City Council Meeting March 17, 2015

0:00:34good evening everybody happy st patrick's day uh we will now convene the city council regular city council meeting and uh please note that all members are present and uh mayor pro tem lyman please lead us in the pledge of allegiance or observation of a moment of silence

0:00:58i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands [Music] indivisible with liberty and justice are there any counselor staff communications i just have two short ones one is i went to the mayor's conference on march 5th

0:01:25and listen to a very interesting presentation from the concord police chief guy swinger and some of the staff members from the contra costa family justice center and i also wanted to make some comments and advocate for the tree committee that they're actively seeking new members to

0:01:49join the committee member our committee members that advise city council and other commissions and citizens of the city regarding the growth the maintenance and the location of trees within the city we have a very capable staff leader in stephen pray and our recent accomplishments of the tree

0:02:08committee include organizing community tree planting collaborate collaborating with the el cerrito garden club for arbor day tree planting conducting a tree related survey of businesses and producing an outreach brochure and providing input and city policies affecting trees to name just a few

0:02:28and the tree committee does meet at seven o'clock on the second monday of each month and because it is a committee what that means is that if you were interested in becoming part of this group you actually attend three meetings and after at the end of that time

0:02:43an appointment can be made when the tree committee accepts you and you will come to council it recommended yeah they would be recom you would be recommended to be on the committee so um there is information on the city website regarding this thank you any other i have one please um

0:03:03ac transit has been going through some good times actually and as a result they are expanding some of their service some of it actually just opened the um 72r which runs along san pablo avenue and is the bus that uh doesn't stop us frequently but therefore gets you there

0:03:30faster is now running on the weekends but they're also doing some other planning that you might want to express your opinion on and the at this point the hearings have are over however they are still taking public input and if you're interested in providing some input then go on to

0:03:52their website which is ac transit all one word dot org and then you will be able to find a spot where you can express your opinion and the topic is called major corridor study and it should be pretty interesting if you're interested in that particular topic thank you

0:04:17thanks a lot yeah i have a few um i'm going to start with one we as as your elected officials we get notifications from pg e with regards to increasing rates and as your representative to marin clean energy i actually decided to read these a little more carefully

0:04:40the most recent rate increase that pg e is asking for is to increase uh to raise 654 million dollars and the purpose of that is to install both cables and and they're going to own the chargers at the various vehicle charging stations so that they're charging you as opposed to

0:05:01um a third party vendor that is running those machines um southern southern california edison is just running the wire to the locations and then allowing the independent operators to install the charging stations and and get the basically get the charging the rates

0:05:22from the vehicle owner um in in pg e's case uh all ratepayers are now subsidizing the infrastructure for uh electric vehicles and it's not that i'm against electric vehicles but it's it's just that there is a rate increase coming and it's associated with that um and cca

0:05:42customers so we will be carrying about uh 8.2 million um of that about 100 million dollars a year so we'll we will be seeing a 1.1 increase in our rates as a result of pg e marin clean energy has sent out notices second notices have come out so people should be aware by

0:06:08now that we have choices with regards to our electricity and you can choose a greater level of deep green marine clean energy tells me that uh they're we are contributing to their highest level of conversions um and so that we are we're very popular over at uh marin clean energy they're very

0:06:30excited to have el cerrito on board another one that friday march 27th is a deadline for submitting an application to become a member of a contra costa county grand jury if you would like this you can go online to www.ccdashcourts.org or backslash grand jury or you can call

0:06:57925-957-5638 to try and make a difference as a grand jury member and finally um there is rcd which is the operator of ohlone gardens is taking applications or pre-applications for one two and three bedroom apartments and this is at the 6495 portala facility and you can get your pre-applications

0:07:28at http rcdhousing.org backslash our hyphen properties backslash new hyphen communities and so we're hoping that we will that those that are that need to um will apply for the ohlone gardens project thanks city manager yes uh i just wanted to bring your attention item two in your

0:07:58package that the city once again received the government finance officers association of the u.s and canada's award for distinguished budgeting this year for last year's budget and which actually lasted in this year's um and we're really proud of that as a lot of

0:08:14work goes into it and it's very competitive and it's the highest budgeting award that we know of that we could win so uh we just wanted to make sure everybody got to see that so thank you congratulations to the city manager and lisa malik zade our finance director and

0:08:31the financial advisory board all of whom contributed to us winning this award again so thank you next we move on to oral communications from the public for items not on the agenda and we have one speaker for general comment it's alex de giorgio good evening council members good

0:08:57evening city staff fellow members of the public uh council member lyman uh stole a lot of my thunder tonight credit is due though because el cerrito has indeed shown an unprecedented level of 100 renewable opt-ups i wanted to provide a very quick enrollment update

0:09:17and i'm here to tell you that about 370 so since the last um enrollment notice went out last month there have been about 370 accounts that have opted out of the program and about 190 nearly 200 that have chosen the 100 level um this is good news in both respects one

0:09:38the opt-outs show that the system is working and people are exercising a choice that they didn't have before and then on the opt up side again i want to reiterate that mce has never seen this level of enthusiasm for its 100 option at this stage in the game ever before so

0:09:55credit ghost goes to you and also to your incredible city staff for providing good information to the public i also wanted to remind folks that we have more upcoming community meetings planned where we are going to share more information about mce and offer the

0:10:13public an opportunity to ask questions directly to mce staff the first one will be tuesday march 24th from 6 30 to 8 pm in these council chambers there will be another wednesday april 15th from 7 to 8 30 at the community center that's the garden room 7007 mozier ave

0:10:36and then an additional one on thursday june 18th from 6 to 8 again in the city council chambers so those are three community meetings in addition to that we've have held meetings with several senior centers already and we'll be organizing more meetings as well please feel free to get in touch

0:10:55with me if if you have questions or you'd like to offer more opportunities for me also sorry last one the off-the-grid events on wednesday evenings we'll have outreach materials available there too again thank you so much thank you great now we have a couple of

0:11:13presentations from some of our hard-working citizen committees first up is the crime prevention committee presentation by the chair catherine krueger you don't look like catherine you're right good evening mr mayor members of the council members city staff and the public i'm lieutenant

0:11:30robert de la campbell from the police department it's my pleasure to introduce to you this evening the members that are present here from the crime prevention committee uh behind me i have mr bruce yao to my right mr eugene go and mr catherine krueger mrs kruger will be doing a presentation

0:11:46about the goals accomplishments and work plan of the committee mr go will be operating the powerpoint and it is of note that mr go is now in his 18th year donating his time to the committee and mrs kruger is about 10 years doing the same so it's my pleasure to introduce mrs kruger thank you

0:12:10so just [Music] to start we're going to start with the committee history and mission the city resolution 2001-105 abolish the el cerrito citizens committee on crime prevention and created the crime prevention committee the charges for the crime prevention committee have remained generally the

0:12:29same over the years which are the to develop and promote crime prevention programs promote cooperation with local law enforcement promote awareness of methods to prevent crime and advise the city council regarding crime prevention programs we have worked on our work plan and we

0:12:49have several goals the first goal is to increase the number of neighborhood watch groups in el cerrito this is an ongoing program and the activities that we propose are to expand promotion of neighborhood watch program at crime prevention events including the tri-city safety day national night out

0:13:07which is our big one el cerrito fourth of july celebration and different neighborhood meetings to create neighborhood watch uh and along with city of australia publications um which is like online resources social media etc and we definitely also want to improve

0:13:23communication with existing neighborhood watch leaders to share information and develop networks we are working towards a survey on that matter our second goal is to update and revise the crime prevention and safety information associated with the neighborhood watch

0:13:42program this is once again an ongoing goal and objective the activities that we propose are to do the inventory of current crime prevention and safety information and print and electronic determine the information needs of community based on survey results develop communication strategy for

0:14:02updating existing crime prevention and safety information we also want to update and revise the publications and information for crime prevention committee recruitment we are in need of people so if anybody's interested please contact us we want to create a postcard for recruitment of new

