:02situation what can you do and law enforcement do to protect Witnesses and incentivize more people to come forward yeah that's a real Challenge and that's probably the biggest challenge as to why Richmond has has the difficulties it has for example if Richmond solves its

0:43:20murders and we file those cases we get convictions I mean our conviction rates uh you know 70 percent is number one in the Bay Area on felonies and that doesn't mean two out of three get away they get misdemeanor convictions our challenge in Richmond for example which

0:43:35is ties in with that question is Richmond has a challenge solving their murders in other words some of those statistics you saw 30 murders a year they might solve 10 of them so if you don't solve the case I can't you know I I can't do much about it part of the reason I can't solve it is people

0:43:51don't want to come forward because they feel like they might get shot or killed or the snitch jacket and it's a cultural issue it's a generational issue it's complicated but we feel like we're making some progress for example we used to offer rewards here's here's a ten

0:44:10thousand dollar reward if you give us information on a crime now we're doing more like here's ten thousand for relocation we'll help you move to Vallejo or you know some other community but it is a real Challenge on this on the violent crimes to get people to come forward to

0:44:26solve those crimes and when a community sees that those crimes are not solved and sees that people are not held accountable then it begins to perpetuate itself and it's a real problem then but that's one of the things we're doing is is trying to convince the community that

0:44:41it is the right thing to come forward and tell what happened thank you thank you for your presentation um you probably know that sort of the main issue that we have here that we hear from many of our residents about is home safety and home burglary I was happy to see prevention as one of your

0:44:58three items that's something that we take very seriously here and really work towards I just wanted to bring that to your attention that's one of the um elements of of your presentation that really caught our probably all of our attention um I also wanted to mention to you one

0:45:12item that might may be coming up in the future um El Cerrito and many other other cities are now investing a lot in pedestrian and bicycle facilities with the idea being that as we continue to develop and grow in the city more and more of our citizens will be walking and

0:45:27biking and sharing the sharing the roads with cars and we also have an older community here so our folks will be sharing cars who maybe they aren't traveling quite as fast as some other pedestrians and there have been a lot of news reports um recently about the lack of conviction for vehicle

0:45:44pedestrian or vehicle bicycle deaths or the lack of charges or you know how it's quite difficult to actually uh or quite uncommon to bring charges against drivers so I just wanted to bring that to your attention that might not be sort of the top of the list at this point but

0:45:57I know that as cities are investing more and more in kind of multimodal facilities and and cars sharing the road with non-cars that this may become more of an issue for for uh for your office and the police department no we're very sensitive to that issue we've had several cases where

0:46:12we have prosecuted individuals for uh hitting pedestrians and killing them they are challenging cases I will say that because the jury looks at them and goes uh what's the difference between an accident and criminal negligence and it starts getting murky in that area so

0:46:30they are challenging but we try and prosecute as many of those cases as we can matter of fact one of the first cases I did was a regular manslaughter here in El Cerrito on Moser Lane and unfortunately I think the verdict was was not guilty I think Scott Kirkland

0:46:42was still a police officer back then uh it was on a Christmas night and the individual was there was a debate whether The Pedestrian was outside or inside the crosswalk we couldn't prove where he was and so the person that struck him was was found not guilty but

0:46:57uh suffice to say that that is important to us I happen to be a bicyclist myself I bicycle every weekend I bicycle a lot and and that's a big issue to me because I know how dangerous it is riding on the roads I don't like to ride in the bike Lanes if there's not a bike lane I'd

0:47:15still ride but it's really tough and I like those bike lanes that are sold bike Lanes those are awesome but our cities are older and so many of them don't have that so we'll be very Vigilant about that because it is a priority that pedestrians and bicyclists be safe thank

0:47:30you councilmember Amazon yeah the thing I'm kind of interested in is I heard you allude to some what you do and my uh remembrance from being a student and learning about the judicial system was that um police officers would um capture somebody and give them a ticket

0:47:53or um file a complaint or do do whatever when when they think a crime has occurred and then the um the D.A will prosecute that and their the public defender would if that person was Indigent they would defend them and the judge would hear it and um the jails if they are found

0:48:18guilty would be where or jails or prison is where they would then go but I heard you talking about some things that you do that make me think that that model isn't quite accurate for example you were talking about um programs around truancy so can you talk to me about uh what you do that's

0:48:36outside of that model I just described yeah and you've got that model uh very accurately it is true the police do the investigation uh they arrest somebody they might be released on a site release a promise to come back or they might post bail and get out of custody but

0:48:51within a couple days the law requires us to file criminal charges so we the DA's office file the criminal charges uh then they get an attorney as you mentioned free of charge so it's a great checks and balances system it works very well it's not perfect but it's an awesome

0:49:07system and in countries that don't have our system uh it's just really tough to have a justice system without this what I'm trying to do is because I've been doing this for 30 years I don't want to say that I'm I'm I'm bored with that it's just that that happens almost

0:49:22automatically what I want to do because it costs fifty thousand dollars a year to house somebody in prison one of my last cases was a shooting on the freeway uh close to here and that kid he was 18 at the time he's not going to spend the rest of his life in prison at fifty

0:49:35thousand dollars a year so I decided what can I do to prevent crime so my feeling was if I can just keep DA's can't do that much to prevent crime but what can I do Kamala Harris wrote a book called smart on crime and she went after truancy in San Francisco helped reduce

0:49:51it and it's my belief that if I I do something as district attorney or my office does to keep kids in school that I can help prevent crime I can prevent them if they're in school then they're not burglarizing homes during the day uh if they're in school they're not

0:50:07stealing cars during the day so that's my big Focus for crime prevention I'd like to do an at-risk youth program but I haven't figured out which one I want to use yet because I don't want to I don't want to create my own problem program I want to steal somebody else's

0:50:21good program and replicate it well I'm guess I'm kind of wondering about is so the people who would work on the truancy issue who what what's their are they um who are they oh it's one of my Deputy District Attorneys one of them uh she we got half of her salary is out of a fund

0:50:41uh that funds efforts to fight gangs and drugs so she gets funded half her time 20 hours a week is spent going to schools working with schools to come up with curriculum but we're hesitant to start our own curriculum we want to borrow other people's that's proven and tested and

0:50:57again we have to partner with the school so the schools don't want us then we don't come but she will speak at assemblies she will go to classes and teach one hour a week for six weeks we're open to doing anything that the schools or the cities think might be helpful in preventing crime are there

0:51:14other programs you do uh that's really the only one right now is that crime prevention program yeah councilmember Freedom uh follow-up I I applaud those efforts I think if you haven't already looked at it that uh there's a lot of research that shows that investing in early childhood

0:51:31education has a tremendous positive impact on lessening Juvenile Justice issues down the road and truancy uh there's a group fight crime invest in kids which has done a lot of work on that also and I I think it's an area admittedly long range where we can make some significant impacts on making our

0:51:52communities safer no that's a good point I'm a member of fight crime investing kids and they talk about a 10 reduction in crime would result in a certain less number of murders a certain number uh fewer assaults so and it's totally related to graduation rights so that's a

0:52:10great organization right I think I kind of finished other than you very nicely finish it up for me yeah in any way but I do appreciate it the other area I was kind of wondering about because we just recently had a very unfortunate incident with this student from El Cerrito High

0:52:32lost his life in front of a BART train so I understand that it you know he he did it to himself as I understand it um but when I what I've heard since then is makes me think that there may have been some issues in school that were a part of a factor in that and

0:52:53my concern is with students who are at risk um do you have any programs for helping to prevent them or is there a related agency that does that because I'm I guess I'm kind of concerned about it in particular right now thinking about that student well in the area bullying

0:53:11for example because we know that one of the reasons kids don't go to school is they're bullied and they don't tell their parents necessarily why they aren't going to school you know they come up with an excuse because they're embarrassed to say they're bullied so

0:53:22that is a focus of what our D.A does when she instructs in school she talks about bullying what it feels like to be bullied why you don't want to bully so that's a whole part of our presentation so it's more of an educational component of our program and again we work with

0:53:38the schools if they want us to do anything in that area we're willing to partner with them I applaud you for doing that thank you thank you I want to thank you for your presentation um and I also like the proactiveness that you're having particularly with the truancy

0:53:55um is West Contra Costa among the top two school districts in truancy in our County it's got lots of issues yeah yes um and then I had a second question uh the hundred thousand dollars on the gun buyback how was that funded uh I put in I try to remember if I put in ten

0:54:13thousand or Twenty Thousand from forfeiture funds from my office so when uh drugs are seized we get uh or cash is seized our office gets some of those monies that we can use towards that I think Richmond put in 10 000 the city of Pittsburgh put in 10 Republic Services

0:54:30the garbage company put in uh some uh I want to say for Richmond which is a political organization in Richmond put in some City Martinez um so it was a part it was private and public entities that's great thank you and then um you know I think with the realignment the the

0:54:51prison reduction is supposed to be like I don't know more than 100 reduction or some ridiculously high number um how do you see that working for these facilities there in Richmond and Clayton Martinez these Community correction facilities it's a real Challenge and you could

0:55:09probably have the sheriff come in here sometime and share with you what it means because these uh criminologists there's actually people that study this stuff and prisons were designed to keep people for long periods of time jails were not designed for that uh physically

