City Council Meeting February 17, 2015

0:00:00to get started we will now convene the regular city council meeting please note that all members of the council are present i can do that right we don't have to actually do that roll call thing all right we're all present moving right along council member bridges please lead

0:00:24us in the pledge of allegiance or observation of a moment of silence i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america only to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all council staff communications

0:00:47are there any moving right along oral communications from the public we have one speaker jen comaromi welcome thank you my name is jen camerame i'm a local el cerrito business owner and a parent at fairmont elementary i'm here today to talk to you about the um postponement of fairmont the fair

0:01:17rebuilding of fairmont um the parents at fairmont are very upset about this we've been we've voted for uh the rebuild and um have been waiting ten years to have our school rebuilt we have 580 students approximately 100 of those students are special needs our school is not ada

0:01:43compliant if somebody wanted to visit our school during the day that had accessibility issues they'd actually have to call the front desk to have a gate opened for them we have a number of students in wheelchairs and there are the playground is not ada compliant for

0:02:01those students we're hoping to have the council's support in pressuring the school board to make fairmont a priority our facility is nearly 60 years old it's run down the campus is built for 250 students we have 14 portables on the site that are taking over our playgrounds so we have a

0:02:31small playground for all those students we have so many students that we we can't feed all of our students at one time in the multi-purpose room students have to eat their lunch in their classrooms while some of the students are in the multi-purpose room the facility is dirty

0:02:52there are rats and other issues that concern the parents we're really frustrated that we've been patiently waiting for 10 years and part of it was the lawsuit from the residents in el cerrito that banded together about the portal a rebuild but at this point we're just hoping that you can

0:03:14help us have nearly half of the school is comprised of el cerrito residents the other half is richmond residents i don't know what else i want to say but we really hope that you would take an interest in fairmont i love it it's a great school it's very diverse my son

0:03:35has flourished there i love that he can he knows words in five different languages i mean it's a really unique experience especially to the bay area and i feel really special lucky to that we can be part of it um if you would like to have a tour of the school i would love to give you a tour

0:03:56you can contact me my email is glad to take you up on that offer and we've also gotten a lot of emails from other parents so it's a definite concern thanks for raising it all right no more uh oral communications from the public that are not on the agenda let's move on to a

0:04:29very excuse me happy occasion the proclamation commending officer chi li on occasion of his recognition as officer of the year good evening mr mayor members of the council city staff public and viewers at home i'm lieutenant de la campa from the police department

0:04:52on behalf of chief moyer it's my honor to tonight present to you our officer of the year his name is chili he's staying to my right i had the pleasure meeting him in about 2011. i was one of the panelists when we hired him and we all thought that he would have the potential right away to be a real

0:05:07good fit with the department and i'm happy to say we were right in a short amount of time we've all come to appreciate his outstanding work ethic he's very likable he's very dedicated there's a lot of reasons that he's going to be our officer of the year i have the proclamation that you have in

0:05:25front of you as well some of the intangibles though is we always know that officer lee wants to come to work he volunteers to do dui patrol when school is out he is one of our sros by the way so when school's in session he's invaluable up there role model for the kids he's been

0:05:43requested on several occasions to go to a chinese language school in kensington in fact where he being ability to speak three languages speaks with the kids and they really like having him up there so he does likewise well at our schools in el cerrito he's also involved with other programs

0:06:03he's on our negotiation team now for like crisis negotiation he's a member of the mobile field force so he's really the complete package he's doing the police work the public outreach and the work ethic that we really appreciate so i'm happy to introduce him to you

0:06:18he will be honored as well tomorrow night at the elks lodge in el sabrante and i know that some of us will will be in attendance there honoring him so chile [Applause] well why don't we vote on this proclamation and then maybe you could say a few words officer lee

0:06:42um so i'll just read a little bit of the proclamation because i think it's already been covered but among the other important benefits he's had to our community has been recognized by mothers against drunk driving he received state recognition for that he's assisted the contra costa da's

0:07:02office with a broad investigation into human trafficking and from all accounts where you are a true treasurer and we're really uh fortunate to have you in our city so i'd entertain a motion um i would be happy to make a motion to support officer chili as the officer of the year in el cerrito

0:07:28and um and i would just like to say that i um i do my best to go to the event where the honoring occurs but i won't be able to this year as i have a conflict in meetings but my thoughts are with you and i do feel very honored to have you um represent our city uh in this

0:07:50capacity thank you very much thank you thank you it's been moved in second and all in favor signify by saying aye hi motion carries unanimously would you uh like to make a few comments and then we'll do a little photo thing it's definitely an honor for me to stand