0:14:18committee members and the draft has been completed we're waiting for final approval please um third okay the third one is to gather data and conduct needs assessment surveys so we want to increase participation in national night out we want to increase the number of

0:14:39neighborhood watch groups and determine crime prevention information needs an interest within el cerrito we are trying to create distribute and collect survey information from national night out past participants and organizers and also existing neighborhood watch

0:14:54leaders and we also want to do a survey assembly of general residents in el cerrito to see what their needs are so that we can meet them so the review review of the cpc from last year basically our events were tri-city safety day national night out el cerrito fourth of

0:15:17july celebration trinity church neighborhood meetings to create a neighborhood neighborhood watch group cd valcerido emergency preparation trail bart commuter safety awareness days and online data safety and theft prevention workshop we are staffing tables we are trying to pro you know

0:15:34promote the crime prevention committee as best we can thank you all right anything to add lieutenant no i didn't have anything further to add i know the chief does want me to express her appreciation for all the work that they do in helping get the public ward out and helping with

0:15:55our public outreach and crime prevention programs but uh otherwise if you have any questions of c or i we're happy to answer them any questions i guess that is so clear thank you very much and particularly thank you ms kruger and mr go for your long-running service as well as all your colleagues i

0:16:14think several of whom are here tonight right so thank you very much okay next up is the environmental quality committee and mark miner the chair well i guess we've got a new technique here where we have a pre-introduction nobody told me maria sanders yes good evening

0:16:35and members of the council i'm maria sanders and i'm the interim division manager for operations and environmental services and i'm also the staff liaison to the environmental quality committee and i'd like to introduce mark miner who's been on the chair for the eqc for the last couple

0:16:51last two years and he's going to give a presentation on eqc activities and goals good evening mayor friedman members of the council staff public i'm going to go over the eqc work plan and i'm going to start out with our mission we put together our mission two or three

0:17:18years ago and it's kind of fun to kind of look at it again get re-inspired educate inspire and activate ourselves and our community to sustainably thrive so those those are words that we can kind of go back and get activated get energized again we're a committee rather than a

0:17:36commission or a board so we're authorized up to 15. the idea is that everyone is a working member and we're doing projects and we currently have nine and we are going to that's because of the order of the uh agenda date because we have two new members um on the consent calendar for

0:17:54you guys three new members that's right we'll get up to 12.

0:17:57so uh um we have a lot of new energy in the city um and a lot of people wanting to participate next so we have kind of a dual role one is kind of an advisory policy role talking to you guys about things like climate action plan and community choice and working with other departments and the

0:18:18other is to energize and activate and outreach with the community next so our planning process we have our mission we have our goals and our objectives and our projects kind of linked to linked to those we developed these goals two or three years ago and we've tweaked them since but they really are

0:18:37serving us well and we use it to make sure that what we're doing is aligning with what we want to accomplish and making sure that all these things are covered involving learners of all ages you know we've always wanted to get kids more involved with environmental

0:18:52and one of the new members rebecca milliken is going to reach out to all the different schools in the area and get them involved in our hillside uh festival coming in maine excited about that and by sustainable water systems we're talking about water conservation

0:19:10we're talking about creeks we're talking about grey water whole variety of water issues next slide so start out with the green teams so green teams we have a commitment for semi-monthly volunteer events and this is part of the overall stormwater uh commitment the

0:19:29city has to the stormwater agencies so we make sure that we mark down exactly what we've done and that appropriate paperwork so that's really been well integrated into the city responsibilities and habitat restoration next slide a couple pictures so we have on the upper left our inaugural giveaway

0:19:49of compost kind of celebrate when we had the green bins a couple years ago we have every other month pickups here's a big truck with the trash from del norte bart station in the upper right here we have a group carrying a bunch of broom uphill in the hillside nature area

0:20:08and then on the left some kids working to restore the playground on yuba park and in the center getting some plants going into the madera property next and we love our volunteers we have a uh second annual coming up this year we got third annual volunteer recognition

0:20:26parting here on i'm giving a recognition to sean o'connor who actually sean has probably picked up more trash in the city than all the rest of our volunteers put together so it was really a lot of fun for me to to recognize sean next and then green green teams are going to

0:20:46be a key in realizing the objectives of the urban greening plan you know the urban greeting plan is still in the finalized sections but really you know the resources of the city are limited in order to accomplish these these goals and really developing a structure so that volunteers can be

0:21:03effective is really going to be so important to accomplish those goals next and outreach is really a key item to make sure that the green teams and all the volunteer events work work well if we don't do thorough publicity we'll plan an event and we'll have two or three people show

0:21:22up and it really won't accomplish what was was intended you know originally we worked with garth schultz and garth had had really focused on the mailing list and focused on putting together bush awards and then garth got promoted and maria took over and then maria got promoted and no one

0:21:42maria is still responsible so we're working you know to find the resources in order to uh coordinate the outreach but it's just such a leveraged activity i want to emphasize that to really um let people know and let leverage the resources of the community without that staff work none of that

0:22:00will happen so that's really a critical piece next so just kind of reviewing accomplishments we have a film series we have showings both in the city hall chambers and in the cerrito theater kind of a different flavor or theme for for each one next we like to have this the filmmaker come

0:22:24we like to have it be interactive invite political leaders really see what it means to us next slide so for example on the rising waters then we would have will travis talk about what what's happening on with the bay with the sea level rise and then talk about how

0:22:46our climate action plan fits together with that so we really try to link a global perspective with what's happening in the city with our film series next so we're going to put this list together of like things that we drove this kind of nice started out with our

0:23:03bees and chickens and so we've got our animal ordinance climate action plan um bag ban in the styrofoam working on the medera and then we had some discussion already on the community choice so it's kind of a nice list i was happy to see it all put together what the eqc

0:23:21spearheaded next so going into this year what do we want to do we want to do more of the same with we want to have our green teams be effective send my monthly events we have some earth day events planned we have our volunteer party plan uh our next film is going to be taking

0:23:38place the week before earth day april april 28th and it's going to be here in city hall it's going to be linked into the whole community choice with the energy theme and then we're really excited you know alex was talking about uh how else serena was ahead with the deep queen but we want to

0:24:00have el cerrito have the highest percentage of deep green customers in any city in the mce territory the leader right now alex says is fairfax with six percent uh so far with 190 we have 1.2 percent and i think that's a goal that we can make next we have two big events scheduled for

0:24:22this year uh the first is the second annual hillside festival this is going to be a combination of hikes and talks and work parties all um celebrating the in different parts of the hillside area and the second is going to be a music festival in the community center and that this

0:24:40originally these were fundraising for the purchase now we're going to be fundraising for the maintenance of the open space making sure that it's maintained well we have a strategy on trash mitigation so we're doing a survey of the of the garbage cans we're probably going

0:24:57to be recommending a few extra garbage cans on the green wing but we're looking over an overall assessment in addition we're looking at a state state bill that would ban cigarette butts so you might hear from us on that and you might hear from us or you will hear from us on pollinator safe

0:25:18communities we have a resolution prepared for you it's pretty much an alignment with current city policy with a little bit more outreach and community community education so you'll be seeing that next education events we want to focus on gray water we think this year and we

0:25:35also have ideas for workshops of healthy gardens and efficiency and solar but we really need to work with city resources in order to make sure this here's some pictures from the energy efficiency workshop last year and i must say that the el cerrito resident asked such

0:25:50intelligent questions we really have a number a1 community when it comes to these kind of these kinds of events they're really well very well of informed already next uh we also supported a lot of the planning efforts you know these weren't ones that we led but you know uh the

0:26:11you guys are familiar with how all these um pieces fit together and particularly the urban greening plan as that goes forward we'd like to kind of make sure that the implementation part goes smoothly next so here's our calendar got something happening and you know putting this together this way

0:26:31makes us realize that we how much we can chew pretty much one major event per month is what we can do but now we're up to 12 members maybe we can do a little bit more but you can see coming up we have in earth day and our film and we really love to have you all come out to the

0:26:50hillside festival in maine and the uh the music for modern in september love to see you guys there questions any questions no i just want to thank you i mean look at all your accomplishments and what you bring to us and what do we do we go check chuck chuck chuck so