0:55:23for example in Richmond it's what's called a dry jail so they don't have individual bathrooms in the cells they're communal bathrooms well you don't want that in a in a prison facility where people are for long periods of time because of security issues but it wasn't built for that so

0:55:39that's the way it is uh so they can't house one of the problems you have in prisons or prison gangs well you can't house nortenas with sereniors they kill each other so it's difficult to house them over in Richmond because you can't separate them so they end up having to

0:55:55stay in Martinez so I can't give you all the areas in which it's challenging but it is challenging the other thing you should keep in mind is when your kid or my kid gets the rest of her drunk driving over the weekend and doesn't make bail they're not going to be housed

0:56:09with a lot uh tougher criminal than used to be housed in the jails and that's not a good thing so those issues were not really well thought out when they came up with realignment realignment I believe was driven in large part by Financial considerations let's just get this off

0:56:28our table what the counties pay for it and so they did that and maybe we can do a better job at it maybe we can do more Rehabilitation but you're going to have people sentenced to to 20 years and they're going to be 10 20 years staying in the Richmond jail or the downtown

0:56:44Martinez jail or the Martinez or the Marsh Creek facility that's absurd but that's the way it is right now thank you well thank you for your presentation I have uh one question that I've heard in the news about victims rights and the protection of victims rights and the

0:57:03rights had that victims have to for sentencing hearings and such and I'm just curious what systems you potentially have put in place to ensure victims rights yeah we have seven people full-time employees that that's all they do they're the victims victims uh victim

0:57:19witness unit in our office and so they notify victims and one of cases coming up for sentencing they'll talk to the person they'll help the person fill out the form to try and get restitution from the criminal they'll go to court with them uh those kind of things we have

0:57:33seven people that's their full-time job we always want and try to do better there's where areas where we can improve in that area but that's we're seven full-time people doing that day in day out well thank you very much and one other question oh go ahead one more

0:57:50um and I asked this because it's actually what my daughter does for a living and she's a deputy district attorney and her specialty is elder abuse in another area though and um what I was wondering if you have a program for elder abuse yes we do we have one full-time Deputy that all he does is

0:58:07elder abuse and we go out part of it is again prevention we'll go to Rossmore for example and tell the elders there this is how you might be victimized one of the things I implemented since being district attorney is whenever a property is sold so if you sell your house you're

0:58:21going to get a letter from me under my letterhead saying did you really sell this house and it just costs a stamp and it's I do it with a clerk but that prevents people from fraudulently trying to sell your house or deceiving somebody about selling their house if you get a

0:58:37foreclosure notice uh we'll send you a letter from my office saying hey beware of people that promise you they can save your house and they try and get you in these scams uh regarding short sales Etc so we take a proactive approach where many Elders get victimized is in their

0:58:53real estate so that's one of the areas that we try and be proactive thank you thank you very much okay thank you stay dry um with that that concludes item four presentations we'll move on to item five which is our consent calendar we have three items on the consent calendar this

0:59:11evening we have minutes from November 5th we have the stormwater utility area agreement with contra costa flood control and Water Conservation District to administer an agreement with West County Wastewater district for El Cerritos inspection and illicit discharge control activities and our

0:59:29third one is contract with West Coast arborists for City tree pruning and removal pull 5 for every discussion okay we we have pulled 5B do I have a motion for five a and five items five a and 5c for approval second we have a motion in a second all those in favor please say aye aye opposed

0:59:52abstention let the records show at past five zero we will now take up item five b which is a storm water utility item council member do you need a presentation um no I well I think what I wanted to do is I wanted to understand what the work was there some wording I thought I heard

1:00:17you say that there were some um Al Miller um yeah the wording was in the is I can talk to you it's it's on the agenda bill it's on the very first sentence of background and discussion uh it was it was the inclusion of sanitary um all all we operate is the municipal

1:00:34stormwater collection system you don't even necessarily need to call it a sewer system um I don't believe that that terminology was used in our resolution okay that's what I wanted to know actually so you've answered my question yeah I I caught that I caught the same wording um but I

1:00:53did not see it in our resolution so I don't believe that there's any changes in the resolution necessary okay for a matter of clarity uh there are four S's and ms4 is a municipal storm water separate sewer system not a separate sanitary system so the S is supposed to be separate in

1:01:18that case correct right we're learning oh really I move uh gender item 5B second I have Motion in a second all those in favor please say aye aye aye opposed abstentions seeing none the matter passes unanimously that concludes item five and uh we'll move on to item six item six this

1:01:41evening we have uh three major items under item six six a um is two public hearings uh six B is a a public hearing and six C is also a public hearing so we have four public hearings this evening uh the structure of each one of these public hearings is a staff presentation

1:01:59uh Council discussion public testimony uh a motion to open and close the public hearing or sorry a motion to close the public hearing emotion and then a vote uh if a vote is uh so deemed um with that we'll move on to our first uh presentation on two of the public

1:02:19hearings um these this presentation will cover both the Integrated Waste Management fee uh public hearing as well as the East Bay sanitary garbage and green waste collection and process rates and I see staff member Garth Schultz is now available is now ready yes thank you

1:02:40mayor council members those uh present those viewing at home and on the web I'm Garth Schultz I'm the operations and manager of the city's operations and Environmental Services Division I presented to the council many times in the past on our annual rate adjustments

1:02:56to Integrated Waste Management fees and East Bay sanitary collection rates and I have a brief presentation and then I'll be willing to take your questions prior to the public hearings the in there's two three major components that make up the garbage rates in El Cerrito that residential

1:03:15customers and Commercial customers pay the first is the Integrated Waste Management fee this is the fee that funds the city's recycling collection programs both curbside and at the El Cerrito recycling environmental Resource Center the council sets the Integrated

1:03:31Waste Management fees which are charged on the garbage bills through East Bay sanitary company and these fees fund roughly 85 percent in any given year of the total programs covered through the Integrated Waste Management fund all centered around recycling collection

1:03:47curbside and at the center in the adopted budget there was a 10-year plan for the Integrated Waste Management fund projecting revenues and expenses into the future for 10 years in that there was an assumption included that we would have a 7.5 increase in Integrated Waste Management

1:04:07fee Revenue effective January 1 2014.

1:04:12this was put aside in as an increase for 7.5 percent primarily to begin funding an equipment Reserve fund our current equipment and capital on the streets from a 2009 rollout of new carts and new trucks always done to be at least purchase we didn't have any reserves to

1:04:31be able to replace vehicles at the end of their useful lives in the 10-year plan we're beginning to set one up so this year there's 150 000 that would go to into Reserve another 150 000 next year and the idea is that when capital is due for replacement we have the cash

1:04:47to be able to reinvest in new equipment additionally we've been running a deficit in the integrative Waste Management fund purposefully for the last several years there has been a somewhat High not high but ample fund balance in that fund and so we've been spending a little bit more than

1:05:06we're bringing in in order to bring into a more appropriate level this uh 10-year plan in the 7.5 increase bring us into a balanced revenues and expenditures ratio starting next year and in all future years after that um one element that's noted in the staff report and something I presented to the

1:05:23council recently about is the new agreement with the space sanitary we have separate from the matters tonight for Fleet Management there will be increased expenditures through the Integrated Waste Management fund for Fleet Management that's not a part of the 7.5 percent increase we've actually

1:05:40identified some other Revenue sources and expenditure cuts for this year to be able to make that additional expenditures on Fleet Management and services work well and then we'll have to reassess for the out years and the new budget year how those revenues will

1:05:55be recovered for those expenses second component on the garbage bills that ratepayers see is the East Bay sanitary rates collection rates in specific these are also set by the council and they're charged by East Bay sanitary East Bay Sand last year with the city we entered into a new uh Fifth

1:06:17Amendment to the franchise agreement that spelled out how annualized rate adjustments to their fees and revenues would occur it was something called the refuse rate index and it's referenced in the agenda bill for this presentation it pegs various expenses against fixed

1:06:35indices that can then be used in a formula to set up a new Revenue requirement for the company an additional thing that that revenue or rate Revenue index does is also um help account for under or over collection of revenues in any given year through the Fifth Amendment the company

1:06:54is guaranteed a certain amount of Revenue to be able to meet its expenses and profits anything under that amount of Revenue gets collected in future years rates anything over that amount of Revenue comes back to the rate payers in the form of an offset we are modeling

1:07:09some under collection of revenue for this year and that is accounted for in this 3.71 increase to East Bay sanitaries revenue for next year one other and one third and final component on the rates that Ray Paris see is that as a previously was previously reported to the council as

1:07:28the Earth rate this was something that was set by the West County Integrated Waste Management board recycle more to cover the costs of post-collection everything that occurs after the garbage trucks and Greenways trucks pick things up from the curb if the council will

1:07:44recall back in September of this year the council adopted a new post-collection agreement that will go into place January 1 so there's no need for the previous Earth rate set by recycle Moore's board we're now asking that the council set that rate to uh cover the costs of post-collection

1:08:01services per that new agreement and that's 90 dollars and 30 cents per ton over about approximately 11 000 tons here in the city of El Cerrito which by the way is less than it has been in previous years on a total total basis across all tons one element that we're proposing for

1:08:21these rates this year is an increase to East Bay sanitary's franchise fee presently that's 12 percent of revenues that East Bay sanitary collects proposing that that be increased to 15 percent in order to generate more general fund revenues to cover costs like street sweeping this

