Regular City Council Meeting and Special City Council Meeting July 21, 2015

0:01:03excuse me okay mayor freeman council members my name is cordell handler and i'm a resident of richmond i came to you last month and regarding the police around my area i'm still getting very little upset about it so i brought that up once before so that's one of my

0:01:22concerns the second one is i am an outreach coordinator for the city of richmond i am with them we're getting together some high school students to be part of our youth leadership committee so i didn't bring flyers for that but i'll bring them next month so that's one of my other concerns

0:01:36that's a good concern but number three is um i mentioned to you about the businesses around our area it's still the same thing people be hanging around the liquor stores and that's and those are some of the kind of the hot spots in in the area and people be hanging around

0:01:50there for money and i was like it's just not fair i mean the police they're they're sort of doing a good thing but still but to me they got to work with the businesses to not let that happen again so that's number three and then number four all right the rent uh and el cerrito are

0:02:06are absolutely unacceptable you got like i see because i looked up online and i said to myself we got some of these on these these vacant proper um businesses around that are in the area so i'm thinking um who would pay who would come out of the out of into the into el cerrito with um

0:02:25that spend fifteen hundred dollars a month uh for a business space that's not right so so that's all i have to say with i would like to open up for some questions uh we we generally don't take questions at this time i mean that question i mean um you get the idea yeah we do thank you

0:02:43so much it's always a pleasure to see you thanks for coming thank you mayor we have 12 additional speakers next is julia heath followed by valerie snyder and ray turnip seed good evening mayor and council members like she said my name is julia heath and i'm here with contra costa county

0:03:04climate leaders i gave you a brochure that you can look at and you can check us out online at www.ccclimateleaders.org i'm here tonight to tell you about two exciting funding opportunities for energy efficiency upgrades and i know that el cerrito has been very proactive

0:03:24in improving the property assessed clean energy or pace funding options already so thank you very much for that and as you know these mechanisms create more sustainable communities by providing businesses and residents with affordable funding options for energy

0:03:41and water efficiency upgrades that's why i want to tell you that we have a new pace agent called wygreen and many of the other cities in contra costa county are in the process of approving wygreen it's the number one california provider for both commercial and multi-family residential

0:04:06they're planning to be able to fund more than three billion dollars worth of energy upgrades in the next five years which will create 45 000 jobs and eliminate 500 000 metric tons of carbon dioxide so please give your constituents access to this low-cost energy

0:04:26upgrade financing by creating a resolution and putting it on your next agenda for approval i've also provided you with a sample resolution from lafayette and my last funding opportunity that i'd like to tell you about is pg e's on bill financing program or obf i've also given

0:04:47you a flyer about that and obf is terrific because it offers qualifying government agencies access to 0 interest loans between 5 and 250 000 with repayment periods of up to 120 months so thank you for your time and please consider offering these low-cost financing options

0:05:16thank you very much thank you valerie snyder followed by ray turnip seed and brigitta turnip seed good evening members of the city council my name is valerie snyder i'm a resident and homeowner in the castro park neighborhood i would like to help the city council to

0:05:37understand the concerns that we neighbors have about the new korematsu middle school while the residents of kensington and other neighborhoods of el cerrito enthusiastically await its opening those of us who will be impacted by the opening of the school would like you to hear our concerns and

0:05:55respond to our concerns in a way that demonstrates that you are genuinely committed to helping us to maintain a certain quality of life in 1989 my husband and i chose to buy our home in the castro park neighborhood because it is quiet there's very little traffic on our

0:06:13street and there was a park around the corner to tell you the truth we probably would not have decided to buy our house if there had already been a middle school at the location that has [Music] that has been taken over by the middle school we are now resigned to the fact that the

0:06:32neighborhood will change but we would like it to not be a change for the worse i believe the city can take an active role in connection with issues such as traffic bus routes and drop-off sites i would especially like the city to advocate for the community's use of the

0:06:50park if there is any park left castro park was a gathering place for the neighborhood a happy place where families brought but little kids and we're little and big kids played basketball kicked a soccer ball played tennis had picnics and birthday parties or strolled around the

0:07:11grass the district in its effort to sell the castro site as the best site for the new middle school asserted that the park would not be affected from what i see in here this does not seem to be the case please assure us that you take our concerns seriously and please work with us to maintain the

0:07:28quality of life that attracted us to our neighborhood thank you thank you very much ray turn up seed [Applause] yeah my name is ray turnip seed and i've been a resident of el cerrito for over 60 years i'd like to give this to the city council it's a petition basically it's for putting speed bumps

