City Council Meeting August 19, 2014

0:00:28ready to start okay uh good evening everyone this is the meeting of the El Cerrito city council thank you all for coming and we will start tonight with the Pledge of Allegiance or observance of a moment of silence and it will be led by council member Bridges Adventure silence

0:00:53Julia you just hear the flag of the United States of America and to to the Republic for which stands one nation under God and indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay um and uh I think we need to do roll call council member Bridges here councilmember Lyman here councilmember

0:01:22Friedman here vice mayor benicini here and Mary Abelson here thank you thank you so we're are all present okay the next item on the agenda is Council and staff Communications are there any I have one um I would like to recognize that El Cerrito Police Department

0:01:45participated in law enforcement day at the Oakland A's that was the Sunday before last and two of our finest uh motorcycle officers were there on our behalf and we had a very large attendance at National Night Out including I can't actually remember how many council

0:02:11members I was there Mark was there so I think we had four council members present so um and thank you to all of the many hosts in El Cerrito who made it possible let's put it on the um is are there any staff Communications okay and now we'll move on to oral Communications from the public and this

0:02:36is for items that are not on the agenda if you want to speak on an item that is on the agenda you can do so when we're handling that item um I have a couple slips for the consent calendar as well okay and we have two uh the first is Rhoda cataleda followed by Kimberly Meyer

0:03:00would you like to know you just go right here um and we do have a speaker system uh there are three little lights right here uh in front of the mic that will go on there's the first one and um there'll be yellow I mean sorry excuse me starts out with green and then

0:03:21it goes yellow and red when it go you have three minutes total and when it's yellow you have 30 seconds okay is that right yes okay great thank you please proceed so I'm here tonight first I'd like to thank you Janet and Stephen for working with me thus far but I wanted to ensure that the

0:03:41public was aware of the hazardous and unstable Chinese Elm in front of our home branches both dead and alive fall frequently ranging from pretty small in size and the largest has been about 10 feet in length as I speak tonight there are about 10 or 12 broken branches

0:04:02suspended in the tree and they're only held up by the branches below which I fear may become more susceptible to Breaking with that additional weight given our proximity to Memorial Park and a daycare operating next door the traffic both foot and automobile is constant all day long and I think it

0:04:23increases the potential for a hazardous and harmful situation for a pedestrian a pet or somebody's personal property thank you thank you um Kimberly Mayer hi good evening mayor Abelson and members of the city council my name is Kimberly Mayer I'm a long time El

0:04:49Cerrito resident and an El Cerrito High graduate I'd like to say and I'm here on behalf speaking on behalf of Contra Costa Civic Theater I'm the board president and we want to thank you for renewing our lease it's a really important time for us we're entering our

0:05:0155th season we've been at 951 Pomona since 1971 and we've put in about a half a million dollars in improvements and we look forward to doing some more improvements over the next few years so we just want to thank you I want to thank Scott and Karen for their work

0:05:14with us and thank you so much thank you and Tom panis good evening mayor Abelson members of the council and City staff my name is Tom panason I live at [address removed] in El Cerrito I just wanted to tell you that last Thursday we opened a branch of our seed library at the Contra Costa

0:05:37County Library on Stockton Avenue the librarian tells me that it's very well visited and I think it's amazing our librarian Liz is probably the happiest person in town about this she's just over Overjoyed with it I encourage you all to go by and check it just walk

0:05:55in make a left go pack past the service desk and you'll find the seed Library there or of course you can always go to the one at the recycling center thank you do you need a library card to check out no you do not you can take what you want thank you I have no other request that's not okay

0:06:12thank you uh with that we will move on to uh presentation and this is item number four else the El Cerrito Stars internship program it's going to be presented by Suzanne erla good evening mayor and council members my name is Suzanne airla I'm the community outreach specialist with the

0:06:41city of El Cerrito and before I get started tonight with a brief presentation about the EC Stars program I did want to introduce Mr Corey Mason who is a teacher at El Cerrito High School and he was the teacher for this program over the summer thank you this idea of Career Tech Ed

0:07:05and having working internships with the city of El Cerrito arose from a brilliant idea uh from our current serving mayor and was supported by a school board member Madeleine Cronenberg who's here I have the pleasure of introducing would you join me up here would you please and uh California

0:07:22partnership academies are spread out all across the state and they are specialized across all Career Tech educational fields at El Cerrito High School these include internet technology and Media Academy so for the last two summers we've had a junior year working

0:07:37interns working inside the city of El Cerrito six last year and eight this year and I think I'm going to leave it to Ms Cronenberg to describe some of the more of the Dynamics of the program may I sure thank you thank you it's a pleasure these are our and that's my

0:07:52handwriting well you're going to stay right here because you're going to read your hands yeah I know that's the teacher we let the teacher read his own handwriting but good evening I am so delighted to be here to share this with you this has been an extraordinary partnership

0:08:07between the city and the school district and uh and our students at El Cerrito High and it it's something we've done with uh with our businesses is we've tried to put link our link learning academies together throughout the district and here in El Cerrito it's the

0:08:22first time we really had a a community that where the city embraced the program and it was very much very very much uh mayor abelson's um baby all the way through so I do want to we I shared I've shared many babies with you mayor and I have gone back go back a long way with our babies but uh

0:08:43this was one of them this was one of them so I really want to thank you for all your help you have no idea what it means and it's also the kind of a program that's a model for us as we bring it to other cities and and even for me as a school board member as I discuss Partnerships because education

0:08:58is really about Partnerships we want our kids to understand how to collaborate and we want to model that for them and this is a perfect example of that so I'm going to have um uh yeah please add a thank you or two and tell us exactly what are the students going

0:09:13to come up and say what they did absolutely I also want to recognize Mr Wendell Greer super assistant superintendent uh who's been very supportive of the program Mr Michael aronian who I think couldn't be here and we knew that tonight and Cecelia Mendoza working in the school district

0:09:27um and we got to thank Carl Perkins because that was a bit certainly so are students assembled here tonight include Mr Joseph Baba I'll read your names first and then we'll call you up okay uh Mr Joseph Baba Daniel Molly Richard Maison Saleh al-kaheli Monet Boyd Travis Juan Leo Mendoza and Evan

0:09:46Martinez can we give them a little round of applause and the mechanics are are students in the I.T Tech Academy are learning back room uh language writing program digital art video our students in the media Academy are learning more front of house front of screen technical skills but

0:10:10they overlap of course video video production and they actually work in kcg public radio which is fantastic as a Career Cluster the task for the summer internships is we want to give them real life working experience working with Professionals in fields they may or may

0:10:26not choose now this is city government and it does touch on virtually every sector of Civic life but we have Architects Engineers we have aspiring Healthcare uh we have practitioners we have folks who are artistic and dancers and musicians and so we don't know where we'll it'll lead

0:10:44but we do know that working side by side collaboratively over several weeks in the summer gives them real world experience helps them write resumes cover letters build up resources and references that carry them to their four-year and on into the real world of work so we commend them for their

0:11:02perseverance and their diligence and we thank the city of El Cerrito endlessly and ahui ho and Hawaii and I hope we get to do it again we get to do it again so may we call forward sure Mr Joseph Baba could you join us up here at the podium yes okay hello I'll just Advance forward

0:11:32Mr Mason and Ms Cronenberg did an excellent overview so I will just skip over my wonderful overview and here's Joseph Bubba hello I'm Joseph Baba an intern from city managers Department under my mentor Susan Ireland as a new intern I had completed a vast amount of tasks either on the same date

0:12:01or earlier being able to provide an Innovative service to my mentor and giving myself and my mentor a sustainable future my tasks were data entry correct sword and fold and male various documents create or edit various flyers or images and help the finance department by

0:12:25entering business license renewals into Excel files attached checks to the rightful documents and sort different checks and documents most of the general skills I have learned at school time management determination and finishing the job were used in each task that I have done

0:12:50I have learned to realize that these skills that were developed from school are used in The Working World these General skills were realized due to reading the 21st century framework an outline on How to Succeed In The Working World I had also learned through pestering my

0:13:11mentor for more assignments that being an extrovert can give a better view of yourself three of the most useful experience was when Miss Ireland recommended the finance manager Jeff Thomas to come to me to assist in entering the business license data into Microsoft

0:13:32Excel also is receiving acknowledgment from the finance manager and from City man and from my city manager and mentor and finishing the projects that were assigned to me the chance another one was the knowledge that I have gained from my internship the chance to learn more of what is done

0:13:54in the city management preparing public events handling legal issues I have learned through completing various tasks from my school and my work that skills can be obtained general or specific skills also by continuing to be an extrovert towards my mentors such as asking for more work to do

0:14:21I have learned that having an outward presence leads to success in my academic future and my future career I will continue to apply these skill sets continue to have more of an outward presence and to be more sensitive with every action I do so that it can develop into

0:14:43more skills I would like to thank you El Cerrito Miss Ireland the city managers department and WCC USD staff for this opportunity thank you hello my name is Daniel Molly I was in the Human Resources Division which are almost be most of my tasks were filing records so

0:15:28that they were easier to access for Cheryl Mosby and their Human Resources Division I also recorded all the employees records so that when all the employees wanted to learn more about their experience here and wanted to know more information they would have an easy time

0:15:45accessing it I also helped the city engineer scan Monument records so that the city engineer and the clerks will have an easy time accident accessing it my experience I was able to bring many skills from school I used a Microsoft Imaging scanning in Microsoft picture imagery which helped

0:16:11me files can which helped me scan files easily things I learned from school that helped me were being focused staying on task and asking questions when I didn't know what to do and I also learned how to manage time so I could know when to take breaks and when it was time to work on other stuff

0:16:31my highlights were of the program weren't going to ride alongs with the city engineer and the building inspector and getting to know people from different departments and seeing how the work working World operates what I learned I learned how to conduct myself under a professional manner how

0:16:49to replace and much more that I hope will help me in my future career I like to thank Cheryl Mosby the city engineer the building inspector for making my work experience wonderful and the city of El Cerrito and the ITA Academy for giving me this opportunity to participate in the EC Stars program

0:17:11thank you foreign [Applause] my name is Richard Maison and I was working well I was in the finance department this summer with my mentor being Jeff Thomas and my main job was assisting in the renewing of business licenses towards local businesses I also updated information from

0:17:43businesses to make sure that everything was up to date and by renewing licenses I used the program track it which took me at least three days to learn so it was a fun experience and and I was also responsible for mailing out the licenses after I finished the batch that Jeff

0:18:00would give me and the skills that I needed for this job were I think were the most important were focused patience organization and the ability to multitask I think you need focus when you have like at least 75 or 100 licenses they're just sitting waiting to be renewed and you

0:18:19have to make sure that they're done correctly and also that they're assigned to the special date and you need patience when the printer jams or you're missing money from the system and you have to look at the whole reports to see where it's missing you also need to be organized by keeping

0:18:37track of all the papers that you end up having sometimes it's big piles of just either licenses or new ones that are coming in so you always have to have organized and also math would kick in sometimes when you would finish the batch you had to make sure the numbers

0:18:55added up to the amount of money that were put into the system that day and the highlights of this internship were being part of an amazing team of students and friends that I have right now and also I really liked having my own office for a little bit it was it

0:19:12was pretty fun and of course the atmosphere of the workplace I was really glad every day walking in with a smile and everyone greeting me so I'm very thankful for that too I also learned um how to interact with professional adults on a daily basis and learn from this

0:19:28experience on how to apply it to a job which will guarantee I'm guaranteed will help me apply to colleges in the future and in way more future into a career job I want to thank the city of El Cerrito for giving me this opportunity to experience this really amazing

0:19:47internship and also thank Jeff Thomas for letting me work for him which is really really fun and lastly I want to thank Mr Mason for pushing me to and encouraging me to apply and he was always there when I needed answers to my questions thank you [Applause] my name is solid kahelli and I am an

0:20:24easy star enter at El Cerrito City manager's office my supervisor was Suzanne ayola and my my principal duties for uh City managed office was to help send out letters and notices for like world one Festival about like parking and yeah and identify and scan newspaper articles

0:20:49about the city for Suzanne Arlo And I also did some City website editing uh some work experience I've brought to this internship was my communication skills and micro Microsoft Word and researching skills that I learned from uh ITA Academy and what I learned overall was how to

0:21:16use Excel and about professional emails with Mike Microsoft Outlook and I also learned about the graphic information system map and I would like to thank Suzanne Ireland and the city of El Cerrito Corey Mason and Chris for this opportunity foreign Boyd and I'm a senior let me take y'all

0:21:54to the next slide right hi my name is Monet boy and I'm a senior at El Cerrito High School during my internship I work for the Department of planning my supervisor and Mentor was senior planner Sean Moss the department of planning obtains Community goals and protects and

0:22:09enhances Community Resources while considering new development an aspect of planning is Advanced planning and that and that deals with working with policies my assignment was to research short-term vacation rentals in other cities and make recommendations for a

0:22:24policy that could best fit El Cerrito during my internship I realized that many of the skills I learned in school I was using for this internship I use I use research skills to find policies and regulations in other cities I wrote formally to communicate through email as

0:22:40well as writing recommendations for the policy also had to analyze different Municipal codes and documents and break them down for for their exact meaning in their Pacific role to that City some of the highlights of the job was talking to other cities researching and

0:22:55understanding how other cities address problems as well as writing my own memorandum for the city of El Cerrito I learned how to write a memorandum and make relevant recommendations to address an issue in a city I learned that planning has many aspects and it can

0:23:10affect people in different ways such as advocacy Aesthetics and so much more I learned that planning knows what works and what does not work planning makes the smile and outer characteristics of a city I would like to thank my mentor and supervisor Sean Moss as well as the

0:23:24whole Department of Community Development that that has taught me something I also like to thank every guest speaker the city staff that made this all possible and last but not least each teacher that helped teach and make us all professionals foreign so my name is Travis Juan with uh and

0:23:55I'm an intern for the El cereal Stars so as an intern at the elsewhere stars for the Australia fire department my assignments include both data entry and contacting people of the cert database and updating the information um my supervisor was Brenda navalir and chief Maple and the Department's

0:24:21mission was consists of maintaining personal and imperative equipments and facilities in a constant ready condition which I helped by updating the business database of locations which things such as fire alarms and electrical shutoffs might be um skills used during my The Internship

0:24:42would be communication skills uh when contacting people through the phone which was a difficulty at first because of speech problems but after overcoming that and practice and through the help of my mentor Brendan avalir I was able to overcome the fear um another thing that IU skill I used was

0:25:07my organized organization skills during the internship I was given two tasks during the internship one was data entry another one was phone calls and organizing between which I should do first and which I should do next was important so knowing not to call people eight in the

0:25:29morning was a skill and something to learn about time management was also important this is something that comes from school and teachers reminding us that it's always important to finish projects ahead of time than to delay it which I've learned and I did were able to finish projects during this

0:25:54internship um what I have gained through this internship is work experience I've never worked before uh been always the child I've been sheltered through family and friends and this experience gave me a chance to touch society and be a part of something greater than myself

0:26:17this could potentially lead to Future jobs and more importantly this could lead to other internships and a boost in college finally I really want to thank my mentor Brenda navalir for making my internship an amazing summer for giving me the amazing work and working environment making my day happy

0:26:42every time I walk into the fire department going in there I thought it was going to be a stiffy workplace but it turned out to be an amazing amazing time not only did she give me a ride along to for an infield experience with the firefighters but also gave me a lot taught me a lot

0:27:04you so much [Applause] hello good evening uh my name is Leonardo Mendoza I'm a senior and a part of the media Academy at El Cerrito High School cool I was entering the summer for the recreation department my supervisor Mentor was Vivian Brandt my task task working at the recreation department

0:27:43included making flyers for camps which was great because I was able to bring out my creativity in the camps which was really cool and fun I created and sent out evaluations for camps to parents and when they gave us the response responses I would gather gather the data and I would send them to

0:28:04the camp instructors so we can get better camps I created a lot of some spreadsheets involving different information such as a contact list for different organization organizations in El Cerrito and Gathering codes for different party rental companies to get the best quote

0:28:23for next year's Fourth of July Festival where am I learning where my learning occurred I found a new creativity in myself uh as I was creating these flyers I had to make them look nice and make them look appealing to parents and kids so that was very fun brought all my

0:28:43creativity uh I learned how to adapt to new tasks fairly quickly because there's a lot of tasks thrown at me and I had to associate myself with them and get familiar with them uh multitasking I I needed to work on each individual task to invest in my ability and focus

0:29:02which one needed more attention than others things I learned in school that helped me uh you have to ask questions if you don't get a task you need to ask questions so you can get more familiar with them so you can do your best work time management you need to be able to

0:29:18uh focus on different tasks and work on them communication with Partners working together with Associates there or Partners makes the finish work better because you get new ideas from everyone and they help you make that finished product that much better highlights of working there definitely

0:29:42displaying my flyers in the front of the office for all to see you get what you work your creativity and everything that you put in there you get to display in the front for obviously so that was very cool getting greeted by friendly faces every day it was a really very friendly

0:29:57environment and good to come to work every day because you feel as if you're in a family and very welcome having this fun experience and I learned a lot from this and I'd like to thank you all for that and thank you I'd like to thank the city of El Cerrito Suzanne ariela Vivian