1:08:40would be an increase from around just over six hundred thousand dollars a year in franchise fees that use base sanitary pays to the city up to about 730 000 or 734 to be precise these franchise fees a 15 franchise fees in the realm of of the standard for the region the Bay Area region they range

1:09:03anywhere from 2 to 20 plus percent most cities and that's around half of them are in the 10 to 15 percent range regionally um one of the uh one note on this I failed to mention um in the the revenue shortfall that's been collected in that 3.71 for East Bay sanitary that's due to

1:09:23persistent migration um I'll have a slide on this a little bit later but uh residents and businesses continue to move into smaller and smaller container sizes which is a good thing we're sending less waste to the landfill people are recycling more businesses or recycling more but because

1:09:38of the graduated nature of our rates that results in a lesser than sufficient revenues to meet the revenue needs of the collection operations which are largely fixed cost bases just wanted to make sure we had the rates up on the board for when we get to the public hearing components but these

1:09:56are the proposed 2014 iwm fees um that are both publicly noticed in papers throughout the county and that the council is being asked to act on tonight and these are the proposed 2014 East Bay Sand rates and you can see we've got the collection rates and the post collection

1:10:13rates split separately a note on the post-collection rates they are proportional reduction of what the past Earth rates were set at so they're essentially in the same kind of graduated scale as the older Earth rates which were very similar in nature to the post-collection rates it also assumes

1:10:32that each sector both residential and Commercial is paying its fair share of disposal and processing costs I mentioned that there's three components this slide shows you how those three components add up into the total monthly cost charged to Residents and to businesses in El Cerrito you'll

1:10:50note um the 30 or 40 percent or 30 or 40 Cent increase to 20 and 35 gallon carts in El Cerrito that's over 95 percent of the city's residents are in uh 20 and 35 gallon carts which I should note is a much higher percent in the smaller container sizes than you see in pretty

1:11:08much any other city in the region um you'll also notice there's a steeper increase to the commercial rates the one cubic yard and two cubic yards these are per pickup rates whereas the residents are per monthly because they're automatically one pickup a week if

1:11:24you're a business or owner or multi-family dwelling complex in El Cerrito you might have one container once a week or it might be six days a week it really depends upon your waste generation these are higher increases for commercial but it's important to note commercial and multi-family

1:11:39dwellings still retain the the greatest potential for migration into smaller container sizes simply by choosing to divert more material out of their garbage bins and into their recycling bins or into green waste bins there's a tremendous amount that can still be done

1:11:53to reduce waste in this sector and we saw a lot of migration in the way in that sector this year which is one of the reasons that these are being adjusted differently than the uh than the residential rates to account for the fact that there has been so much migration and we've reported to the

1:12:09council in the past there is State regulation covering mandatory recycling participation for multi-family dwellings with five units or more and for commercial businesses generating a certain minimum threshold of waste we're outreaching to them on an annual basis checking in with them making sure

1:12:28they're complying and encouraging them both on the city side and on East Bay sanitary side to to divert waste to their non-landfill containers and to move into smaller container sizes total rate impact overall this year um because of migration we're seeing it's a 1.6 and 1.6 increase in overall

1:12:51revenues that we project will be collected on the garbage bills it's just over a hundred thousand dollars more than last year you can see the breakdown here um just over 4 million to East Bay sanitary um for their revenue requirement in the city's franchise fees

1:13:06um the 81.8 million to Integrated Waste Management for recycling and then the post collection costs did a little bit of background research on how much revenue has gone to fund all these operations over the last several years and it's interesting to note although we've seen individual container

1:13:25rates increase by varying amounts because of the effects of migration overall in the last several years total revenues to these operations have only increased 2.4 percent on average over the year over year that's just a tiny bit above inflation during that time

1:13:43similarly during that time we've had many new and improved Services complete redo of all of our curbside recycling complete redo of the recycling center moving to weekly grain waste to moving to increased food waste and we have a lot to look forward to this year and

1:13:58what these rates get us is more household hazardous waste at the center and persistent increases in commercial and apartments and C D recycling I've reported out on some of the other features available in the post-collection contract of the council back in September new dry waste

1:14:14collection for commercial and multi-family and again the C D will be a big deal shown the Council of variations on this slide over the course of the last several years and I'm kind of Blown Away that it continues to go down in such a steep trend for the 35 gallons so what

1:14:29you see on this chart is the number of 35 gallon containers used by residents on the top line steeply decreasing over the course of the last several years 20 gallon containers steeply increasing and at the very bottom 64 gallon containers making a slight tick towards zero we see

1:14:46these Trends continuing they were pretty persistent this year they've been pretty level and again we're pleased this is resulting in you know decreased waste into landfill and it's it's consistent with the city's strategic plan climate action plan and just overall

1:15:00environmental goals Now by way of a brief brief wrap up this is what the proposed 2014 iwm and East Bay Sand rates will get for ratepayers um and I'm happy to take any and all of your questions at this time thank you for the opportunity um yes let's take questions from the

1:15:23council uh the question I had was you mentioned something about street sweeping yes I did indeed and I so I was wondering if so the idea would be to put more money towards street sweeping yes and I'm sorry I was glossing over some of my notes so my question really had to

1:15:44do with would that be just humane of Street s it it would be to maintain current levels of street sweeping the the funds that are currently designated for street sweeping which is the city's npdes fund and National pollution discharge elimination system it's the uh

1:16:06it's the Clean Water program fund so related to several other items you've heard tonight that funding source uh we're finding well there's there's two things going on with it one is that there's increasing requirements on all of the cities in the Bay Area and all of

1:16:21the various jurisdictions to comply with the municipal Regional permit um which was been you know reported at the council at other times and we'll be having more of an update for you um in the new year but there's new requirements for all of the agencies throughout the nine Bay Area Counties to

1:16:39keep trash out of waterways to install trash capture devices to do so to do more monitoring for stormwater pollution which is going to result in increased expenditures to be able to comply with new requirements of a permit to discharge stormwater into the bay the revenues for that are available to

1:17:00cover those activities have been flat for a long time and they've not been sufficient to meet the new expenses that are being incurred for these new regulatory requirements up until more recently there's been a fair amount of General on revenues available the Public

1:17:17Works operations to help cover some of those other activities and as budgets have changed over the course of the last several years that basis has shrunk the general fund revenues available for Public Works operations have declined um so this is a proposal to have new

1:17:34funding to the general fund to be able to pay for street sweeping services so that the existing revenues in the npdes fund can cover the other activities required by the permit the one of the things I was wondering about is that from time to time I hear concerns from

1:17:50residents that the street sweeping that we have is not adequate and um usually it's kind of centered around there's a car in the way or for example on Fairmont there are those trees that are I think you know they're the low or no it's not the it's that they um I don't even know what to call those the

1:18:15the areas where this yeah uh but it like mid block or something and it's hard for the street sweeper to get in there yeah so there's like I don't know how in fact I can't figure out that there would be a way for the street sweeper to get in there as such and so whatever trash accumulates

1:18:33there just simply absolutely the storm drain well I'm glad you're able to prime the pump for us on this one we have a plan to brief the Council on a long-term trash management plan which will deal with the various strategies available to the city to keep trash out of the storm

1:18:49sewers or storm systems sorry Al uh out of the waterways and many of the strategies available to us are to increase street sweeping to sign for street sweeping to uh enforce ticketing for street sweeping there's a lot of opportunities available we and the operations and environmental

1:19:06services division primarily Steven pray who's here this evening have it and we're going to be looking at what what's our plan what's our plan to get that stuff out of the system we're hoping to come to you in January to brief you on some of the elements that that plan but

1:19:19it'll be a policy decision because there's not additional revenues available right now to do more street sweeping but we'll hope to have more for you soon in the next couple months thank you yes please just to follow up on that program you were talking about so you

1:19:33did mention something about new regulations so this is obviously this is a program that's going to been in place for many years but uh is it the case that state legislation has passed that's phasing in more stringent requirements and what's the phase in schedule or have

1:19:47we already it's it's um it's the the state Regional uh the regional water quality control board has set a permit for the nine Bay Area Counties that has uh requirements that are uh and Provisions that are more stringent than they have been in past years particularly around this trash in the

1:20:04waterways issue and so it's the elements of those Provisions you may hear us refer to C10 as an example it's the version that requires us to reduce Trash In This Storm system by 100 by 2022 that's one of the primary cost centers in the new Provisions there are some

1:20:22others but that's the real big chunk right there great that's what I was wondering like what's the sort of horizon period of when we need to fully combine with these good eight years left thank you yeah um I just thank you for answering my email question about the MRP because I

1:20:39was like thinking well 30 cents brings us back into alignment that's good we're you know we're going to get some money to to cover these increased costs for for that um and I was thinking well is it because our street cleaning isn't really sufficient we're really dumping more our

1:20:55Street's dirtier but we're doing better with our recycling but now we understand that it's the requirements so um you know we passed in El Cerrito the the measure in 2012 but it failed throughout the Connie do you foresee that that's going to come forward again

1:21:10or is that just a lost cause um especially with these increasing requirements well I mean there will probably continue to be a need to find additional Revenue sources to fully fund the requirements of the MRP for El Cerrito I don't know all of the details for me and Yvette Ortiz the interim