0:07:58efficiently request the installation of two speed humps on naval lyric suite could you speak into the microphone please we're having trouble hearing you you can take it down a little bit if you need to okay petitioners request the installation of two speed humps on naval air street

0:08:14between glass avenue and petrol avenue which wind speed hump transversing both lanes of naval air street midway between patrol avenue and mound street and one speed hump traversing both lanes naval air street midway between glass avenue and mound street this section

0:08:36naval air street between petrarol avenue and glass is a quiet residential neighborhood with frequent pedestrian traffic on the sidewalks adjacent to the roadway installation of the proposed speed humps is requested for the following reasons one to control the volume of automobile

0:08:52traffic on naval air street two to regulate speeding by automobiles using naval air street three to further help control the speed of automobile traffic northbound on naval air street approaching the stop sign on naval street at petraro avenue thereby decreasing the likelihood of accidents

0:09:09at the intersection or to increase local pedestrian safety on naval air street five to help regulate the anticipated further increase in volume of automobile traffic on davalaire street within the next two years due to the ongoing construction project near the lavrov street

0:09:25neighborhood described herein and in addition to enhance overall pedestrian and motor safety to protect and preserve the quality of life in the naval air street neighborhood um i have been to the city and i turned to this petition it was returned to us and signed

0:09:44on the 2nd of july and the public works department did that at that time i was told that we would have to follow a procedure and that procedure was that it would have to be a traffic study and then we would be put on a list and of course if the city had the money that

0:10:06then we would be considered for that possibility my question was why was there speed put on norvell with none of the residents notified and those studies but the speed dump was put on there none of the residents knew about it or wanted it seems funny to me the city does things

0:10:28i don't know what the city council approved it or how it was approved but i asked the public works people to please let me know and give me a reason and i've asked them to go forward and give me that i've never received a word or call absolutely nothing i want the city council to step forward

0:10:46and ask the city why when i go down to the city and i ask for information or i call down there i don't receive calls back at the time excuse me your time is up i think you're asking some important questions and we'll try to get some answers for you i appreciate that

0:11:03thank you brigitta tournipsy followed by james told bennett and sydney manchester jones good evening my name is brigitte turnipseed i've been a homeowner in the castro neighborhood for over 40 years and i'm here tonight to address the el cerrito city council in the hopes that you will

0:11:32support us in our quest to maintain public access to castro park whenever residents of the castro neighborhood have voiced their concerns about the issues surrounding the construction of the new school it has fallen on deaf ears in regards to any questions put forth to

0:11:52the city regarding the area adjacent to the site we have been told repeatedly it is a matter for the school district to resolve does this also include castro park or the cutting of trees which were not to be touched but have been destroyed by construction we had been assured before construction

0:12:12had started that the park would definitely not be affected it would continue to remain as a neighborhood park as it had been for decades as we all now know that is not so without any notice to the neighborhood from the school district or the city the park is now also under construction

0:12:35apparently for the use of the school what is the city's position on this where is our representation we are aware the city leases the park from the school district is that no longer true if so why was the neighborhood not informed the district uses our police services

0:12:55paid for by citizen taxes the district uses our city streets as well as a myriad of other services for which we also pay taxes but yet it appears whenever a question is posed to the city regarding the construction area including the park the city defers to the school district as residents of el

0:13:18cerdo we have a right to know what situations may impact our neighborhood thank you very much thank you for your comments james bennett followed by sydney manchester jones followed by ronnie polonsky good evening my name is james todd bennett and i wanted to address another issue out in

0:13:47the castro neighborhood call the boards that are excuse me the council's attention to a proposal for restricted parking under the city ordinance i believe it's chapter 11.010 etc uh we'd be proposing a one-hour maximum parking in an area basically running from navaleer to manila

0:14:14down to potrero petraro to everett everett to manila manila to navalier and then the internal streets inside of that box now the proposal was broached to the planning department and today was rejected out of hand with no sense of irony i was basically advised that we do not

0:14:37need to plan we will basically react after the situation develops when the school opens i would submit that we probably need to be planning in advance if we're going to really deal with the problem and the proposal for the restricted parking simply because it does not appear that

0:14:57the school district has done anything at all to address the parking problems that are going to exist for its staff for the parents dropping off children for vendors and anybody else coming onto the premises i believe there's something in the neighborhood of 30 plus parking