0:30:17Brandt and the recreational department for making me feel at home every day for when I was working allowing me to work throughout the school year I also want to thank Corey Mason and the EC Stars program thank you [Applause] foreign hi my name is Evan Martinez I am a

0:30:48senior at El Cerrito High School I interned for El Cerrito public works department my mentor is Garth Schultz now let's go over a quick rundown of the mission of the public works department the public works department plans designs constructs and maintains public

0:31:11facilities and infrastructure supports the quality of life of the citizens of El Cerrito and ensures economically and environmentally sustainable future during my time at the public works department I helped at the front desk answering questions and assisting with

0:31:30medical waste disposal I made major updates to the energy cap program which tracks the city's water and electrical usage to see where and how the energy and Water Conservation can be better I I also helped with the implementation of the new Salvage permit program by

0:31:45updating the application list and mailing out change forms I use various technical skills during my time at the public works department such as computer literacy and proficiency customer interaction skills and people skills I also used organization filing skills

0:32:04many of these skills came from the ITA some from the work I do with a theater program at my ho at my high school and other various skills from other academic classes some things I noticed while I was interning at the public works department where workloads were lighter but more

0:32:30interesting and there were more places for Creative Solutions that could be found for simple problems but the dress code and language was more formal some of my favorite parts of the job were getting to help people in and around the community with various recycling related questions

0:32:51my work and energy cap to find where the city could improve its carbon footprint and most of all giving back to the community I grew up in finally I would like to take a minute to thank the city of El Cerrito along with Garth Schultz everyone at the public works department Chris Morita Melody

0:33:10Shaw James Lindsey Corey Mason and the informational Technologies Academy thank you for your time [Applause] I just want to say thank you to all the students and teachers as well as our partners at the school district to help make this partnership possible if the

0:33:33council has any questions I'm happy to answer them otherwise that would conclude our presentation regarding the EC Stars program this summer awesome thank you very much for the presentation I'd like to ask whether or not all of the mentors and mentees would consider staying in touch so we can find

0:33:53out what our great interns go on to do in the years to come that's a great idea thank you well thank you um I I think it's the great opportunity for students and but it also provides us with something very valuable too so I think all of the council members would like to thank all

0:34:19of the interns for doing a great job for the city of El Cerrito this year and and we'd like to give you one last round of applause thank you thank you so much okay we'll give we'll give everyone a chance that once to a chance to exit right now [Music] foreign to the adoption of the consent calendar

0:35:19um are there any items the council wants to pull no no no okay I have uh one which is um Item B um b as in boy um I'd like to move the consent calendar consisting of items 5 a c d e f g h i j and k a second in favor please say aye aye aye any opposition any abstention motion carries

0:35:50unanimously the motion was by Friedman seconded by Bridges correct thank you okay uh with that we'll move on to the item that was taken off the consent calendar and that's a proclamation uh in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness act and in case you don't know it in on September

0:36:18the 3rd 1964 president Lyndon B Johnson signed into law the Wilderness act which was passed by Congress establishing the Wilderness preservation system and setting aside an initial 9.1 million Acres of wilderness for you Wilderness for use and benefit of the American

0:36:38people and whereas the 1964 Wilderness act defines Wilderness as areas where the earth and its communities of Life are left unchanged by people where the primary forces of nature are in control and where people themselves are visitors who do not remain and over

0:37:01the last 50 years Congress has added over 100 million acres to this unique land preservation system with America's support for wellness and the 757 Wilderness areas within this are managed by four by all four federal land managing agencies the Bureau of Land Management fish and wildlife services

0:37:27forest service and the National Park Service um so uh then just sort of going to the end so we are celebrating and commemorating that tonight and um we have a member of the Sierra Club who's here to accept the proclamation so if we want to do that then I will slowly

0:38:09okay yeah right all right no problem my regular chair broke last night good maneuverability [Applause] thank you we didn't vote on that yet did we okay so um now that we've presented that we'll go ahead and vote on it is there a motion I move a adoption of item 5B of the

0:39:32consent calendar item second okay um all in favor please say uh aye aye any opposition in the abstention motion carries unanimously and for the record the motion was made by benicini and seconded by Lyman thank you thank you with that we will move on to item number six on the agenda which

0:39:59is a public hearing on a an appeal of the planning commission's approval of a conditional use permit and a general plan Amendment development agreement and the creation of a planned development District including a zoning map Amendment for a development project that

0:40:16consists of the construction of 14 new dwelling units the relocation and conversion of an existing dwelling unit into a community center type use that will remain on the site with 15 parking spaces 1548 square feet of private open space in 2874 square feet of common open space

0:40:41is there a staff report good evening Madam mayor members of the city council I'm Margaret Cavanaugh Lynch your development services manager [Music] as you know at the June 23rd meeting the city council directed the applicant to prepare a hydrology and sinuosity report

0:41:06to explore the possibility of integrating an enhanced riparian Creek restoration into the project um on July 25th the applicant submitted to the city three documents the channel restoration feasibility analysis memorandum a chart comparing the three future versions of the creek Channel

0:41:30and an analysis of the potential costs these documents were included in your attachments as items 12 13 and 14.

0:41:40the memorandum concluded that the analysis demonstrated there would be it would be feasible to place a restored channel on site however the space for the channel is confined between buildings further the memorandum noted that restoring this section of channel can provide ecological benefits to the

0:41:57site however these benefits are significantly muted when compared to a naturally functioning Creek a chart was created to assist the members of the city council to compare the three possible future scenarios the first being the existing condition as it is seen today

0:42:14the second is the proposed project as seen in options one and two and third is the restoration approach which is for the sake of the staff report option three looking at this chart there's some conclusions that you can draw for example the existing condition and

0:42:34the proposed project retain the historic Channel walls however the restoration approach that's an unlikely outcome the groundwater infiltration is increased on all three with a minor Improvement on the restoration approach so there were actually nine different Criterion

0:42:52presented in your staff report while preparing for tonight's hearing staff shared the determination of the likely need for an eir with the applicant for option three the applicant chose to prepare our preliminary assessment of the financial impacts of option 3 to illustrate for

0:43:15the council the additional time and resources that the applicant would need to expend to pursue that option staff included this information in the packet for council's review but notes that while the cost of the development are substantial they are not directly a concern of the city

0:43:30so just as a bottom line I'm not sure how well the the slide reads is it is the estimate of the applicant that option three would cost approximately 415 000 and would add approximately 12 to 18 months to get back to this point in time on that project so in front of

0:43:49the account well actually yeah to be back in front of the council it is Steph's opinion that it is worth noting option three would create additional consequence of requiring more time and resources on behalf of the applicant in that the outcome would add significant uncertainty as to how and

0:44:09when the project may come back before the city on this site Steph notes that the condition of the property today is not beneficial to the surrounding community in its current state speak more regarding the change of the in the possible SQL analysis in order to understand the SQL

0:44:29implications staff asked the consultant team that prepared the initial study to review the memorandum produced by RDG and they stated that they believe that both a new historic resource evaluation and a new biological report would be required to accurately reflect the

0:44:45removal of the stones in the existing Creek bed and the creation of the new stream bed as the removal of any part of the existing Stone line Channel and reconfiguration of the creek were not contemplated in the existing project known as options one and two they also noted from a cultural resource

0:45:06standpoint that there are complications in in this approach to convert the straight channel into a Meandering Creek does not improve the Integrity of the site noted again from a cultural resource standpoint even if the original stone is reused further the creation of a false curvilinear Channel

0:45:23could be construed as false historicism which is contrary to the Department of interior standards for restoration introducing a curvilinear channel increases the amount of stone needed so augmenting the existing stone with some other Stone would be required and that

0:45:39zone would have to match and in regard to mitigation the historic resource inventory already includes doing a Hab study which is a documentation of the existing resource and the ReUse of the stone in the new feature would not mitigate the Project's impacts to a less than significant level

0:46:02in conclusion author of the historic resource inventory could not identify a suitable mitigation measure to reduce the impact of converting the drainage channel into a creek why that's important is um brings us back to state law pursuant to section 15064 of the SQL guidelines if an impact

0:46:25on a historic resource cannot be mitigated to less insignificant the lead agency can no longer use an initial study to analyze the project under the California Environmental Quality Act that background hopefully brings us to the decisions before you this evening

0:46:44option one consists of the construction of 14 new dwelling units the relocation of the existing historic dwelling to be retained on site 15 parking spaces 1548 square feet of private open space and 2874 square feet of common open space the attachments necessary for the

0:47:03approval of option one were included in your staff report as attachments one two three four and five so that is the original plan that came before you on June 2nd that's the site plan of the original um project note that the open space is in the front on Elm Street the house is on

0:47:23the back it's in this case isn't historic it's restored to the Department of interior standards but it uses a dwelling and then the 14 new units with the parking underneath is on the the left side of the site also included in option one is the uh Advanced landscape plan that

0:47:43um shows a number of the plantings that were intended for the project either under option one or option two it's noted that that landscape plan includes riparian mitigation plantings that are as required by the permitting agencies under part of the gerpa permit

0:48:12including 16 native riparian trees 150 native shrubs including as part of the gerba again establishment maintenance and monitoring requirements of that Landscaping okay the second option before you this evening is option two which is the conversion of the historic dwelling into

0:48:38a community service use offered in a long-term lease to the city the open space in front of the historic dwelling being made available for public use during daylight hours and the duration of the development agreement being decreased from 10 years to five years

0:48:52the revised project documents needed to improve option two are included as attachments 6789 and 10 of tonight's packet here is the revised site plan it is very much like the previous site plan and it's I think much more visible in your packets than on the screen tonight but

0:49:13the changes here are some gates and fences um on the bridge itself and establishing a second path through to the common open space so that the public could use one entrance and the owners of the Condominiums would have their own separate entrance immediately adjacent

0:49:30to that option 3 requires that the city council deny the project without prejudice and direct staff to expedite the review of a new application the revised site plan would show a Meandering Creek the historic dwelling moving to the front of the site and remaining as a

0:49:53private home and the common private open space would could no longer be offered as publicly accessible at this point this option is only a concept if Council wanted to direct staff to move this option forward as I stated the staff would recommend that the council deny the project and

0:50:13impractical terms the project would be options one and two and direct staff to work with the applicant to basically bring a new application forward based on the site plan that was included in the creek analysis the fourth option is very simply to deny the project

0:50:34options one two and three all offer a high density multi-family project with good Urban Design they all have the tucked under parking the open space um all the benefits that have been discussed in detail and all the staff reports that have come before you previously

0:50:52option three offers some additional benefits in terms of Creek restoration however the overall benefit appears minor compared to either option one or two both which preserve the historic Creek Channel walls as well as promote riparian plant species diversity and

0:51:06provide groundwater infiltration it also has a fair amount of uncertainty since it would need to basically start as a new project even though staff would expedite that project so in conclusion staff recommends option two in that recommendation we note that it combines some improvement to the

0:51:25riparian habitat it preserves a historic building and leases it back to the city for a community use it makes available publicly accessible private open space during daylight hours adds no uncertainty as it the details are are explicit in your report and there are no additional time or

0:51:43resources that are needed to secure it so the project is available to you this evening and after all it adds 14 new units of high density dwellings units within 700 feet of the Del Norte BART station this concludes the staff presentation in the audience this evening the

0:52:03applicants team development team is also here they are also available they wanted to make a brief statement and they were also available to answer any questions that the council might have I'm sorry I should say who that who that includes that would include Mr Terry

0:52:20Bush who is from llca Architects Peter stackpole who is the architect from LCA Architects Drew goding sorry getting and Eric Stromberg from restoration Design Group and Michael Woods from Woods Consulting okay so um so it is proper protocol that they would at this point in time be allowed

0:52:44to speak is that correct City attorney yeah if the council would like to hear I mean the although ultimately the purpose of this hearing is to con to continue the council's consideration of the project overall since um the council at the last meeting directed that

0:52:59additional information be provided regarding um this Creek restoration option it would be appropriate if the if the council wants to hear additional information from or ask questions of um the RDG group likewise we could then follow that with public comments yes

0:53:13public comment would follow that and also of course staff is available to answer any questions that you have okay so does that Council go along with that yeah okay great okay so are we ready for that then now okay so is there a time limit on this presentation so I think at this point the Mr Bush

0:53:37wanted to make a brief statement um regarding the um The Stance of his his of the property owner regarding the project so that we don't need to worry about the time limit you're saying um I believe three minutes would be sufficient okay good evening Madam mayor

0:53:55council members Terry bush with LCA Architects representing the applicant Mr ready Biggs I don't want to be repetitive because a lot of what I would have said has already been said but just to say that following the June 23rd meeting when we were asked or directed to explore the

0:54:16feasibility of a Meandering Creek we acted upon that we engaged the services of of the consultant restoration Design Group out of Berkeley who are very experienced in this sort of work we work with them to put together the parameters of what we were trying to achieve and they came up with the

0:54:38conceptual design that was shown to you earlier one thing I would just note about that particular design is that it does require the replacement into a different position of the historic home there's only really one place that it will now fit and that's at the front of the site

0:54:55and that does cause some challenges it's not impossible but it does it's not an Optimum position for its its intended use uh we ask RDG if they would work with us because of their recent experience on putting together a budget and we jointly came up with a number of approximately

0:55:14220 000.

0:55:16we shared that information with City staff and answered some of the questions they had and it was at that time that we learned that if we were to go in this direction it would require an eir our recent experience in eirs although it's very difficult to predict is that

0:55:33this could well add a significant delay to the proceedings anything from six to 12 months or even longer and of course the other aspect of that is as we get into the uncertainty of what that exercise might produce and at what point do we run things in parallel because another concern that we've had

0:55:53discussions on is what that does to our current jarpa permits and Mr wood who's expert in this area and can answer any questions you have but we've talked to him about this and and we're now sure that we're going to have to start all over again if if that was the route that

0:56:10we took um in addition the production of an eir we estimate the cost approximately two hundred thousand dollars so and that's how the total number that in your package was arrived at approximately 415 000 of additional cost um together with extensive delays and

0:56:33all the things that that might uncover but we tried to balance this we we looked at both sides of the equation and we looked at the uh the report that RDG have done and they're here to answer any questions that you may have and I'd just like to read the last sentence of their

0:56:52report uh which says at its best this project will improve some ecological function but due to the limited project area and Suburban context it is not possible to provide significant Improvement to ecological function typical of many Urban stream restoration projects

0:57:13with all this new information at hand we've tried to step back and be objective um but in doing that we strongly believe that the project that best accomplishes the desires as we understand them of of our applicant of the city of the community and in particular as was

0:57:36mentioned that the Meandering Creek would no longer allow for for the renovated home to be used as a non-profit there would be no space open to the public so when we balance all those things we're of the opinion that the um project that was defined in staff as options one and two is the optimum

0:58:02solution for for all parties involved and uh I thank you for giving me the opportunity to to address you thank you thank you okay um I think I forgot to ask if if a council had any questions of staff I suppose are there yes thank you I have a number of questions

0:58:25um so first can we talk about option three and what it is that we could actually do tonight um when you say if option three were selected what do you I mean option one or option two those are approving a project and that would confer rights to the property owner what what would we

0:58:42actually be doing with option three and would any would any rights be conferred to them by any action that we would take tonight on that so option three would be denial of the project before you option one or two of it um it basically would looking at it through the eyes of the

0:59:00permit streamlining act looking at it through SQL analysis and how you analyze development projects in the state of California you would be restarting the project obviously they would have a head start they have a site plan they have a lot of their work done they have an

0:59:13existing initial study and we could bring a lot of that information forward we would focus on them in an expedited fashion but the analysis uh the creation of this SQL document the hearings would all need to be restarted so they so so I want to talk about that so the hearings

0:59:31would all be restarted design review board Planning Commission um and obviously they've gone through all that with this option option one and option two at this point and they got to the point where they got to plan a commission and then appeal an appeal was filed

0:59:45thinking about option three are any can you think of any of the criteria within the appeal that have been addressed with option three I think I think one is that accurate that one that the appeal noted many um what were perceived to be deficiencies with the project would the

1:00:03project under option three sort of satisfy any of the items in the appeal other than the creek restoration it's my opinion that it would not it's the creek is the the major difference um in that option three provides in terms of the appeal and I think I don't have all of I think I have a list in my

1:00:21notes but the list was generally construction the the contents of the appeal contain objections to the construction impacts the height of the building the traffic the parking the density um the creek ordinance which even under option three we would still not be

1:00:37complying with our or it still wouldn't be consistent with the way that Creek ordinance is written is that right through the use of a PD right right yeah we would use the pdud but but the contents of the appeal all of the items that are in there that represent sort of

1:00:50objections to option one and option two under option three only one of those objections might be satisfied or addressed that's correct okay thank you um on option three is it it the the creek there's no public access to the creek is that right that's correct okay

1:01:14um can we talk a little bit about the sequa sequence that you kind of went over so the current mitigation for option one an option two for relocating the house are restoring the house and maintaining the stone-line channel and the discussions you've had obviously

1:01:33with the superliminary we don't know what would actually occur so their opinion was that there would be no mitigation that they could foresee for removing the stones and adding stones that adding new stones that that's correct the gentleman who prepared the historic resource

1:01:49evaluations gentleman by the name of Christopher verplank and he's a subconsultant to PMC which was the Consulting organization that did the SQL document we um spoke at two different occasions first of all just kind of running the general idea by them and then sending