0:27:14that's really great thank you and you guys have a piece on your list today well thank you so much for a great presentation thank you and the other members of the eqc thank you ms sanders all right moving right along to the consent calendar we have had one item i think

0:27:34has been removed is i yeah so the consent calendar is items five a through five h with an option of five a through five h moved in second all in favor aye aye motion carries unanimously thank you all right we now move on to item 7a uh policy matters uh talking about amending

0:27:59a professional services agreement with the trust for public land to waive or reduce the professional services fee presentation by ms melanie mintz good evening mayor and council members my name is melanie mintz and i'm the city's interim community development director

0:28:18um i am here tonight to mark the closing of an almost two year long community driven effort to purchase an approximately eight acre property known as the madera property which will now officially become a part of the hillside natural area um when we close escrow this week

0:28:35and the action before you tonight there were two options in your agenda bill and the option before you tonight is actually option one in which uh we will be asking you to adopt a resolution waiving the hundred thousand dollar professional services fee um to give a little

0:28:52i'll be pretty brief tonight and i'll just give a little bit of background um on july 2 16 2013 uh city council authorized the city to enter into a purchase and sale and professional services agreement with trust for public land um a national conservation organization

0:29:08headquartered in san francisco wherein the trust for public land would purchase and hold the eight acre property adjacent to the hillside natural area and now within the hillside natural area to allow the city and community to fundraise for the 475 thousand dollar negotiated purchase

0:29:22price we entered the city entered at the same time into a professional services agreement with a graduated fee structure with trust for public land to fund their work on our behalf to purchase and hold the property so all the transactions related to that real estate transaction write grants and

0:29:38assist with the community fundraising effort um you'll hear probably a little bit more about it from others tonight but the effort has been the community fundraising effort has been a resounding success i would say with um approximately 103 thousand dollars raised by the community from

0:29:53about 275 individual donations and we also were successful with um trust for public land um leading the effort to secure 251 thousand dollar grant from the national park service land water and conservation fund so together that's over three hundred and three hundred fifty thousand dollars

0:30:12towards um towards this effort um the remaining money as you know and i'll mention again later is slated to come from the measure of ww park park bond money and the community that has grown as a part of this effort some of whom you will hear from tonight will hopefully continue to grow as a

0:30:31partnership to help with stewardship and celebration of the hillside natural area as you heard from mark during his presentation about the environmental quality committee around the same time that the city entered into the agreement with the trust for public land they also received

0:30:43a donation of a single-family residentially zoned vacant property of about nine uh 9 500 square feet according to trust for public land this is uh common in in their business and they're here to answer any questions about it but they were donated this property by the owner in support of

0:30:59their organization it was not a part of the eight acre acquisition in which they were purchasing and holding the property for our conservation purposes um since that time the trust for public land has successfully marketed and sold the property and then as such due to the revenue

0:31:15generated by that sale the trust for public land and city staff have negotiated a waiving of the professional services fee to reduce the overall cost to the city of acquiring and managing the acquisition of the madera property this would amount to a reduction of 100

0:31:29thousand dollars on the overall cost of the city resulting in the effort costing a total of 475 000 plus a little bit for recording and other items with those donations that does leave only 120 000 of measure wwe park money needing to be utilized of the remaining balance of about 575

0:31:51000 which leaves additional funds for numerous remaining park and recreation priorities um i think that that is all i have tonight i'm happy to take questions but i'd also first like to turn over to brendan moriarty from the trust for public land um to speak um to to their

0:32:08last uh year and a half experience um working in the city of el cerrito and also to gary hill and i think dave weinstein's wife from the trail trekkers mary is here to say some remarks on behalf of the open space campaign and of course i think there might be some speaker slips as

0:32:21well thank you thank you good evening city council i'm brendan moriarty i manage the bay area land protection program for the trust for public land it's nice to be back um i'm very pleased to report that this project was a phenomenal success in every way first and foremost the madera property

0:32:47has been saved the hillside natural areas are now united into a single mile-long natural area within walking distance of tens of thousands of people it's a place for everyone to play you made a careful bet back in 2013 that we were going to be able to raise a lot

0:33:04of money and you were proven right presuming you passed a resolution in front of you tonight this nearly six hundred thousand dollar project is going to cost the city just one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars and measure ww funds so that's an 80 discount off

0:33:18the cost of the project about half of the purchase prices covered by a grant from the national park service as melanie mentioned which the trust for public land helped to secure last year in addition some 275 individuals in your community dipped into their pockets and

0:33:33contributed some 100 000 dollars to the to the effort major credit goes to gary hill dave weinstein pam austin vicki nolan and the rest of the fundraising committee who made this happen with tireless and unpaid effort over the span of a year and a half i'd like to give special acknowledge

0:33:51acknowledgement to the zorinsky family a close friend of the trust for public land in new york of all places that saw fit to give a generous 25 000 gift to the campaign to close the gap and finally as melanie just described the trust for public land is happy to be

0:34:07able to waive our fee the promise of which allowed us to take this project on back in 2013.

0:34:15these projects are incredibly complex time consuming and costly no matter how large or small the property involved it took a large team of professionals including myself grant writers legal staff marketing and media team and others nearly two years to make this project

0:34:30happen we were able to waive our fee because we sold some land that was given to us by the previous owner of the madera property as with many charities it is not uncommon that people donate property to us when they do the first thing that we ask ourselves is does this

0:34:45property have value as a park and here the answer was clearly no there were some of our considerations are as follows first of all the lot was is very very small not quite ten thousand square feet it would barely increase the size of the madeira open space property

0:35:04and of this even less would actually be usable because the property drops off steeply on its backside due to that steep slope in the existing public staircase just next door to the lot the lot itself would not actually improve access to hillside natural areas the lot itself contains very limited

0:35:21natural resources aside from some locally significant plants which could be transplanted fourth development of the lot would be consistent with the property's underlying zoning parcel size and neighboring land uses further if it was later developed careful design review could avoid any

0:35:36potential risks to the madera open space fifth and this is a big one selling a lot would allow us to preserve one hundred thousand dollars in city funds for other park and rec needs right here in el cerrito such as for community gardens ball fields or even future open space

0:35:52purchases i remember clearly how one of the few concerns about this about the medera project back in 2003 was the diversion of limited ww funds for a single project so selling this lot solves that problem finally of course selling the lot allows us to generate funds to support the

0:36:11trust for public land's ongoing work in el cerrito and the bay area and beyond so ultimately we asked ourselves the simple question are we prepared to spend or could we counsel others to spend one hundred thousand dollars to protect these ten thousand square feet

0:36:28no matter how we looked at the question the answer was always no and so we decided to sell our lot and share proceeds with the city in closing i couldn't be more pleased with the outcome of this project collectively we achieved what we set out to do and then some

0:36:42thank you for the opportunity to join in partnership and congratulations on your new park thank you [Applause] hello my name is gary hill um as melanie mentioned i helped dave weinstein to head up the el cerrito open space campaign and um uh sat as its chair i currently also

0:37:13reside on the park and rat commission i live close to the hillside area i'm also coach for the el cerrito high school mountain bike team what a tremendous result i mean for us to be able to accomplish this is beyond what i thought we could do to be honest with you

0:37:34and we were challenged and we we succeeded this never would have happened without the trust for public land um what an amazing organization they were with us the entire time the entire process at all of our meetings our campaign committee meetings how do we raise this

0:37:54money what do we do now help us and their professionalism and their passion passion for open space was one of the things that really inspired us as a committee and myself personally to keep going and a year and a half so long time it was a long journey it's a result of vision and

0:38:21determination and optimism and as a result of a unique collaboration of talented professionals resourceful individuals like-minded conservationists and outdoor enthusiasts and that's what our community is made up of you the city council you did it for us as well and thank you

0:38:46the trust for public land as i mentioned our city staff was instrumental and it came from a grassroots movement it was really a collection of people as i mentioned that were interested in the hillside whatever their background was whether it was the friends of five creeks and they're