0:08:07here among you guys just accept the uh award for the officer of the year i remember when i first started in el cerrito i thought i would have no chance to become a police officer in el cerrito until lieutenant de la campa gave me a call hey you know we are hiring a

0:08:27reserve police officer would you like to come in and and uh work with us you know if it's a volunteer position and that time i you know of course i jumped on it because that's one of the dream i uh have uh when i was immigrating or when i first immigrated to united states when i was

0:08:4417 that was about 15 uh that was about 17 years ago and i'm just happy that i'm i'm here and you know be the recipient for this year's award thank you no thank you [Applause] all right moving on to the consent calendar consisting of items five a through f we have a motion i have a motion

0:09:59um to adopt items five a through five e second i'm sorry before you move forward i just want to make sure that you know that you notice that there's a revised version of the um agreement with the board of equalization and that the motion includes um the revised version of the agreement that is

0:10:15part of item 5e right i looked over that um so i i so move uh five f i i the motion was to five e so i wanted to make sure you were not pulling five f five okay okay restating the motion is for items five a through five f with the amended 5e that is in front of us right

0:10:37a second i did make a second but um since i just i didn't realize there was this revision could you quickly tell us what that revision is yes very quickly the board of equalization has a template agreement that they require for administration of local sales tax

0:11:00measures it refers to the one section of state law that generally authorizes all cities to seek voter approval for such attacks since el cerrito received special legislation to authorize this measure they requested that we include references to those two sections of the

0:11:21revenue and taxation code that applied just to el cerrito into the agreement it had gone out and into your packet before we all noticed that the references to those sections had not been included that is the only change okay thank you and that that reference is only in

0:11:36article one paragraph one uh appears to be only in that section that's correct okay it's been moved and seconded all in favor hi hi motion carries unanimous unanimously thank you very much uh we now move on to policy matters first is appointment of marine clean

0:11:56energy board of directors representative from the city of el cerrito maria sanders good evening mayor friedman and members of the council my name is maria sanders and i am the internment interim division manager for operations and environmental services so on uh january 6 you adopted a

0:12:15resolution adjoining marine clean energy or mce and in order to provide this was to done in order to provide residents and businesses in el cerrito a choice in where their energy comes from marine clean energy is a local government joint powers authority and is

0:12:31therefore governed by the board of by a board of directors which consists of all of the elected officials from each of the member jurisdictions so as a new member we need one of you to to serve on the board and we also need a delegate so in tonight's um an alternate delegate so in tonight's

0:12:53package we are asking you to adopt a resolution electing and appointing a delegate and an alternate delegate to represent el cerrito on mce's board okay so so we don't need nominations per se i can appoint those people uh it is then within the mayor's power to a point if you wanted to seek

0:13:16nominations from the council though you certainly could all right well i would like to appoint uh mayor pro tem greg lyman to be our representative and council member gabriel quinto to be our alternate great thank you all done do you need to do the resolution motion

0:13:38to oh that's the appointment so i will be glad glad to move an urgency ordinance of the city of el cerrito making findings and establishing a temporary oops that's the wrong one sorry it's a resolution and just to clarify yes the the mce requires a resolution for their records but the

0:13:54actual decision about who it is as previously stated so i'll move a resolution of the city council of the city of el cerrito electing and appointing a director and an alternate director to serve on the board of directors of the marine clean energy joint powers authority

0:14:08and it would be filled into item two council member greg lyman to serve as uh director and council member gabe quinto to serve as alternate director on the mce board of directors do we have a second second moved in second and all in favor signify by saying aye aye

0:14:27motion carries unanimously thank you very much okay item 7b is a massage establishment moratorium will be presented by city attorney skye woodruff thank you mr mary yes i have the honor of presenting this item to you tonight um what's before you is a proposed urgency ordinance that would

0:14:48prohibit the issuance of business licenses building permits land use permits and other approvals for new massage establishments as that term is defined in the municipal code existing establishments would be able to continue to operate and obtain building permits for emergency and safety repairs

0:15:05there are some other minor exceptions as well under state law the moratorium would be in effect initially for 45 days but could be continued for 10 months and 15 days and then again for another year for a total moratorium period of two years um as i'll explain a little bit more the

0:15:21the overall purpose of the moratorium is to allow the staff time to develop appropriate land use and operational regulations for massage establishments in light of a recent change in state law that returned significant regulatory authority to local governments so the staff recommends adoption of the