1:02:05the um the evaluation the creek evaluation itself to them when a historian is looking into a sequel lens the first thing they have to decide is whether or not there has been an impact to in this case the cultural resource so that was the first thing that Chris could say without doing you

1:02:23know as you said we're way ahead of actually completing the analysis or completing the environmental impact report but he could establish that there would be an impact on the cultural resource if the creek was to be modified as it was shown in that site plan and

1:02:37then the second step of a SQL consultant is there any mitigation that could bring that impact back to less than significant and to paraphrase Mr verplank there's there was no way he could see that that was possible so that would bring you into an overriding considerations discussion at an ner and

1:02:57I'm sorry I should have asked this earlier but does that mean then that the home would not could it still be deemed a historic resource in the eyes of the state the home the building itself could still be yes the the impact would be to the site and to the project

1:03:14got it okay um and I should have sent this a little bit in advance but do you happen to know how many multi-family projects have been built and else to read or what was the last multi-family project built in El Cerrito more than two or three units yeah I believe it's the village at Town

1:03:31Center would be the last do you know when that was and one can you remember one before that and I can I can look it up on my phone in a minute if you don't remember it was probably Del Norte place and that was in the 19th 90s 1990s okay thank you I should have asked that earlier

1:03:56um I have some more questions for our rgd but I can wait if others want to talk to staff first The Design Group you don't have any questions for the restoration okay so there aren't any more out of Staff yeah okay so we're all done asking questions of staff but for now for now okay okay so we're

1:04:24ready to move on in the in the process so um I believe that means at this point the um public hearing is still open right no could we asked rgd questions first oh oh oh you're so you do have more questions yeah just of the Consultants oh staff okay you have more

1:04:43questions so please go ahead thank you thank you for the report for providing in such a timely fashion I know you only had a month to turn this around um can we talk about the walls around option three and can you just talk to us a little bit about the safety um the safety of the property

1:05:01given the potential for flooding and whatnot and can you just talk about the walls that are around it and and what they confer uh sure um I'm Drew getting I'm the principal of the restoration Design Group good evening mayor and council members uh your question was

1:05:16um uh looking at what is the safety of sort of the flood you know is there are walls there in order to protect against flooding I presume and I assume the walls are built in such a way that we wouldn't have to be too concerned with that but I wanted to hear you say that

1:05:30sure well it's flooding is is a little different issue than stability I I would actually guess that the walls were probably originally built so that there was more level developable space uh in that area not specifically for flood control um I think the one of the important

1:05:46things that can understand about flood control in a segment of a storm drain network is that you can often do quite a bit of improvements uh to a segment but your flood control benefits don't necessarily get much better and that is because ultimately you have to put that

1:06:04water back into the storm drain system which were typically designed for the five to ten year storm event so even though you could have a segment that might have capacity if it was you know a segment into itself of a hundred year capacity um you don't really get that benefit

1:06:18because you got to stick that water back in and so you get a constriction and a Backwater effect so um I would say in terms of flood control um uh there would be minimal some very marginal benefits by doing the restoration you would have a little bit more storage capacity in there but but

1:06:35very minimal talk to us a little bit about the Suburban context that's mentioned in the report so there's discussion or there's things are noted such as light sound cats and invasive species as limiting the sort of restoration potential for the site can you talk about what those

1:06:53do and you know this site compared to you know how what what how different does a site need to be for those things to not be a major factor in curtailing restoration potential yeah it's difficult to give you some real specific answer to that but I think maybe the

1:07:08thing to understand is if you were to talk to an ecologist looking at habitat one of the things that they're really looking for is depth and complexity of of that habitat and then often buffer zones outside of that that sort of protect the the habitat this is such a small space that

1:07:26you don't have a depth of the habitat you don't have complexity you have a very immediate um impacts uh you know to that potential habitat so that small restoration project within a very urbanized area um it just will never have the potential to really have the kind of habitat that

1:07:48you would find in an area where you're putting together multiple Acres of restoration for example is Baxter Creek an example of that Baxter Creek actually starts to have some some uh enough size uh an area that you do start to get some some habitat yes and that's about 1.8

1:08:07Acres 1.9 Acres okay um so just to kind of close the loop on a question I asked earlier about the walls so the wall if if there were no walls placed there and the creek were truly just allowed to go where it goes um I've heard some discussion that perhaps the the home could not the

1:08:27historic home could not be saved could you talk a little bit about that and sort of very rough developable acreage calculations that would be remaining if there were no walls around the creek in option three yeah um we didn't do a specific layout to say what would a restoration look like

1:08:43through here if there were no development constraints we did some analysis in terms of the geometry and came up with a width of about I believe it was uh 35 feet for a meander belt and that sort of what would be expected in terms of the width that a channel would

1:09:00Meander over time a stable Channel and that can have quite a bit of a range but 35 feet is kind of our call it an educated guess for this site and then if you built in the bank slopes um at two to one slopes which again is using another educated guess in terms of the

1:09:14geotechnical issues you're looking at about a 55-foot corridor um that you would want to have in there and um I guess you know one of the things that I'd like to do is sort of maybe answering this question is to um say a little bit about what restoration is the word is being used and I think it

1:09:32does require a little bit of a definition restoration really starts with a channeled bed and considering the sediment that comes into a creek segment and the ability for that channel to move that sediment through the system and the meanders are very much a part of how a river or

1:09:51stream moves sediments kind of like a skier going down a hill and carving back and forth they're Distributing their energy down the slope and rivers essentially do the same thing they're spreading their energy out so restoration really starts with this idea of thinking about the sediment in the

1:10:07system then it builds from there onto these soft Banks and vegetated or riparian Corridor over it that provides structure and then you start getting this complexity of restoration in a site like this where you have a heavily urbanized area you don't really have the

1:10:23sediment coming through the system that it once had it's essentially cut off from the channel so you're starting with a stream that some would say maybe more academic restoration people would say you can't restore because you don't have the sediment there so you don't have the

1:10:37foundation for a stream restoration you can do the vegetation on it and some people would refer to that more as Landscaping so it could be debated whether you know restoration is even a term that could be applied to this option three so uh you can also consider green

1:10:55infrastructure storm water management and I think that's very valid thing to consider here but again if you were to do that as a design you would still Design This sort of restoration type Channel but you'd want to maximize floodplain and interaction with the water with vegetation and in this

1:11:14scenario three we have very little of that unfortunately as well so we're not really meeting uh restoration objectives nor sort of a green infrastructure objective unfortunately now I understand why this chart says restorative in quotation marks thank you okay so it's

1:11:31partially okay thank you those are my questions okay any other questions from anyone um yeah I had a couple and and thank you for coming here and answering our questions and doing this study um so um our staff Margaret I think mentioned that one of the comments that was made

1:11:51that um there were the building situation and the narrowness and that the benefits of well now we know what restoration means there's a questionable benefit but part of the issue is that it's you have a statement in here that it was significantly muted when compared to a

1:12:07naturally functioning Creek so I guess my question about that is you're now a little bit more referring to this as a channel and not a naturally functioning creep that's sort of what I'm getting from that sentence and is part of that also the fact that it's not contiguous with

1:12:28something else really above it below I mean there's comments made that up by the Arlington this starts and over here there's a little daylighting but um could you just comment a little bit about that yeah it's uh I think it's that context that's really important

1:12:46um you know I think look as an example Baxter Creek some early projects were done individually but as you look at it now there's there's actually a numerous segments that have come together and and it's when you can have those sort of accumulative effects you can have water

1:12:59quality benefits and you have some habitat although as we said it's impacted by by the urbanization um so uh I think it's you know it's important to to understand that I think if you just say and somebody to ask me is there ecological benefits by doing option three over the existing condition

1:13:17and the answer is yes there are some ecological benefits um but but they're pretty small there and that's where we're talking about sort of muted ecological benefits and that's because you would have to have walls constructed in the the channel and and very little sort of soft bank and

1:13:34flood plain right and then I were asked about that and the way where the situated and and what it means with the traffic impacts and pedestrians and light and and what have you um so you know the the chart was actually pretty helpful and um there could be some benefit to putting

1:14:00the plantings which were actually still in the site plan even under option one so some of the plantings will make it sort of improve from what it exists today because there's none of that now that's correct um but it sounds like um to consider this a real Restoration

1:14:19in in your opinion is not really what's to be gained here for for the urbanization for the contiguousness um and and the fact that the length I suppose and other factors yeah no I think I think that's correct it it's it's uh small in the amount of uh square footage of of those restoration elements

1:14:42uh and and Mike Woods has put together a very nice native planting plan for it uh as well so you so you do have some of those benefits um and uh you know and if I think if you had an opportunity where you could have uh soft Banks and much more area apply to it um it would be it would be a different

1:15:02situation um uh but but it's it's just it's we're talking about a very small small area at a high cost and I guess you know as I step back from this and I think as a professional working in this field if I were to you know go to a conference and describe this project

1:15:18um I I feel like it would be one that would be difficult to really say you know this is a great example um it would be um you know not a lot to show for it with a lot of money and I and I think that there's probably a lot of other priorities for restoration dollars and

1:15:33this this would not be you know uh near the top of that priority list for local local ecological dollars okay thank you very much Mr getting thank you for coming tonight good to see you again my pleasure good to see you Greg um you know you testified that there's

1:15:50numerous segments came together to make Baxter Creek work and um obviously some one of those had to be the first step and it would have been probably described similar to how you described it tonight and so I'm just curious I mean at some point there is the open

1:16:06Channel Downstream that's another 150 feet and and so on at what point do do you make that investment on on starting a continuous segment of restoration in an urban environment yeah I I think that's a that's a good question and I I must say I'm very happy to hear that uh

1:16:25city council is looking for these opportunities and looking for a Grand Vision like that I think ultimately um we we need to have that kind of vision and really March towards some of those measurable goals um I'm not quite sure how to answer the specifics your question but one of the

1:16:40things that I considered in thinking about that is look working out a little different way and saying if this was the segment that didn't get improved and upstream and downstream opportunities came up where real restoration a 55-foot corridor could be employed what would be the drawback of

1:16:59having this segment not uh restored in quotations among the others and it would not be a terrible Omission from from the the grander site to have this one you know 115 feet still in a rock line Channel The Rock on channel does allow for infiltration there would be shade on the channel you

1:17:22just you're not having that interaction of the vegetation and the and and the water so um so I'm not sure if that answers your question because I you know it's it's hard to say in terms of um you know what how how these projects would come about what kind of opportunities exist upstream and

1:17:39downstream I mean obviously there's there's buildings there uh you know currently so um you know it would it would be a bit of a process to be able to make those come alive I do want to thank you and staff this is the level of analysis I was looking for and I do believe it's informative

1:17:56because it does say something is possible and and as you've already testified it's marginal Improvement um the rock walls are one of my concerns is the rock walls uh the stability of the rock walls in either a large storm event or even in a large seismic event um the the stability of the channel That

1:18:19that you've sketched out in your report um you showed that it does have some greater you know stability I think it was uh five um you know that long terms Channel stability is unknown under option one and two but good under option three and and as an engineer as somebody who is

1:18:43worried about uh what happens if our infrastructure fails under one of these uh catastrophic events you know I'm worried that the the channel the channel is not as stable as we think it is just because it hasn't been tested yeah and I was just curious what your thoughts were

1:18:58if this channel is put through a seismic event or a flood event and and destabilizes what what are some of the what are some of the reparative things that would need to be done at that point under option two um well I guess you know in terms of uh looking at the existing stability I'll

1:19:15first state that I'm not a structural engineer so I you know can only tell you what we observed and uh what we didn't observe and what we did not see was any signs of instability the channel does not appear to be in sizing that is uh Downs uh cutting or downward erosion

1:19:33which often happens in channelized segments because the water tends to move a little faster in there the toe of the channel looked pretty stable throughout I mentioned I think that it was unknown because a structural engineer as far as I know is not tried to evaluate it I I

1:19:48did say that the restored channel would be better only because any walls constructed in that scenario would be engineered and would have a certain level of you know assurance and that stability so I think in just trying to compare things yes I think that would be a little

1:20:07better um I I think the other thing to consider is that that channel uh apparently has been here for quite a while um and has survived uh a certain range of storm events um and uh part of that may be due to just the storm drain system and some of its limitations

1:20:23um but you know we have some limited information about the history on that that channel but there are no signs that we've seen to suggest that it is um could fail or showing signs of failure thank you said in on the questions at this time yes okay thank you very much thank you

1:20:44okay uh then at this point in time we the public hearing is still open and so we would entertain um any members of the public who wish to speak do we have speaker slopes I do I have six speaker slips okay thank you the first speaker is Tom panis followed by Tim Pine and Dave Weinstein

1:21:12thank you good evening mayor Abelson members of the council and City staff my name is Tom panis and I live at [address removed] in El Cerrito I'd like to thank the consultants for their comments tonight they were very apropos as you know I've been a proponent of

1:21:30this project for a long time I started I stated the June 23 meeting that I was swayed by councilmember lyman's argument for restoring the creek to a more natural state instead of preserving the stone walls in bed I thought about this a lot since then a statement on page

1:21:43seven on the staff report addresses the heart of the matter the staff notes the benefits of option three are tangible but minor I respectfully disagree I think the benefits are tangible and extraordinary the channel restoration study predicts significant ecological benefits if

1:21:57option 3 is adopted including improved water quality plus enhanced invertebrate life plant life and animal life in fact that describes what you see just Downstream where the creek is daylight at the Alona Greenway plus sediment a restored Creek would be a wonderful

1:22:11place for nature to thrive as well as the kids and adults who live in the development the study goes on to say that the benefits of the restored Creek would be stunned to due to the lack of a continuous riparian corridor that is exactly right unfortunately the lack of

1:22:25a continuous riparian Corridor is the result of almost criminally poor stewardship on the rest of the creek it's not just this site worry of damage the ecology in most of our built environment even a mud puddle is a significant environmental resource I spoke to you on January 23rd about no

1:22:42new net Hardscape we have an opportunity here to stop making Creeks out of the environment Manana projects if we adhere to all the planning documents that we have so carefully crafted this could be the first in a chain of projects that result in a more fully daylight Creek it will

1:22:57have an impact that's dramatic not stunted it establishes a process that can happen all over our city we have a very capable public work department when we started on the Baxter Creek gateway project was it anticipating that Richmond's mirror florist project would

1:23:12come along in 2014 with plans to Daylight and restore a third mile of Baxter Creek in Richmond no the idea was simply to give nature a Toe Hold the tohu we provide help Richmond see what was possible when Mount St Helens blew up 24 34 years ago scientists said to be many years

1:23:29before life reappeared bees and flowers were discovered there the following year I urge you to approve option three let's give nature another Toe Hold it's worth sacrificing the house donation very generous and historic stream bed to get a high quality Creek Corridor this is a

1:23:44trade-off I'm willing to make and I believe others are as well thank you for your time this evening Tim Pine followed by Dave Weinstein and Linda's Hobby good evening mayor Abelson and members of the council and staff my name is Tim Pine I live at [address removed] in El

1:24:08Cerrito I'm a 20-year resident of El Cerrito I'm also a employee of UC Berkeley and I'm the UC Berkeley water quality program manager and I'm involved happily in Creek Restorations and management of the Strawberry Creek Watershed um I I commend the the study um that I read about what's possible

1:24:30there at that site I also detected that um in the analysis it was clear to see um who was paying for or influencing that study I think um it just touched on what is possible there and I really urge the council to not approve this project as as an option to but but go for option

1:24:53three here there's a lot more that can be discussed here and I can go over a number of these um these issues I could also make a reasonable case to the developer that doing something Beyond maintaining that that straight rockline channel would be a real benefit to the project a

1:25:09real amenity for the residents um and make those units more desirable in terms of purchase and price so let me just start with the existing conditions um The Rock line Channel being a straight shot kind of Hues to the to the now disapproved method of the old Army Corps

1:25:28of accumulating storm water as quickly as possible and impervious service and then getting it out of your community as quickly as possible the problem is that the downstream recipients of that water are now receiving a much more high energy flow much flashier flow which

1:25:44results in in scour and and other potential damage Downstream so this project even though it's small it does happen opportunity to do the kinds of things that the city of El Cerrito is doing right now which is stormwater detention and retention I draw attention

1:25:59to the Ohlone Greenway detention Pond that we're putting in there as an incremental way of dealing with our our you know highly developed Watershed and there's an opportunity for this developer to do some of that to slow and infiltrate some of that water um in terms of whether or not you can

1:26:18say that a fragmented habitat or a small restoration or possible restoration is not worth doing that's how we start to heal this highly urbanized Watershed is these fragmented habitats these these lower quality Restorations also can be seen as Oasis when we are really

1:26:37affecting species of concern they just need a Toe Hold to start that little home a little habitat so they can start to expand out and I'd be willing to give up the public access because when you limit Public Access you also limit the impacts of the public and sometimes we need restored

1:26:55areas that don't have lots of people sitting next to them that reduce the trash and it can become a treasure for the people that do live there if we go that route I have many other issues with this project scale parking all the other stuff but tonight I'm just speaking

1:27:10about the options that still exist there for the creek restoration thank you very much thank you good mayor and Council I'm uh Dave Weinstein you know nobody ever thought this was some pristine uh Creek up in the Sierra that it was a huge riparian Corridor and I agree that small with with um Tom and

