City Council Meeting February 3, 2015

0:00:28good evening everybody we're going to start right on time and uh welcome to the city council meeting and i will please ask council member janet abelson to lead us please join me in the pledge of allegiance or a moment of silence at your reference i pledge allegiance to the flag of the

0:00:50united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you first up is council and staff communications i've got just a couple of items one of the fun things of being mayor is occasionally you get to cut a ribbon or

0:01:20two and dally's boutique opened on san pablo between petro and cutting on saturday and it was a very joyous occasion and if you need any dresses please head over to dally's so that was fun and then also this morning i moderated a panel at the east bay broadband

0:01:41consortium and it was a panel of mayors and mayors of brentwood oakland and san leandro were there and they're really doing amazing things and expanding broadband access to their citizens and businesses and there's a lot to learn from their example so maybe one day we'll be able

0:01:59to to do something along those lines hearing no other communications now i will move on to oral communications from the public and the first speaker is alex de george to giorgio digiorio good evening council members city staff members of the public good evening my

0:02:26name is alex de giorgio i'm the community development manager for marin clean energy and i'm here to briefly extend how thrilled we are at mce to be welcoming el cerrito to its new energy options which are going to be starting soon so i want to go over a couple of quick bullets

0:02:46just to prepare folks for what's in store in the coming months the outreach process has begun in earnest and we're going to be organizing community presentations wherever we're invited so that is at all organizations that have an elseria specific or even a west county specific

0:03:08orientation we want to make sure that they are well aware of what the new energy options are going to be and having options doesn't mean much unless people know about them so we're here to get the word out and over the night the next five months all electric account holders in the city

0:03:24of el cerrito commercial and residential are going to be receiving about one notice a month between now and july per state law informing them that they have new energy options and in fact i've brought with me an example of what that's going to look like one version of it the first version

0:03:43is a letter in a sealed envelope sometimes people are more likely to open that and read that because it feels more personal and if folks would like to see copies of it i'm happy to leave a copy here with the city clerk and then in the coming months they'll look a little bit

0:03:58different this is one that was circulated in richmond when we did the rollout there it's got some more graphics photos that sort of thing a little bit more approachable for some folks the first notice should be arriving in people's mailboxes about february 17th

0:04:16and i just want to leave all of my contact information with you in case you get calls or in case there are questions from the public so you can relay them to to me and to our folks i'm going to give you that number right now but i can also leave this in writing

0:04:31the number is 1-888-632-3674 again that's 888-632-360 also by email info at mce cleanenergy.org again that's info at mce clean energy dot org also um as i said about the community meetings one of the first meetings is going to be held on the 17th so about the same time

0:05:04as the first notice will be received and that's going to be at st john senior center again that's tuesday february 17th at 11 30 a.m and uh i can also leave some business cards up front and if there are questions from members of the public i'd be happy to answer them outside the

0:05:25city council chambers terrific thank you so much thank you very much we are very excited to be the newest members of the marin clean energy team and i think all the citizens i've talked to are really excited and thanks for coming to start the ball rolling on reaching out

0:05:42well thank you to your visionary leadership of among the council bringing energy democracy to el cerrito great thank you so are the three speakers for this portion of the agenda are al miller followed by howdy gowdy and tom panus great thank you good evening mayor

0:06:02friedman council member and staff i'm al miller i live at [address removed] i'm here as a member of the citizen street oversight committee some of you might have heard that at our some of our recent meetings we've had somewhat heated discussions on the proper funding of

0:06:21city streets projects by measure a there was a difference of opinion amongst the committee whether some of those projects should have been funded by measure a i just wanted to thank you and comment on [Music] agenda item 5c the streets pavement now you're considering

0:06:45tonight you clearly identified that measure a funding is involved and by your approving of it your approval of the use of measure a funds should be clear to everybody on the committee it makes it a lot easier to do the oversight that way thank you thank you very much

0:07:08good evening mayor friedman and council members my name is howdy gowdy i live at [address removed] um so i'm just here in a very preliminary way this is a new topic but um you know tomorrow there is um a first design review board hearing for a development in the specific plan area

0:07:29the proposed chevrolet dealership and um i guess i just wanted to express my you know questions about this project and um try to appeal to the the brighter minds in the room besides mine to to come up with um a solution that you know welcomes this possibility with

0:07:55you know a more consistent adherence to the specific plan goals i think you'll you know be i mean as i after following the specific plan um progress i was i was surprised to see you know one of the first projects to come through the system under that be something that is

0:08:17pretty decidedly not in the image of the specific plan and um and i don't think that means we should you know reject it or i mean it's it's a great opportunity to have you know a high um you know sales tax revenue business and of any business for that matter in um added to

0:08:37our our community but um but a four acre or nearly four acre site is just under utilized when it's a parking lot for cars basically and and and a fairly modest building so i mean i bring to your attention i just because i can't help mentioning the word 1715 elm that

0:08:59you know that's a 0.4 acre site with a 45 foot high building on the edge of you know a less dense neighborhood this site where the former ash store was is nearly four acres ten times as big and the proposed building won't be more than you know mostly 25 feet to maybe 36 or

0:09:23something like that so it's a smaller building on a bigger site and we have to give it exemptions to to be that whereas on the other hand we had you know too large of a building and too small of a site so i think we need to be careful about these decisions and so i i

0:09:38want to end on a more favorable note that i think there's really exciting opportunities here you know maybe i've never seen a dealership with residential but why don't we explore that i mean there could be residential on that site as well and it could be a benefit to the

0:09:52dealership it increases traffic it could have you know people using the cars on sort of a lease basis or you know trial promotions and um and the other idea was that you know we badly need playing fields and so some kind of you know built into an elevated structure an indoor playing