1:21:31Public Works director we're starting to dig in on these matters the things that we're still learning about but we do anticipate that there may be a need nope I'm cutting in and out a little I apologize there may there'll be a need for additional funding measures we have

1:21:44talked on the staff level about you know the possibility of a clean water measure in El Cerrito ultimately that's a decision for the council but you know we don't know all the details yet but we think that there probably will be a need for some more in the future

1:21:58imagine if we're struggling other cities are too yes very much so and unlike in El Cerrito where if we had put that measure on the ballot just ourselves at that time we would have been able to pass it the other cities did not yes okay so for purposes of clarity

1:22:17we've been having a public hearing on essentially we're supposed to be doing these separately Integrated Waste Management fees and the East Bay sanitary um uh collection rates all of these questions have been about the East Bay sanitary collection rate so when we get to that

1:22:37public hearing I will make reference so that people who are viewing this videotape will go back and watch this portion of the tape we are formally in our Integrated Waste Management fee public hearing so I will ask at this time if there are any public speakers on

1:22:54the Integrated Waste Management fee I have no speaker slips for either public hearing great can I get a motion to close the public hearing please I move that we close the public hearing um on the Integrated Waste Management fees second emotion I have a motion and a second to close

1:23:14the hearing all those in favor please say aye aye let the record show that it passed unanimously um are there any additional comments or questions on the council with regard to the Integrated Waste Management fee which we are increasing per plan per the June plan to cover our vehicle

1:23:37replacement fund seeing no further questions or comments do I have a motion and I'll direct you to item attachment to do I have a motion um a resolution of the city council yes I move a resolution fixing and setting rates for the Integrated Waste Management fees as identified in the

1:24:00enacting Clause of the resolution effective January 1st 2014. second great thank you I have a motion and a second all those in favor please say aye aye aye opposed absentions let it records show that it passed unanimously at this time I'd like to open up our uh public

1:24:16hearing on the East Bay sanitary garbage and Greenhouse collection disposal and processing rates um if you are video viewing this videotape uh at a later date please rewind about five minutes there were three or four questions from Council with regards to the uh East Bay

1:24:38collection rates uh these rates we are looking at this evening include post uh oh post collection disposal an increase in the uh rate for collection as well as our disposal rate for disposing of that which is not recyclable are there any public speakers on this

1:25:07matter no mayor a move that we close the public hearing we have a motion and second to close the public hearing all those in favor please say aye aye opposed Obsession let it record let the record show that we have closed the public hearing unanimously um and that would bring us are there any

1:25:25other additional questions or comments on this item I will actually take this time to make a comment you don't need to come to the podium um I am proud that El Cerrito does take our Bay Waters and the clarity of our Bay water is very importantly and that we as council member Bridges pointed out

1:25:48we were the sole uh Community to pass the mail-in ballot the prop 218 ballot in 2012. I recently was in attendance at the state of the Estuary conference and sat down with some some other uh some professionals and they know that El Cerrito was the only community in Contra

1:26:12Costa to pass this ballot measure so it's with great pride that that I believe that we are continuing to move funds towards our street sweeping and and uh maintaining our our clean streets and therefore clean Bay um our staff did talk about the fact that this will need to increase over

1:26:32time and so I do want to take this opportunity to let our residents know that our staff is trying to carry out your mandate from the 2012 election and to continue to keep our streets clean to reduce our contribution to the Bay with that I'd like to entertain a motion

1:26:52please I moved to adapt a resolution establishing maximum rates of East Bay sanitary company May charge for garbage and green waste collection disposal and processing rates as identified in the enacting Clause of the resolution and stipulating a 15 EBS franchise fee

1:27:12effective January 1st 2014. a second we have a motion in a second all those in favor please say aye aye let the record show that it passed unanimously thank you very much for your participation and staff reports tonight with that we will move on to our third public hearing of this evening

1:27:31this is item 6B building code and fire code ordinance Updates this is a public hearing and upon conclusion we would adopt an ordinance this is an ordinance that we did first reading three weeks ago is that correct October 15th thank you so I'm sure it's written somewhere

1:27:55um and there is no presentation this evening if there are questions from Council or the public we do have an opportunity for staff to answer questions um so this public hearing is now open uh is there discussion or questions from the council are there public speakers

1:28:17no speakers can have a motion to close that we close the public hearing second we have a motion to close and it's been seconded all those in favor please say aye aye aye opposed absentions seeing none let it show that we've passed that unanimously um and we will now entertain a motion

1:28:36and there is I will direct you to item 6B in our agenda uh for this motion please it's long so please drink a water before you start all right I had a glass um I moved to wave any further reading and adopt an ordinance of the city of El Cerrito amending title 16 of the El

1:28:56Cerrito municipal code to adopt with modifications to address unique local conditions the 2013 edition of the California Green Building Code the 2013 edition of the California building code based on the 2012 International building code volumes one and two including several

1:29:17appendices there too the 2013 California fire code based on the 2012 International fire code including all the appendices there too the 2013 edition of the California Administrative Code the 2013 edition of the California residential code based on the 2012 International residential code

1:29:41with some appendices the 2013 California plumbing code based on the 2012 uniform plumbing code the 2013 California Mechanical Code based on the 2012 uniform Mechanical Code and the 2013 California electrical code based on the 2011 National electrical code second

1:30:10thank you we have a motion in a second all those in favor please say aye aye opposed absentions let the record show that it passed unanimously 5-0 that will bring us to our fourth public hearing of the evening item 6C this is an opportunity for us to hear about

1:30:28amending the El Cerrito Municipal Code chapter 11.64 regarding bicycles uh good evening Chief Moyer good evening mayor Lyman it's good to see you and you we heard so much about you and your relationship with the district attorney earlier yes I'm glad he could be here and tell you

1:30:46about all that so good evening mayor Lyman and Council I am still here your police chief and this evening I am presenting the result of a combined City staff effort reflecting our commitment to multimodal Transportation as described in our strategic plan and evaluating our El Cerrito municipal code

1:31:05to ensure it is legally sound and contemporary and to enhance safety in our city El Cerrito as you know has a history of supporting bicycling as a means of transportation and Recreation and it makes sense for us at this point to recommend it to recommend changes to

1:31:24the chapter that you referenced 11.64 bicycles so with the published agenda Bill our Council and our public will see that I recommend this evening deletion of specific sections of the municipal code related to bicycles addition of new sections and some amendment to existing

1:31:43sections the key ordinance changes include all sections pertaining to the licensing and inspection of vehicles those have been deleted this is largely because most bicycles are uniquely serial numbered making licenses and the associated processes and fees obsolete

1:32:02the rules of the road section with particular attention paid to the towing of trailers and the caring of children expanding on this part specific to trailers trailers are typically used for the transportation of children and therefore staff decided to break out caring of children and towing

1:32:21for clarity there are three basic ways to tote a child Along on a bike ride seats that mount on a bike bike trailers and trailer Cycles for the purposes of this section we focus on trailers to carry human beings and cargo although some trailers are are multi-use with the underlying intent of

1:32:46safety staff recommended language that says the trailer should be used for the intent for which it's manufactured using language similar to that contained in the California vehicle code and carrying the same notion of intended use and calling out specifically California

1:33:04vehicle code section 21712 A says this a person driving a motor vehicle shall not knowingly permit a person to ride on a vehicle or upon a portion of a vehicle that is not designed or intended for the use of passengers and section B of the same section says A person shall not

1:33:24ride on a vehicle or upon a portion of a vehicle that is not designed or intended for the use of passengers we relied on that for our conversation for the inclusion actually of the initial intent well we're not Engineers or designers staff recognizes that trailers built are

1:33:45manufactured to carry people are safety tested and undergo rigorous and varying degrees of testing therefore we recommend that trailers to carry cargo remain appropriate for the carrying of cargo but may not be suited for the Safe Transportation of children some examples and things to note are in

1:34:07Europe there are suggested and recommended standards for trailers and the American Society for testing and materials also has methods for strength regarding trailers intended to carry children structural Integrity system fatigue as standards so there are suggested standards and that's why staff

1:34:25decided to include the language for the intended use so prior to my closing comments I would like to pause and entertain any questions that you have regarding the amended changes I can start if no one else is ready go ahead um when you in both the um 11.64040 rules of the road under item C

1:34:55and D you talk about manufactured bicycle trailers recently I was on San Pablo Avenue following a gentleman who had a trailer that was manufactured probably at home um it was not intended to haul human beings he was hauling other bicycle parts in it um and so I'm just wondering if

1:35:20manufactured bicycle trailer uh for its intended use in this case to haul Goods he purchased I hoped and didn't um collect them some other nefarious way but um assuming it was take the groceries home uh that it would be intent it would be uh compliant with the intent of this

1:35:41of D which is a manufactured trailer being used for their intended purpose yes sir it would even though he manufactured appeared that he manufactured out of bicycle wheels and plywood which is very ingenious actually quite however that same trailer would not suffice

1:35:58undersea when it was intended to carry a child because you're assuming that these standards you I mean I'm trying to figure out is manufactured you have this fastening requirement of upright so I'm just trying to figure out is manufactured in that case are you intending it to be from a commercial

1:36:20manufacturer or could it still be manufactured at home so it's a great question typically staff we are most of us with the exception of some we are not engineers and we are not experts in the manufacturing and welding and structural Integrity process speaking to that