1:27:33and Mr Pine that small areas really can benefit uh animals can live their plants can live there and the thing that really people haven't said yet is what an important president it would be for the council to really stand behind the creek orange to build buildings so very very

1:27:47very close to a creek like that is just a very bad precedence this developer who I have to say has been really good in in working to try to save the historic building and and don't think that the idea of having potentially a Historic Museum in that building isn't

1:28:04something that appeals to me and for me a very strong preservationist to be willing to say you know goodbye to a historic Stone lion Creek you know that's that's you know something that I actually would like to see saved but I think it's so important for the uh

1:28:20ecological benefit to restore the creek that I'd be willing to you know say well we won't have a museum there I think it could be something that would set the stage for future projects in the city when people come in and there's a creek on the property they won't come in the

1:28:35way this developer did and said you know there's no Creek on that property that's a drainage dish we don't even have a creek they'll know they have a creek and they'll know that something should be done to um if not restore but to improve it and make it a better uh habitat thank

1:28:48you very much thank you Linda shahabi followed by Robin Mitchell and howdy Gowdy hello I'm the owner and director of Keystone Montessori school and we're a member of the appeal group and part of our appeal was to honor the setbacks on the creek that the city has set

1:29:25but I wanted to address another [Music] um one of our concerns which was on page nine of the appeal group and that is about making sure that we protect the children in our school we're immediately adjacent to the proposed project meaning the children will be repeatedly exposed to air

1:29:52pollution coming from the construction vehicles and site equipment there have been many studies showing that the soot and fine particles and these type of emissions can deposit deep within the lungs and are associated with numerous respiratory symptoms from asthma to heart disease

1:30:08even short-term exposure to low levels of these pollutants can cause damage and the concern is even greater to Children since their lungs are still developing and they have a higher respiratory rates which means that they breathe a proportionately greater volume of air

1:30:26than adults making them more susceptible to the effects of this air pollution while the developer may agree to implement best practices to minimize the air pollution such as not allowing any vehicles to idle while at the site the even the perception of increased

1:30:45exposure from seeing the outside play area just a few feet from a large construction site will cause some parents to err on the side of caution ultimately hurting Keystone montessori's enrollment to help allay parents concerns and ensure the contractors are following best practices

1:31:09we request to have air quality monitoring set up during the construction period we have spoken with Dr Thomas kirschetter who is a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley laboratory and a professor at UC Berkeley and he suggested that continuous monitoring of black carbon using a machine called an

1:31:30ethometer could be used to quantify The increased exposures students are being subjected to from this project Dr kerstetter is internationally recognized for taking these kind of measurements and past projects even though they're much bigger like the Port of Oakland and The Calder tunnel

1:31:50the informal estimate would be that it would be less than twenty thousand dollars possibly as low as two thousand dollars to monitor whatever project gets built next to our school uh these kind of measurements would be the most economical way to accurately monitor the air quality at the site with

1:32:13the additional cost to the developer being in thousands of dollars on a multi-million dollar project we can request a formal proposal if the board agrees with Keystone that these air quality concerns should be properly addressed and this type of monitoring should be part of approving this project

1:32:34so we're asking for a contingency on the project that there is monitoring of the toxic levels um of course a smaller project on the property would mean less on pollution coming over our fence so in favor of the project being reduced in size excuse me you're out of time okay

1:33:00thank you thank you Robin Mitchell followed by howdy Gowdy foreign my name is Robin Mitchell and I live at [address removed] in El Cerrito in reading the staff report for the project the 1715 Elm Street and disappointed that the city chose to recommend option two while it does include a gift of a

1:33:39restored house to the city for Community use that does not include the proposal to restore the creek I am in favor of option 3 which would mean a revised project focusing on riparian Creek restoration but with a redesigned to accommodate a real Creek restoration not

1:33:52confined to the current site plan which means a redesign of the existing project I'm pleased that based on council member lyman's interest in exploring the option of Creek restoration a creek restoration study was prepared I was somewhat disappointed that the analysis was

1:34:06completed within the constraints of the proposed site design because I thought that the analysis was to determine what the minimum Creek restoration quarter would need to be irregardless of the proposed new buildings even within this limitation the study found that though

1:34:21the existing site plan limits the width of the riparian corridor it does provide an improved condition when compared to the existing conditions the report goes on to say that restoring this section of channel can provide ecological benefits to the site however the study then

1:34:34concludes that these benefits are significantly muted when compared to a naturally functioning Creek even though this statement may be true I think it is not relevant to the situation our environment is so degraded in El Cerrito that even the smallest addition to Habitat is a benefit

1:34:50I could cite numerous examples of small actions that have had an incredible impact on the local environment but I will count just one several years ago at my house I planted one the milkweed plant which is the only food source for the caterpillar of the monarch butterfly

1:35:03whose population is in serious decline that first year on that one plant there were 20 monarch butterfly caterpillars all it took was one plant the adult butterflies found it I have no idea how laid their eggs in the caterpillars emerged based on this experience I have

1:35:19given away more than 400 milkweed seedlings to El Cerrito residents hoping that by establishing small pockets of habitat for The larva we can have a positive impact on their struggling population during the milkweed giveaway I received an email from someone who

1:35:33said I remember when I was a child in Richmond how much milkweed there was around where we lived and how many monarchs we saw everywhere my experience with my one milkweed plant taught me that if you provide even just a little habitat the critters will come so even though the benefits of this

1:35:49Creek restoration may not be perfect the benefits will be real and will grow over time if the city is serious in its commitment to Creek restoration and environmental stewardship it is even more critical in urban areas like El Cerrito to provide as much habitat as

1:36:04possible so that the remnant native plant animal and insect populations can gain a foothold and become part of a restored ecological system once again I urge the city council to live up to the ideal of sustainability it has espoused in many meetings and documents and take

1:36:19the truly Visionary path for this property by voting for option three as long as it involves a complete redesign of the project thank you thank you howdy Gowdy followed by Julia Lucia and Steve price good evening mayor and council members my name is howdy Gowdy I live at [address removed]

1:36:51Street um thank you for your continued uh work on this topic I I see you kind of struggling with you know how to get the best outcome out of this project and I I hope that you can you know step back and realize you've been handed a bad project it's the wrong project for this site and it can't be

1:37:14fixed as is it needs to be redesigned with the guidance that has already been you know introduced by um council member lyman's very appropriate suggestion that a much uh more appropriate thorough Creek restoration should be part of this project so I've you know already gone on

1:37:35record to supporting option three but I want to be clear that option three without removing the constraints of the existing site plans is not a good option either we we really need what Greg introduced which was you know start with what is right for the creek put you know

1:37:55the right buildings next to it but building five feet from the bank is not the right solution for the Rock line channel it's not the right solution for an engineered Channel it needs more space than that to do justice to this environmental resource and so I really urge you to reject the project

1:38:14and give guidance to build within the constraints of the site not the constraints of what the proposal has brought and put on paper and the constraints of the site are it deserves a thorough riparian corridor so there have been you know references to the cost of the restoration it's

1:38:35already been demonstrated that you know the donation of of the house would be a significant financial um you know contribution by the developer the cost of that is on par with the cost of this Creek restoration and it's um it shouldn't have to be a a burden for the

1:38:57developer to explore this Creek restoration and there are of course Grant fund opportunities as well um so I I just want to close with um you know the idea that this is a muted opportunity and the only thing that's muted about it is that nature is being held in a jar and we can't hear it and

1:39:16it needs to be let out and you can let it out and frankly the voices of these environmental professionals are being muted because the only paying did is you know supporting development right and so it's really your vision which has already been uh codified in the El

1:39:35Cerrito Creek ordinance that says no we're not going to do you know construction as usual we're not going to build three to five feet from the bank of a creek and leave long impacts in place we're going to reverse that we're going to improve things we're going to give a Toe Hold to

1:39:54um to improve the situation so I hope you will do that and deny the project thank you thank you Julia this year followed by Steve price notes here so I hope that's okay my name is Julia Lucia and I've been a resident here for 10 years Junction Avenue I'd like to sort of dial us back to

1:40:15where we began because we've gotten into a lot of my new detail and I do appreciate all of the research and thought that's been put into this point we began on April 16th with the Planning Commission that's when my involvement started I know that the the staff work

1:40:29and the developers work started way before that they were voting to approve the project or not in many small details they did a vote to approve it and April 28th I along with many other residents submitted our Appeal on May 21st the Planning Commission reversed their

1:40:45support by a vote of four to two and I think that's a very significant factor that's been overlooked in this process it hasn't been discussed it hasn't been included in any of the any of the materials that have been passed out the Planning Commission has has reversed

1:40:59their appeal their support and there are many reasons for that which I want to talk about if I have time um and from that point on we've done significant discussion research I do want to mention that I think this is a significant turning point for our city it's not just one project we're

1:41:21setting a huge precedent in terms of the decision we're making and one precedent is as many have said do we want to ignore all of the environmental and planning and thoughtful ordinances that have been put into place over the many years of our city do we want to do

1:41:37that do we want to set that precedent or do we want to set the precedent of upholding our values do we want to set the precedent and what does it mean to overturn the planning commission's wishes and and advice not only did they overturn it but they actively voted to

1:41:51deny by four to two they took this an additional move to say city council we not only don't want you to approve it we want you to deny this project I think that's significant and thirdly I think you know do we want to listen to public opinion does public opinion matter there's been significant

1:42:09public comments significant um research and doesn't matter I mean good projects enjoy good support and this has not enjoyed good support this is this has been a fight the whole way um I do since I have a little more time I just want to direct you to um some findings that the Planning Commission

1:42:29had to had to find to approve the location and design of The Proposal will provide a convenient and functional living working and shopping environment and will be attractive of amenity they said no um let's see development within the district is demonstrably demonstratively superior to

1:42:48the development that could occur under the standards applicable to the underlying base district and will achieve Superior Community design environmental preservation and or substantial public benefit that was in the initial findings that the Planning Commission denied I say no and they said

1:43:04no as well so I think that's very significant the existing infrastructure is sufficient to serve the proposed development as proposed I say no a lot of people say no and the Planning Commission said no as well so I see my time is up and thank you for your time thank you

1:43:22Steve price followed by Dan Pines I'm Steve price I live at [address removed] the council has a number of considerations when deciding to approve this project or not whether or not the creek is restored how it's restored the size of the building how it affects Street character traffic impacts Etc

1:43:47these are all worthy of consideration but the big question is what is primary Aristotle said that the most important question when starting any Enterprise is to figure out what is primary what is the first consideration how do you address the other considerations is affected by that

1:44:07primary one I propose that climate change is the primary consideration just to remind you how serious this issue is consider the concerns of the defense department you can Google climate change National Defense and you'll see reports outlining the defense community's concerns about extreme

1:44:27weather drought mass migrations of people Wildfire Wars terrorism and the difficult difficulties of the defense department and the defense Community will face with threats to the Earth's life support systems and increasing human desperation El Cerrito with its two BART stations

1:44:49and bus Corridor along San Pablo Avenue can do significant things to lower citizens carbon footprints reducing automobile use is essential right now there are over 700 cars per hour at rush hour driving on Elm Street these are mostly people driving solo to and from single-family homes

1:45:11a 14-unit building within walking distance of Bart might add at most one percent to the traffic load in an elm people in the city are calling a three-story building high density if that's high density then what is medium density do we even consider I don't even hear

1:45:35that term being used medium density it's like anything over a single family house fruit from three stories to 50 stories is all the same category if the city's planted trees on the street many species would grow to three stories in seven or eight years essentially screening the building and

1:45:55harmonizing the street appearance there are already two and a half to three story melaleucas across the street we should restore the creek if possible and make the architecture enhance the street with with consideration that there are also bigger environmental planetary

1:46:13concerns that should affect the approach I would I wouldn't go over three stories at this site but I believe that multi-family three-story development here makes sense at this location thank you Dan Pine followed by Pamela Austin and Pamela Austin is the last speaker slip I

1:46:32have good evening my name is Dan Pines [address removed] that's the duplex ride adjacent to the north side of this project you know it's been nine years that we have been fighting this project and it's a different iterations and it's always been the same we asked early on from the developer

1:47:04uh to build something smaller two stories with uh less units things that would not affect the neighborhood where we have single family homes uh one story two stories Max and um all the developer has done for nine years is to try and um cleared the obstacles that the city has

1:47:36proposed related to this now early on the obstacles were building such a big building in a neighborhood where everything is low density now even though this is a multi-unit zoning that side of Elm Street is very low so in effect if we build a three-story building there

1:48:06what would you have with a landscape that goes like this and up that high we're a one-story dwelling right next to this proposed project and we have Windows facing that side that councilwoman Jan Bridges referred to as not important windows because the main Windows face the other

1:48:36side and that's not true those are bedroom windows and bathroom windows and I don't think we would like anyone looking into the property from a high story 42-foot building um I recommend along with many of the Neighbors in the neighborhood that you take option number four

1:49:00which is deny the project accept our appeal and have the developer come up with something that is more fitting for the neighborhood for the environment and for the benefit of all of us thank you Pamela Austin and that was the last one yes mayor good evening my name is Pam Austin and I

1:49:29live at [address removed] I've been there about eight years it's near Stockton and I want to say that I support the comments made earlier in support of option three or four and I don't I don't think that I can State those objections any better than the than the speakers Did

1:49:51um I was also disappointed in the creek restoration study because I understood the request to be consideration of restoration of the creek without the restraints of the current development and that's not what I read at all um we know that the benefits would be minimal

1:50:12um in the current development plan proposed that's why we have a creek ordinance I mean to me that's circular logic um you know if we we wouldn't have had a creek ordinance if we didn't feel that building that close to a creek was detrimental the point I'd like to liked I like

1:50:32though is that earlier it was it it was suggested that option three would not satisfy the appeal that was filed I firmly believe that it would satisfy that appeal because restoration of the creek in a way that was more significant would by necessity require a smaller

1:50:56development and I think that's the direction I strongly feel that's the direction that we should go here so I'm I'm speaking in support of option three or option four thank you very much thank you I believe that ends uh the public comment so with that we will move to

1:51:17deliberation by the council do you want to start could I move to close the public hearing oh is that is that appropriate will that preclude us from asking questions of staff no I don't believe so I think you're okay oh okay there's one more speaker I um take away my motion I recant my

1:51:44motion we don't have to vote on it leave it standing okay so please go ahead okay [Music] um the project is [Music] um there are five parents everyone is against um the first parents against the limit height limit for the neighborhood against the zoning requirements

1:52:19against the city parking rules against a building Cove against the city Journal plan so it seemed like there's nothing for this project is everything against the rules and regulations how can the city staff or a body of government arbitrarily change their root laws and policy which

1:52:50were passed previously by the city government is illegal or is it illegal why did you pass all those calls rules and rate requirements if you do not comply to it please deny the project and Uphill uphold the Appeals thank you thank you um so I believe that that is the end of

1:53:11public comment right okay so now is there a motion to close I want to close the public comment period second okay um there's been a motion by benicini seconded by Friedman to close the public comment all in favor please say aye in the opposition in the abstention

1:53:28motion carries unanimously okay so with that we will move to deliberation are you wanting to start um I have a sort of lengthy set of comments um should we go into them no this is the time okay thank you everyone for coming to all of these many meetings um I want to start out by just building

1:53:50on the context that everybody on the city council and probably everybody in this room thinks about when development projects come up and that's what's the context of new development what's our role in the region um for 25 years the Bay Area has underbuilt housing and it's contributed

1:54:04significantly to the high cost of housing in the area living an inner ringer inner ring cities like El Cerrito not only provides a really great lifestyle and quality of life but there are incredible differences that are documented in many um planning documents that show the

1:54:22resource use of inner cities like El Cerrito compared to places in the Tri-Valley and in other areas of the outer bay area for example vehicle miles traveled in Tri-Valley on a household basis are two to three times higher than they are here and if you Google anything

1:54:37um from Cal Thorpe who has done many many presentations with regard to the resource use of electricity natural gas and of course vehicle miles traveled and land consumption just by the location of the house it's extremely significant to put more houses in inner bay area cities

1:54:55like El Cerrito where we build housing and where we put jobs matters a lot for the for the environment and for that reason I'm extreme I'm strongly in favor of I was going to say higher but I guess based on what Mr Price said earlier we should call this medium density development

1:55:11within walking distance of our BART station and to me putting houses near BART is in itself a community benefit a very strong Community benefit and I want to mention that it's not just the environmental benefits there are many co-benefits that are afforded to those in those sorts of units

1:55:29not everyone wants to live in a single family house and not everyone can afford to live in a single family house and if you try to buy something that's not a single family house today you would not be able to buy something in El Cerrito there as of yesterday there were no

1:55:41Condominiums and no town homes on the market this project is not only about putting people near BART when I think of new residents many people maybe think of the impacts of new residents I think of new residents as our parents our children our grandchildren our sisters our

1:55:56brothers these are all of our community members and I try not I don't think of new residents as impacts I think of us sort of welcoming up our neighborhood to to new people and letting people enjoy all the benefits that we enjoy having here so that's the context I think about when