0:15:38ordinance to provide you with a little background as many of you will recall the city council approved an ordinance in 2007 that requires permits for massage establishment operators and individual massage therapists it also regulated operational aspects of massage

0:15:54establishments the ordinance provided a means for the city to ensure that otherwise legitimate businesses weren't being used as a cover for criminality including human trafficking but in 2009 the legislature changed state law and effectively removed local regulatory authority over massage as

0:16:12long as a business and individual massage therapists were certified by a new non-profit entity that the state created so after 2009 the city was no longer able to require the local permits for operators and massage therapists as long as they had obtained certification from

0:16:28the state so all of the local regulatory authority and ability to perform those kinds of investigations disappeared because the permitting authority had disappeared as well i would also note that since that time there have been some been some changes to the zoning

0:16:45ordinance and the adoption of the san pablo avenue specific plan so land use in the city has changed during that time period last year the legislature amended the law to restore local regulatory authority and that law went into effect on january 1st in light of that change in the law and i

0:17:04guess i should also note that the the bill that was ultimately approved was one that was sponsored by the league of california cities it had the support of the cal chiefs and although our own police chief sylvia moyer is not here tonight i can tell you that she is in

0:17:17support of the urgency ordinance we've already had preliminary discussions among the police department and the planning staff about these issues but as a result of those discussions what staff concluded was that a moratorium would be appropriate for a number of reasons

0:17:33it would allow for review of existing zoning including the san pablo avenue specific plan to determine whether zones in which most massage establishments are allowed are appropriate and whether additional land use regulations would protect the public health safety and welfare

0:17:49it would allow for a more thorough review of what operational regulations are now permitted under state law staff could develop a set of regulations intended to protect the public health safety and welfare and deter criminal activity that's using massage as a cover

0:18:03a moratorium would also provide an opportunity for the development of a regulatory program which might look similar to the one that the council looked at recently related to tobacco retailers which would generate which would have fees involved to pay for investigations to ensure that

0:18:21that there is not criminal activity taking place at massage establishments one other benefit of the moratorium is that it would provide staff an opportunity to review the 2007 ordinance and determine what provisions if any are still appropriate or to draft changes to

0:18:37that ordinance ultimately the purpose of the moratorium would be to undertake all of those reviews develop an ordinance and bring that back to the city council for consideration about what's the right fit of regulation both land use and regulatory for el cerrito

0:18:52um just to address uh the next this next bit of presentation is is um necessary to provide a necessary framework for um for establishing the need for a moratorium as an urgency ordinance it's a requirement of state law the reason that that we think the moratorium is necessary is to protect

0:19:13public health safety and welfare from a current and immediate threat posed by the establishment of new and the relocation of existing massage establishments in light of this recent change in state law and i should note that these are that these points are also developed more fully in the in the

0:19:27ordinance itself and in the staff report but just to cover them briefly it is clear at this point that that there while massage can be conducted as a completely legitimate business that it is also used as a cover for criminal activity including human trafficking

0:19:43they also have negative secondary effects when concentrated near each other or located too close to other sensitive uses the 2007 ordinance was adopted before the creation of the state certification of massage establishments and therapists since state law now permits local

0:19:58regulation of such establishments it's not clear whether and to what extent the 2007 ordinance still applies so we need to review it to figure out since it is still on the books how it would actually work with with this recently changed state law um because the city was preempted from

0:20:15doing so it hasn't been able to evaluate since 2009 whether existing zoning districts provide sufficient control of massage establishments and we've not analyzed the issue as part of the san pablo avenue specific plan the existing and new establishments may be located near sensitive uses with

0:20:30potential harmful effects there's no mechanism currently in place for providing appropriate review of the location of proposed new establishments to ensure consistency with the purposes of each zoning district finally the moratorium would allow the city to freeze the establishment

0:20:46of new or relocation of existing massage establishments to prevent those threats to the public health safety and welfare while staff analyzes options for appropriate review and regulation of massage establishments and therapists and present them to the city council for

0:21:00consideration because the proposed ordinance is an urgency measure two readings are not required the city council may simply adopt the ordinance the ordinance will go into effect immediately and continue for 45 days staff is required to report back before the end of that 45-day period and the

0:21:16council will have an opportunity at that time to decide whether or not to continue the moratorium for up to 10 months and 15 days and i should note that a four-fifths vote of the council is required to adopt the ordinance i'm happy to take any questions that you

0:21:28have at this time any questions before public comment yeah i do um i'm i'm reading through this you kept saying um no no change i think i heard you say no change to existing operations and that this would regulate new and relocations and i'm reading through trying to find