0:39:10interested in our creeks and that their saving them and restoring them or you know mountain bikers who just love to be in nature and hikers as well so of our council members i have to acknowledge council member lyman who met with me early 2013 after i had on my own gone out and surveyed

0:39:41a possible uh trail connection loop trail through the hillside because for years i had uh sort of lamented the fact that our our hiking and trails weren't uh connected and as i went through this that process i thought i came up with this wonderful vision i i think it is a great vision

0:40:04still but i met with melanie and then um and jerry bradshaw and they said well this is great gary but we don't own two of these properties that your trail goes through and i said what do you mean you don't own them i think like most people in el cerrito i assume that all the open space up

0:40:24there was owned by the city of el cerrito and that's not true so you know that's that that's surprising because um we take it for granted and we shouldn't um so i showed greg my map and i think he was impressed it was hard to read his face but um of the two properties that we didn't own

0:40:51i did some some digging investigating because i thought well my this is dead in the water you know so i tracked down the owners and i called them up i said hey what do you think about uh a trail going through your property or you know what are your plans for the property

0:41:07there are two two properties there's a 14 acre parcel on the north end of the hillside it was recently bought by the wongs a local family and they actually came over to my house and sat down at my dinner table and looked at my map and you know with great interest and

0:41:24it was a lively conversation the buzzfeed property was a little bit harder to get a hold of them but left some messages and got a call back the realtor called and said well the owner's trying to clean clean off his desk he's getting close to retiring and that property is going to be going up for

0:41:45sale soon so i told greg this and he looked and he's like wow this he saw it he saw the connection between the existing um southern hillside and the northern hillside and how important it was and he saw the potential for for grant writing and fundraising and he knew that the trail

0:42:03tractors were active in the community and the friends of five creeks were doing room pools and now the mountain biking team was becoming involved so you started to have this real interest and and dynamic and um and energy um to back up you know a proposal such as this

0:42:24thank you greg um now soon after uh i think staff was authorized to um talk to uh the trust for public land and i met brendan moriarty and um immediately was impressed with his enthusiasm and and the professionalism that they were bringing and um i met with dave weinstein um around that

0:42:51time and and dave and i you know he's a hiker i'm a biker you know everybody knows the the sometimes uneasy and adversarial relationships between bikers and hikers but we we found that underneath there was there was a commonality and that was you know our love for nature and being outside

0:43:13and um based on that it sort of began this unique collaboration um between the the bike and hiking community and and then these other groups joined us friends of fight creeks environmental members of the environmental quality committee and um other elsewhere cerritos citizens and neighbors

0:43:39and that was that kicked it off in 2013.

0:43:42um the primary goal which we set was a hundred thousand dollars and we exceeded that and that was to us that measured ww funds because there are a lot of needs in the cities for the use of those funds and and all of them are just and and um deserving um our secondary goal was to illustrate

0:44:00the interest and desire of a strong regional collective of stakeholders to see the hillside natural area preserve protected and utilize for the benefit of our community you know there are many many positive aspects of to speak of and many recognitions to that need to be heard in terms of our

0:44:22donors and the people that gave their time and we'd love to we'd like to request that we have a chance to come back before you and really get go into more detail and thank those people and let you know a little bit more about the process and and and enlighten you if you will and also seek

0:44:38your input on how to how to build on this momentum that we've created um although this is um coming to an end if you will i i see it as only the beginning the catalyst of of attention and to the hillside and and what it can become so um lastly um to directly um

0:45:08that's not me talking by the way did he win it was like close he was like too close to call huh thank you that was a message from give me a chance to catch my breath there um so to speak directly to the item on the agenda um you know they're still doing it the trust for public land i mean look at

0:45:43what they did they not only did they guide us but they they applied and received the 250 000 federal grant that protects the hillside we were i think in november december about twenty five thousand dollars away from our goal and we're like well we were throwing her we're throwing our hands up

0:46:05well we tried you know and it's a good result we can be proud of that they did not have to direct that 25 000 donation to us uh that's just they could have put directed that any anywhere they wanted to but um brendan said to me you guys worked your butt off and you deserve this we wanna

0:46:25do this and now there's they're willing to waive their fee another hundred thousand dollars so we're talking about three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars that the trust republican has directly put back into our measure ww funds so their impact is not only for

0:46:44acquiring this space but it's it's going to impact you know our parks and our development for the future so my hat's off to them my thanks my sincerest thanks and thank you el cerrito hi i'm mary barkey i'm speaking for dave weinstein who isn't here i'm very sorry

0:47:10i couldn't attend tonight unfortunate business has kept me in orange county on the mic okay okay i would like to thank the council for working so closely with members of the community to expand open space and trails in our city i urge the council to continue efforts to preserve el

0:47:28cerrito's hillside as open space there are other endangered parcels that would also be made part of the hillside natural area i would like to thank councilwoman bridges for challenging the open space campaign to double its goal to a hundred thousand dollars my life

0:47:43would have been much easier last year had she not done so for example i did absolutely no traveling last year didn't set foot on an airplane even once but we did reach our goal and we did preserve park bond funds for other important uses in our city the support from residents and

0:47:59businesses was strong no one ever hung up on any of my calls asking for money more than 250 people donated even though most of them knew the city was going to buy the land whether they donated or not i wish i could thank every donor i do want to mention east bay sanitary company for

0:48:17their strong support thanks to trust for public land we received our largest donation from the zorinsky family marty and chris connor offered an important and successful challenge grant and the rotary club put us over the top at the end of the campaign with their

0:48:33one thousand dollar donation it was great working with gary and the mountain bike people and with susan and the friends of five creeks we have volunteers making calls who live in san francisco and benicia musicians played for free at our music festival and many

0:48:47environmental and historical groups donated their time at our hillside fest i can't say enough for trust for public land without them nothing would have happened i look forward to working with them again friendships were made during the campaign i hope none were broken the

0:49:02campaign gave birth to two festivals that will continue on the hillside festival and music for madeira open space hope to see you there any questions before we take public comment speakers please we have six speakers mayor carol langhauser followed by mark miner

0:49:27and al miller hi council members i'm carol langhauser [address removed] in el cerrito come by anytime uh i just wanted to say we wouldn't be having this conversation or discussion if it hadn't been for jenny hammer who turned the stairs to nowhere into by stealth

0:50:01cleanup we didn't do anything the police were coming by we we got anyway we did open that path surprise david completely when he was taking a tour of her folks to go down the stairs to nowhere and boom so you can't do anything to us now because we're now on property owned by

0:50:22the city okay but jenny god love her she she went out she checked out who owned what pieces of that property we found that we own just the sliver where the little creek is that's all we owned and the rest of it is just really weird parcel she went to martinez dug through the old records

0:50:43found everything got hold of tlp or ppl and i mean just just got the whole ball rolling so this just we owe everything to jenny for giving us this land thank you [Applause] hello again i'd like to thank council member bridges for challenging us for a hundred thousand

0:51:10when we were uh totaling around sixty thousand or seventy thousand damn why did we take that challenge yeah we would have we would have made it by now and look what happened made our goal but i wanted to talk thank the city for something else developed a very innovative

0:51:26fire fuel management program hiring volunteers traditionally when you hire the low-cost belt bidder to cut weeds they'll cut it down to the dirt and nothing will grow except for weeds but with the volunteers they cut it in a very controlled way to ankle high that really encourages the native plants

0:51:44to survive with their deep roots and it really had a great result so i thank you for that innovative approach working with the community and look forward that working again in the future al miller followed by mary barkey who i believe just spoke separately okay

0:52:03and and layman good evening mayor friedman council member staff and the public i wanted to add my thanks to the thrust for public land i remember meeting at somebody's beautiful hillside house up there when we were first getting started and their vision and enthusiasm was

0:52:21really infectious and it got the whole program off to a good start i thought i also like to add my support for mary and gary's comments but i would like to add one thing and that is to thank you collectively and your predecessors for having not only the political courage