1:56:10I'm thinking about development in El Cerrito how have we done in the last 25 years or however many years we talked about in terms of contributing to the regional need for housing as Jobs grow the need for housing grows how have we done what have we contributed we've done

1:56:25two multi-family housing projects in a 14-15 year period which was through one of the hottest real estate markets in California and now we're in sort of the hottest retail or hottest rental market since the 1990s and we've been able to build two multi-family projects which I

1:56:42would say is is not is not enough we do have several projects in the pipeline I'm this is wonderful but the pipeline is extremely long as an example projects this project has been on in the pipeline for nine years the Creekside project was approved I think in 2005 and it hasn't

1:57:00broken ground yet so when we say that there are projects that are made other projects that are out there that's true but they could take decades to come to early least a decade to come to fruition so we need to just think about the reality of the realities of development

1:57:15we're an attractive location for development but we have not been so attractive that people have actually invested much here this means that there are significant costs to developing here just like in many cities and we're seeing the costs today it costs a lot to get through the

1:57:29approval process their all of the money is at risk at that time period and it means that it's not necessarily A fate accompli that something would that a project would get done so that's the contact that I'm thinking about and now just to look specifically at this

1:57:44project this project is not just about putting people in their Embark like I said before it contains open space restores one of our oldest historic buildings in the city provides the historic resource for public use maintains the century-old stone-lined creek perhaps the only one

1:57:59which is currently existing in California and significantly enhances the existing Channel with what was termed Landscaping which is a quote unquote restoration that is proposed for option one and option two and option three that's the project that we have today

1:58:15all of those benefits there are many trade-offs we have to confront when we're thinking about sustainability in our city but that's the project we have today our other option is to deny the project staff has presented in option three um which we've discussed at length but

1:58:30that option would have to go all the way through the approval process and we've heard a myriad of different opinions here today maybe we heard one or two speakers who were supportive of option three which would be the same development intensity which is um in the current project but many

1:58:45people have asked for a smaller development a smaller development of course would mean that it's not clear that we would that it would create enough of an investment opportunity for the developer to go forward and that's what I'm struggling with and thinking about and

1:59:00I'm also thinking about the incremental difference between option options one and option two and option three in terms of the ecological benefits we've had sort of a strong presentation made by a consultant which is very well regarded in the field of Creek restoration which indicates going from

1:59:17the existing condition to option two is a is a good Improvement because you have the addition of the landscaping and the plantings going from option two to option three which is significant in terms of the additional cost but more importantly it's significant in terms of

1:59:31the additional risk we have no idea how long it would take to get through the entitlement process and we may very well end up where we are today with an appeal on option three so to me when I'm balancing all of these things and it's a very difficult topic and I

1:59:46want to say that as I think about all of the parents I see here tonight who go to school with my child I'm thinking very carefully about your opinions and trying to show a lot of respect for what you're thinking by being really thoughtful about my comments for me there is a very good outcome that

2:00:03I see as an environmentalist and someone who cares really deeply about this community and that is to approve the project with a significant open space the historic restoration of the house the public access to the house the public access to the channel restoration

2:00:19um and adding to our housing diversity which is really important and affordability in homes that are near Transit and is and it represents a well-designed urban project to me that is an excellent outcome compared with the uncertain outcome of directing um the applicant to start start over and

2:00:38potentially encounter all of the same issues that I think have haven't been it wouldn't be addressed by option three so therefore I'm prepared to make an option uh to make a motion to support option two after I hear from from other council members again um Rebecca very eloquently stated

2:00:57um our housing shortages and our needs we're seeing implications with this in the city of San Francisco it circled over to Oakland and soon it'll be in our neighborhoods too and I do think it's very accurate I have several friends that are looking for houses and

2:01:14um you know they're medical doctors they make a lot probably three or four times the salary I make and they can't even afford to live in El Cerrito and qualify for loans in this city so I think our housing stock actually does need some improvement and um I knew that our last project here was

2:01:33Villages next door but I didn't realize Del Norte was that many years ago and and it's kind of surprising that it's it's we've had so few new housing developments um but we are landlocked and we don't have a lot of property available to to make those housing improvements in in

2:01:51our stock in our numbers um I also want to acknowledge what Mr Price said because part of the problem for me has been that I think that this development is a worthy project I think most of us decided even at the last meeting that we were really weren't concerned so much

2:02:10with the height and the density but the creek really was the main issue and I think now that we've heard from people who certainly have a lot more professional expertise that I do than I do that you know there's there's muted benefits and I think the fact that it's

2:02:26not contiguous um for me last time I wanted to hear what kind of project we could have with an improved Creek and and to me it's not been a significant change um from what we had already in option two I also want to say that for me this has nothing to do with a uh added benefit of

2:02:49the public open space the potential to have a Community Center building that will be donated to the city on the part of the applicant has nothing to do with this decision for me I I'm pretty pleased that the applicant was willing to go into a five-year development agreement and I think that's

2:03:11appropriate I think 10 was too long and I think this is actually ultimately meeting a lot of our climate action um goals that we've set in a year and a half or two years ago and I'm willing to support option two also thank you Mark Mark Marcus you in a comment Greg I don't either way we just

2:03:35need to do it okay I've wrestled with this for several months as we all have both the community the residents the neighbors the city council the city staff the developers and there no there is no pleasing everybody's solution which would be great if we had one that's not going to happen we've had

2:03:55very persuasive articulate passionate environmental arguments on both sides and I think I'm confident in saying all of us consider ourselves as environmental stewards as one of our main roles on the city council and the climate action plan and our strategic plan and the San Pablo plan

2:04:19coming up uh all reflect that commitment to the environment as well as all the wonderful work that's been done on the adding open space and the recycling center Etc so to me there's no easy solution saying the most environmental thing you could do with this project is

2:04:40option one two three or four um I am I'm going to support my colleagues benefitian Bridges and supporting option two because I feel that with option three we would lose the use of the house we would lose the public access to the park and to the channel and we would likely lose the possibility

2:05:02of having transit-oriented development in that site for many years to come so to me to gain a slightly better Waterway with more opportunity for wildlife to grow is not enough of a trade-off for what we would lose if we go that route to me the the best options are either option two or to deny the

2:05:28project and send them back to the drawing board but I don't see that as a responsible position at this point given our commitment to all the goals that I think were so articulately laid out by my colleagues okay so I appreciate my fellow council members uh allowing the Gathering of the

2:05:51additional information about the creek and and I do was buoyed by and hopeful uh that the creek restoration is something that is feasible and possible and and uh you know I cannot argue against council member uh benicini's comments regarding housing they're well

2:06:09made and and they're accurate uh we we have a huge housing shortage in the Bay Area so and I'm well aware of the consequences of uh developing in in our Outer Outer communities as opposed to an inner community and and those are all well-made arguments uh however I am was

2:06:31as I said buoyed by the possibility of restoration on this site and although attachment 14 is compelling and it's more compelling not for its cost because I think the cost can be offset by the house uh the dwelling unit the ground floor floor dwelling unit that would be

2:06:47very well received in the community but more for its time and and I I understand the risk the 12 to 18 months of of this continuing to be off the market is something that that causes us all to pause and and clearly make decisions however I I still believe that there is a of um

2:07:11I think uh Mr Pine said it very well that there is a great project on this site that could both have a creek and uh 14 to 15 dwelling units um so I um we'll we'll not be joining you in support of option two yeah I am and I I just want to say for the record I do have lots of input as if

2:07:35we do go forward with option two I have lots of input that I would hope that you guys would uh support I'm a person who does not even uh drive a car and I think that there needs to be a place for people who do not drive cars in our society there needs to be a place

2:07:58for people who do not have a huge amount of money there needs to be a place for people who want to use Transit and I think that the place for that is around Transit stations and this is that place and I agree with what council member benicini said I won't go into a huge

2:08:20amount of detail because of the hour but I think we really need to recognize that justice as she suggested we've only got two density projects to our credit and I know that it was in the no no later than the 90s when um Del Norte Place went in that was like 94. 94. that's a pretty sad record

2:08:48um so it cannot be said that we have been overzealous in this area and um so I think we need to think about it we've this is this is Zone's high density and if we can't do high density in a high density area I think that we are not being real um to what we claim we are and

2:09:18um so I I'll just leave it at that because I think that there needs to be a place in our society for people who do not Center their life around the single occupancy vehicle and um that place is around Transit where people have alternative ways of getting around and

2:09:39I'll leave it at that so um it's pretty clear that we have a preferred option and you were going to make a motion yeah and I'm happy to let's let's start making some improvements Greg I move a resolution at the city council the city of El Cerrito adopting an initial study with a mitigated which uh

2:09:59which attachment are you on it's attachment one so we can talk about the mitigated negative declaration attachment one would be for option one I believe you want attachment uh six I think it is which one are you uh sorry you want attachment seven oh they they change I I

2:10:16want to make sure no no no no no I'm helping you out I'm sorry but I I if you are going up so similarly they do but uh I move a resolution of the city of El Cerrito city council adopting an initial study with a mitigated negative declaration and adopting adopting and

2:10:32mitigating a mitigation monitoring and Reporting program for the construction of 14 new dwelling units and the conversion of an existing dwelling unit into a community center at 1715 Elm Street application number 6133 before go ahead and second as soon okay okay so that's your motion okay and

2:10:54is there a second to that motion yes okay there's a second so motion is by benacini seconded by bridges for the record okay I'm hoping you would entertain a friendly Amendment to the first whereas clause in this Warehouse closet says there's a preservation of existing Creek and I

2:11:12don't believe that that's an accurate statement so I would like to say that that's preservation of an existing historic Stone line Channel if you would be agreed definitely okay okay just okay procedurally um does there need to be a second to that the secondary has to I was trying

2:11:30to get him before the secondary the secondary has to agree to the uh to the the amendment as well I'm seconding with the so named changes council member Lyman made so now I think at this point we now continue on if there are further comments like you might have Greg uh that's the only

2:11:52that's the only correction to this one okay uh and it'll be it'll be a recurring theme uh you'll hear it in all the subsequent uh okay so you want to go into the next one well no we should vote on that one just on the amendment okay the the motion has been made in seconded

2:12:09councilmember Lyman proposed a friendly Amendment which was accepted by the person who made the motion and the secondary so you can now vote on the motion unless there are additional properties um the motion to approve the resolution approving the negative difference I was

2:12:23thinking that councilman Lyman had other friendly amendments not for this particular resolution that's it I'm gonna do them on each each motion okay okay so um all in favor of the motion please say aye aye aye okay so that uh was uh four yeses one name by council member Lyman is that

2:12:44enough detail for the record yes thank you ma'am okay thank you um so motion passes okay now then is there you wanna do a second motion sure I move an ordinance of the city council of the city of El Cerrito rezoning 1715 Elm Street to a planned development zoning District

2:13:02application 6133 my amendments I don't think you can't second it the record uh the motion was made by benassini seconded by Bridges and are there any friendly amendments several um it on uh I believe on the uh in a recital a it says preservation of existing Creek I would like to re

2:13:33replace Creek with uh historic Stone line Channel uh in G on the first page the letter capital letters P and C should be put in front of the 14.

2:13:49wait what was that capital letters P and C should be put in front of the 14 so it's resolution PC 14-2 oh okay sorry got it uh that's you're on attachment three sorry we're on attachment eight just to be clear um attachment eight they left it off that's how I caught it item K I would

2:14:11love to have the clerk give us the previous resolution numbers so that we can go ahead and read that into the record uh it would be resolution 2014-44 so instead of XX it would be 4 4 . this one is four four the previous one was four four the midnight dag was four four and K was K

2:14:33is referencing uh the action you just took oh I see what you're saying in findings number one two three five seven eight um and ten the there's reference to an existing Creek and in all those places I would love to have the word Creek replaced with historic Stone line Channel

2:15:03that is that terminates oh let me make sure let me that terminates that that ends that ends my request for Clarity on this motion I accept the Amendments okay this is secondary yes seconding the change is great okay so are we ready to vote then okay um the motion has been uh changed as

2:15:23indicated do you have all that information yes I do thank you thank you um so um the motion was made by benassini seconded by Bridges all in favor please say aye aye aye okay so there's four yeses one no by council member Lyman um motion passes okay I'm ready to move a resolution of

2:15:47the El Cerrito city council denying an appeal and upholding the planning commission's approval of a planned development use permit at 1715 Elm Street and you're reading from attachment nine I hope sorry attachment nine thank you L second okay it's a motion by benassini seconded by

2:16:02bridges are there any friendly amendments there are okay um and in this one actually there's a number and I will actually um have you uh reference your pink sheet salmon salmon salmon salmon sheet in addition to replacing the word Creek with historic Stone line Channel

2:16:28um and that would occur in the first whereas clause um the findings number one findings one three four eleven findings one three four eleven and twelve the word Creek would be replaced with historic Stone line Channel um in finding number two it says parking tucked under the

2:17:01building daylighting a creek the creek is already daylighted um so I'm not certain what that how we can modify that so I'm open for recommendations here we can just say existing Stone lined Channel historic's online Channel if that works so in in number two Janet the

2:17:27the second line ends with under the building comma the we would delete daylighted Creek and um insert existing Stone line Channel sorry existing historics online Channel okay um and then I did ask staff what the definition of inclement weather was under um this is would be uh

2:17:57what are these the conditions these are the conditions of approval I'm on now on page six the very top of Page Six um lowercase C work may be prohibited during inclement weather I asked staff what the definition of inclement weather was I tried to con to Define it with

2:18:19some text added text and and I'd um I got some resistance on the text I tried to add but I'm not sure I understand what the definition of inclement weather is so for the sake of this condition of approval it's whether that the building official finds to be unsuitable for

2:18:38Building in so that in the winter in the rains if there's a high wind the building official can close down job sites okay so I with that with that defined then I do not have any recommended text for that um so you're leaving that as is because leaving that as is so so now going to

2:18:55the uh salmon colored paper there there was so this is a number that uh I inquire I provided more than this to staff and and staff uh felt that all of these were appropriate for uh inclusion as condition 57 condition 57 would be inserted on page after 11 yes exactly it would be inserted at the

2:19:26top of page 12 essentially um there there was one that I asked for that staff did not feel was appropriate yet we did have a public commenter talk about doing uh black carbon monitoring at the perimeter of the with the store with the school um and and I was wondering if Council

2:19:52would entertain that uh the entertaining requiring a uh real-time monitoring of air pollutants at the property line with the school be aware of where this takes place I'm just not sure I don't know enough about it does it take place at El Cerrito High or other construction projects you've

2:20:14worked on yeah it is taking place on some of the construction projects I'm working on with respect with regards to asbestos monitoring which is a Airborne dust particulate fibers so I know that there is the technology that's out there it's it's not done necessarily for vocs

2:20:32although it can be done for vocs but it can't be done real time for vocs because of the lab work that's required this I don't I'm not familiar with this particular [Music] isilometer I'm not familiar with the ethylometer but you know we could potentially word it something like as

2:20:54practical or you know you know in order to make it a condition that staff has to follow through on and if they if they can't be done it can't be done so that was that was one that I would like to in addition to the ones that are on the salmon sheet and we can walk through

2:21:08those if you were if you want to know what's on the sandwich we can walk through those the step is Staff comfortable with that wording so I have been in conversation with parents of the preschool regarding trying to find any City that did monitoring of uh pocs or carbon particulate matter

2:21:29um I could not find any City in the area doing that it seems that they have found a professor that has some expertise in this I'd be glad to take down it that information and contact that Professor but it's as a practical implication it's not being done anywhere else in the Bay

2:21:46Area that I can find for a construction of this size so we're not talking about adjacent to freeway we're not talking about we're talking about a smaller construction project so I'd be glad to follow up I don't know how as a condition of approval how to best approach that

2:22:03um so are you talking about the item F or the black carbon monitoring or both so uh black carbon monitoring what I think was the so could you just sort of explain what that actually is I mean what the process is in a nutshell or maybe so diesel vehicles produce particulate matter

2:22:24um and that's what I believe that we're getting to in this conversation so there's two kinds that are actually we have a challenge in the Bay Area with P 2.5 and P10 a particulate matter um so they they the app the member of the appellants has mentioned that they found a professor

2:22:43who has some monitoring device for black carbon I have not been able to find that person I'm very interested that there's someone out there that has that I don't know that their monitoring device works on a project of this scale I don't know what the professor is using what context

2:23:00that it's used in so I'm happy to um contact the professor see if the device would work on a construction project um and and follow through if it's practical and then maybe that's the wording and and I would be willing if if as practical or if practical would be a

2:23:20condition that we could potentially or a qualifier we could put on the condition uh that would make me happy just because I would like to see if if possible if it's economical and feasible it it is you know the best to protect our young children I have a question about that if it's

2:23:40a particulate put out by cars and there's some background level so they would first check the background level right so that would be uh one of the considerations is right our ambient air has carbon in it um just by by virtue of where we're located in the region so that would be

2:23:58one discussion point I would have with a professor in terms of economically feasible I don't could if the council could provide a parameter because I don't I don't know that you want staff to make that determination in a vacuum yeah I mean it was proposed that it was twenty thousand dollars two

2:24:15to twenty thousand right it's certainly greater than 20 000 would be a huge financial burden for this particular aspect because because I think if you looked at the prevailing winds winds in the area it's probably not often that it's blowing from the property towards the school