0:10:09field could be a great community asset um building uh dealerships already sponsors use sports leagues so why not you know build a more comprehensive solution so thanks thank you very much good evening mayor friedman members of the council on city staff my name is tom

0:10:41panis and i live at [address removed] el cerrito this evening i'd like to inform the council about a threat to seed libraries across the country as you know we have two seeds of cerritos sites in el cerrito in june of 2014 the pennsylvania department of agriculture

0:10:54informed the seed library in mechanicsburg pennsylvania that the seed library needed to purchase a seed license as a commercial seed distributor since then several states have done the same thing this is an alarming threat to all seed libraries four companies now own and control about

0:11:0975 percent four companies own and control 75 percent of the world's seeds which makes the need for local seed libraries even more pressing state seed laws exist to regulate entities that sell or commercially exchange seeds a seed library is a non-profit non-commercial cooperative or

0:11:25governmental organization that donates seed and receives donations of seeds especially by encouraging members to learn about seed saving and donate seeds to the library donation of seed is not a required at seed library so the sharing of seeds does not even rise to the level of

0:11:39barter or exchange let alone sale seed libraries are far different in nature and scale than commercial seed companies they need to be appropriately recognized under the law to protect their ability to continue freely sharing seeds and communities across the country

0:11:52i'm not asking the council for any action at this time but i will let you know that if this situation continues to evolve the el cerrito community garden network may request the council to adopt a resolution in support of seed libraries on a different subject i'd like to

0:12:06request the council does consider specific action at this time in the future i hope the council considers to maybe to be a reasonably well intentioned citizen still it was just recently that i understood that non-profit organizations are business tax each year well i can't

0:12:21speak to every organization in town i'd be very surprised to learn that more than a handful of them pay business tax each year just for the organizations where i'm a member it appears there are more than 100 years of unpaid taxes and penalties i'd like to request that the council

0:12:35consider a resolution that waives past business taxes and penalties for all non-profit organizations that register and pay their taxes by june 30 for this year and perhaps also consider changing the fee schedule to something similar to what the city of richmond does

0:12:48thank you for your time this evening thank you i just want to point out thank you mr pandas he made his uh comments he uh ganged him up on one sheet and it's a half a sheet so he's doing his part for the environment thank you very much and thank you for your comments

0:13:05no other speaker slips all right now we are very fortunate to have a our annual presentation by our wonderful police chief sylvia moore on the crime year in review good evening good evening say good evening to you mayor friedman yeah and council and our community i am sylvia moyer your police

0:13:37chief and i am very pleased to give you our annual crime update where we examine the level of crime in the city of el cerrito and then give you some other data about what we are actually doing to influence crime in our city because this has come up before we would

0:13:56like to extend the offer to council to ask any questions that you have throughout our presentation you don't have to wait until the end we are accustomed to being interrupted so if you have a question about something that we are discussing or presenting then please just ask it

0:14:15so we are going to discuss and present crime and one of the things that you as an astute counsel are are used to is the uniform crime report and just as a reminder the uniform crime report is really just a report card about part one crimes in our city i'm very proud to introduce samantha

0:14:35wendling who's the police department's analyst who will expand upon the uniform crime report and then give your report out about how we did in 2014 give you an analysis of the five-year trend and then we will expand from there so happy to introduce samantha wendley

0:14:52thank you good evening so here you will see the part one crimes comparing 2014 against 2013 and the part one crimes are broken out between crime against person and crimes against property which are your violent crimes and property crimes and you will see there was a decrease in

0:15:11both of those which resulted in an overall decrease of 17 in part one crimes for 2014.

0:15:18and you'll notice that there's two areas that saw an increase and so we'll expand on those and explain further and also how it relates to the five-year trend and so as far as the increase goes for forcible rape it went from zero to three and in 2012 the department of justice

0:15:36came out with a new expanded definition of sexual assault and this definition included a variety of sexual assaults that weren't included in this definition before and so in 2014 we had to start applying that definition to our crime reports and so because that definition is more

0:15:54inclusive it um you can say that that's the reason why the sexual assaults went up and it doesn't mean that there's necessarily an increase it just means that they're being more accurately reported and so as far as arsons the increase there in july of 2014 the city saw an arson series that was

0:16:15committed by one person in a localized area within the city and this person was responsible for a majority of the arsons that took place and by that in 2014 and through great police work and excellent coordination and collaboration with the fire department we were able to identify the suspect and

0:16:33solve this case it's just another example of how collaboration with all the departments in the city enhance the community safety here the part or the ucrs are broken down in between between five years and the graft on the left shows the crimes against person and the one on the right

0:16:54is showing the crimes against property and you'll see that overall for crimes against person or violent crimes there has it's been trending down for the past five years but in 2013 for crimes against property we saw a slight uptick in a couple of the categories

0:17:12which we took action on and in turn saw a decrease in 2014.