0:52:40and confidence and the vision in the project and in the residence of el cerrito and in your staff that we could collectively put a program like this together and deliver it so thank you very much for your support and vision [Applause] i am lehman many of you know that i was involved in

0:53:11the el cerrito theater program and i'm here to tell you that these were not professional fundraisers that raised this hundred thousand dollars and 250 people raising a hundred thousand dollars in this city is nothing short of a miracle and so my hat's really off to the city

0:53:29of el cerrito for its citizens speaking so loudly to the things that i love like hiking and trails and beauty and non-development and also to all of you the city who once again listens to its citizens and follows their wishes thank you our final speaker slip is ralph boniello

0:54:03hi ralph boniello city of el cerrito i wanted to start off by saying i'm really excited about the purchase of the madera open space and the addition of it to hillside natural area i want to thank the city for collaborating with the trusted public land and the community organizers on on

0:54:19this i specifically i would also like to thank the open space campaign specifically gary hill dave weinstein pam austin and vicki nolan for all their efforts and especially for all their perseverance through this this was a really long effort and i want to thank the trust for

0:54:36public land for all they've done with administrating this purchase and getting the grant funding to help with the purchase it's been really exciting to see the community come together to make this open space edition happen and i'm happy to see the momentum of this carrying on to increa future

0:54:55stewardship of the hillside natural area i'm it's really exciting to see that talked about you know although the fire department does some fuel management in hillside natural area most stewardship activities are accomplishment accomplished through the efforts of

0:55:08community volunteers as it has been stated including friends of five creeks which i'm a member of and el cerrito trail trekkers we do things like invasive plant removal biological monitoring of the property fuel reduction and education there's still much stewardship work to

0:55:27be done in hillside natural area unfortunately probably more than community volunteers can do by themselves management plans and recommendations for hillside natural area commissioned by the city in the past sit on the shelf waiting to be done and i hope they will

0:55:43be pulled down dusted off and implemented the resounding success of the campaign to add the medera property to the hillside natural area is a clear message that the community cares about the hillside natural area and open space in general thank you to everybody who worked on

0:56:00this and everyone who donated to this effort as well thank you [Applause] susan schwartz i second everything everyone has said particularly ralph's message about the need for stewardship we were up with our weed warriors this morning pulling broom i'll be there

0:56:34tomorrow with prospect sierra it's not that i do that every day but there is a tremendous amount of work and volunteers can do a lot they they really can't do it all one name that hasn't been mentioned is jim mckissick who's doing wonderful work uh in the area north of

0:56:52where friends of five creeks are working in i apologize i'm susan schwartz i'm the head of friends of five creeks we've been working in the hillside natural area for some years now i want to urge you to go out and enjoy your new property the wildflowers are blooming unfortunately due to the

0:57:11drought very early but they are beautiful you will get copies of our flyer with some of the pictures and if anybody else wants them i have them and in terms of stewardship even if you're not into pulling broom um april 11th and 12th is the annual sudden oak death blitz survey we really

0:57:33need to keep an eye on the hillside natural area whether that fungus is coming uh i won't give you all the sign up information but if you go to our website you can find out where to sign up you can just help by taking a wonderful hike in your beautiful oak forest thanks thank you

0:57:51all right this is the last call for speakers we've got a few late entries including one more anybody else please come up now so go ahead cheryl pam austin my name is pam austin i live at [address removed] in el cerrito and i uh was the treasurer for the open space campaign

0:58:19and i just want to say what a pleasure it was to do this it was a great opportunity to work with my neighbors and and people from the community who brought an impressive amount of skills and effort to the project and and i just want to note that i think all of us have full-time jobs

0:58:45and that we did this in our spare time and so i um i you know there's been a lot of mention about the donations that were raised and i just want to emphasize too that um you know apart from the nps grant and support from um from groups like stage that there weren't other large grants

0:59:15that made up the over um seventy eight thousand dollars that was raised from the community um and that that we had hoped originally that there might be some larger corporate donations there um from businesses in el cerrito um that really never happened and so so the donations come from

0:59:38the people who live here and in nearby communities and i think that it's a great measure of the support for for open space for parks for um for uh commitment to improving el cerrito and um of course i'd like to thank the city council and the staff for all the support and i and i especially

1:00:01appreciate the opportunity to work with tpl too um a very impressive organization and um so i just want to say uh thank you to everyone and and what a really great experience it was and to encourage uh other people to get involved in this kind of effort and i look forward to the next

1:00:25opportunity to contribute to el cerrito thank you thank you to all the speakers and before we vote on the resolution resolutions we have two uh we'll hear from my colleagues let's start with mayor pro tem lyman yes two weeks ago i was at a open space council meeting it's the

1:00:48statewide convention for open space organizations in the state of california and i was pleasantly surprised and very proud uh that the bay area open space uh staff acknowledged the incredible high value of this small acreage uh of transaction um essentially its proximity to

1:01:13uh to youth under under under sorry to local urban youth its proximity to local youth is way is so valuable that it was acknowledged that this property is is so close to as as brendan said earlier tens of thousands of people uh that it's within a short walk of of bart it was uh

1:01:37was what they were acknowledging is added value to this and and even though it's it's a fraction of the size of the other transactions she highlighted it was one of the ones that she brought forward and and uh highlighted because it really does provide a lot of value for such a small

1:01:54parcel so um i i was i was very proud my i don't play poker very well uh gary but i but indeed i i was supportive all along and and uh just didn't want you getting too far ahead of yourself so i'm glad we're here today uh i i really appreciate what uh trust republican has done and i think it's

1:02:17appropriate that trust for public land has waived their fee and i'm looking forward to the motion that we're going to make this evening because it really really helps us keep that ww money intact for other projects of which i'm hoping that there's some more open space that we

1:02:36will be acquiring in our near future so thank you to all the volunteers for their fundraising efforts and trust for public land for theirs as well thank you having uh grown up in el cerrito i had a walk uh about a couple of weeks ago at uh at the site uh just off madeira and i haven't

1:02:58been there in over uh 35 years so to see that beautiful view it uh brings me back to uh growing up here and and seeing the beauty and remembering it and so i congratulate uh everyone in this uh community uh and uh bringing everyone together and and and thank you for uh for everything

1:03:25thanks i'll just add my thanks to all the people who were mentioned before from the community from the council from the staff from all the different organizations especially our very big partner who helped enable us to get from the point of needing to buy land by a certain date

1:03:57that we didn't yet have the money for so thank you very much for that all of these things came together and i think it came together because we have people in this community who truly understand the importance of open space and all of the things it can bring to

1:04:14our community to make it a richer place for us all to live in so i want to just add my thanks i've been i know there have been a lot of thanks but this really is a night of thanks so thank you thanks and yeah i'll just um make a couple comments and that is um i want to thank tpl

1:04:32without you this would have happened gary dave you see all the volunteers you know um what ann said is really correct when uh the tennis club in el cerrito built that third court on arlington and we raised a hundred thousand dollars we did it with a lot more than 200 people

1:04:52and i do think that's just stunning that you know so much of this came from small checks that were written by our own residents in a very small pool of those residents and it's just it's an amazing thing and i also want to thank melanie for working so close not only with us

1:05:07but tpl truckers mountain bikers and and all the um people that were so interested in doing this so thank you so much and um we're just pleased thank you um there's not much more to be said except this is the sort of community coming together and a barn raising sort of effort that just makes

1:05:31all of us proud to be members of this community and i just uh you know i think we all feel great about this and we knew we took a little bit of a risk but we knew that the partners were ones that we could trust and indeed that was true the partners with the trail trackers friends

1:05:47of five creeks uqc of course the trust for public land our city staff a lot of trust and love really went into this project and it's just uh wonderful to be here tonight so with that i think we have just one resolution all right and i am proud to remove a resolution of

1:06:05the city council amending the professional services agreement with trust for public land to waive the professional services fee second been moved in second and all in favor say aye aye aye motion cares unanimously thank you everybody [Applause] okay moving right along we move on to item

1:06:357b which is property assessed clean energy financing program or pace good evening mayor friedman and members of the city council my name is emily alter and i'm community development analyst with the city i'm here tonight to present staff's recommendation that council take action