1:36:41section c is very clear when it prescribes how to carry children primarily the California vehicle code the American Association of pediatric physicians prescribe that children should not be carried on a bicycle in a trailer on a bicycle seat unless they're over the age of one there are some

1:37:04Physicians who say that children should not be carried until a certain age the specific to the trailer there the trailer must have a seat harness or seat belt to contain the child and a child on a bicycle or in a bicycle trailer by California law shall wear a specific bicycle helmet so to say

1:37:30it has to be manufactured commercially I don't think we're in a position to say that nor would we in any way endorse a specific brand we will We endorse the safety mechanisms surrounding the trailer excellent thank you the paragraph following that is trick riding

1:37:49um and and I see that you've moved it from our uh highways and streets to any right-of-way um and and so I'm interested in knowing if the El Cerrito High School mountain biking team as they are um competing or practicing to compete and they and there are intentional obstacles

1:38:12that make them airborne if that's considered trick riding that would not be considered trick writing because they are actively engaged in a competition or practicing for practicing for a competition and and not conducting that trick writing where they would be endangered by Vehicles impeding with

1:38:34their writing or trick writing could I piggyback on that yes please um so I also had a question um about this um it says that and E uh the right away upon any space land property or facilities owned by the city so therefore if there were mountain bike trails in the open space potentially someday

1:39:02um that we would probably have to redo the Munich code to allow that yes and I think this ordinances municodes are evolutionary we we would look at it at that time and include language that would permit such activity I'm sorry I thought they were doing that now

1:39:21are they not using the public space now the open space now to practice I would have to wasn't prepared for that question okay well I guess I guess my question would be it's it's imminent and I do notice that facility owned or controlled by the city of El Cerrito so

1:39:41if the property is owned by someone else maybe a school district um and there's a use in place then that would cover that space so we are being somewhat anticipatory here or hopefully anticipatory um so I'm just trying to figure out the answer to our questions was not

1:40:00necessarily the same I my question was if they were training in our open space now it wouldn't be considered trick riding the answer to council member Bridge's question was they can't do it now so I'm just curious which which you had intended so the intent section section e under trick writing is

1:40:23adding to existing language this currently exists in our ordinance and the intent is to keep trick riders away from the motoring public that is the intent excuse me so I think you've raised some good issues that that staff can take back and examine for clarity and perhaps consider the input

1:40:45that you've given prior to the next reading absolutely okay that's fine thank you thanks I I like these overall changes I think they're very rational I have a couple of questions on B juveniles riding on sidewalks I grew up in a small town in in my town they didn't let

1:41:06children ride bicycles on the street until they turn 10. so here we say you can't write your juveniles under the age of 18 can ride on sidewalks no one else can can juveniles of any age ride on the street by themselves and also my other part of that question is how come you can get a driver's

1:41:28license at age 16 but 18 is the up to 18 you can ride on the sidewalk well I don't have a really good answer at all for the second question but I can refer to B is existing language and juveniles can ride on the city streets at any age however there are suggested

1:41:51safety standards by the National Institute for Traffic Safety and other bodies that recommend that children should not ride until they've been exposed to the safety laws and by their parent or Guardian an adult that they can successfully wear a helmet and that they can navigate and the suggested Age

1:42:14based on our research is a minimum age of six okay thanks my other question is under turns and stops again in that small town the police used to come out at least once a year and do bicycle riding training with all the kids in the school and they really emphasize the need to

1:42:37use turn signals when you're riding a bike and uh I use them when I ride a bike but hardly any other Rider I have ever seen in the Bay Area does actually use a turn signal or indicate that they're going to stop in fact most motorists wouldn't even recognize it probably if somebody did it because it's

1:42:56so uncommon you probably think you're being nice and saying hello yeah yeah right right turn left turn stop right so uh what do we do in terms of bicycle education both for kids and also for motorists so that uh they would understand those signals if they would happen to see them in

1:43:19those rare occasions well the El Cerrito police department has a robust bicycle unit we've done some Outreach but it's what you've highlighted is the necessity for me to go back and really dive into how much we've done how many kids and community members we've reached out to

1:43:35not be able to report back on that okay great councilmember Freeman did I hear you make a suggestion that you wanted to reduce the age in Item B oh yeah actually to 16.

1:43:46I thought I heard that yeah yeah thanks so the recommend the recommended image that's proposed is under B from 18 to 16. yeah okay then my report back I will examine that and I'll be able to report back thanks councilmember benassini um thank you for the presentation I many

1:44:07of the questions I had have already been answered so I'm just going to suggest in the next reading under section c I think the word intend should probably be intended designed or intended for the use of carrying passengers so in the next one we can just make that change

1:44:20councilmember Abelson um yes the question I had um there's a section that says some sections including the wearing of helmets were deleted as they are appropriately covered under state law but I don't know what state law says could you Enlighten us yes so state law prescribes under the

1:44:45California vehicle code and I'll get that exact section while I'm while I'm speaking 21212 the California vehicle code prescribes that youth shall wear an approved bicycle helmet when they are operating a bicycle or other carrying device on a city street it's considered minors anyone under 18

1:45:09years old that would include um what are those things called scooters yes and what about adults there is nothing prescribed for adults regarding helmet wearing adults are considered to exercise great choice around their own safety thank you can I follow up on that we do

1:45:32have a motorcycle helmet law though for adults we do isn't riding a bicycle in some ways very similar similar and Studies have shown the the incident of brain trauma when someone is struck by a vehicle or falls from a bicycle can be significant and debilitating so we could

1:45:54are there communities that have adult helmet laws well I think our City attorney would like to weigh in on that because we we have had that in the past we currently have that on the books there is a consensus view that the vehicle code is preemptive of local law

1:46:14in this area and that the proper way to interpret that is that excuse me the state law requirement for juveniles to wear a helmet precludes local agencies from adopting a rule that requires adults to wear a helmet that has not been adjudicated by the California Supreme Court or even an

1:46:34appellate court but that is the consensus view of City attorneys around the state there are differing views and at the current time this the city does have that policy in place one of the discussions that that staff's had that I was a part of about these amendments was

1:46:49whether or not to remove the requirement that adults wear a helmet to bring it into consistency with what is the consensus view about the effective state law on the ability of local governments to adopt such a rule uh follow-up Chief to your knowledge do we ever issue citations citations to

1:47:09adults who don't comply with the current law on helmets we have in the past yes unfortunately I guess they are Unfortunately they haven't taken it to court to challenge it and then we get a decision that would tell us for once and for all if it's legal or not not to an

1:47:29appellate court that resulted in a published decision I don't believe it's even been taken to an appellate court tricky thanks any further questions are there any public speakers on this item no speakers bear this is a public hearing can I have a motion to close the

1:47:46public hearing pardon me mayor I do have a closing statement okay it's brief I think it's ironic that I stand before you as your police chief amending a bicycle ordinance because in 1973 in the city of Davis I was actually the first person to give in to be given

1:48:03a ticket while riding a bicycle at a tender age I believe I was in second grade for reckless bike riding but growing up in Davis I have a fine appreciation for bicycles and and obviously I I understand the intent but in closing I would like to comment that this ordinance Amendment reflects the

1:48:22commitment of your city staff to work together to create research and and pardon me to research and analyze our municipal code to create contemporary codes and policies in harmony with the multimodal section of our strategic plan special thanks have to be given to the young officer who's

1:48:42in the back officer Paul Cooper who did the Lion's Share of the analysis and recommendations that I've presented and he works graveyard so you don't often see him but he needs to be congratulated for significant research and Analysis that he conducted on this project great

1:48:56thank you as soon as we close Mr Cooper can come forward so we can thank him personally can I have a motion to close the hearing all those in favor closing the public hearing please say aye uh let the record show that passed unanimously Mr Cooper please come forward

1:49:17because I I do want to thank uh you personally for all the hard work on this uh it is I know been a contentious item over the last couple of years and and uh in is part of my comments and I'm hoping you'll contribute to these I think it's um I think it's an unnecessary act that we have to

1:49:41repeal the helmet law um no that's not didn't come out right it's necessary but it's an undesirable action that we have to take every bike rider should be wearing a helmet for their own protection and uh it's it's a it's not something that we potentially have the grounds to enforce and so

1:50:00therefore we're repealing at this time but I'm hoping that you would elaborate on some of the research that maybe you have about the value of wearing a helmet I know you just caught you off guard you could just say thank you for recognition well thank you mayor um I mean our city

1:50:20we have a lot of bicyclists and PEDs in our city I've responded to numerous vehicle pedestrian accidents where the I guess adult was not wearing a helmet and if he was injuries may or may not have been as severe I think it is a necessity it's also a great tool that we use to contact

1:50:50individuals in our city or that may be coming into our city to I don't know may or may not be committing crime so it's a great tool that we can use to contact individuals as well so thank you yep nope you're welcome thank you for all your help any additional comments from Council yeah I

1:51:16would just like to know if the city manager when you vetted the police chief when she was hired did we find out about that she was a convicted criminal from an early age and established a pattern council member Friedman I I debt but it was outside the statute of

1:51:34limitations all right great well we're glad to have you any other questions or comments on this first reading of the ordinance to amend uh Municipal Code chapter 11.64 no I guess I would just like to see what uh what your research comes back with with regard to the uh age change from 16 to