0:17:18one of the significant changes that was made was we converted a position into an analyst which has led the department into a more intelligence-led placing and this requires the analyst to review all the reports and data and with the goal of finding patterns in series as

0:17:33they emerge so the analyst takes all the information analyzes it and then creates intelligence and distributes that out to the officers in the field and there's other measures that took place that the chief will expand on well samantha wouldn't say this but she has really contributed

0:17:54an analytical capability that we didn't have before she gives actionable intelligence to officers in the field and it's been a tremendous addition to the way we police el cerrito some of the other things that we did we you know we hosted a security fair where we brought

0:18:10in vendors that talked about a wide variety of subjects in order to create greater security at residences and businesses in el cerrito we invited the entire community free of charge to come to that security fair and many took us up on it we have a greater and increased and

0:18:29enhanced social media presence with the push of information and intelligence to our community we believe that this contributed largely to the reduction in crime one of the big ones is our enhanced and continued and ongoing partnerships in with neighbors and in neighborhoods i will expand on that and

0:18:49i'd like you to keep that in mind as we talk about the crime triangle which i will expand on later when we talk about partnerships we're enhancing the number of guardians in our community please keep that in mind as we go forward we continued security assessments although they did

0:19:04decrease because of staffing challenges we continued our vacation home checks which is a unique service in el cerrito where officers and non-sworn personnel professional staff go out to those homes of residents that registered in our city that they're going on vacation and we conduct home

0:19:25checks random home checks it's been really successful the other and most significant factor although we can't really rely on statistics to validate this assertion we believe that officers in the field acting as capable guardians capable and willing guard willing guardians

0:19:42significantly influenced crime in our city and i'll expand on that as we go forward this slide is significant we title it performance measures we give you a snapshot of 2013 and 2014. the most significant aspects i'd like to focus on and really to create meaning and tell

0:20:02you why this slide is meaningful is we believe these are attributable attributable factors in crime reduction look at calls for service for instance the very top number we had an increase in calls for service between 2013 and 2014.

0:20:17that's significant because those are community members calling for a uniformed officer to come and provide service respond investigate and resolve a call at their home or in their business or in their neighborhood and we did that with with an increased number pedestrian

0:20:35stops if you look at 2013 in the left column in 2014 you'll notice the pattern reflects a very significant increase in pedestrian stops and you might ask well why is this important well as a category reflects self-initiated activity that shows that officers are initiating a

0:20:55contact with someone in the field likely preventing a crime from occurring we have a unique city in geography and we have main arterials we have a pedestrian population where there are some offenders that come through our city looking for a location or a person

0:21:14to victimize and increase presence and proactive nature of the capable guardians and uniformed police officers has contributed significantly to the reduction in crime we view ped stops as a preventative measure and increased another factor is increased staffing in traffic

0:21:31is significant we believe that traffic officers are often they're often rapid responders and their visible presence particularly in a community like ours with arterials in a large motoring population our traffic officers and the full staff of our traffic section has

0:21:48made a significant impact on crime in our city this slide is fascinating for many reasons this is called the problem analysis triangle and it explains how and why crime occurs this theory basically argues that when crime occurs three things happen at the same time

0:22:10and in the same space it assumes that crimer disorder results when likely offenders and suitable targets come together in time and space in the absence of capable guardians for that target and what does this mean this in essence means that the capable guardian is a uniform police officer it

0:22:33could be a security guard it could be a block captain a neighbor it is someone that is going to intervene to guard a victim against a motivated and willing offender in el cerrito the proactive problem solving if you go back to the previous slide and we discussed pedestrian stops and our

0:22:53visible traffic officers and our visible police force our patrol force they serve as capable guardians where in their absence crime is likely to occur we believe that's a significant impact and really describes why crime occurs so you may ask okay police department

0:23:12which part of the triangle in the triangle there are three sides which are the sides that we can influence we believe our greatest influence is and has been placed through septet crime prevention through environmental design through our security fairs and reaching out to our

0:23:29community for lighting and locks and watching out for each other and doing things to prevent their home or place from being victimized and the presence of the capable guardian those are the two sides of the triangle that we as your police department influence the most and we're committed

0:23:49to continuing to strengthen those sides of the triangle so we want to talk about pop projects terrible picture and you see just the before and i know some urged us to have an after picture and i just ask you in your mind's eye to to imagine this location free of debris

0:24:09pop projects are important because they reflect a creative and i think unique problem solving method problem-oriented policing shows that we empower our police officers at every level of the organization to identify an issue use that crime triangle and see what they can do creatively to

0:24:29resolve an issue it's maybe crime it may be disorder the 5600 block of el dorado street the problem basically was that the residence was uninhabitable some had moved out some of the residents had taken up occupancy at the residence they were using the outside of the building for trash and

0:24:48it was as their personal restroom the police department received numerous calls regarding the odd behavior of the subjects related to that home and just in 2014 as you can see we had 32 incidents and three reports there well what we did with with pop is through the efforts of our patrol

0:25:08lieutenant steve benini he uh started and really enhanced the program of problem oriented policing where the local beat officers come up with and using a model they come up with a creative solution teaming across the police department across city departments everyone got

0:25:25together and we are still addressing uh this issue and with our city attorney sky woodruff we're going for receivership of this home to resolve this really significant issue in the neighborhood i'll tell you the other part of this that was so amazing is corporal giltang and cso sarah perez out

0:25:45of this issue and the residents the one specific homeless person from this residence that had significant challenges corporal tang and cso perez started homeless outreach just from this they identified a person in crisis the steps that they have taken with that

0:26:06individual were extraordinary helping her with everything from hygiene to other services and while it's not completely resolved we now have a growing homeless outreach program to serve the homeless in our community so i just wanted to highlight was one of the outcomes of this

0:26:25the 800 block of parkway the problem was the owner of the residence allowed an individual to live in the residence and the owner since passed away there's since the owner passed away there's been an influx of civil and criminal issues rising at their residence we had 19 incidents five

0:26:44reports and we are reaching beyond the traditional discipline of law enforcement to try and connect with services to eradicate that issue 800 block of elm street multiple subjects reside in the residence causing quality of life issues and problems 2014 showed 22 incidents three reports

0:27:03well why is this significant it's significant because it shows that we have some problem properties in our city and it also shows that through creative measures our officers are really working hard to resolve these issues so you may ask how did the el cerrito police department decrease crime double

0:27:25digits at the same time that we experienced some very significant staffing challenges in 2014 and to answer that even with decreased staffing officers were committed to filling vacant stops in the field they recognized the importance of capable guardians they worked significant amount of overtime to

0:27:47fill those spots but we recognize this is not only a financially not sustainable model but it's not sustainable to the individuals because of the demands of them to work many days beyond a 40 hour week we increased culture service even given this this uh decreased staffing and some

0:28:09of the challenges that we had we increased we changed our culture really to decentralized decision-making where each officer at every level of the organization was empowered with how to handle problems without direct supervision and in line with our mission and our

0:28:28values we emphasized and i think the statistics reveal proactive policing is valued in el cerrito and overall i think the staffing challenges we are on our way back up and i think as a result you will see some very creative solutions to some long-term issues coming out in 2015.