1:06:59on the proposed resolutions regarding property assessed clean energy financing or pace i'd first just like to call your attention to the fact that there are two supplemental reports to tonight's packet exhibits a and b to attachment 9 regarding this action were left out but

1:07:17they are available for you and for anyone else up front pace programs take advantage of existing enabling legislations to allow financing of renewable energy energy efficiency water efficiency and seismic improvements through special tax assessments on properties the first pace

1:07:34program was established in berkeley in 2008 providing their community members with an alternative financing mechanism with low upfront costs to implement the building improvements that the community wanted in order to achieve the city's climate action goals but then in 2010 fannie mae and freddie

1:07:52mac took issue with pace programs nationally declaring that they would refuse loans associated with pace programs their fear was repayment of assessments in the face of foreclosure so this essentially halted all rollout of pace programs statewide but during the climate action planning

1:08:11process in 2013 the el cerrito community members really encouraged staff to continue to pursue commercial pace in conjunction with other public entities as available and to adopt residential pace financing if it were to become available again in california this essentially instructed

1:08:28staff to monitor the issue as the state took took action on the legislation so in september 2013 governor brown sent a letter to the federal housing financing authority that the state of california would create a mechanism to address the concerns and protect the

1:08:45interests of fannie mae and freddie mac the california energy and advanced transportation financing authority would create a loan loss reserve program that would essentially cover any assessments in the case of foreclosure or for sale of property the pace administrators who were then

1:09:04opting into pace in the state of california could contribute to that reserve program the mechanism allowed jurisdictions throughout the state of california to create joint powers authorities and enable pace financing programs numerous cities and counties then work to establish

1:09:25their own jpas and to identify potential program administrators and funding sources in november of last year city staff were contacted by a representative for one of these pace programs the california first program which is the first program statewide program and they were interested in the city

1:09:44considering opting into the california first program the court process had taken effect that would allow creation of this program with no need for counties to create their own special assessment districts which had been another previous uh legislative action that was restricting

1:10:00our ability to create a pace program so neighboring jurisdictions began to explore joining california first and other pace programs as they became available and staff opted to monitor the rollout in these neighboring communities before bringing the action to city council

1:10:17since then 12 contra costa cities and the county have opted in to pace programs and statewide 250 cities and over 50 percent of the state's population now have access to pace financing mechanisms in el cerrito joining the three proposed joint powers authorities and opting into

1:10:36the four pace programs before you tonight california first fig tree hero and the open pace program will require no upfront costs of the city and minimal staff administration and it is the sole responsibility of the program administrators themselves to conduct all assessment proceedings

1:10:53the program is 100 voluntary to our residents and provides them with five to twenty year financing mechanisms with low upfront costs that would provide the opportunity to transfer payments for renewable energy and energy efficiency improvements with the sale of

1:11:10their properties therefore staff recommends that council adopt the five resolutions before you tonight the resolutions authorize staff to execute the associated jpa agreements and indemnification and insurance agreements as included it's important to note that all the pace administrators have

1:11:26communicated their willingness to sign these indemnification agreements in order to hold the city harmless in the case of default faulty construction or other liabilities the california first agreement insurance and indemnification agreement is in your packet the wrcog jpa agreement

1:11:46includes a clause to indemnify the city under the hero program fig trees agreement is the exhibit b that was provided to you as a supplemental report tonight and we are actively working with alliance energy to create an indemnification insurance agreement attachment 6 would authorize city staff

1:12:04to execute such an agreement at a later date and the city attorney has reviewed this and believes that we would be fully covered upon opting into these programs staff will then notify community members of the availability of pace financing through our newsletters website and

1:12:20e-newsletters and then the program administrators will begin to engage local contractors providing them with the trainings on the various programs contractors will then become pre-qualified and present community members with pace as a project financing option city staff are excited about the impacts

1:12:37of these programs on our greenhouse gas emissions and sustainability goals the administrators of most of the programs are here tonight in the audience and available to answer any specific technical questions on their programs you might have but that's it for my presentation and i

1:12:52will now open it up to comments and questions thank you any questions at this time i think you covered it but just the purpose of the indemnification is as you said for faulty uh workmanship or some other form of failure of the of the joint powers agreement or because

1:13:13the city won't be um the one directly responsible for administering the program it will be on the administrators the work that's then done within the city or any loans or tax assessments that are put out within the city the city would not be held harmless if there were defaults or if there were

1:13:33any issues with construction or things like that and i don't know sky if you want to say anything additional no i mean i think that covers it i just want to i know emily just misspoke but just to clarify for the record that the city would be held harmless as yeah by

1:13:48virtue of the agreement i i assumed that knot was part of another thought and that she moved into a new thought the mid-sentence just to make sure yes it's okay and then another question that that i had that i wanted to that i thought the answer uh to it earlier

1:14:06today or yesterday what is worth putting into the record um one of the agreements that one of the joint powers of authorities that were moving considering uh joining is was formed in 1988 with a 40-year horizon that would terminate in the year 2028 and most of the funding obviously would

1:14:24have a longer horizon than the 2028 and i was hoping that you might speak to the to the the reply that we got uh when you asked about uh about that that conclusion date so yes so essentially um the california sustainable communities um jpa has within their agreement

1:14:44a clause that says that if there are any bonds still outstanding that the agreement will still hold so if there's any payments still out on a project that's been financed through that jpa the agreement essentially still stands past their termination date great thank you

1:15:03any other questions um i just had a question so how much equity do you have to have in your home to qualify for some of these loans so there's a minimum 10 percent but there isn't um above that there's sort of a range and there's no sort of average statistic that we've been given and is a

1:15:20multi-family um dwelling i don't know if there's a criteria if it's a duplex triplex or even larger than that are they considered commercial residential what are they it's my understanding that it's four or more units and then they qualify as a commercial and so each of the pace program

1:15:37administrators have both a residential program and a commercial program that have slightly different stipulations so for those multi-family dwellings it would be more contingent on the on the business that owns the property on their equity as opposed to the equity within

1:15:53the property so that it sort of changes those stipulations a little bit but those multi-family dwellings would be under the commercial all right and is there a minimum amount for the loan or maximum amount so there's a minimum of uh five thousand and then i think the maximum is

1:16:13two hundred thousand or ten percent of the um property's value i might be is that right fifteen percent fifteen percent which it's whichever is less i think there was a reference that um what i think would be most popular and it was referenced maybe about berkeley

1:16:30that a lot of the um this would be attractive to in our residence would probably be for solar i would think um because it certainly is probably that kind of cost item so does it matter if you're owning or leasing the solar because i think leases are getting a little bit more common in

1:16:50that industry right now yes i'm i'm less clear on how the the financing of that works and i think that maybe it's even contingent on the programs i'm not i'm not fully sure i don't know yeah if you would mind this is jonathan from california first good evening my name is jonathan kevlis

1:17:08i thank you for the opportunity and pure consideration of this motion uh so pace is primarily an ownership program we do have a financing structure that is a bit complicated called a prepaid lease where you are leasing but you prepay it so it provides some arbitrage on the interest rate so a

1:17:28little bit cheaper in the long term we typically recommend an ownership model because we're finding that there's some difficulties in selling selling a home on elite that has a solar lease on it but i will say one of the advantages of pace programs generally not just our

1:17:44program in california first is that it allows for multiple measures so oftentimes you know the energy experts say before you put solar on make sure your home is very energy efficient so you don't want to necessarily over oversize your solar array that you're purchasing if you can actually

1:18:02have a more energy efficient home to begin with so with pace unlike many other programs you can roll a number a number of measures into the same pace assessment contract so energy efficiency water conservation and renewable energy such as solar as well thank you thanks

1:18:22i have a question assuming this is all passed and is actually happening in our in the city if a person wanted to actually use this program what would the mechanics of that look like perhaps so the way that most of the program administrators have developed the program is that the contractors

1:18:44who will be performing the work actually are trained on the the program and the financing options so therefore if they are going to a community member for another project they're able to to talk about the the program and that its availability and then sort of do the