0:15:11spaces and hey could you talk into the microphone so people listening at home can hear you thank you it's my understanding that they've underestimated the amount of parking and there really hasn't been an adequate provision in order to preclude chaos in the streets of the neighborhood that's why

0:15:31we would be proposing to the board that we have some restrictions on parking in the area with guest permits and all the other accouterments i was advised earlier in another proceeding in this in with the building division that basically we only get enforcement here when

0:15:54somebody complains well i we're not complaining at this point but we're saying something needs to be done thank you very much thank you for your comments sydney man chester jones followed by ronnie polonsky and nick arzio evening council members my name is sydney manchester jones

0:16:24i'm a resident of el cerrito for the last eight years and a voter you know i live at audis rv trailer park uh for the last eight years i've lived there and it's owned by mr edward biggs he's the land he's the owner and he mr biggs is selling the property to a developer and they want to

0:16:52build 27 town houses and that's all right and well you know that will help increase the tax base of the city the problem is there's uh mr biggs gave us uh several uh one very belligerent letter to vacate in two months and or else you know basically that's what it came down to

0:17:15and so we went to we we went to get a turn we myself and uh two other people who have limited income we went to legal aid we got an attorney david 11 and the others that work at uh golden gate fields racetrack got their attorney and so we contested uh you know that we feel that

0:17:38he is required to do a resident impact report you know for people that people that may have problems in uh relocating elsewhere such as myself and he's under the contention of an rv park trailer park and he's not required to do that unlike mobile home parks where rvs and trailers also

0:18:00uh you know parked there and and live there as well as the mobile homes they are re they are uh required to uh do a resident impact report and he doesn't want to do that and uh so you know we've uh written letters you know the from what i understand the city of el cerrito

0:18:19has requested him to do a resident impact report there's a lady that's lived there for 26 years i've lived there for eight there's uh another ladies live there works at the racetrack for 20 years and another lady that works at the racetrack for 15 years we've been there we're

0:18:34residents and uh so he doesn't want to do that so uh you know we've uh and the developers they have actually requested him to do to facilitate this thing to get this going to do a resident impact report on our remain there's nine of us remaining he doesn't want to do it he we did have

0:18:54a meeting with him yesterday and his attorney and our attorneys and nothing was ever really hashed out he said well we'll help you move your trailer someplace or something like that you know that's not that's uh he needs to do i feel and the rest of us and our attorneys too is to do a resident impact

0:19:13report on us i'll end with this this is the issue that's at hand now this is money moves in uh helps increase the tax basis of cities like el cerrito and uh and other areas uh you know in the bay area this isn't just and then people are displaced that don't have as much money

0:19:36and uh and and uh like us and we're falling through the cracks and so this is a problem all over the country you know i just want to make that and el cerrito's not alone in this time can you happen okay good i think you made your points quite well and uh thank you thank you very much we'll talk

0:19:56to the city attorney about that thank you very much and sorry that you and your neighbors are having that problem thank you city manager and i have been over here conferring we just wanted to clarify that that we have been in communication with both mr biggs and and also the

0:20:13applicant for the development project that was just mentioned they're they're too mr biggs is not himself planning to do the development project in this case the the applicant for the development project has agreed to do a resident impact report it is the case that mr biggs has said

0:20:28that he will not do it but the but the applicant has said that they will the outcome of that and the scope of it is not going to be exactly the same as what would normally be required under state law for um for a mobile home park but they are going to provide some

0:20:43information about to the city about the issues that would normally be addressed in a resident impact report and that will be coming to all the decision makers for the development project as part of the package of information for them to consider thank you very much for explaining that

0:20:59ronnie polanski followed by nick nicholas arzio and howdy gowdy hello everybody i am here to talk about a minimum wage for the city of el cerrito i'm listening to these other problems and i'm thinking we can't do much or i can't do anything to help these people in the mobile home

0:21:17park or the people in castro park but we in el cerrito and the city council could take a vote on having a minimum wage here we're a small city with some very big stores and i've done my own informal survey at petco one of my favorite places and db shoes another one the workers there are

0:21:39making nine dollars an hour we've heard recently at the el cerrito democratic club a woman from uc berkeley came and she's she's doing a massive study about the impact of minimum wage on the different cities that have adopted the minimum wage and contrary to what one would expect these cities have

0:21:58noticed increase in business revenue and because workers have more money to spend they're spending it and it's actually been beneficial to the cities like san francisco and richmond and berkeley that have adopted a minimum wage law so the federal government doesn't seem