0:28:52so in closing and in conclusion i think what you see is we're proud of a double-digit decrease in part one crimes but we're not completely satisfied we're not going to rest we are going to creatively handle problems we're going to look for innovative solutions we're

0:29:10going to ask our officers to continue the fantastic police work that they've done in service of our community and we are really entering an innovative time in the el cerrito police department we are entering this intersection where we are going to combine and further

0:29:26collaborate with across the departments in the in the city the bring various disciplines and cultures and ideas and thoughts together for enhanced safety in el cerrito so that concludes our formal presentation and we'd invite any questions that you have thank you very much chief and samantha

0:29:45uh we'll start with council member quinto chief moyer i would like to thank you for your presentation and uh as a resident who has lived here for quite a while i i do see a difference and i congratulate you and uh and the police department for uh uh great work thank you

0:30:09again thank you for your presentation both of you it's much it's very good news to see that our crime is going down um i know we frequently have talked about the perception of of crime and in this case the statistics are starting to back up a positive trend for our

0:30:24community i'm also very excited about the homeless initiative that you've uh that your staff has taken on and really excited about that and maybe we can have a continued dialogue about that offline so thank you absolutely um i agree with what my colleagues have

0:30:42said and i'm particularly interested in the discussion about homelessness because it appears to me in my lay person's way that in fact we've had an increase that i attribute maybe to our neighbors um our neighboring communities that is um and but i don't know if that's right

0:31:05or wrong and so i would like really like uh to do a follow-up especially as it relates to solutions which it sounds like you're already working on and yes we'd be happy to and i any opportunity that i would have to highlight the initiative and the collaboration and the hard work

0:31:27of employees of the department i happily will do i think what you will find is that their data would back up your belief that we have had an influx of homeless from some of the communities around us and i think you'll be pleasantly i don't want to say surprise but i think

0:31:46you'll be pleased with how compassionate our officers are being for the homeless community and and they're reaching far beyond anything that i would have imagined in terms of connecting the homeless with services thank you certainly are there any public speakers not for this item no okay i

0:32:03just want to echo my colleagues and you know we are so fortunate to have such a great police department and fire department in the proactive approach that you are taking and emphasizing more and more is think is right in line of what all of us and the citizens want to see so

0:32:19please keep up the good work and thanks so much thank you all right our next presentation will be from the planning commission and the chair of the planning commission andrea lucas is here to present their work plan how do you do good thank you for having me here this evening thanks for coming

0:32:56council members staff click start nice thank you and then i just hit this i'm here um this evening to report on the planning commission and remind you of our responsibilities that we have to the city and i'm very happy to be able to be here to present this information

0:33:38as you know we act as a required local planning agency for our city and in doing that we assist in implementing the general plan and the san pablo avenue specific plan our zoning ordinance our subdivision ordinance and any sequa issues and law that we have to apply

0:34:05we review our capital improvement program um especially in relationship for the general plan and we review relevant city policies and ordinances and make recommendations to you the past year year and a bit uh we have um made recommendations or past the san pablo avenue specific plan

0:34:26which has actually i think reduced our workload by being form based i'm really interested to see how that evolves our eden housing senior apartments our loanee gardens and our climate action plan at the end of 2013.

0:34:45the san pablo avenue specific plan is an exciting document that staff and you and the public worked very hard on over a number of years and i think it will very successfully help give el cerrito a sense of place and community it's definitely going to attract our

0:35:06private investors and there was a lot of research that went behind that strengthening partnerships with stakeholders and adjacent jurisdictions it enhances our public realm being our streets and open spaces and also promotes alternative transit to get us out of our cars which

0:35:28helps support our environmental goals for the plan we held a series of study sessions that were well attended and actively discussed by both the public and the planning commission and we were able to recommend approval to you in the fall last year and you adopted and adopted the plan and

0:35:53the related environmental documents and then zoning ordinances that had to be revised which we then supported and went that went to you and that implementation has started with the eden housing senior apartments right next door 63 units of affordable housing for seniors

0:36:16this involved historical research and preservation and in fact created an realization of a need within the planning commission for future study on on cultural resource issues and historic issues we had study session for that and we recommended the adoption of the

0:36:41environmental impact report to you um so that project is now entitled and that one is uh they're pulling their funding together for that ohlone gardens under construction that is 57 units of family housing which is fantastic and we had our action there was to approve

0:37:04some changes to their conditional use permit the climate action plan again this was an actively discussed plan that we recommended approval to you and that implementation is started so that's a bunch of very exciting projects and then of course we've had the myriad of

0:37:26other projects that are on individual properties that we've looked at so for the coming year we will continue to review and take action on those uh many projects or if it's appropriate to make recommendation to the city council to support or deny action um we'll be looking at maintaining certain

0:37:48aspects of the general plan and the zoning ordinance that as they appear and then we've requested um special training on creeks because creek issues have come up as important issues with um the elm street project and with some residential projects and so that's become we have one planning