1:19:01handholding to get them through uh to actual application for the tax assessment and would the city be involved in that not directly we can we as staff can opt into creating you know a community engagement strategy with this but for the most part the programs have found

1:19:22that doing this back door in with the contractors is a really effective way to get program uptake thank you could we have on our city website uh section and page that describes this with links to how they can apply or hook up with certified customers and we intend to do

1:19:40that and and do some outreach through newsletters and things like that the response to one of the previous questions talked about all of the energy efficiency and water efficiency upgrades is is open pace the only one that is also supporting seismic improvements and

1:19:57electric vehicle charging i don't i think that the other programs are all as well so so just to again emphasize that this is an opportunity for some of our multi-unit maybe two or three unit rental properties that may have soft stories they could potentially participate in getting some of their

1:20:19their seismic upgrades done through this program would that also call um include urms and of course on reinforcements masonry so the the seismic improvements are a fairly recent addition and so i'm not as familiar with with the mechanics of the seismic improvements but that's

1:20:38my understanding is that it's it's all seismic improvements that will be fixed to the property great speakers we do have one speaker al miller hello again i still live at [address removed] here in el cerrito i'll memorize that now i just wanted to share one experience

1:21:02lessons learned from the siege sanitary district some years ago when we started accentuating the need to replace laterals we found initially we had too many complaints from homeowners with what you might call fly by night people coming in and selling them the world and not delivering the world

1:21:25we solved it by requiring that anyone doing that kind of work in the in our district be registered within the district we don't keep anybody from registering but that way if the homeowner has a problem with it they and they come to us we know who he is how to contact her where etc etc and we

1:21:50can facilitate the resolution to be sure that the service is planned promised where the service is delivered it seems the similarity and a lot of contractors involved in a lot of residences performing a lot of services that something like that might be a service the city could

1:22:10want to look into may be providing what the law says about it i don't know but anyway i just wanted to share that with you thank you for that helpful suggestion i we'll now take it back to the council uh city attorney could we do all of these in one motion or do we have to do

1:22:29five separate motions unfortunately i would recommend i knew you were gonna say that well just in case i mean it would be possible that a council member would not want to vote on one as opposed to the others well they could say so if they didn't want that's true is there

1:22:42anybody that doesn't want to vote on all time i would still recommend taking each one individually okay nothing is not consistent i don't know if we're ready for that if but if we are i'd be happy to make the first motion okay i uh move uh we adopt a resolution authorizing the

1:23:02city of el cerrito to become a member of the california statewide communities development authority joint powers authority otherwise known as cscda subject to the execution of an amended and restated joint exercise of powers agreement with the s c s c s c d a a second

1:23:27moved in second at all in favor motion cares unanimously why don't you keep going you're right okay let's see if i can uh go through that if you want i can do the next one all right okay sure sure i move a resolution of the city council of the city of el cerrito

1:23:42authorizing the city of el cerrito to join the california first program authorizing the california state community's development authority to accept applications from property owners conduct contractual assessment proceedings and levy contractual assessments within the incorporated

1:23:57territory of the city and authorizing related actions you see a second a second moved in second and all in favor all right motion carries unanimously you want to take the next one council member quinto i'm a little confused because his number two is a little different than the

1:24:21reading i had here yeah i'm reading off the actual resolution okay then i'll move to number three on the list yeah requested um adopt a resolution authorizing the city to join the open um pace program provided through the csca joint powers authority moved in second it all in favor all

1:24:43right hang on there are some conditions there are some wording in the actual resolution that might be need to be read so before i before i vote there's something about levying contractual assessments within the territory does that need to be read no okay all right then i will say aye

1:25:04okay motion cares unanimously i'll take the next one adopt a resolution authorizing the city of el cerrito to become a member of the western riverside council of government joint powers disorder authority known as w r c o g and participate in the california hero program subject to the

1:25:21execution of an agreement for the california hero program indemnify the city second moved and seconded all in favor aye motion cares unanimously who wants the last one i'll move a res resolution of the city uh council by of the city of el cerrito approving associate membership by the

1:25:40city in the california enterprise development authority authorizing and directing the execution of an associate membership agreement relating to the associate membership of the city and the authority authorizing the city to join the fig tree pace program authorizing the

1:25:55california enterprise development authority to conduct contractual assessment proceedings and levy contractual assessments within the territory of the city of el cerrito and authorizing related actions second moved in second and all in favor signify by saying aye aye

1:26:12motion cares unanimously uh thank you very much ms alter and all the representatives of the bodies who came here tonight as resource people and to help answer our questions and thanks so much and glad that our citizens are going to get a chance to participate in

1:26:28these programs now we move on to item 7c which is the mid-year budget update and our finance director lisa malik zadeh i'm sorry give me one second okay good evening mayor and council i'm lisa malik zade finance director and tonight i'll be giving you an update

1:27:13a mid-year budget update and we want to talk a little bit about the urine results for the prior fiscal year 1314 give you an update on where we are so far with the current fiscal year one of the items that we're asking you to consider this evening are proposed amendments to the spending authority

1:27:32we'll talk briefly about that and then talk a little bit about next next year's budget 15 and 16. you'll remember you did adopt a two-year budget but we have some updates and we want to just start talking about those so this is a table you're probably becoming very familiar with i put this

1:27:54up every budget presentation at this point and this is basically a summary of the general fund and a very high level view of where we ended last fiscal year is our revenues our expenses and then of course our ending fund balance which we've been talking quite a bit about

1:28:11the last time we were in front of council we had projected that we would end the year about two hundred thousand dollars to the good unfortunately that did not occur by the end of the fiscal year and we were about eighty six thousand dollars to the good we had hoped the two hundred thousand um

1:28:28that we talked about in may would provide a little bit of a bump in our ending fund balance but that didn't happen so in the good news is that we ended within the approved budget but not as as good as we would have liked and some of the significant changes to that there's some

1:28:47positive to it and unfortunately a little bit of negative in all of our revenues we met or exceeded the budget appropriation or the budget projections with the exception of the uut and you'll remember that we did a presentation to council a few months ago and so this is one that we've been

1:29:03watching and i'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment the other issue that affected our budget projection where our expenses we've had and have carried quite a few vacancies within the city for quite some time we've had to offset some of that with professional

1:29:17services and toward the end of last fiscal year we had a few more vacancies than anticipated and that affected the amount of money that we were spending on professional services so i talked about most of these the uut is again the most significant change and really affected our year-end projections

1:29:41we did um back in i believe it was may or april of last year when we did the presentation to council we talked about a lot about the ut and some of the trends that were affecting that we did a pretty thorough um you know review of some of our the revenues that were coming in

1:29:59to see if perhaps something had been missed along the way and at this point we can't find anything that's been missed and we sort of think this is the new reality with the uut so that is going to affect our budget projections going forward in the current fiscal year

1:30:12as well as next but things are improving so that's going to help us so moving to the current fiscal year for 14 and 15 this is a focus basically on the revenues we're tracking right with where we thought which is great news again the exception being the uut because of what we've seen in the last

1:30:34two years we think it makes sense to revise that projection and we have reduced the projection this year by about 477 000 so pretty significant the offset to that though is that we're doing a little bit better in our property taxes they are coming back which is great news and we also have a

1:30:51few months of the new measure our revenue with so the overall impact to revenue is is we end up sort of at the same place but we do have to deal with that uut going forward and we think now is the time to really address it this focuses a little more on the expenditure side

1:31:13again good news is that we're tracking with the budget so nothing in the first seven months um and now an additional two months we're not seeing anything that really concerns us we think we'll probably do a little bit better we'll have more salary savings again because

1:31:28of some unanticipated vacancies but overall pretty much on track with with the budget which is good nothing jumping out that concerns us and this is a summary this the same table you just saw a few minutes ago but with a focus on the current fiscal year so with some of the changes that we

1:31:49talked about we actually think that we will end up a little bit better than the amended budget which includes some of the proposed changes to the spending authority which we'll talk about in a moment and we will end up with the ending phone balance at about the same place where we adopted

1:32:05the budget where our council adopted the budget last june which is good this also just provides high level summary to sort of remind you of what the budget was for 15 and for 1516.