1:51:5418 just taking note that many the reference to minors very typically refers to age 18 so if we're going to say 16 I'd like to see some research to corroborate that that's a good idea uh City attorney do our the changes that we've made proposed this evening most

1:52:12notably the change in the age does that need to be remarked in the reading of the of the motion the changes should be noted as part of the motion um introducing the ordinance great thank you um can I have a motion and please be sure to read in the change to item

1:52:3411.64 0.0 Item B to enter that introduced by Title Wave and further reading and improve an ordinance of the city of El Cerrito amending the El Cerrito Municipal Code chapter 11.64 bicycles with one Amendment under 11.64040 section B of changing the age from 18 years to 16 years and regarding

1:53:06writing on sidewalks second we have a motion it's been seconded all those in favor please say aye aye aye opposed abstentions uh seeing none let the records show that it passed unanimously that concludes our public hearings for this evening we will move on to items seven which is policy

1:53:22matters um item 7A is a resolution approving the First Amendment to the city manager's employment agreement between the city of El Cerrito and our city manager Scott Hannan um as one of our labor negotiators I can say that we have completed the majority of our performance evaluation

1:53:53and the overall opinion of the council was that Mr Hannon has done a very good job a remarkably good job considering the economic environment we've been in and that we have recommended and the council approved a 10 increase in his base pay the approximate cost to the city is

1:54:20approximately a I think it's seven and a half percent uh increase in overall cost to the to the city in in his pay are there any questions sorry sure could you clarify that yeah so some of the some of the costs that are built on his base pay are fixed like uh Social Security doesn't

1:54:43isn't a direct line so although we've increased his net base pay the overall call this cost does not necessarily go up at the same uh at the same value and then I think there's uh yeah that's that's the big that's the biggest one that made a difference between base pay

1:55:01and net pay or gross pay um are there any public speakers on this item yeah any additional questions or comments I'd just like to thank the subcommittee for their work and the city manager for his work and helping us um provide all the data we need to do the evaluation uh and thank you for

1:55:21looking at all the different salaries for city managers in the area and ensuring that we're coming up with a good market rate that um is commensurate with Scott's work with the city great and Mr hand thank you for your service uh for the last uh six years or since your last contract Amendment and

1:55:42we look forward to many many more years with a motion okay I would be um happy to move the item with the comment that I want to thank Scott for uh doing outstanding work in that period of time and for all of the positive changes that you have been responsible for in our

1:56:04city and that we are still looking forward to in the future thank you very much second so we have a motion and a second all those in favor please say aye aye let the record show that it passed unanimously we will now move on to item 7B which is a series of actions uh with regards to our

1:56:29boards commissions and committees there is an ordinance reading a resolution establishing the economic development committee a resolution establishing ethics training for specific boards and commissions and a resolution revising city council policy on advisory bodies

1:56:49um so this is the other subcommittee that I have been serving on uh for some period of time so I um I don't know maybe maybe the fact that my mayorship is ending is giving me momentum to try and get some of these subcommittees done um but let me say that this the changes

1:57:12were consistent with the discussion we had on October 15th that we have staff had both both my ladies on my left Cheryl Morrison assistant manager uh Karen Pincus have done a fantastic job taking our comments of that day not only capturing them well in the action

1:57:34minutes of October 15th but then transferring them into these four actions that we're considering this evening so with that I would like to take any comments or questions from the council attachment for page one it under um section one city council B it says it is the policy of the city

1:58:06council the liaison is not expected to attend the meetings blah blah blah okay the word expected does that mean [Music] um doesn't have to is that the same as saying they don't have to do that was this b as in Baker or last sentence in b and B okay second to the last third to last line

1:58:31so I'm trying to understand that meaning um I mean if it said not required to then I would know what it meant for example but not expected to it just is a little vague to me yeah we could I we could modify the sentence to say that the it is the policy of the city council

1:58:50that a liaison um shall not well you can you can attend more than once a quarter should should attend at least once a quarter and that's we could change it around to a positive okay I would I would appreciate that because I think it's we want to make sure that it's clear what it's

1:59:09saying so what I'm hearing is that it would say it is the policy of the city council that a liaison is expected to attend the meetings of the advisory body to which the liaison is assigned at least once quarterly okay and um okay then I then I had um then I have a sort of following question

1:59:38so the way we do it now is that we go to the the [Music] um the advisory committee meetings or commission or whatever and then we come back and if something of note that was noteworthy happened we would announce it here likewise we would do the reverse which is if something noteworthy to the

2:00:03group this the advisor committee happened at the council meeting we would mention that but if it only happens every quarter are we expected to cover the whole quarter or and also if we weren't there at the if we want let's say we only went once out of a quarter

2:00:27how would we know what happened yeah and so we are expected to use the minutes so we should be uh researching and reviewing the action minutes from the various boards and commissions and committees um so that's how we would potentially stay current with their actions and to

2:00:50that end they should be staying current with our actions through minutes so you know you would not need to cover every single item that has occurred over a quarter you would obviously touch on Highlights so it would be highlights likewise in reporting here we would still report here though

2:01:09right certainly okay but we would only report on highlights okay yeah I would I mean we're all the the I I have an answer to that question then and then um the next question I had um didn't have a pen when I was reading this and I marked it in a funny way um oh I think this is um on page two of

2:01:55that same document on um F which section f which is starts out to avoid any possibility of the appearance of or actual conflict of interest um but then it says um cannot serve so this would be the um see this is the council member or the yeah I think it's the council member

2:02:30it's saying that the council member I have trouble figuring out go ahead and saying let me go ahead and read it out loud because maybe when I read it you'll it'll it will it'll help but to avoid any possibility of the appearance of or actual conflict of interest unfairness

2:02:48bias Prejudice or influence individuals residing at the same address cannot serve on the council and an advisory body the same advisory body or advisory bodies with overlapping subject matter jurisdiction this means of the city an advisory body of the city yes what is

2:03:10the same advisory body mean so what what this is saying is that you and your significant other spouse living at your house could not be on Council and advisory body or for example you and your significant other residing with you couldn't be on the same advisory battery let's say it's

2:03:30the Planning Commission or eqc or the third one is advisories bodies with overlapping subject matter such as drb and the Planning Commission at the same time see this section is talking about council members so why is it talking I mean it just it looks a little confusing to me

2:03:55section one city council yeah I I do see your uh that this potentially applies to the city council as a result of the first of those three but then it would apply to advisory body members for the other two so it would seem to me that the stuff applying to advisory body members ought

2:04:19to be in the advisory body section which we or it could just be moved to a section three in the same resolution and made a standalone provision yeah I was I was trying to figure out there was another but I think I think that is the correct solution okay so it would be section three uh

2:04:43right before I certify okay I think those are my let's see how women I had one other but it's that one was figured out this one is not uh application it is on that all right so okay on page an attachment to page two it says for example I mean just this is just where

2:05:23it happens to said here um the um in the second paragraph that be it further resolved that this committee shall meet monthly so the question I have is if the committee doesn't meet monthly let's say because they didn't have a quorum is there any ramification of that

2:05:46no no that actually is I'm sorry I'm Karen finkus assistant city manager that language is consistent with the ordinance that enables all of the boards and commissions to exist and all of the other committees okay likewise there is a another section where it says that the

2:06:02chair shall be elected in I believe it's April but let's say that they didn't have a meeting in April for whatever reason like they didn't have a quorum or who know you know anything then is that a problem how we isn't for the same reason that is not a problem in fact

2:06:20historically we've had we have had that happen where perhaps a meeting has been delayed or a speculating has happened or there wasn't a quorum in a meeting to elect a chair that has happened as long as it happens yearly we have not found any issues in the City attorney has not

2:06:35told us that we're in big trouble okay so every okay that's it okay those are my questions um do you want any comments now too oh we can do comments after public speakers if there are any um council member Venice sini looks like you're ready yeah just a quick question

2:06:52I corresponded a bit with uh Karen Pincus and I wanted to ask her to just summarize quickly some of the items that will be done on an administrative basis um that were pertinent to our discussion that we had back in October about about this topic sure um particularly the discussion on work

2:07:08plans and presentations between the council in order to make sure that the communication lines are are kept open um it appeared at the time that the council was definitely amenable to that and so in discussing with the city clerk we felt that that would be a great time

2:07:24a great process to start administratively so within the next two weeks we're going to convene a meeting of all of the staff Liaisons the staff Liaisons know their their commissions the best and there's a spectrum of you know I know like for example the eqc does a great work plan and they have for

2:07:40quite a while but there are other commission say like the Planning Commission where they're they're they do their thing over and over and they don't really necessarily have a plan for the year so we wanted to create a template that would be at least a minimum Baseline maybe some goals for the year

2:07:55maybe kind of how to do a quick presentation to the city council just those types of templates to be able to develop no And discussing what all of the different needs of the groups are so we'll be doing that within the next couple of weeks and we'll be happy to

2:08:09report back to you what we come up with and we even thought about maybe you know starting to think about a schedule or or how that how the logistics of all of that would work out between the staff Liaisons foreign was that we would have a designee from the boards and commissions and

2:08:27committees come to the city council on a periodic basis yeah and they'll so they'll know this when they get elected or when they choose their officers and and additionally thank you um that would be another thing that we had discussed and that the council had given us

2:08:39Direction on would be for the application and having the application reflect all of these items including any of the different conflict of interests that is discussed here tonight but also the understanding of what the chairs Duties are what the presentation would