0:38:08commissioner that's quite well educated on creek issues but the rest of our rest of us are not as much and we've also requested training in both cultural resources and historic resources as because we have a responsibility to protect those resources too we feel

0:38:27so we'll continue to act as as our required local planning agency and taking action on those projects the housing element for 2015 and 2023 we'll be looking at those updates as recommended by staff and we'll make recommendations to you so you'll get those zoning ordinance again the periodic

0:38:55updates we've looked at some related to the housing element recently and we are interested in in the regulation of short-term rentals this has become a hot button issue in many communities with vrbo and airbnb some units are occupied some are left empty so we'll be looking at

0:39:18via the staff's support at other communities treatment of those and coming up with a recommendation to you and also on that same line for adding density to the city looking at second units and if there's any uh changes that we might want to recommend for zoning

0:39:37one issue that came up was parking requirements for those i talked about the training that we'll be asking for for creeks and for historical resources and we may be touring looking at the potential historic or actual historic buildings that we have and that's just basically it and i wanted to

0:40:01just say how excited exciting it is i think for the whole commission to be part of the you know your future vision for the city and um on the behalf of the commission we would like to thank the council and the mayor mayor pro temp for your leadership and vision and also

0:40:20we'd like to especially thank the staff for their really strong support and really excellent expertise that the staff has here in the city of el cerrito it really makes us proud thanks and any questions comments any speakers no speakers okay go ahead okay um yeah i am um i'm delighted to

0:40:42hear that you guys are getting additional training on creeks and watersheds and cultural resources those have been some of my topics that i've been trying to shed some light on through my both my professional life and and here so i'm delighted on that and uh with regards to the short-term rental i

0:41:00look forward to uh you guys considering that sometime shortly uh that certainly has raised a few comment cards in in my inbox over the years and then one that i'm interested in is increasing the density around the bart stations so the second units may maybe a way to encourage the second

0:41:23units is to with a parking issue is to maybe zone it or or make it regional within the city so that the the densification occurs around the the transit oriented development areas so thank you and thank you for your presentation it's great to hear from the planning commission and

0:41:40and see all the things you guys are planning on doing you're welcome i echo my colleagues comments i think is a great presentation and you and your colleagues are doing a terrific job and the staff and we really thank you for your service i think the planning commission involves

0:41:56many more hours than most of our other boards and commissions and all of you do it with the spirit of service to the community that's greatly appreciated thank you thanks thank you very much okay next up is the financial advisory board work plan presentation by our

0:42:20chair of the board peter veranek peter thank you and good evening i'm peter vronich the chair of the financial advisory board we provided a presentation with the minutes i'm not going to go through it in much detail just make a few points and on the first slide we repeated the

0:42:43enabling legislation and specifically the seven responsibilities of the financial advisory board primarily we focus on three of those which is budget review reviewing the city's financial policies and reviewing the audit management letter and taking any action that's

0:43:04required of us through those communications so our presentation is organized around those seven specific responsibilities probably wouldn't surprise you that the fab is not really as creative maybe as some of the other boards and commissions we're pretty well reined in by our

0:43:22enabling legislation in terms of our accomplishments last year um i think that one of them you know primarily again the budget review our challenge has been the timing of being able to provide counsel with meaningful recommendations uh tip the last year we were doing it pretty much concur our

0:43:44review was concurrent with your review and that's a challenge it seemed that with the two-year budget it seems like we will probably have or we're hopeful that we'll have more time to be able to provide add value to the whole process there but this year one of our accomplishments

0:43:59was we are bringing our comments to you directly in the uh council meetings so that you can get those as quickly as possible and any of the comments we make in the minutes we can clarify that for you and provide more of our motivation similar to that with the the

0:44:18comprehensive financial policy and investment policy we made a few suggestions for revisions to that policy those pro those were not adopted by council but they're something that we'll be revisiting this year and just keeping that on the radar and in terms of our work plan for the

0:44:36upcoming year um we laid out really just what we expect the timing to be so we worked with the finance director and set an expectation but typically these dates are subject to change and so we take the work as it as it comes to us there's one responsibility that we have listed here

0:44:56that's not on the enabling legislation which is to address any requests that you have of fab or that staff may have of fab so we are currently reviewing the city's purchasing policy and making comparisons to other other governments around el cerrito and we'll be working with staff to make

0:45:18those revisions and put them forward for adoption and so unless there's any questions i just would fab asked me to ask counsel or fab recommends that for committees or boards like fab where we have a specific enabling legislation that council would reconsider the request to produce a work plan

0:45:44for boards and commissions like ours that have very specific duties outlined and then enabling legislation so i'll leave with that and see if there are any questions and and as liaison to the group i was going to bring that matter up for us to consider at a future

0:45:59meeting um and and it's it's i think it's valuable for us to hear about like the purchasing uh policy that you guys are are proceeding with so those types of out of the ordinary uh responsibilities i think are valuable for us to hear but as as the chair brandon

0:46:18aptly pointed out they're doing exactly what we've asked them to do in their legislation that formed them that they really don't do some of the creative things that uh our environmental quality group or or even our some some of the uh interesting things that the planning commission is

0:46:38is working on so it may be appropriate for us to reconsider um the the policies and the ordinances or with regards to the annual work plan for a committee such as this um and and i would suggest that we bring that up for discussion at some future item i don't know if there's any specific

0:46:56legislation that we need to modify to make that happen or if that's something we can essentially agree at a future meeting to have as a policy so but i did i appreciate you bringing it up because i was going to ask you about it so thank you one thing this process does do though

0:47:15and i within the confines of what you just said um is it gives you an opportunity to bring any issues that you might have with um doing what it is we ask you to do for example you you just mentioned the timing um so it gives us an opport if we don't hear about that then