1:32:19and this is a summary of the spending the actions we're asking council to consider for this evening these are changes to the general fund as well as some of our special revenue funds these represent encumbered carryover which is that second column about 3.9 million dollars

1:32:39these include items that councils approved in a prior fiscal year that were not fully spent by the end of the fiscal year so we need to carry those forward and include the appropriation or the spending authority in the current fiscal year to actually finish those things and

1:32:55then the adjustments column are really represent things that have come about because we have new allocations revenues or we've had available fund balance in the restricted funds for that use and so we're choosing to use this at that time for new initiatives so that's about 4 close to 4.5

1:33:13million dollars between the two the two items and the other piece of the budget which we don't talk as much about we really focus on the general fund are our special funds and i just wanted to sort of give you really quick um update on where we stand with that the good news

1:33:32with our special funds is that last fiscal year we pretty much stayed on track with our projections this year very similar to the general fund we're seeing that the special funds are tracking with budget approved budget which is good we do have some structural deficits that need to be addressed in

1:33:50the next fiscal year and that in the two funds that we had issues with this year and we adopted a plan essentially a one-time fix would be our npdes and our lad funds so we do need to focus on those and as we've talked about some of our special funds have really been

1:34:07stretched to the limit we've really used those and we'd like to as we go forward in the budgets really consider those funds and how do we get those balanced and stable and really being able to focus on the purpose in which we have those funds and really addressing that

1:34:21work and then looking forward to 15 and 16 as i mentioned earlier council did adopt a two-year budget there are some changes that have occurred since you adopted that budget and i just wanted to remind you of a few things that we need to address in 16.

1:34:38you'll remember that we adopted the budget but the general fund did have a small deficit of about 92 000 at that time we weren't able to increase the reserves to the levels that we'd like so that still remains an issue the structural deficits which i just mentioned

1:34:54between the two funds the average is about 250 000 on an annual basis and that's the combination of the two funds and the budget when it was adopted did not include the full effects of some of the new agreements that were adopted with the labor groups as well as the

1:35:12passage of measure r we did not build any of that new revenue into 16.

1:35:19um the other things that will affect 16 that we've just talked about a bit are the reduction in the uut and that will be about five hundred thousand dollars so that's going to be significant we think that'll be covered in sort of the other improvements but i wanted to highlight that the other um

1:35:36thing that might be you know some additional savings we did include some anticipated savings resulting from new agreements but those hadn't been fully worked out by the time the budget was put in place so we may see some additional savings that weren't anticipated

1:35:53of course the measure r which i just talked about and again the property tax is is really improving which is great i mean we anticipated some increases but it's actually based on what we've seen so far and what we've collected it's looking even better so we anticipate next year

1:36:09being even better than this year and we'll be able to increase some of our assumptions for the 16 budget that weren't included can i ask a quick question about that is that primarily due to properties that are being sold are being sold at a higher price and also some

1:36:26reassessments from the county assessor looks like our city manager wants to answer okay great that's what i thought thanks was the answer we did anticipate and we had been notified by our consultants that the assessments were going to happen it looks like they've actually happened at

1:36:47a little bit of a higher rate which is great and then of course the change el cerrito recently reached its highest median ever even before the recession so that was great news and with that i will just remind you sort of of the upcoming calendar on march 28th council will be review has a

1:37:07study session planned and you'll be reviewing priorities and talking about the strategic plan in april we'll come back to council with our master fee in may through june we'll be talking a bit about a bit more about some of the things we discussed this evening on the

1:37:25budget for 16 and some of those changes and then of course we will need to adopt we will ask council to adopt a new appropriation authority it won't be the full-blown budget but it will be the new spending limit and with that i'll take any questions questions i i've won i just want to make sure that

1:37:47the resolution that you provided that was provided on the dyas this evening is the same as the one we may have reviewed from friday there was a yes other questions so just regarding the eut i know we're not going to see any increases but do you think we'll see a lot a big change from what's on here

1:38:13now as ejected i don't think we'll see any additional reductions i mean we are seeing we are seeing ut go up a bit but it's not going up to the extent that we want so we've assumed a little bit of an increase but very minimal so i don't see a decline thank you sure following up on that

1:38:33question on and i'm sorry there's no slide number but on one of the slides that was the general fund revenue for 1415 the last column was adopted and the uut was uh 3.7 million i'm assuming that sometime over the next couple of months that that 3.7 will be trended down to the 3.1 3.2

1:38:57area correct this this column reflects what was adopted and at that time we were assuming that the uut was going to be at that level so this is one of the updates that we'll have to do for 16 for the 16 budget and one of the changes good thank you any other questions before we see if

1:39:15there's any speakers i have no request to speak okay so we have a resolution if we're ready to vote on that i would entertain a motion sure i'll move a resolution of the city council of the city of el cerrito amending the spending authority by fund for the city of el cerrito for fiscal

1:39:35year 2014-15 oh second moved and seconded all in favor say question so i thought i heard it just said that the two numbers are the same but i see one difference it if you're there there's it should be 46 million 200 153 okay so the thing that the there was new the new so the one in our

1:40:03packet actually has there is one change which is to add a um from the new municipal services corporation 191 thousand two hundred dollars um from the one that was posted thursday that was in that was removed on an amendment that was received on friday and the one

1:40:24that was handed out tonight is consistent with the second one which removes that hundred and ninety one thousand dollars because the municipal services corporation which is what i just said right it's out right okay thank you for that attention to that that's been moved in second and all in

1:40:41favor signify by saying aye aye motion cares unanimously thank you very much for a very clear and comprehensive presentation we now move on to the final item prior to adjournment which is council local and regional liaison assignment reports if any all right i i i i i'll get out that

1:41:09easily this week i will be representing uh el cerrito at the west west contra costa integrated waste management authority and on our behalf i wrote a letter to the board members and the executive director part of what we'll be discussing this thursday is the distribution of the

1:41:30recycling revenues and and rate reserve fund and what that fund has done is it it was funded by the sale of recyclables from the integrated the earth the integrated resource recovery facility uh over the last 13 years or from 2002 to 2013 there was over almost 36 million dollars of

1:41:58recyclables sold through the uh actually there's more than that because we only got 40 or 60 in any case about 36 million dollars came to recycle more during that period of time about 33 million of that was provided to residents that were in the area as a as a rate reduction

1:42:24and el cerrito did not benefit from that rate reduction however some of that 36 million dollars was generated from out of area sales so about 26 million 26 of that 36 million dollars was was generated as a result of el cerrito uh participating in the jpa and we should be getting a percentage of

1:42:51that or a portion of that 26 percent of the 36 million so on i did write a letter on our behalf saying that we did hope that the discussions that will occur on thursday will will take into consideration the fact that el cerrito has not benefited from any rate reductions for

1:43:13the last 13 years and that we look forward to having the other jurisdictions consider this as a matter of equity that we've our ratepayers did pay for the construction of the earth we we had that in our rate structure for 30 years and that building did generate this

1:43:33revenue and therefore el cerrito residents should find some way of benefiting from from those out of areas sales so i i just wanted to let you know that that visit that discussions this thursday we are talking about uh the difference between the presentation that was attached to

1:43:53the agenda item has a hundred thousand dollars coming to el cerrito uh the uh analysis that our consultants provided for us says that it's between 800 000 and 1.4 million so this is a very wide disparity that i'm hoping that we can the dialogue begins on thursday and i'm

1:44:15hoping that i will come back and be able to provide you with a hopeful news that that there is opportunities for us to have um you know our residents uh benefit from the sale of of recyclables in a building that we helped pay for so thank you any other reports i just very briefly i met with

1:44:40uh president of the east bay municipal utility district board of directors frank mellon and andy katz who's our representative on edmond and uh was given an update on the latest on the drought and the implications for our residents some of which has come out in the press recently but stay tuned for

1:45:01further developments and with that we are adjourned until march 28th you