0:22:15to be able to do it but i think maybe we could do it in el cerrito and i think it's the right thing to do so i'd like to see the city council take it up and vote thank you thank you um at the last council meeting i announced on august 18th that our council meeting

0:22:31will be having a study session on the minimum wage and uc berkeley labor center will be there at the study session and they've been preparing a study on impact of minimum wage in contra costa county and hopefully they'll have their results ready to present at that time

0:22:48along with supervisor john joya who's heading up county-wide task force on a minimum wage will also be present for the study session so thank you for bringing that up mr arzio followed by howdy gowdy and then jordan herman good evening i'm nicholas arzio executive vice president of the el

0:23:10cerrito democratic club uh during last month's council meeting we presented a list of el cerrito residents and business owners who support our club's resolution to ask for a local minimum wage in el cerrito today i wanted to add to the list of el cerrito residents and business owners

0:23:27who are endorsing or supporting or recommending this local minimum wage ordinance to be enacted by the city council by january 1st 2016.

0:23:38all of these people either live in el cerrito or own a business in el cerrito so i'll begin with elected officials todd groves pamela mirabella and al miller county democratic party alternates who live in el cerrito joan carpenter and rochelle pardue okimoto community activists yvonne stefan ruth

0:24:02breach and nicolas galoro and business owners whose businesses operate in el cerrito marty kolisky of marty's motors and mark fagoni president of east bay sanitary in addition the following committees of the city of el cerrito have voted to recommend our resolution to the council

0:24:21and that they are the el cerrito committee on aging and the el cerrito crime prevention committee so we hope that you'll listen to residents and business owners and committees of el cerrito who are urging you to enact by january 1st 2016 a local minimum wage ordinance in el

0:24:39cerrito thank you very much thank you [Applause] all right good evening mayor friedman council members my name is howdy gowdy i live at [address removed] i do want to thank the mayor i received your email just a few hours ago regarding the questions that i had posed

0:25:06about 1715 elm street and i appreciate the response i have gotten acknowledgements from most of the council members but i have been disappointed that there really hasn't been an engagement of the substance of um of the concerns and i i guess you gave some answers in your um

0:25:29letter about it coming back before council i was a little unclear about that given that it's a fully um entitled project i don't know what uh circumstances that would come before council unless you're willing to um consider an amendment of the plan development as

0:25:47i was suggesting which would be great if that's what you're doing but it would be nice if there was more information about and communication about what's being considered so you know i pointed out that the the general plan clearly it says in uh policy h1.15 that you know flood hazards

0:26:08for new construction must protect against a 100-year flood during the discussion of this project 10-year flood was brought up as the standard which appears to be the standard for the storm drain system but in terms of the impact on a dwelling unit it appears that it's

0:26:27100 years and i think it's important for you to converse with the city about that standard and ensure that it is upheld you know the uh the staff was good enough to uh send me a response that they are going to require a signed and stamped stormwater plan on hydraulic analysis

0:26:48which is great again you know the details of what's in there what's required what the standards are that need to be met or what's really important and what as you as the people who entitled this project i think you really need to provide the guidance to staff saying that you want it to be

0:27:06assured to meet this hundred year flood uh standard and that's not a trivial thing given what we know about the existing conditions the deficiencies of the the storm drain system and the fact that the existing channel was not engineered for what is being put next to

0:27:22it only four feet away at grade when it's demonstrated that it's come up to within a foot of grade so this is just really reckless and needs to be well thought out and i hope that you know what you indicated is that you are working with staff to really um get a resolution to this that assures the

0:27:43best outcome for the community um so thank you thank you very much jordan herman followed by susan schwartz and uh alice marola good evening council even i'd like to make a request for the for the city to have a noise control ordinance the state has an office of noise control

0:28:09which has the job of assisting cities that would like to adopt a noise control ordinance el cerrito city police have no enforcement power regarding noise without such an ordinance just for example i live behind the stores betw on carlson boulevard between fairmount and the albany border

0:28:32and as early as four o'clock in the morning or 4 30 in the morning the dumpsters will be being picked up and dumped and it's quite a noisy affair and what's ironic about it this i i believe the city has a contract for that uh company it's not east based sanitary

0:28:50so uh i think it'll be nice for us to have a noise control ordinance thank you thank you very much good evening i have more pictures for you i'm susan schwartz the head of friends of five creeks we've worked in el cerrito for 19 years now all volunteer group um actually three different things we