0:47:38we're not likely to be able to do anything to fix it so it's really helpful when you come and bring those comments and so maybe a simplified report where there was the opportunity to do that sort of thing would be more in line um i agree with that i think that it's

0:47:58our first time doing this and so we're just kind of doing it to make sure we we file it but i think there are some other things that would be if we had a little more freedom in kind of setting what we want to talk about but a maybe an annual address to council would be helpful so if you're open to

0:48:14letting us think about what needs to be presented at this type of meeting that would be helpful yeah i i echo my colleagues comments along those lines your tasks are very specific and you all have technical expertise in these areas and we're not expecting you to come up

0:48:32with new projects because it's pretty consuming what we ask you to do and going through very detailed budget reports so that makes sense and you do get a chance for an annual presentation when the budget comes around also so we might want to roll that in together except if there's

0:48:48issues that come up well before the budget intensity that you want us to address then coming around this time of the year would make sense also and for example the purchasing uh topic i'm really interested in that i know um and i think my fellow council members might be also

0:49:11and so i think we would be very interested in uh hearing what you have to say about that when the time comes okay yes it's still early in the process we're just doing a comparison to the other uh governments but we'd be happy to and you know we're here to serve you so

0:49:27if there are any additional extracurricular activities we can do to add to items one through seven and enabling legislation we're happy to do it great any other comments any speakers not at this time thank you very much chair for ranic i really appreciate your service and all the other members of the

0:49:44fab who pour over documents in such detail that help us out so thank you all right that ends the presentation portion of the program we now move on to the consent calendar do i have a motion to approve i will move adoption the consent calendar and for item 5d i'm going to

0:50:07highlight the additional meetings that we're adding we will have an additional meeting a special meeting on saturday february 14th beginning at 8 30 a.m and a special meeting on saturday march 28th beginning at 9 00 a.m and this item also codifies our summer schedule that we will be meeting

0:50:27the third tuesday of july august and september reserving the first tuesday in those three months for additional meetings as needed second it's been moved in second and all in favor signify by saying aye aye motion carries unanimously thank you all right we now move on to a public

0:50:51hearing and i have to grab my public hearing sheet which got buried there it is it's the green one okay this is item number six is planning application numbered pl14-0107 for an exception to the subdivision ordinance to permit the creation of a parcel without street frontage so i

0:51:14would like to announce the public hearing and call upon a staff presentation from noel ebalio our senior planner thank you noelle thank you mayor friedman and members of the city council my name is noel iballio i'm a senior planner with the planning division again just to reiterate the project it's

0:51:37an exception to the subdivision ordinance which would allow for a lot that does not have the required frontage along uh public street the lot that we're talking about is above the arlington it's off of moser it's a rectangular shaped lot it's approximately 13 000 square feet

0:52:02and it terminates at uh or it it's located at the terminus of clark place the subdivision ordinance allows for exceptions subject to the approval of the city council the proposal um is to split this lot with one lot fronting along clark place the second lot would be behind it

0:52:33and it would be accessed via a public or an easement a 16-foot wide easement so hence the exception to the subdivision ordinance in order to make a decision the city council has to make certain findings which were enumerated in the staff report that would approve the project

0:53:02these findings are based on that the lot is over 13 000 square feet the lot is large in size it's larger than what the zoning would allow which is 5 000 square feet [Music] that um splitting the lot would still yield two large lots that are larger than the typical

0:53:36lot in the in the area the another finding is that the exception would allow for the property owner to fully subdivide his lot and still meet the goals of the city and the final finding is that the granting will not be detrimental to the surrounding properties to the surrounding neighborhood or to

0:54:09the environment and in fact there will be no new roadways as a result of this subdivision so staff believes that staff recommends that the city council approve the exception based on the findings the owner is here for any questions that you may have and that concludes staff's

0:54:34short presentation of the report thank you very much are there any questions from council yes councilmember lyman yeah the the fact that the second parcel would not have street uh frontage does not reduce its ability to be served by fire and police right so it still will be a a

0:54:53safe place to live correct through the through the mayor yes that is correct the project has been reviewed by the police department and the fire department and there is ample access for a fire truck to get to the rear parcel so as far as safety is concerned it meets the intent of the uh

0:55:17the fire department and and that will require some modification to the existing structure because the the photograph that's in the staff report would indeed would suggest that there's maybe only 10 or 12 feet between the existing structure and the property line

0:55:31the south southern property line yes through the mayor the uh the existing structure has a porch an entry porch that encroaches into that 16 feet as a condition of approval of the conditional use permit and the tentative map that the that porch be eliminated and that the 16 foot width

0:56:00be provided for in fact i went up there today they are putting in a new porch um outside of that 16 feet which will be located along the front of the property and and i you said that was in the conditions of approval i'm i'm not certain i saw it in the conditions of

0:56:18approval so that's why i was curious and maybe it's maybe it was something that it was used different terminology than i'm used to but if there is i will take your word that that is a condition of approval and that they're already acting upon that um so so thank you and in and also in

0:56:35your staff report and based on my looking at the county's parcel maps there are several parcels in this area where this exact situation exists where there are parcels behind the ones that are fronting on public rights of way and all of those parcels have this wide

0:56:56driveway that allows our fire apparatus to be responsive yes through th through the uh through the mirror there is um one one lot that staff um examined it was a [Music] 907 clark place i believe it was subdivided it was a similar lot long rectangular it fronted on clark place

0:57:23and it was subdivided in 1958 and it too has a long driveway along the side and it provided for a second lot at the rear of the one fronting on clark place and with regards to the condition of approval it's a condition of approval in the conditional use permit that went through