2:24:33but but that would be right yeah I agree with the idea that we should put it together a condition which has a qualifier that would basically direct Margaret to follow up with this particular researcher who says that he has this sort of a device and leave it up to her

2:24:50professional opinion as to whether or not it's practical to include that device as part of their construction plan I think for benefit of the wording of this you need to go over it word by word okay so do you do that now I could so I think sky is going to interrupt no I'm not going to interrupt

2:25:08I could I could just try to if I if I've understood what has been suggested although I'm not sure whether I think one thing to clarify would be is the ethylometer also also measuring the black carbon is that doing the same thing or are we talking about two different things because both of those

2:25:23have been discussed yeah so it would be I'm not sure we would name that particular device because I think our intent is to monitor pollutants at the boundary so I think I think that we should keep it potentially more vague than that so it may it may be that uh just a wind direction device is adequate

2:25:43to to you know help us make decisions about what happens in any given day and so that simple technology maybe all we end up putting in place so the condition would be something along the lines of requiring the developer to implement error quality monitor green on

2:26:00the site during construction if determined to be feasible by the community development director and the cost does not exceed twenty thousand dollars very well stated yes and um Cheryl do you have that I um yes I actually do can you repeat it back actually too okay

2:26:24thank you city is hurting can you repeat it Michelle um it's a test um require the developer to implement an error monitoring device on site if if the development services manager or zoning officer determines that it is feasible and also if the cost is feasible

2:26:50cost is less than twenty thousand correct and that would be fifth number 57 lowercase i um one of the other ones that would that be H or I uh H is already on the salmon sheet you need to turn it over okay thank you um one of the other ones that I I think I think they'll all get the

2:27:16developments right um one of the other ones that I've recommended uh and Mr wood at timestamp one hour and 15 minutes on June 2nd um said sure he's got standard protocols for doing is uh to conduct a biological survey for endangered species in the stone line Channel prior to work uh

2:27:43beginning so I I was wondering if that's something that uh that Council would be willing to add is that not done under The Endangered Species Act uh no because they're they're they're permit they're not getting a um they're not they're not getting an Endangered Species Act permit

2:28:01and the species that are most likely to be present are not actually protected by uh California Fish and Wildlife um so for example the red-legged frog that could be present um you know just as a result of what being washed down from the Hills uh they're not checking for that currently

2:28:21and Mr wood said he he knows the process and would be willing to do it so I I would be interested in asking Council to add a um a requirement for a biological survey of the channel prior to work you know it could be for endangered species at the cost of it it would be just an added biological

2:28:48monitor maybe a day's worth of work if that it would be the contractor it would be the developers developers applicants cost just a point of clarification for endangered species or a red-legged frog it pick one red-legged frog would be red-legged frog would be the the most notable one that

2:29:08would be I doubt there would be Western Pond Turtle there um but you know it could be there could be a western Pond Turtle there but red-legged frog is the most likely so again the uh the SQL document identified that there was they were not likely and that there was none found on

2:29:23on site but instituting monitoring just to double check before that they were so just doing a biological survey before to make sure if they for whatever reason decide to break ground after there's been a big torrential rain there could be a frog present so what if there is then what

2:29:39um they can move them so they can relocate them okay yeah so that doesn't need to be said in uh they would have to work with the there's there's Federal there's state laws and federal laws that would govern how that fraud could be moved but yes they can move the Frog so

2:29:53so we don't need to put anything in okay to be part of their monitoring monitoring so is this condition Jay it would be okay condition J and then I apologize to staff because they were going back from my notes there were a couple more that I actually uncovered um one would be potentially monitoring

2:30:13vibration on the dry stone wall during construction um this would be K it would be all although I'm going to look to staff was there any benefits or requirements for monitoring the the wall for vibration because as they do the earth work adjacent to it and all the other work I

2:30:36was just curious if if anybody had ever thought about doing vibration and monitoring on the wall itself which would be ground Peak Peak ground acceleration monitoring is is what they would actually do there was no note that would a consideration would be brought in other

2:30:53than Standard Building practices of of the construction at medially adjacent so yeah I'm willing to pass on that one um however there was a request by the applicants or sorry the appellants to um better protect the creek or the channel when the house was being moved so I don't there was discussion of

2:31:16covering making sure because the house is going to be moved across the creek or I guess if the house is being moved across the creek that the creek would be better protected or protected at all there's no discussion of protection of the creek during house movement I see

2:31:30Miss Vince the regional agencies that Supply their jarpa permit will have significant conditions in their permits in terms of Creek protection in addition to all of our stormwater construction permits but there will be Creek protection required within the permitting agencies for the

2:31:50creek I'm not certain that they were made aware of the house movement so that's I mean they were made aware of the head wall construction but I doubt the house movement was part of the jarpa permit in terms of again the vibration you're you're thinking now I'm talking

2:32:03about the moving the house across the the channel there would be protection I mean I would have to go look and if you wanted to put some sort of a condition that required that we did that but there are extensive Creek protection measures from the water board yeah you well it

2:32:18would it's it's also cultural protection right because if they knock the wall apart then they've destroyed the the Integrity of the of the rock wall so it has to be both the the biological and the cultural aspect of it so it essentially they have to make up a small

2:32:33Bridge or go out into the road I mean it it would be possibly eat just as easy to move the house into the road use the road and then go back onto the property then put all the protections that I'd like to see to make sure that the stone wall and the creek is not you know damaged the development

2:32:50team also has a structural engineer that we'll be looking at issues so I don't know if that you know at the house foundations and other issues so I don't know if you want to incorporate that somewhat into your thinking and that leads to the last one I found some for some reason I made this note

2:33:06this is back in June that cultural one did not include this steps taken to rehab the standards three six and seven so apparently apparently the SQL document is saying go to three six and seven use Rehabilitation standards three six and seven but the actual mmrp did not

2:33:27include those particular cultural cultural standards or Rehabilitation standards so as I just wanted to make sure that we added into culture one um the rehabilitation standards three six and seven so I this was a note I made two months ago so I apologize if it's not sounding quite

2:33:48as clear as it as it was up three six and seven so you're saying in Amendment nine that um where you would expect to see three six and seven being met it's just not present uh correct I think that would be under cultural one so I haven't page page three of the attachment

2:34:10um which attachment the attachment to the resolution nine nine so it's part of it's exhibit eight attachment nine so so I this is what he's looking at the mmrp so the cultural one cultural so I see cultural one apparent I'm it was it's a note from some time ago so I apologize

2:34:34for for not having followed up with you earlier today so you said three four and seven it was three six seven three six seven is what is what I read when I read the when I read the cultural report it made it sound like three six and seven should be applied Rehabilitation standards three six and

2:34:52seven so I see uh three I see one two three and four and so we have to look up six and seven do you see one two three and four in your attachment I do not see I do not what page are you on page four four page four in cultural three but but this was cultural one so it

2:35:14apparently I'm just going off to what the either the SQL document or the cultural resources report right yes uh Miss Kavanaugh Lynch is looking at the cultural at the I think it was in the mnd so we just see it going to four in the historic resource evaluation could

2:35:41the conditions could you have a condition that says something about all of the conditions of the SQL document be included in the mmrp so that if there is something that we're not finding now we're responsible to it may be that it was in the cultural research because I'm seeing in this is

2:36:04not there so I think it might have been the cultural resources report the historic resources evaluation historic resources report so that's what we just looked at and it was like recommendations [Applause] so Rehabilitation standard three so here it is Rehabilitation this year I'm

2:36:28finding my Rehabilitation each property will be recognized by as it a physical record of its time place and use and I didn't see anything in the mmrp that required that Recreation recordation foreign I'm on page 36 of the verplank report um where it says provide these steps are

2:36:51taken the proposed project would comply with Rehabilitation standard three and I'm not seeing the that Recreation requirement in the mmrp does code one uh so cultural resources mitigation number one a where it has the project applicant shall document the affected historical

2:37:09resource in its setting in accordance with abs so it would be all of the Clauses of ABS which is the ones that you are referring to to drawings photographs written data the bullet points under cultural resource mitigation one on page three of the attachment to the

2:37:33resolution so all of the steps are taken in that one okay and then then you're probably going to come up and say the same thing so if I now I'm looking at page 37 in the verb link report revisit Rehabilitation standard six and it says provided these steps are taken the proposed project would comply

2:37:50and it's as uh you know Rehabilitation 6 deteriorated historic features will be repaired rather than replaced and and again I'm not seeing that these specific real Rehabilitation standards called out in culture one but you're saying it's covered under that one sentence

2:38:16so I think you're referring to um I just want to make sure I'm reading the same thing that you are uh rehab the rehabilitation standard six where it says deteriorated historic features will be repaired versus replaced is that the section you're looking correct and at

2:38:30the end of that it says provided these steps are taken the proposed project will comply and there's a number of steps listed here and I did not see those list those steps called out in our mid our mmrp okay yeah that's um uh did the department of interior standards I believe

2:38:53the discussion about restoration especially the primary facade of the building having um meet the department of interior standards is one way to talk about repairing versus replacing and then um it describes very specifically in the hre what they mean by that but that's I

2:39:15believe that is the same as consistent with the Department of interior standards okay so so then then that one's not needed um so then I would just be up to letter k I will stop with letter K okay thank you so they can Cheryl do you have letter k um monitor the vibration on the dry

2:39:37stone wall during construction is that number k no then it was what was the one before Jay conduct a biological survey and monitoring just Jay then okay so okay I'm gonna repeat J One More Time Jay um I did have a question I had conduct a survey of endangered species

2:39:57um in the stone line Channel prior to Construction with the cost to be borne by the applicant um and my question was whether you're including monitoring a survey and monitoring biological survey and monitoring single survey not more than two weeks prior okay yes that's that's correct so so with

2:40:24those with those amendments would you please be willing to accept those amendments I'm sorry I also did we not write down K which is all of the conditions of the secret document shall be included in the mmrp yeah we found them you found them all okay thank you just wanted to make sure

2:40:40yes I accept the Amendments and I'd like to ask Cheryl if she can repeat everything um actually I will help yeah we'll I will definitely help if you okay so the council is moving um essentially attachment nine with um amendments proposed by council member Lyman and starting with the first

2:41:06amendments um replacing existing Creek with existing historic Stone line Channel which appears in recital and certain findings um could you yeah the finding numbers for me I have one four one three four eleven and twelve okay great thank you and in finding two we're replacing daylighted Creek

2:41:36with existing historic Stone lines Channel okay and then it and then it we go to item 57 A through which is on J and um so h i i is the required the developer to implement a and um an air monitoring on the site if he's if the development services manager deems it feasible

2:42:16with the cost to be if the cost is not less than twenty thousand dollars and the cost is to be borne by the applicant the cost is not more it's not more I'm sorry it's not more I'm sorry can you add on the site during construction just to be clear it's not going to be there

2:42:33forever okay and then Jay was what I previously stated conduct a biological survey of endangered species of the stone line Channel prior to work on the Channel with the cost to be borne by the applicant can you please insert not more than two weeks prior okay and I thank you okay thank you so

2:43:04um are there any more for anything for nine ten for nine ten okay so we're gonna vote on nine nine okay all in favor of um the revised the resolution to the uh I don't even know how to say that a resolution say stick can you say that sure a resolution denying an appeal and

2:43:34upholding the planning commission's approval of a plan development use permit at 1715 Elm Street with the Amendments proposed by council member thank you with the Amendments proposed by council member Lyman okay second okay so we're ready to vote okay all in favor

2:43:52please say aye aye aye okay so four yeses one no by council member Lyman okay I'm ready to move an ordinance of the city council of the city of El Cerrito approving a development agreement between the city of El Cerrito and the Edward and Loretta Biggs revocable trust for 1715 Elm Street

2:44:10application 6133 second okay there's Motion in second and I I have a one friendly Amendment and one question of the applicant actually that uh attachment this is attachment 10. yeah okay um and and there's one question of the applicant uh if if we could we can can

2:44:32we ask I'm looking at the City attorney we can ask the applicant a simple question um there was during uh testimony going way back a request by Mr Panos that the applicant uh uh support um a filing of historic register of the site and um I I it this is obviously an agreement

2:44:57with the applicant so the applicant would have to agree to the to adding some sort of term um where where we would you know where the applicant would at least support or um you know not not interfere with the filing of that to have the house on the historic register and I believe staff

2:45:17suggested that would go in 9.4 if I remember correctly foreign right and so I that's as far as we got because I didn't want to spend any any effort on it uh developing language if the applicant is going to say no um but I'm hoping that Mr Biggs would support um putting the house on the historic

2:45:41registry and I let the record know that he's nodding with a big smile on his face um so sorry okay so I looked to the City attorney to give us some language that and we'll give you a chance once the language is crafted we will give you a chance to not again right

2:46:03who's grafting the language the city attorneys uh so yeah no I actually would be section 5.9 I believe okay and I think it would be sufficient to state that um developers shall support um this is the agenda item what I'm sorry this is this is attachment 10.

2:46:23um and this is actually um the uh development agreement itself so this is exhibit a two attachment 10.

2:46:32and and there is no 5.9 now so you're proposing a new a new section 5.9 of the development agreement which would state that developers shall support listing of the um historic house on state historic register is that I'm getting a nod from the back row so yes that will work thank

2:46:53you um with that language uh Mr Biggs is that something that thank you and then uh there's only one occurrence in this document in the recital a where it says preservation of an existing Creek where I would like that to read preservation of an existing historic

2:47:13Stone line Channel any other changes you would propose for this no I do want to acknowledge that 4.2 is is five years and thank you for uh taking that uh suggestion and incorporating that into this document so thank you okay and is that okay with the maker of the motion yes I accept changes

2:47:37to a yeah and 5.9 so are we ready to vote yes okay all in favor please say aye aye aye okay um four yeses one no council member Lyman thank you okay what's left um is there anything left that it uh we also need to move the site plan that's attached as it was August 8th

2:48:07that was already attached to one of the resolutions you already made great for option two the approval of the introduction of the ordinance approving the development agreement was the last action that you needed to take correct foreign unless you have further comments unless

2:48:35any of the member of the council has further comments on this item you're actually done we're actually done okay thank you um and I would like to thank everybody for um being here in um being very considerate and making their comments and um participating in a in a very

2:48:54Civic way it really means a lot I think to everyone that to have that happen um and um with that we will move on to the next item 7A 7A which is the smoking pollution protection ordinance we'll give people a chance to leave if they want right now foreign this item I will Aaron okay thank you

2:49:37are we ready I think we're ready to start great thanks your honor I'm Karen Pincus I'm the assistant city manager and before you tonight is a proposed smoking pollution protection ordinance that is the culmination of many months of community engagement staff research

2:49:51and city council Direction this process began with the adoption of the Strategic plan in 2013 when within the goal of ensuring the public health and safety both the city council and members of the public identified explore Innovative and best practices for promoting Public

2:50:07Health specifically referencing the regulation of second-hand smoke as an objective for the city since that time assisted by our EC Stars intern from last year Amel alcoholi we've been researching and gathering information for proposed smoking pollution protection ordinance for your

2:50:24consideration staff obtained Dana from other agencies and non-profits we've done extensive community research and Outreach including appearances at parks and rec commission Environmental Quality committee we've done an online survey we've had two Community workshops at

2:50:39City Hall and we've had targeted public Outreach to landlords tenants and businesses we've received technical assistance and input from the Contra Costa tobacco prevention Coalition save the bay and the California Apartment Association the city council held a study session on

2:50:56May 20th 2014 and expressed support for regulating smoking because of the risk to Public Health through smoking and secondhand smoke the environmental risks of cigarette butt litter into our waterways the need for trash reduction the financial effects of smoking both

2:51:10economically and as demonstrated in increased health care costs and the threat to Public Safety by posing a fire danger feedback from the alfredo Community has shown that the vast majority of respondents and participants in all of the Outreach and public meetings and

2:51:25processes that we've had so far support these findings and agree that regulation of smoking is necessary and additionally support is overwhelming from the public and from the council that we'd really like to improve our grade from the American Lung Association at the study session the city council

2:51:41provided Direction on several categories to be included within a draft ordinance which means which includes prohibiting smoking in all parks recreation areas and open space within all commercial areas of the city and within multi-family housing of two or more units as 100 smoke-free to be phased in

2:52:00over a period of 12 months or when a lease expires whichever happens first the council specifically directed staff to include prohibition of smoking medical marijuana and the use of electronic smoking devices or e-cigarettes the city council also directed staff to

2:52:15conduct research regarding smoking on all sidewalks regarding prohibiting smoking on all sidewalks and public throughways including non-commercial areas while also considering options for defining non-smoking perimeter around the schools so the draft smoking pollution

2:52:30protection ordinance before you tonight is based on all of this direction the council also did direct staff to bring back an ordinance to address regulating the sales of tobacco and e-cigarettes and to consider raising the age for the purchase of tobacco products

2:52:43and E-cigarettes to 21.