2:08:53be and and again making sure that we would update as well our board commissions and committee's handbook that we give to all members when they're um appointed thank you councilmember Friedman and then council member Bridges under uh board and commission Quorum requirements it sets uh exceptions for

2:09:11the Planning Commission and there's a design review board and I'm wondering about possibly adding the arts and culture commission to the exception because from time to time time there could be controversial decisions made on public art or something that it would be

2:09:28better to have this more stringent Quorum requirement so specifically you're in attachment one page two number five Quorum yeah and uh you would like to add further the Planning Commission design review board or um and uh and yeah and Arch culture so we would actually be twice in this

2:09:51paragraph it would be added is that correct correct sure I like that that's fine I think you ready for more questions or uh Council if counselor Freeman Council summer Bridges uh is next I just wanted to clarify when we talked about the administrative changes that the entire

2:10:18Council was going to partake in interviews of candidates yes there was no change in in that it was written a little oddly I think I just was a little unclear so I wanted to clarify that so thank you and then I on um I'm just looking at the agenda bill uh or the agenda item on page three

2:10:40again about the quorum so um I'm looking at the top of Page Three further the planning commissioner design review board may act by an affirmative vote we're talking about a quorum here of a simple majority of a quorum so for instance drb is five members um so they'll meet Quorum by having

2:11:03three participants but not less than three affirmative votes shall be required I didn't quite understand that I I don't it would need to be you know sure it'd be it would need to be unanimous at that point right so my question is what happens if it isn't does it come

2:11:21back to the drb when they're a full full group I didn't understand so procedurally the motion would would die for lack of it would basically it would fail the motion would fail and if um if it if it was um then you know uh then there could be a motion that potentially would be

2:11:42unanimous to table it and bring it back at a future meeting but I guess my question is is that indeed what will happen that it if it it is a 2-1 Vote or whatever or all zero well let's just say it's 2-1 that would be does it have to will it go back does that applicant or

2:11:59whatever have another opportunity to have a hearing in front of all five drb members yeah they'd probably need to reapply I'm sorry excuse me um I mean it wouldn't be an odd if there is if if there was a quorum and there was a motion and there was only and but there

2:12:21was the Quorum consisted only of three members and there was a 2-1 vote um the application would not the does if the design review would not be approved um and so the applicant would therefore need to reapply for design review approval you want to do that no I know what's the current practice

2:12:45[Music] the current practice is a simple majority according to the ordinance so they have a quorum of three they win two to one I mean why is the drb it's the only five member right now drb and financial advisor along with oh the Fab the financial Advisory board and

2:13:10the citizen Street committee but citizens committee the citizens Street oversight committee is um codified by the ballot measure so that is not changeable I I just don't know that if the I mean they can have a I would like to see where they could have a quorum to meet

2:13:27but not a quorum to necessarily well I mean I just don't know that that's well right now they right now they can they could vote and it could be a 2-1 and the decision would prevail that's what I heard okay it says three affirmative votes on here that's that's what

2:13:45what's written is a change in in the current practice and makes it more stringent makes it more stringent but it is it's not a legal requirement that that be the case it was it was as part of the discussions um and this was something that I did have some input in the idea was to

2:14:00um well there are a number of policy ideas behind It ultimately it is a policy decision for the council if the council feels like a 2-1 vote um is sufficient then then we can revise the ordinance so that um that is what it goes into effect to change that I would like to ask that

2:14:20that or have it considered to be changed and follow up on that I think if you look at the top of Page Three where this is in italics if you just ended that sentence by an affirmative vote of a simple majority of a quorum period I agree with you okay that again do you have that in front of you right

2:14:39here Jen I highlighted it right here it's this one yeah thank you so um going to the actual so if there if it was a two to one what would happen then the simple majority of passes I just want to point out though that if you if you alter it the way the council member

2:15:05Friedman suggested then a 2-1 vote they there would be a set of circumstances under which the Planning Commission could act by a 2-1 vote that's correct and that's if if that so we were trying to make this was this was set up for consistency between the two but that

2:15:22doesn't have to be the case if the council wants it it Council wants both of them to be able to act by a 2-1 vote that's fine if the council wants only the planning commit only the drb to be able to act by a 2-1 vote that's also fine but require the Planning Commission to have three

2:15:35affirmative votes that's also fine it's just um but but we need if you wanted the outcome where excuse me the Planning Commission required three affirmative questions so they couldn't correct unless one abstained there's seven members to be to Quorum they have to have four

2:15:53not if they're not if there are fewer than not it depends on how many people are appointed members yes exactly that's why I said there's a set of circumstances under which you could have a quorum where it's where it's actually only three and so you would and so if

2:16:09you changed it there could be a 2-1 vote for the planning card right so to be specific it's a Planning Commission is a body of seven if two were not two positions were vacant and they had a meeting and two of the appointed members didn't show it would have a quorum at

2:16:25three and then they would be able to have an action at a 2-1 vote yeah well I I don't know I think it's still a little more Equitable for the for the applicant I don't know I guess you could argue against that but I'd well we always give them that opportunity we always have them to have

2:16:50them reapply problem when it's time for um people to be appointed or reappointed to a commission that it all comes down on us all at once and we can't so it's impossible to get it all done all at once even though we spend a huge amount of time working on it and um

2:17:11the outcome of it previously has been problems uh Staffing and not Staffing but populating the um Planning Commission for example and that the the impact of that is to impact people's ability to do projects in our city correct we would be different negative um thing

2:17:36um does the applicant or repellent have the if there's only three people present in a meeting can they ask that it be postponed until more people are present that's what my question was should they even vote right because if they have to reapply it's pretty onerous but if they can say

2:17:55look I want this table till you have a core of a larger number yeah but I mean but where does that where does that get initiated does it get initiated by the applicant or is it and they might not know until they show up that that's the case right right the city does need to take action on

2:18:16applications within a specified period of time under the permit streamlining act however if the applicant specifically requested a continuance um and and basically allowed for an extension of the of the the window for the city to act that would be fine so on that evening when they're there

2:18:33and they have just three design reward people or three Planning Commission people there and uh through discussion and questions they feel it's not going their way they can they can extend yes further of course that's what we're here for so does the staff then inform then that the

2:19:02applicant has the option not to have a vote taken that night to make it clearer I mean that's kind of ridiculous but no I've been in some of these meetings and it might not be it's not apparently not a parent most applicants won't know that that's a right that they have yeah and

2:19:21and so my my addendum to that would be that they actually that the staff liaison actually inform them I think in the sense of transparency they should know that and you can kind of tell when it's going well and maybe not going well I don't know definitely can I do believe that in

2:19:39the past staff has worked really hard to try to make sure that the scheduling is done where the least vacancies or the most Quorum would occur I mean they can they can see they can see into the you know they look and they plan out what the meetings will be over the next two

2:19:53or three months and they do do that on a regular basis except for drb had no quorum already last a month ago right and three applicants were there would they have had Quorum under this under this rule uh well another way to do it if I understand what correctly what's being

2:20:20said would be to go ahead and hear it with the three yes then let's say you come out with the two yes uh one no and we're saying you needed let's say with the rule was you needed three to win to to get it then we we would say okay after you've gotten the 2-1 you can

2:20:40ask that it be reheard at no charge yeah we could we could waive reapplication it just would trigger a longer time frame yeah I mean if the if the if let me let me try and simplify things if the council really wants to for the rule to be for the for the drb to be able to act by a 2-1 vote

2:20:58I mean there are other very simple text changes that we could make to the ordinance tonight I think the real issue is what does the council want as a matter of policy okay um because for example just looking at and I'm here I'm under Section Five of the ordinance and it says the planning

2:21:18commissioner design review board may act by an affirmative vote of a simple majority of a quorum but not less than three affirmative votes shall be required you could just append at the end for the Planning Commission correct and that would that then it would it would maintain the rule that

2:21:32for the drb it would just be a 2-1 vote in the Arts Commission because don't forget we've inserted the Arts commission yes I think that's a good suggestion I'm comfortable with that um or planning I've noticed that we have had a member of the public put in a comment card

2:21:51um I don't know when the council would like to entertain uh public hearing but do we have do we have public speakers on this item yes we have one Tom Panna 's um so I don't know if if okay that's fine Mr panis if you would please provide us your insights and wisdom

2:22:12good evening mayor Lyman members of the Council on City staff my name is Tom pandas and I live at [address removed] I agree very much with assistant city manager Pincus I think the staff I think you all know works very hard with the applicant to try and make sure that

2:22:25everything's ready to go the other side of that you know once a person's here and they're here they're with their engineer their architect or whatever I'm very much in favor of a simple majority of a quorum now of course with the Planning Commission two votes I mean how often is that going to happen

2:22:45I don't know if we should try and legislatively protect against that but I I think I'm personally very much in favor of a simple majority of the Quorum that's present thank you for your time thank you all right bringing it back to council um council member Bridges did you finish

2:23:05all of your questions and comments uh yes okay and we've concluded all of our questions and comments we I have a comment um I've I've thought a lot about the concept of um the council members not the ex of eliminating the expectation that a council member goes to each of

2:23:29the meetings as a liaison and I've thought about situations I know in other places and um they are all the same and um which is to say that there is there is that expectation you know it might not be a city council might be some other group but um so um I I just want you to know I'm