0:57:45the planning commission and in the tentative map that went through the planning commission also right it wouldn't be in the resolution for consideration tonight but thank you for that clarity thank you very much any additional questions any speakers yes howdy gowdy

0:58:10oh i want to say i'm officially opening the public hearing now so please go ahead mr gary uh good evening mayor friedman council members uh my name is howdy gowdy i live at [address removed] so i don't have a real strong opinion about the lot split itself i mean i personally like large

0:58:34spaces and open spaces and i'd like to see a diversity of of lot sizes in the city not everything down to 5 000 square feet but it's you know it's the owners per view to you know uh to divide it if they like um and so my comments here are i mean i hope they won't feel too

0:58:54small or um even petty i don't know i guess i'm i'm concerned by the proposal of this project as not having environmental impact and i think it's important to recognize that you know this is another piece of the built environment on our landscape it's more hardscape it's a it's a large

0:59:19driveway we already have you know a situation of you know a lot of storm runoff and and and those impacts on our city so um you know i first just noticed the in the report calling out the you know strategic plan alignment that this is fostering environmental sustainability by you know reusing um

0:59:45infrastructure to accommodate one more household and i just thought that that was an unnecessary claim i feel like it might not be a very well-founded claim you know the the bottom line is it's another house at the top of the hill that you're driving up moser to get to and and you

1:00:05know these these other impacts i mentioned so i i don't begrudge it happening i just think we should be really honest about when things are environmental and when they aren't and we shouldn't sort of masquerade things as being admire environmental when they aren't so

1:00:21um that's that's my comment i think we just need to be really clear-eyed about what these impacts are and what we're doing so thanks thank you very much no other speakers mayor okay i give a couple questions to staff as a result of the public testimony um if you would please

1:00:39the the actually the 16-foot access easement access and utility easement is is that included in the 77 477 square feet of the parcel a yes through the mayor yes and and so is it is it does it all have to be paved or is that i noticed that that in your um i think it was in the planning

1:01:04commission there are uh conditions with regards to storm water pollution prevention and and being responsive to um the different forms of reducing runoff the c3 uh book so i'm just curious what is the surface that is required for that can it be a permeable surface can we require a

1:01:24permeable surface for that for that 16 foot right of way through the mary i believe it has to be a a solid enough surface to which a fire truck can roll onto so i would defer that um question at the plant check process in which case the um as it is proposed now it's uh

1:01:50it's um i believe it's asphalt but um i could certainly examine the uh per uh an alternative permeable surface but examine it through the the eyes of our our fire department understood as i as i as my previous questions we wanted to make sure that this is a safe dwelling so i'm

1:02:14certainly not trying to undermine their ability to access it but there may be a concrete block system that is is more porous than say asphalt again if if this uh 131 foot by 16 foot area is is to remain clear it does reduce the overall the parcel that's that's enjoyed by parcel a down

1:02:42to just below 5000 square feet so i'm just curious if that that right-of-way does go towards parcel a's uh square footage even though they don't necessarily enjoy the use of it that's correct it's still it's it's an easement it's an easement so it's still part of

1:03:00the original property okay so so that so it doesn't go against the square footage of parcel a or it does it does include the square footage so i guess my over you know listening to the the comments from the public i guess i would like to make sure that the the fire department and the planning

1:03:19department work together to develop a access way that is more permeable and has less runoff than a conventional paved driveway so i don't know if that's something we need to put into our legislation tonight or not you can certainly add it as a condition of approval but i would

1:03:44leave it up to staff to examine and determine if there is a permeable surface that would meet the fire department's requirements agreed but do i do we need to make sure that that that review takes place through some resolution that amendment that we need to consider this evening if you were to

1:04:08consider a condition of approval you could add it to the resolution um or where i could trust you is that right i mean that's the alternative yes um i will trust staff i mean i think you have heard uh from us that that that you know water quality and reducing runoff

1:04:30is something that's very important to us we got a presentation last fall on uh the detrimental problems associated with trash the environmental quality committee is working on reducing uh trash in our storm water so anything that we can do to reduce the amount of water that races off our

1:04:47properties by making this this this drivable surface more porous and seem more like open space the better off there are um you know they're non-conventional but there are surfaces out there that can take this load that will actually look like a grass or a grassy road so i

1:05:07encourage the the developers to uh to consider something that does maintain the permeability of that property and uh and the visual quality of it uh looking looking as it does so um with that i will comment on that um maybe we should uh close the public hearing okay i have a motion what why

1:05:32would what would we you know i guess i won't confuse that he was talking during the yeah i apologize we probably should have closed public hearing but i did want to make sure that we had questions to staff and it's not a problem all gets to the same result okay have

1:05:46you closed the public area no would you like to move that i move that we second all in favor aye okay the public hearing is closed uh please go ahead with your comment that i would make is that in my neighborhood there was a very permeable surface put in a driveway

1:06:05that causes huge amounts of runoff now so i i wouldn't assume that that that a permeable surface isn't necessarily a fix it can be a problem and it in fact causes causes a problem still so somehow the if we were to do what you're suggesting uh we would it would need to be and we

1:06:38would there there would need to be wording to make sure that it was you know maintained basically appropriate i it was never okay to begin with in the example that um i'm referring to um so um any anyway it just needs to be an appropriate one and i'm no expert at

1:06:59what that might be but um except to say that i've when it's not appropriate i can tell right okay would you like to make a motion on this um i i'll i'll try something i i make emotion that uh this be approved um with the following um change or direction to staff direction stuff um

1:07:33i'm sorry to interrupt i i apologize i i do think that if you're that given the direction the council said that a condition of approval would probably be better than just direction given that it's uncertain what the difference in cost for this kind of materials would be i think that it would