2:52:46um to investigate funding and enforcement officer signage and education a separate ordinance that will address these issues regarding tobacco sales and Licensing tobacco retailers will be presented to the Planning Commission within the next few months in order to

2:52:59address specific regulations through the zoning ordinance as well as provide recommendations to the city council for your consideration and staff will bring that back to the council as soon as possible for tonight per the city council's Direction the proposed smoking pollution

2:53:14protection ordinance includes those Provisions for smoking in public places commercial areas and multi-unit residences we categorize these categorize these regulations by city-owned facilities in closed spaces and unenclosed spaces and it should be noted that smoke and smoking includes

2:53:30all forms of tobacco marijuana and any other weeder plant and including any vaporizing from electronic smoking devices for the Park's open space and public spaces this completely prohibits smoking in all of these places including property owned by the city of El Cerrito

2:53:46Parks playgrounds sport Fields Recreation areas open space Trails yes that includes the iloni greenway and any of the unidentified Trails or identified trails that the trail Trekkers have been working on diligently all city-owned facilities including the property grounds and parking lots public

2:54:04sidewalks both commercial and residential City and other public events including farmers markets festivals food events Recreation events or any event attended by the General Public it also includes a provision for prohibiting smoking within a reasonable distance which is defined as 25 feet for

2:54:21a buffer zone around any area that prohibits smoking either through this ordinance or state or federal law which includes the schools this reasonable distance requirement would be in place for both enclosed and unenclosed areas moving to smoke-free commercial areas

2:54:37this would include places of employment public private and non-profit shopping centers outdoor dining areas again sidewalks and service areas that would include bus stops and other outdoor locations where people congregate such as an ATM line or a taxi stand commercial areas in the ordinance are

2:54:56defined as those districts zoned as commercial and Transit oriented mixed-use districts per the zoning ordinance so the language prohibits smoking in these entire areas in any commercial free zone or in any commercial area sorry the provision for prohibiting smoking in

2:55:12places of employment is meant to enhance current state law which has several exemptions and loopholes that permit smoking in a wide variety of workplaces and also does not expressly prohibit the use of e-cigarettes places of employment does also include outdoor work areas and construction

2:55:27sites commercial areas will also include the reasonable distance buffer zone for multi-unit housing in common areas this would include all existing units all new units to be built all indoor and outdoor spaces on the property including common areas patios balconies garages

2:55:45carports and any shared spaces such as laundry and eating areas this also includes hotels and motels multi-unit is defined as two or more units and the provisions that refer to these multi-unit residences will take place will um will become effective as of October 1st 2015 which is what the

2:56:03council had directed to allow 12 months or when the lease changes whatever comes first but the common areas would be required to be in compliance by October 1st landlords would be required to provide disclosure to Residents and signage for all the common areas it does not create

2:56:19additional liability for landlords if they are in compliance with the provisions of this ordinance the ordinance also prohibits Ash receptacles within a place where smoking is prohibited so as not to imply that smoking is allowed so next steps and everyone's favorite

2:56:35topic enforcement moving forward the provisions related to prohibiting smoking in public places commercial areas and places of employment and other enclosed and unenclosed areas are proposed to become effective as of January 1st this gives the city as well as all of the impacted

2:56:51businesses time to create the guidelines and develop the signage program that will be required by this um Provisions related to smoking and multi-unit residences again would be effective as of October 1st this allows landlords 12 months from the passage of this ordinance to comply and

2:57:08also allows those residents who might not want to move time to try to quit landlords would be required to include smoking prohibitions in new and renewed leases and rental agreements and staff does inspect um rental properties of this nature for multi-units every other year and so we

2:57:29could include this as a provision for inspection that the signage is included a lot of questions were raised over the process of developing this ordinance even up to a few hours ago about enforcement the language in the ordinance states that violations would be punishable as infractions and subject

2:57:45to fines and may also be enforced through civil and private enforcement meaning that citizens can pursue remedies themselves through the civil court system as with other code enforcement actions in the city enforcement of this ordinance will be handled on a complaint-based system and staff has the

2:57:59ability to take immediate action if resources are available Steph recognizes though that enforcement may be difficult and the city's intent is really not to become the smoking police we've heard from other communities that secondhand smoke laws are typically complaint driven and self-enforcing

2:58:15meaning that Outreach education and signage are really the key components to obtaining compliance while it seems a bit strange to create an ordinance that could be difficult to enforce certainly I've come to see through this process that this ordinance is more about the values for public health and

2:58:31safety that El Cerrito residents and the council have very clearly stated and this ordinance is really meant to create a culture change and sends a pretty strong message if not one of the strongest messages in the state frankly that smoking isn't welcome in El Cerrito

2:58:45I did want to address one additional question that came up from a couple of council members today regarding the one exception included in this ordinance for the use of smoking which would be within a theatrical production this is on page seven of attachment when section

2:59:028.06.040 subsection B1 says the exemption would be allowed if the theater manager or director certifies that smoking is an essential part of the story and the use of a fake prop or special effect cannot reasonably convey the idea of smoking in an effective way to a reasonable member reasonable member

2:59:19of the anticipated audience the reason this language is initially included is because it is consistent with several other surrounding Community ordinances including Albany Berkeley Richmond and Walnut Creek however I have spoken with representatives from the Contra Costa

2:59:34Civic Theater who would be essentially the main people impacted by if not the only people impacted by this as a community theater they've indicated to me that if the city council wishes to strike this language they can work with that um so I just wanted to let you know that

2:59:49so the next steps in addition to standard public noticing we will do a press release um staff will develop guidelines for businesses landlords and other impacted parties landlords tenants business and housing associations and Property Management firms will be contacted and

3:00:03provided all of the information City staff will develop signage for city-owned facilities parks open space and a page on the city website will be created to provide all of this information including links FAQs downloadable no smoking signs and links to smoking cessation resources and other

3:00:21information resources to be helpful to the public finally you've been provided um with a letter from the Americans for non-smokers rights supporting this ordinance I also know we have support from our own El Cerrito Girl Scout Troop but it's a bit late for them to be here

3:00:36tonight to speak to you um but they do support it I'd also like to thank some of these people are here Denise Dennis of the Contra Costa County and tobacco prevention Coalition um Theresa Carr of the California Apartment Association and Allison Chan have saved the bay for their technical

3:00:51assistance and once again last year's EC Stars intern male alcoholic and especially community outreach specialist Suzanne airlough for staff research and excellent work on preparing this ordinance with that I'm available to answer any questions I'll go ahead and start

3:01:08um so the first question I have is um how many attendees were at the community workshops roughly roughly we probably had about Maybe 20 people 20 people at the maybe total 20 to 20 to 30 people at both of them okay and I would imagine most of them were in support yes and my second

3:01:32question is do you feel that we've had adequate Outreach to landlords of multi-family residences because it seems to me that they might be most impacted yes I do we sent Direct Mail postcards to everyone we had in our business license database and again working with Teresa Carr the California

3:01:52appointment Association I have not and Suzanne can add to this because you did a lot of the Outreach yourself we haven't heard from any landlords who are not in support of this so do we when we do our every two-year rental inspections is this don't we contract that out yes

3:02:12so it's not our staff but we contract with them and we've done it that way for quite a while right this is a second coming up is the second round of inspections that we have done for these um and so what what we would propose is to add to the next round which would be

3:02:29in two years to be able to see make sure that they're in compliance with the signage in the common areas so that was my question so what they're going to be looking for is signage make sure ashtrays aren't sitting there there's right okay um you answered my questions on email

3:02:45about civil court and enforcement I'm sure that we all probably had some questions about that and um I was one of the people that commented about 8.06040 I would personally like to have um under B1 the smoking at theatrical production sites um be prohibited for me

3:03:08me it doesn't make sense that you cannot smoke anywhere in a commercial area and you have 34 um offer zones however in a building which is probably caught across the theater maybe even the Cerrito I don't know I mean they do sometimes have staged events there on

3:03:27stage with people and it's just not always films why we would allow smoking to be in that environment I would I'd like to see that stricken myself but that's all my comments and thank you for your work on this thank you I agree with council member Bridge's idea about it striking the

3:03:46exception for the theatrical performances especially in light of the fact that our main theater is um doesn't see it as an important part of their Productions um I just wanted to point out that we do have these supplemental Communications at the diocese which represent email

3:04:00Communications to us about this ordinance um and and responses that you did and one one which was of interest to me was um complaints about smoking at BART stations and you did note in the in your response that even if this ordinance passes BART stations are still not under

3:04:17our jurisdiction in terms of the the smoking ordinances okay thank you okay that's it okay um can you tell me what Outreach there was to the business community they were included in the mailer and we did also include the Chamber of Commerce okay so because I'm I drove

3:04:40um along San Pablo Avenue today and um saw in our neighborhood Albany some people who were outside one of their establishments uh you know one of their adult beverage establishments um enjoying their smoke and and you know was wondering you know like we've got the Sky Lounge the elevation 66 I mean

3:05:02we got quite a number of evening uh um places of business that are targeting evening uh people and and it's you know a very common um occurrence for for people who are enjoying their adult beverages to also enjoy enjoy tobacco products um and I just wanted to find out did we

3:05:25get any comments any feedback from them saying hey this is going to drive people out of our out of our establishment so let me turn to Suzanne to see if she had conducted some of those Outreach I don't believe we heard any comments back from any owners of bars or entertainment

3:05:45venues in in the city I would just clarify um we did hear some comments from landlords that would not be in support of the proposed ordinance however we heard an equal or greater number of landlords who would be in favor of the ordinance so it's just a clarification thank you for that thank

3:06:06you mark um I think this would be a tremendous step forward not just for our city but for our County our state and maybe even our nation because it is so restrictive that as you said it's sending a very strong message that El Cerrito is not a good place to live if you're a smoker

3:06:30I'm reminded I was flicking through the channels on Turner Classic Movies one time and they had this movie cold turkey with Dick Van Dyke and Bob Newhart where Bob Newhart is a cynical public relations guy who convinces the Valiant tobacco company to propose a challenge a

3:06:49tax-free 25 million dollars this is 1971 that's almost 200 million today to any town in America that could go without smoking for 30 days uh is it's really a hilarious movie but they end up succeeding after quite a bit of struggles in doing it so my point is this that I think that we should work

3:07:12with the public health department and with tobacco education Advocates to assist Annie El Cerrito resident who is finding this so restrictive that it's difficult for them to live and continue smoking to help them with is the state-of-the-art anti-smoking smoking cessation programs

3:07:35so that we can really be on record is not just a city that says smokers this is a tough place for you to live but this is a city that cares about you as a resident and contributing member of our community and we want to help you to be able to improve your life in the lives

3:07:52of your loved ones and people around you by uh cessation from your addiction to Tobacco I'm really excited about this I really think that assistant city manager Denise Dennis and all the people who work to craft this because I think it it will be a model that we can really be proud of

3:08:16that we take the health of our citizens seriously and as I said I do feel for smokers because as it is about the only place they'll be left they can smoke is maybe a parking lot or driveway as long as it's 20 25 feet away from one of the restricted areas like a sidewalk or a

3:08:35single family home so I think this is a major step forward and I I hope that not only our community but others will see that this is a public health crisis that we can do something about there's a lot of Public Health crises that we have little control over but we do legally and even

3:08:56morally have the ability to do something about this tremendously detrimental impact upon people I do not want to pretend that we should be a nanny State and tell everybody not to do everything that's bad for them that would never work even if we tried to do it but smoking unlike some other vices

3:09:19dramatically affects everybody that is around the smoker and so that's why this level of stringent restriction is appropriate because everybody that's within the environment where a smoker is is negatively impacted and so we're saying we value the health of our citizens so

3:09:41much that we're willing to go the extra mile to restrict this product which is nobody disputes is extremely detrimental especially to children to pregnant women and to everybody in our community so I'm really grateful for all the work that went into this and hope

3:10:03that we can move forward tonight and I'm anxious to hear from public members who have their own comments I'm gonna say anything first okay so uh are there members of the public who want to speak at this point yes we have eight speaker slips okay great um so a Kirsten couchmeier followed by

3:10:27Allison Chan and Serena Chen good evening uh Madame Man City Council Members um I'm Kirsten kaikumaya I'm a policy volunteer for Save The Bay um so first off save the bay would like to commend the city of El Cerrito for mobilizing um or for its efforts and mobilizing

3:10:49research and for the future implementation of such a strong smoke-free ordinance we at save the bay are very concerned about the pollution impacts of cigarette butt litter annual Coastal cleanup day reports that cigarette butts are still one of the top little items collected and we have

3:11:06estimated that about 3 billion butts are littered into the bay each year through storm drains and Creeks that flown to the bay and this ultimately affects and threatens wildlife uh cigarette butts are made from cellulose acetate which is a type of plastic that does not biodegrade

3:11:23Additionally the cigarette butts themselves have been found to be highly toxic to Aquatic Life in lab experiments cigarette butts left to soak in a pint of water have shown to kill over half the number of fish present in that water so these are these effects are alarming

3:11:38and it motivates us to save the bay to encourage Bay Area cities to adopt strong outdoor smoking restrictions that will not only protect people from secondhand smoke but will also prevent cigarette butt litter from entering the bay um we owed to the city to adopt this

3:11:54ordinance and follow numerous other cities in the region that have already passed some of the Bands certainly the city of El Cerrito as is to be commended as it has one of the strongest Smokey ordinances in the area making the city an example to others in the region

3:12:11however I would like to pull your attention to the fact that once the ban is affect is in effect this is when the real work begins from what save the Bay has researched once passed a ban can only be effective if the city is proactive at ensuring compliance we heard the city of El Cerrito to

3:12:31invest in extensive Outreach to inform City residents about the new ordinance as listed before you've spoken about press coverage and permanent signage and strategically placed adverts it is definitely important to get public support to encourage widespread widespread compliance

3:12:49if you have any further questions regarding Outreach measures save the bear would look forward to working with the city to identify effective and relevant Outreach measures thank you Allison Chan followed by Serena Chan good evening thanks for uh your leadership on this issue tonight

3:13:10and I'll just briefly build upon Kirsten's comments and note that and we've talked about this before that the the step you're considering uh taking tonight has really strong connections to the work the city is doing to lessen its contribution of trash overall to the Bay um El Cerrito along with 75

3:13:29other Bay Area cities and counties is required to eliminate trash and storm drains and Creeks by 2022 and in order to accomplish that one of the things that jurisdictions are going to have to do is to address the largest sources of trash going into your storm water system

3:13:47and of course cigarette butts are at the top of that list so by eliminating smoking in commercial areas which is you know one of the elements being considered tonight you can eliminate one of the largest sources of trash in some of the trash's trashiest areas in the

3:14:01city and the map that was shared with you a little while back showing where those trash areas are located you can see our Center around most of your commercial areas which is common so by eliminating smoking in those areas you're reducing the contribution from one of the largest sources of litter in

3:14:18in those areas and then of course restricting smoking in your open space in Parks especially those areas adjacent to waterways will prevent direct littering of cigarette butts in local Creeks so all of the outdoor restrictions you're you're looking at tonight will help to keep cigarette

3:14:34butts away from storm drains and out of the bay and we'll provide a model for other barrier cities to follow that we definitely intend on on sharing out and encouraging other cities to move forward with and we're really excited the prospect of doing that and of course

3:14:49echoing Kirsten's comments about Outreach we look forward to exploring ways that we can help you with that and to make sure that this ordinance is is Meaningful and um and that compliance is high and we want to point to that success as well in El Cerrito so urge your adoption and

3:15:05thanks for your time Tom panis I'm sorry uh this is being a Chan sorry I didn't look like Tom tonight I've channeled Serena Chen tonight uh good evening my name is Serena Chen I'm with the American Lung Association I'm very happy to be here tonight uh this year marks my 23rd year working in

3:15:32Tobacco Control and prevention and when we first started the smoking rate here in Contra Costa County was about 24 percent and now it's about 10 percent give or take a few and the reason why this has happened is because City governments and local governments have taken on the challenge

3:15:52of addressing second-hand smoke and Tobacco Control and also schools have taken on the challenge of educating the kids and the community organizations have taken on the challenge of changing the social norms in their communities it takes a village and we're very happy

3:16:08tonight to see El Cerrito joining the greater Village all the other Villages around you have adopted ordinances and we have also seen throughout the country that when they compare similar cities with who have passed laws versus cities who have not passed laws they have seen

3:16:28a market difference in the health of those communities so cities that have adopted second-hand smoke laws as compared to sister cities with the same climate similar populations have shown a 17 drop in the first year of heart attack hospitalizations you know this is not messing around with

3:16:48the data this is actually looking at myocardial infarction hospitalizations and what they have found is that the people not getting heart attacks in those cities that pass laws were people between the ages of 40 and 60 who were non-smokers so what we actually see

3:17:05happening throughout this country and throughout the world because these they have studied cities and other countries I want to say other planets but we haven't gotten that far yet that basically second-hand smoke laws save lives and the laws that they've they've been studying are in the

3:17:21workplace and at public places what's going to happen when you start saying you can't smoke in dense multi-unit housing where people spend 67 percent of their day what we're going to see is a massive drop in asthma attacks asthma hospitalizations we're going to see

3:17:44bigger drops and the research isn't in yet because we don't have enough but right now in California there are 17 cities who have banned smoking in all multi-unit housing that amounts to 1.3 million residents in California that's astounding and I'm just very happy to

3:18:03say I I was I'm Forrest Trump and secondhand smoke I've been present at a lot of these ordinances my business card should say have butt will travel but we're very proud of you today because El Cerrito has a very strong smoke-free outdoor air ordinance which uh trumps