2:23:53going to vote no because of that and I respect the process and I will say and move on you know but I don't I think it's wrong and I actually do think it's wrong and when I presented the information to the eqc they also were upset and I was supposed to tell them

2:24:13about tonight's meeting and I was out of town and didn't have phone numbers and so I didn't do that but anyway um the um I just wanted to share that information that's all okay I want to thank the mayor and assistant city manager and city clerk for all the work that they put into developing what

2:24:40is probably a long overdue revision to some of our policies and I think that you all did a terrific job and I would like to move the resolution as amended in terms of you're not ready well I want to make sure I am I want to make sure that you get item five Quorum and if you

2:24:59would do your best to get all the changes okay excellent yeah uh with the amendment on the Quorum section where it makes exceptions for Planning Commission design review board that we add arts and culture Commission uh to that section and then on the page three hang on at the end of that

2:25:23sentence uh can you read the very end of that paragraph does it read but not less than three affirmative votes shall be required for Planning Commission or does it stop at I was getting to that one oh okay yeah I was just kidding I I uh the amendment I propose is proposed

2:25:42by the City attorney which you have the language there yeah that's what I just read okay so if I understand the new Quorum would read for boards and commissions a quorum for the purpose of holding a meeting shall consist of a simple majority of the members then

2:25:59serving a board or commission may act by an affirmative vote of a simple majority of a quorum notwithstanding the foregoing a quorum for purposes of holding a meeting of the Planning Commission design review board and arts and culture commission shall consist of

2:26:17a simple majority of the members then serving but not fewer than three members further the Planning Commission design review board or arts and culture may act by an affirmative vote of a simple majority of a quorum but not less than three affirmative votes shall be

2:26:34required for Planning Commission that's it so we have uh attachment one is an ordinance that has been we have a motion by council member Friedman um for this is I get the motion second the motion okay all those in favor please can I just make sure because I you're you're you're you will be you

2:27:00will be uh voting no on the attachment four correct okay um all those in favor please say aye aye you you've got a physical look on your face I think you should take each right I am each of the pieces of Legends we are separately we are yeah that was I was making sure that was the that was

2:27:22attachment one and I still see quizzical looks so I'm looking for a question I'm just confirming that you're waving any further reading oh that's right this is an ordinance correct that we're mending section 204 of the municipal code and repealing here yes correct

2:27:46thank you was that in the was that in the title I didn't see it in the tunnel sorry not in this title on the blue sheet oh it's on the blue sheet um okay thank you you should go buy the blue sheet and well at least for the ordinance we should and that was the only ordinance is that correct yes okay

2:28:05all right moving on to attachment two this is a resolution regarding the economic development sorry mayor should we vote on that ordinance first oh we already voted you did vote I wasn't sure if the record was clear about what the vote was thank you uh the right the

2:28:20record is unanimously affirmative uh reading for the first reading of the ordinance okay attachment one that was the ordinance attachment two is a resolution uh and this is the one that's we're being considered at this time which creates the El Cerrito Economic Development Committee uh move

2:28:41the adoption of a resolution establishing an economic development committee second we have a motion that's been seconded all those in favor please say aye opposed or abstentions let the record show it passed unanimously we would now be considering uh the Detachment 3 which is a resolution of

2:29:00the city council of El Cerrito establishing a policy no it's one next one not this one establishing a policy regarding the appropriate position to receive ethics training pursuant to government code do I have a motion I move the motion that you just stated a pursuant to

2:29:17government code section 53235 it's backwards on the blue sheet yeah it is yeah oh okay I apologize no it's not your fault this this is attachment three years just as you stayed yeah so that's why I was that's why now I understand yeah I'm going I'm going by the

2:29:36resolution that's the time to get quizzical yeah okay what are we doing here it's the uh this is the establishing policy regarding appropriate positions to receive ethics training pursuant to government code section 53235 and are you looking for emotional do you have a hat emotion second

2:29:53it's been seconded all those in favor please say aye aye great now we'll go on to the controversial uh resolution um I'm happy to move the resolution with the changes I move a resolution of the city council the city of El ceruda revising a policy regarding Council and

2:30:09staff relations with City commissions boards committees and task forces with the following changes in section 1B the last sentence should read it is the policy of the city council that a liaison is expected to attend the meetings of the advisory body to which the liaison is assigned at least once

2:30:27quarterly we'd also like to change section one remove section 1f and make it its own section into section three second we have a motion that's been seconded all those in favor please say I I opposition no abstentions seeing no abstentions let the record show that it

2:30:49passed four one that concludes um item seven and that moves us on to item eight Council assignments and liaison reports yes design review board met on Wednesday November 6th they had a quorum and they heard a conceptual design on the project at 1715 Elm Street which you may all be familiar with and I

2:31:26have the renderings here if you'd care to take a look at them and that was the only thing that they did that evening and the jpa will be meeting tomorrow uh council member Abelson um yes I have several things um I uh was at the East Bay division of the league of California cities meeting

2:31:48last week I was officially elected first vice president which means the following year I would be president of it congratulations and as such I got to go to although it was it happened before I went to What's called the league leaders training um which was a Statewide

2:32:10training and um for um the the leaders about the league of California cities at the state throughout the state and uh one of the things that we worked on and there was the priorities for the league for the year so what I'll do is rather long is to have it sent out in the packet for

2:32:35next time so that'd be great thank you okay and um then let's see I went to um on um this weekend I attended the um unveiling ceremony for the sign for the new McLaughlin State Park and that was a very nice event it was uh held at the foot of University um and you know just on the edge of it and

2:33:09um the um uh Sylvia right yeah yeah was actually there and she was um tickled pink that the park was named now named after her you you know you could just sort of really tell it it was really special event um the naming and um so I was really happy to be a part of it and

2:33:34um I also attended an event I think on Friday where the firefighters and police officers of the El Cerrito department and the Richmond Department had a breakfast for um uh guests and the concept was that they were raising money for the toy program for the holidays for needy families

2:34:03and so they did a pretty good job of raising money at that and they um they do an utterly fantastic job as I understand it in donating and and they gather together presents for needy families um I think throughout the year and um it's really a massive undertaking and

2:34:26so if you I think if you see any of those barrels around which you should that if you are also inclined I would encourage you to donate to that but anyway it was a very um worthwhile event and um I think that's all I will mention thank you I'll report back on the Fabs

2:34:48meeting on November 12th they approved the investment policy and also or sorry they adopted and it will come to us for approval and also the investment policy and the comprehensive Financial policy and other than um some technical changes sort of a key change that they're suggesting is that

2:35:09we add as a goal to our comprehensive Financial policy that we strive to maintain a minimum cash balance equal to 15 days of operating budget so this would be a goal they understand we don't have that at this point we're still using um tax anticipation knows in order to

2:35:27meet our cash flow but the I after looking at some other cities positions they thought it was a worthy goal to add to the to the policy so we'll be seeing that when it comes to the council and I'll meet with planning tomorrow the art and culture commission met yesterday and adopted an arts and

2:35:47culture master plan which will be coming to all of us soon fantastic all right and um I will report on three things one is the Contra Costa County mayor's conference I attended on your behalf November 7th and learned that we have four um National parks in Contra Costa one is the Eugene

2:36:14O'Neill house which is in Danville the other is John Muir a house which we're familiar with in Martinez and then obviously Rosie the Riveter which we're familiar with in Richmond the one that I was not familiar with was the Port Chicago Monument which is inside the active

2:36:34military base and requires a military clearance for you to visit except for one day which is I believe July 17th which is the anniversary of the accident this Monument celebrates the death of over 200 black Sailors that were during World War II were required to basically put Munitions on

2:37:00on ships that were carrying these bombs out to the to the war effort and uh this this Monument recognizes their passing um and it's used uh to its most notable portion of this event was that it was uh probably the beginning of desegregation of our Armed Forces so

2:37:24um I didn't know about that one or Eugene O'Neill so I just wanted to report back um the uh Candace Anderson or District Two uh supervisor reported uh that they are dealing with fire chief changes at the county-wide that they've got a Fitch study on the fire Services that's

2:37:47forthcoming um she also talked about the fact that they have a County librarian search going on uh because our County librarian uh retired but also she talked about an ab109 jail expansion for uh capacity and training and treatment so in regards to our earlier speaker there is that the

2:38:12county is taking up action to address that and then there was also a notification of some MTC grants and I think the deadline was this Thursday and I gave the information to the city manager and he's working with staff to assess whether there will be any opportunities

2:38:33for us to chase down some MTC grants I also attended um last Wednesday night I attended both the crime prevention committee and the human relations commission and the human relationship commission is moving forward they're in their final 60 days prior to Martin Luther King so I

2:38:58just want to remind you all that there will be a Martin Luther King parade and March up to the high school for an event and I wanted to also for crime prevention it was their first meeting in some time and they did have [Music] um a quorum so they were very happy

2:39:22um and that is all I have to report at this time um it is it's time for us to adjourn our our regularly scheduled meeting and and uh given the events of the the violent um natural events of the last two weeks both uh in the Philippines and just Sunday in our own country uh I'd like to

2:39:52adjourn the meeting in recognition of um of the loss of life uh at in these in both of these uh large natural events so with your blessing I will adjourn the meeting in honor of the victims of the typhoon and the tornadoes thank you we are adjourned foreign