1:07:49probably be good if this is something that the council wants that it actually makes sure that the property owner is required to do it i understand that the council's direction if i've understood it correctly is potentially depending on the ultimate action but is to require

1:08:04that a permeable material be used that is acceptable to the fire department as sufficient to support fire trucks and that also that it be approved by the um city engineer public works director to ensure that it doesn't result in um improper um storm runoff storm drain we

1:08:25just assume that that's what our emotion says you could make a motion to approve the resolution with the condition of approval that i just described okay i'll do that okay so we have a motion do we have a second so it's we have a motion with a resolution with with uh

1:08:42of approval i'll second that it's been moved in seconded all in favor signify by saying hi before i say all right did we need to actually read some of the text that was in the resolution title uh i would suggest yes so so i want to make sure that the resolution we're

1:09:00voting on is either what you got to read oh you want me to read the whole thing well your voice is not so good yeah let's let somebody else run right we're going to give it to you and you gave her the planning commission anyway a resolution of the city council of the

1:09:13city of el cerrito proving an exception for a parcel map required for a deep lot subdivision at 915 clark place in the rs5 zoning district and with that reading that title into the record i will now vote i okay the motion carries unanimously thank you very much and thank you

1:09:31city council for your assistance in this matter and thank you very much mr ebelio okay we move on to item number seven which is uh to consider an agreement with god be research to perform voter research on a future revenue measure for a library facility we're going to turn

1:09:52it over to assistant city manager karen pinkos thank you your honor i am karen finkus assistant city manager and before you tonight staff is asking you to adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into an agreement with gobby research to undertake an updated

1:10:08voter survey as you know in 2013 staff received consensus from the city council to pursue planning for a new library building including the steps necessary to consider a ballot measure in 2016.

1:10:21we have been working on that internally our staff team has worked with the various departments as well as external consultants knowing that one of the next steps for the development of this facility is along with the site selection and design process is developing the financing plan and to

1:10:38that end our our staff recommendation is that we believe that conducting an updated survey of the el cerrito voters that is focused on the funding mechanisms as well as the elements that could be included in a new library or community center or various elements to the

1:10:54facility would be best to discuss how we might obtain public financial support you may recall that last year i'm sorry in 2013 gabi research had done a survey to ascertain that the library sort of came rose to the top as far as the facilities that the voters were interested in this

1:11:13would be more focused on the library its elements and the funding mechanisms knowing that that is the sort of approved upon facility to consider we are requesting a sole source to consider um to continue with god be research as our survey uh consultants as you probably recall they

1:11:37predict they accurately predicted measure r within four tenths of a percentage point so we're extremely happy with their work um so we are asking you to consider that going forward um as far as financial considerations um god be has kept their fees flat for us for many years these costs are a little

1:11:57bit elevated from previous surveys and that we are considering additional methods for voter feedback which might include email as well as telephone and so it would be not to exceed amount of thirty thousand dollar thirty thousand five hundred three dollars paid from unrestricted

1:12:13general fund reserves should actual expenses exceed the appropriated amount with that i am here to answer any questions okay all right council uh council pro tem mayor pro tem lineman has a comment to make before we proceed to the next step yep i've been advised by council that i

1:12:33do not have a conflict as long as i am acting in what i believe is in the best interest of the public but i do want to make uh do to be above criticism and want to disclose that i am currently the treasurer for a campaign committee that has been formed in support of a funding measure for a new

1:12:53el cerrito library my decisions on tonight's matter will be what i believe in the public's interest and i reserve my judgment about whether the final measure will be placed on the ballot until the final text of the measure comes before the council for a final decision

1:13:11thank you very much for that clarification uh let's hear from the public and then we'll hear from the council we have two speakers al miller followed by tom panas mayor friedman council members staff al miller [address removed] here in el cerrito following on ms pinko's comments i also

1:13:42want to remind you that god be research surveys before our previous ballot measures have has allowed the citizens and the residents of el cerrito to clearly identify projects that they would like in the city and that they would support in the city i would expect that the results for a

1:14:05new library would bear those same results or the same effect and i think that the success of all the previous measures reflects on the professional skills of god be research so with that in mind i'd urge you to approve the resolution for god be researched to undertake a voter safe survey relating

1:14:30to the funding of a new library thank you thank you very much good evening mayor friedman members of the council on city staff my name is tom panis and i live at [address removed] in el cerrito i'd like to thank our staff particularly our city manager and assistant city

1:14:52manager for the carefully planned steps that they have taken over the past years to help our city reach its goal of building a new library what they are proposing this evening is another important step in that process mr godby has been a trusted partner of the city for a number of years

1:15:07his careful and thorough work has guided us on a number of important projects and led to a number of major successes i fully support the proposed arrangement with god be research and i request that the council adopt this resolution thank you for your time this evening thank you

1:15:20very much questions and comments from council all right a motion i i'll make a motion to approve a resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into an agreement with god be research to undertake a voter survey to ascertain voter opinions related to a future revenue measure to

1:15:49fund a new library facility well second moved in second and all in favor signify by saying aye aye motion carries unanimously thank you very much uh we now move on to council local and regional liaison assignment reports i have one we the east bay division of the league of

1:16:13california cities met last thursday and i was officially elected president of that division congratulations and we also had an extremely high attendance and what we covered that i think was really interesting and what drew people was that we had either a representative

1:16:34of or every legislator in our new um assembly and new senate in this area so it was really um and there and they had a really good conversation about what their legislative priorities were uh for the upcoming session so it was really great um pretty um it was good stuff

1:17:02thank you any other reports no see none we are returned thank you everyone you