0:29:14would like to thank the city and particularly chief maples we just completed a five thousand dollar grant from diablo fire safe clearing more broom in the hillside natural area and it was a very successful project also to invite some of you to our moth night in the hillside natural

0:29:35area this friday co-sponsored with the trail trekkers you can find the information on either either website it'll be lots of fun but are really here to talk again about maintenance in this case about cerrito creek but more about the need for clear and ongoing and written

0:29:58maintenance policies the photos uh that you have are of the current conditions in cerrito creek um immediately behind the flood control ponds in creekside park at that point uh both sides of the creek are legally in el cerrito i think you can see that if we got a rainy season um with those

0:30:23conditions we would be likely to have floods in the area which elsewhere on your agenda dealing with fema you can see is an extremely flood-prone neighborhood the neighborhood just north of there is a filled marsh it's essentially lower than everything around it it's a serious

0:30:41ongoing problem um i'm actually fairly confident that something will be done uh this the city i've showed them these pictures and something will be done before rainy season but the problem is that i'm sorry to be rude cities don't have good institutional memory

0:31:01staff leaves things are forgotten there's been abundant evidence that these conditions which are recurring in in the creek are not known to to whatever is to me relatively new staff um i've somehow become an old-timer i don't understand quite how that happened happened

0:31:29and that it's been recommended by consultants by various maintenance plans that there be an annual inspection um an ongoing an an ongoing policy for what's going to be done that it has to be in writing and you you really need this or some year i'm not going to be here to send the

0:31:49photographs to the staff and say this is what what needs to be done um so i'm hoping that that will be forthcoming uh before i get really too old to do it thank you very much thanks what time is the event on friday 7 30 pm at the schmidt entrance okay thanks very much

0:32:08um the i think the final speaker is alice marola miss marilla i'm not sure from the speaker slip whether you're addressing an item on the agenda or general comment okay so that would be at this time hi my name's alice marola i've been in a homeowner in the area for about almost

0:32:2825 years i've been in the area in general since 1972.

0:32:33my concern is we had worked with the castro school planning people when they started the whole thing about building it and one of the things they assured us was that we would maintain the park the park would be there for the community and i think we really trusted naively

0:32:52now that that's what would happen in our neighborhood now i don't know if you've all noticed but there are a lot of new young families moving in into el cerrito with new babies there are a lot of elderly and my age and beyond and we walk we use the park we take our grandchildren there

0:33:13my concern is that that quality of the the neighborhood is going to be chipped away little by little just like the whole uh little report from the uh the school district that that would be maintained and that's not what is happening presently that's a big concern there's a lot of

0:33:32traffic issues involved we've had elderly people walking up and down the areas the bus that used to run up on the hill i forget the name of the street has now come down to blake street that bus rushes through there there are children so i'm afraid that all of this is impacting our

0:33:51neighborhood but most of all the park it's our little open space that we can reach take our grandchildren i see families take their children and i would hate to see that chipped away and i would hope you would all work with us and not wait until it's done at the very

0:34:08last minute and then say ah we got it under the the threshold they're not going to have to deal with it you know it's already said and done work with us we'll work with you that's what you're here for that's why you're elected thank you [Applause] thanks very much

0:34:29that's it i i want to thank all the people who spoke tonight i think it reflects the tremendous citizen participation in our communion i think we take all of your concerns seriously and particularly you know all the folks who came out from the castro park neighborhood is clearly we need to

0:34:49have some discussions with this school district and see what's really going on and what role if any the city has and helping to make the ongoing construction and then the operation of the school more compatible with all of you long-time residents or even new residents so thank you

0:35:09all right now we move on to item 4a which is a proclamation honoring the rosenberg family chris jones the rosenberg family couldn't be here tonight but we're going to go ahead and pass the resolution and then we'll make arrangements to present it to them so chris you want to give us the short

0:35:29story and we'll recognize the rosenbergs when we get to chance good evening honorable mayor and council members recently the property on at 945 king drive was passed to the city in an agreement that was made by the city council in 2003.