3:18:21your neighboring cities and your secondhand smoke ordinance and housing is also at the top of the at the head of the class and so when you adopt your tobacco retail licensing and you look at the emerging products and you look to see what you can do in those areas

3:18:39um El Cerrito will be in the chapter of our state of Tobacco Control report card called top of the class so we're very happy I just wanted to mention that your neighboring city of Berkeley doubled the number of quit smoking classes they offered after their ordinance took

3:18:55effect in May of this year so uh it is totally possible for you to send some of your residents over across the border to Berkeley where they have a four ongoing quit smoking classes for people who need a class I want to also say that when we first started our biggest opponent opponents

3:19:15were the apartment associations now the apartment associations have stepped up to the plate and said we want you to pass these laws and in the city of Hayward the mayor told me that he was approached by two major landlords who said we want the city to ban smoking in

3:19:31in apartments so that it would give us the support and help to get the law to implement in our and and I also wanted to point out that Bart does have a ban on smoking at the BART stations you need to talk to your Bart director and we're also working with Bart right now to make

3:19:48sure that E-cigarettes are added to that thank you I'm sorry but you're trying okay thank you just one little thing it really helps to put a phone number to call on your signage because people see the no smoking sign and they want to know who to call if they see a violation

3:20:05thank you do you want to see an e-cigarette or have you seen them we've seen them last time okay thank you Tom panis followed by Gabriel Quinto and Liz Williams good evening mayor Abelson members of the council and City staff my name is Tom panis and I live at [address removed]

3:20:29in El Cerrito I strongly support the proposed ordinance and why we may have been way behind the pack on this issue we're about to LEAP to the front I'd like to thank the council for their strong leadership on the subject if I recall correctly one expressed the strong desire that we go from an F to an

3:20:44A plus I'd like to thank Karen Pincus and the rest of the staff who worked so hard on researching writing this ordinance and helping El Cerrito resume its position of leadership I'd also like to say I don't know how we can do this but going to one of the study sessions I believe

3:20:59was someone from save the Bay who pointed out the problem with the cigarette litter in the bay and until that day in my previous 35 years in El Cerrito when there were cigarettes on the sidewalk from my house I'd go yuck now I go I pick him up and I put him in the garbage so that was a major impact

3:21:15thank you good evening mayor Wilson um city council members uh I'm going to make this brief and uh I um I'm Gabriel Quinto and I am a resident of El Cerrito and I am also a board member of the nine County Sierra Club Bay chapter and I would uh the Sierra Club Bay chapter strongly

3:21:49urges uh the city council to support this new ordinance and then we welcome uh El Cerrito in with the other cities next around our area and we hope to make this a healthier Community by uh having this uh strong ordinance so I wanted to thank the assistant city manager Karen Pinkus and Denise Dennis

3:22:22who I had lunch with maybe uh less than a year ago and we spoke about this on and what we can do to make this uh happen and I'd like to thank save the bay for uh assisting the Sierra Club on this and so I I urge you as a resident and as a board member of the Sierra Club

3:22:44to support this new ordinance thank you foreign council members my name is Liz Williams I'm with Americans for non-smokers rights in Berkeley on behalf of our members here in El Cerrito we encourage you to support and adopt this proposed ordinance to expand the city's smoke

3:23:08Fair protections you have a really great opportunity to protect Public Health within the community by prohibiting smoking in venues where people still remain exposed to secondhand smoke we also support the provision that would prohibit the use of electronic cigarettes and other electronic smoking

3:23:24devices like this Cherry Lime Aid electronic hookah pen here to prohibit their use in places that are required to be smoke-free El Cerrito as we've heard would be in very good company by having outdoor smoke-free places where people especially those where people gather and work such as

3:23:41outdoor dining areas commercial zones shopping centers and Parks and Recreation facilities numerous communities throughout California have already taken action on some of these issues including 140 that have smoke-free outdoor dining areas and 160 that have smoke-free Parks so you'd be

3:23:56in good company another important area that we've been hearing about for Action is this issue of smoke-free multi-unit housing this ordinance to cover all units of multino housing is a very important way to have a broad positive public health impact on a place where children the

3:24:12elderly and people with health issues spend a majority of their time and can suffer from very serious continuous levels of secondhand smoke exposure Bay Area cities have that have a smoke-free requirement for all of their multi-unit housing include Richmond Berkeley Walnut Creek Alameda and Union

3:24:28City and this is something that residents are looking for when they are looking for places to reside a healthier safer living environment but like pardon me communities are choosing to not allow the e-cigarette use and other electronic smoking device use in the smoke-free places so that

3:24:43people do not have to breathe the secondhand aerosol that they emit there are more than 188 communities now including San Francisco LA and Richmond that have these laws in place so you'd be in good company and these laws do not ban the products but they simply require

3:24:59people to not use them in the same places where smoking is already not allowed we these issues are not being against about being against people who are smokers but it is about smoking in not smoking ways that harm other people about that social Norm change that

3:25:13everyone has the right to breathe clean air so I want to thank you for your leadership and your continued support on this issue and thank you for wanting to make El Cerrito a wonderful place to live and work thank you howdy Gowdy followed by Denise Dennis and Nicholas arzio

3:25:36good evening my name is howdy Gowdy and I live at [address removed] um so I certainly am no uh supporter of smoking I've never been a smoker and I I don't don't really enjoy the practice part of that is because when I was five or six years old my father who was smoking a tobacco pipe at the time you

3:26:00know threw it in the trash and purposely in front of me because I think he realized that you know he was my role model or he was a role model to me and I looked up to him and and that I was thinking that smoking was pretty cool because he was doing it and I've that

3:26:20has been a lifelong you know impact that that stayed with me and has prevented me from wanting to smoke because I could tell he wanted me to know it was not a desirable thing um I think that was a very effective way to prevent me from smoking and I think those types of measures are what will

3:26:39change the culture you know that the education the Outreach and and I'm not as convinced that um you know all of the elements that are in this ordinance are necessarily the best way to go about it nor are they Equitable and I'm concerned about sort of the arbitrary lines that are drawn I

3:26:59mean I applaud the strong effort and the statement but I think I'm really concerned that you know when you regulate an OB uh you know a practice like this you're squeezing a water balloon and it and it moves and it shifts and it does unpredictable things the surrounding uh

3:27:19you know cities who passed ordinances like this have caused you know smokers to move from City to City perhaps but once there's more and more cities that are are having similar statutes um you know people who aren't changing their behavior are going to seek out you

3:27:36know whatever option is left to them and and when I look at the way the ordinance is written it's it's a little troubling it's like so people could smoke in their cars and public you know some parking lots I guess that doesn't seem like that's going to reduce the trash issue

3:27:54to me because more people are driven from the outside and will be depositing butts in parking lots even on the street because if they're smoking in their car you know it's probably going to go out the window and back onto the street so it does come back to an enforcement

3:28:09issue it does come back to unintended consequences um I mean I noticed there was an ashtray outside of city hall for instance so your own city workers um what are their options going to be but to smoke in their car I guess and and if you're trying to encourage people

3:28:24not to drive to work you know that becomes a consideration for them it's like well I have my personal smoking area so it concerns me that um single-family residences are left out it does seem a little elitist and classist that you know there is this distinction

3:28:41uh I would point out that duplexes many of the duplexes in El Cerrito are spaced similarly to single-family houses so it's sort of an arbitrary line I live in a single family residence and I get smoke impacts from Neighbors in a single family residence so we have multi-units

3:28:59next to single family it's it's just an uneven playing field and I I'm afraid it's an equitable situation so thanks foreign honorable mayor and City Council Members I'm going to try to be very brief because it's very late my name is Denise Dennis and I work with emotionally sorry

3:29:19about that not your fault personal can we extend the meeting uh for until 10 45 that's my motion all in favor please say aye aye aye in the opposition in the abstention motion carries unanimously that's extending them in uh meeting um until 10 45 motion by benassini

3:29:41seconded by Friedman so my name is Denise Dennis and I work with contra costa Health Services a tobacco prevention program and I'm staffed to the county tobacco prevention Coalition and I'm also a resident of El Cerrito and delighted to be here I wanted to thank you for supporting the

3:29:58Public's Health through the provisions that you're considering this evening over the past few years as you know the county and many other Bay Area cities have looked at well-documented evidence about the health impacts of secondhand smoke and they've adopted strong comprehensive

3:30:14secondhand smoke protections to to protect residents workers and visitors where they live work and play and in April of last year the County Board of Supervisors adopted regulations to require tobacco retailer license to sell electronic smoking devices including

3:30:31e-cigarettes and to prohibit the use of electronic smoking devices wherever smoking is prohibited there are possible health risks associated with this product these products but just as importantly there's a growing concern that these devices in public places and places of employment

3:30:48could increase social acceptance of smoking among youth or lead to increased tobacco use we have gotten the smoking rate down in California because of laws like this we have made a huge difference in California and the number of smokers that we have I for one and I imagine

3:31:10other people in the room here quit smoking because it got harder and harder to smoke so we do know that this makes a difference in the health of uh the community and also protects other people from the environment the secondhand smoke uh impact as well County staff are

3:31:29available to provide technical assistance to the city on implementation issues and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have about the County's ordinance thank you thank you next Nicholas arzio good evening my name is Nicolas arzio I live at [address removed]

3:31:53I think that howdy makes a good point that the ordinance is not perfect however I also think it's a bold step toward a healthier and cleaner El Cerrito so I I definitely support the ordinance and I thank you thank you all for hopefully passing it thank you are there any more speakers no other

3:32:15speakers okay please go ahead Tara Lee Wagner I live at [address removed] and I gave testimony um at one of the previous meetings and I'm I'm again I'm I am very um impressed with today with tonight's meeting this is only the second meeting I've been to but um I'm impressed with your

3:32:36stewardship towards um you know a healthier Community uh to a more affordable housing to to all of it that I've heard tonight I was I was impressed with um with what you're doing um I was very passionate that night I still am in support of the proposed ordinance I guess I'm a little more

3:32:55pragmatic I'm sitting here and thinking about the enforcement and I just wanted to speak to one idea that you had about the two-year inspections because I'm familiar with those I think that um having the enforcement tie into that is a good idea because I know my landlord

3:33:11takes those very seriously we get a letter he comes in he makes sure like the week before that everything's the way that it's supposed to be in the ordinance right um so um I think that there has to be an unsubjective way though to measure if they're smoking other than because

3:33:28sometimes um if you have someone just going in and see well if there's uh ashtrays or if they smell it that's subjective and so that there can be fault with that I don't know if there's any kind of digital devices that are inexpensive that you can detect tobacco with I know

3:33:45that you have a fine now if the landlord if an inspection comes and they find something that's not up to code there's a fine of like 300 or there's some there because I know we were made of you know the maintenance man told me about that so if there's a fine if there's smoke detected that's

3:34:03like a practical solution to making sure that it's enforced and it may not cost you that much money and again I was trying to like Google to see what kind of devices are I didn't see any I saw like alarms that's a little bit too um orwellian but maybe there's some version

3:34:23of a held hand device so but thank you for the work that you're doing thank you okay that concludes the public comment we'll bring it back to the council for comments and maybe could Karen could you just clarify the situation she just spoke of and that would be generally we would expect that

3:34:45if you lived in a multi-unit building and your neighbor were smoking then you would call the code enforcement officer to complain and the code enforcement officer would staff resources available would potentially visit the site or contact the landlord what would be sort of the

3:35:00process for following through on potentially enforcing a fine yes it actually yes um again it would be as staff resources allow if it's one of the if you know we've struggled with this a little bit when we've talked about various scenarios and again this is where we come back to the

3:35:19um tricky Enforcement issue just like a lot of the laws that we already have on the books such as littering that we already have on the books but it's very difficult to actually catch someone doing that um and so that is why the provisions particularly for multi-unit housing

3:35:34would be as part of the lease agreement if there is um if there's uh as if you had pets or any other type of of agreement with the with the landlord as to what you are responsible for or responsible for complying with it also includes a civil action so if the city you know we're not

3:35:54by any means thinking that someone could call and say oh my God smoking's someone's smoking right now come um we probably you know priorities kind of happen we can't pull a cop off the street to do that as opposed to go you know doing what they're doing to catch

3:36:07bad guy um having said that at the same time the Civil enforcement is also available and that type of violation letters and maybe Denise can actually talk about some of the things that they've found in the county as far as compliance if we're able to perhaps send a letter if there's

3:36:25a violation that has been reported with a warning that could also help create compliance pretty quickly Denise did I cover that that is what the county is found to be really effective so if that happens we can have that available we can have a number available we can have

3:36:41a staff member available that's been effective in other cities so that someone can report something we can send warning letters if we're not able to be there to watch that oh witness that happen thank you okay that's it finished everything I do yeah um in your staff report you

3:37:02talk about the value of the fines 100 to 500 but when I go to the enforcement of violation I don't see that is it is it in chapters 1.08 or chapter 1.14 yes for the municipal code same as other code enforcement there's no there's no need for our Master Fee schedule to be

3:37:19modified to incorporate this okay thank you um if it's appropriate I'd like to make promotions please okay I move ordinance of the city council the city of El Cerrito to regulate smoking within the city of El Cerrito with the amendment to our document that we strike the

3:37:38exemption for theatrical Productions can can I make a note about that before you continue I suspect that smoking is part of a theatrical production is protected by the First Amendment which doesn't mean that you have to keep the exemption in the ordinance but I do think that you

3:37:57should consider leaving it in so that Enforcement Officers understand that they may want to um uh not enforce that because potentially putting the city into a civil rights situation um by by issuing a citation to somebody who is engaged in protected First Amendment activity

3:38:20is there anything else like that that hasn't been covered here I mean theatrical Productions I think is probably called out because we have the theater I actually no I actually think that um as Miss Pink has said that's in other cities ordinances I believe it's

3:38:32there for that reason okay dude can we get a comment from our uh Denise Dennis on that I would do Liz Williams from the Americans for non-smokers rights on the issue but smoking is not we know that smoking is Sue right and we see we see um we work nationally on smoke Fair issues and most

3:38:57there are some cities that do include in States and do include that type of exemption but the majority do not include that exemption um theaters you know people mimic murder and all sorts of you know gun violence things in on theatrical Productions and it's seen that people can mimic the use

3:39:15of smoking materials so there are plenty of communities that have upheld it I I'd like to leave my motion as it is and if somebody wants to sue us in order to smoke in a theatrical production let them go ahead my only comments about that and I'm I'm sitting here because I'm me and you're

3:39:35sitting there because you're you but I think we actually got some emails to at least I did from um someone who said that indeed this was actually in Berkeley's ordinance and one other close by city I don't think it was Albany though Albany Berkeley Walnut Creek and Richmond do have this

3:39:55provision um he said it wasn't in there but I didn't read the ordinance so I don't really know but but I I would be in favor of going along with what council member Friedman said I just wanted to bring it to your attention before you you acted on it so you'd be aware of the potential risk

3:40:13it's ultimately up to you okay I'm moving the agenda could first of all could we have a 10-minute extension also move second okay uh all in favor bye uh any opposition no motion carries unanimously so it was motioned by Bridges seconded by benacini okay um Mark you made an emotion I believe

3:40:36uh-huh okay and did was it seconded not yet no I'll second okay relieving the perversion but we're removing their provision yeah yeah okay so there's motion by Friedman seconded by Bridges uh to adopt the motion to adopt the um ordinance yes uh as listed with the

3:41:00exception of the section 8.06.0 and we have to waive the uh it wasn't that I'm sorry I thought that was part of your motion as you read it yeah I believe no he just read the actual ordinance language he didn't say wave first readings so that's why I want to make sure that we are away and wave the

3:41:20first week okay and so it's section so the section he's saying to delete is section 8.06.040 B1 correct it starts out smoking a theatrical production yes sites okay uh any further discussion no okay all in favor please say aye aye any opposition any abstention motion carries

3:41:49unanimously um and then we bring it back for a second reading later and um so back to our agenda but we just finished item number seven a we're ready for seven b which is short-term cash flow financing through Tax and Revenue anticipation notes good evening mayor and Council I'm Lisa

3:42:15Malik Sade the city's Finance director and in the sake of time which I know we don't have much of um just this is the same item you've heard for the last few years the city enters into uh to sell short-term loans to bridge our finances to bridge our cash until we get our first distribution

3:42:33of property taxes in December so this is to allow the city manager to enter into an agreement to sell Tech tax anticipation Revenue notes up to about 5.2 million dollars either with a bank as we've done in the past or to do a public offering and the loan will be

3:42:51paid back before the end of the fiscal year on June 30th and with that if you have any questions any questions are there any speaker slips on this item no speakers I move a resolution of the city council of the city of El Cerrito approving the borrowing of funds for

3:43:08fiscal year 2014-2015 and the issuance and sale of 2014-2015 Tax and Revenue anticipation notes second motion by Lyman seconded by Friedman passed unanimously oh we got to vote first I'm sorry you want to find out if there's any discussion are there any members of the public here

3:43:41who want to speak on the idea yeah we asked that question okay yeah we asked that question it's getting late we're all uh so we said all in favor okay all right that was unanimous yeah um anybody have anything less left to do procedurally there okay then we will move on to eight uh

3:44:02which is uh council local and Regional liaison assignments any reports no no okay then we are adjourned uh to our next meeting which is on September 22nd at 7 pm here at City Hall thank you very much for coming