0:21:46that specific language and and it looked more like it was a moratorium on the issuance of permits to massage establishments which would it doesn't i'm not seeing the words new or relocation um so those specific words were not used i was trying to um uh basically provide a more simple

0:22:07explanation for for the more complex language in the in the ordinance overall what the ordinance would do is prohibit the issuance of business licenses to new businesses and the issuance of building permits for any such establishments other than for emergency or

0:22:23health and health and safety repairs by doing that a new massage establishment would either not would not be able to open and um an existing business that needed to that wanted to relocate and needed to do tenant improvements to um make a new space um operable as a massage establishment

0:22:41would not be able to obtain the building permits necessary for that work in effect that would capture pretty much every business that wanted to relocate but the exception i'm seeing it now the exception allows for a renewal of a business license that might expire during that 45-day period

0:22:56correct great thank you you're welcome any other question i have one question about the assembly bill 1147 so that was sponsored and initiated by the league of cities league cities yes um i don't know that it was initiated but uh yeah but it was it was it was supported

0:23:13by the league of california cities and cal chiefs and and the reason for that was they weren't happy with the 2009 the 2000s yeah the league's view on it was after listening to cities all over the state that the loss of local regulatory control that followed the 2009 ordinance

0:23:34wasn't sufficiently made up for by the the state certification process that was in place the the reports that came in were that um the certifications were not adequately capturing we're not adequately identifying um illegitimate businesses that were being certified

0:23:52that the state was not adequately following up and investigating the businesses that had been certified to ensure that they were in compliance with state and local law and that that a restoration of local regulatory authority would allow for um greater scrutiny of of businesses that

0:24:11um were basically using a legitimate form of business as as a cover for illegality and also to allow them to do undertake the kind of land use um uh review that that i had identified in the staff report okay thank you public comments no speaker slips okay i'll entertain a motion or a comment

0:24:34yeah i've got comments okay i i i see a lot of you out there in the audience and i want to acknowledge that you're here and appreciate you coming out to hear our discussion on this matter and i want to reiterate one of the whereas clause in the in the ordinance

0:24:49whereas the city values local business and recognizes that most massage establishments throughout the city are operated lawfully and professionally and staffed by massage therapists who uphold professional and community standards so i want to acknowledge that probably all

0:25:04of you here fall under that whereas class so thank you for coming out i just want to add to that before we get to council member abelson there is a sentence here that makes it very clear in the staff report the act of adopting the moratorium is not a review or determination on the merits of allowing

0:25:24such use or not instead it will allow the city time to study the issues so we're not ruling on whether or not we want to continue to have massage establishments and just as council member lyman said we welcome businesses that contribute to our community thanks okay so i was just

0:25:43going to make a motion if we're ready for that um so i moved the adoption of an urgency ordinance of the city of el cerrito making findings and establishing a temporary moratorium on the establishment or relocation of new and existing massage establishments to become effective immediately

0:26:05second go ahead a second okay moved by council member abelson seconded by council member quinto all in favor say aye hi motion cares unanimously all right last up is council local and regional liaison assignment reports council member alignment yeah i i'd like to

0:26:32report that the west county waste authority did meet last thursday and as chair i was uh was there for as chair and i'm drawing a blank on what we discussed oh you discussed about appointing a searching for an executive director and compensation yeah compensation that's

0:26:54correct compensation was the most noticeable thing um we we selected the compensation rate for the new executive director and the new range is 115 to 155 150 sorry 115 to 150 is the range for the new director so great um and coming up on that we did discuss at length the future

0:27:20agenda items and one of the future agenda items that will be heard on march 19th will be the beginning of discussing the reserve fund the recycling reserve fund so i will be representing you on the matter of the recycling reserve fund the recycling reserve fund is a

0:27:41significant amount of money that was generated from the sales of recyclables over the last say 15 years and that fund depending on how they look at it is somewhere between two and a half million and five and a half million so i will be doing my best to represent

0:28:01our constituents with regards to that recycling fund thank you and city manager and i joined mayor pro-tem lyman in a discussion with the interim executive director on that issue also other reports okay i just want to say that since we last met the mayor's conference was

0:28:23hosted by our very own city up at miravista country club and thank you very much to city clerk cheryl morris and other city staff who made it a wonderful event and the presentation was by representative kaiser permanente talking about the affordable care act and

0:28:41the covered california is an interesting discussion so with that we are german thank you very much for coming march 5th you