0:35:56this property was conveyed to the city with the understanding that it would be remain open space and that the home would not be rented out for material gain but it could act as a park building either in its present form or replaced so we simply wanted to acknowledge the

0:36:17generosity of the rosenberg family who had moved to el cerrito in 1940 before they moser lane even existed we definitely want to acknowledge the generosity of this gift to the city in a proclamation both for marvin rosenberg's son barr and his stepmother mary rosenberg who

0:36:41currently resides in england all right any public comment i have no speakers questions emotion i move to approve a proclamation recognizing and showing gratitude for the donation of property on 945 king drive to the city of el cerrito by the marvin rosenberg trust

0:37:01and acknowledging marvin dorothy mary and barbara rosenberg for their roles in the donation second moved in second and all in favor signify by saying aye aye motion carries unanimously thank you next up we have a presentation from the contra costa county sheriff's department

0:37:22presented by tom chalk captain about the west county detention facility and it will be introduced by our very own chief moore yes good evening mayor friedman council and community members of el cerrito i'm sylvia moyer your police chief and tonight our under sheriff mike

0:37:41caston and captain tom chalk of the contra costa county sheriff's department are going to make a presentation on the proposed west contra costa county detention facility i deeply appreciate their willingness to brief us and our community on this facility and look forward to working

0:38:00together with them as this project moves forward so under sheriff caston and captain chuck thank you chief moyer she is a very welcoming host to us here at the city and we thoroughly enjoyed talking to her and her staff mayor friedman thank you for taking the time to hearing this presentation as

0:38:37well as other council members we're here to talk about a construction project that's very important to us and we feel has great positive impact on the rest of the county the project is for a west county reentry mental health treatment facility that is cited to be built at the west county

0:38:56contra costa detention center located on giant highway in richmond we're applying for funding pursuant to sb 863 which provides guidelines for such construction for a facility specific specifically for replacing existing custody cells and adding additional programming space

0:39:18i want to introduce the team that we brought here today of course our captain chalk who is our west county detention facility commander and project lead on this assistant sheriff matt schuler who is in charge of our entire custody bureau and then robert nelson who is our

0:39:33administrative consultant to the sheriff we do have other members of our team but this is who we brought here today and the biggest member of our team is sheriff david livingston who also sends his regrets that he couldn't come here today before council but he had some

0:39:46conflicts but we hope that we can give you a clear concise overview of our project that will be very informative to you and the citizens of el cerrito great perfect thank you undershirt before i begin we've done this presentation several times throughout the community

0:40:11not just here in el cerrito but elsewhere on the west end and i just want to take one minute to say that it is very impressive and encouraging to see the level of citizen involvement that in this community they have with this city council i think that i just wanted to

0:40:24point that out that doing these presentations that's something that is noteworthy thank you so what i'm gonna i'm not gonna spend a lot of time i know some of you may have seen this presentation that we did in richmond and it was quite lengthy this is a little shortened version a little

0:40:38more succinct and what we want to just cover tonight is the overview of sb 863 and what that funding opportunity means uh background of our current jail system situation details of the proposed facility and then the role of the stakeholders so just a brief overview overview of

0:40:58senate bill 863 it's a construction financing program that provides up to 500 million dollars in state lease revenue bond financing to acquire design renovate or construct adult local detention facilities and basically the counties have to provide 10 percent of the matching funds

0:41:16and the way senate bill 863 works is out of the 500 million dollars large counties are allocated 240 million that's the entire pot and a large county project capped as 80 million so contra costa county is going to apply for the full amount of 80 million but we are competing with other large counties

0:41:34in the state for that for that amount so as you can see if you do the math only three counties if they all apply for 80 million would be successful so it's extremely competitive process a little bit more about 863 so the funding considerations given to counties that are seeking to replace

0:41:52compacted outdated or unsafe housing an additional consideration probably the more important element to this is we also have to make sure we provide adequate space programming space for the provision of re-entry program and mental health treatment that's a critical element of this

0:42:09and not only that the funding is for construction only it does not finance the programming treatment or personnel so we're on the hook for for those costs for those of you are not aware we have three jails in contra costa county we have the martinez detention facility

0:42:26located in martinez that is our high security maximum security facility which was built in 1978 and was designed for short-term pre-trial stay so folks that are being off the street you know they get arrested for something they go to court and then they their case gets

0:42:42adjudicated in some manner not designed for long-term stay the west county detention facility here in richmond is a campus style facility a medium security programs based operation and i'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment and then we have a marsh creek detention facility

0:43:00which is our sentenced facility on the base of mount diablo out in clayton and that's our farm system where this very minimum security folks that are out there that could hop over a fence if they chose to leave which fortunately they do not so why are we pursuing

0:43:19sb 863 funding well our demonstrated need is this we have a large segment of our incarcerated population in contra costa county consists of individuals who are required to be housed at the martinez detention facility and that could be based upon their charges it could be based upon

0:43:34other things such as them requiring protective custody environment they just don't qualify to be in a campus-style open setting such as west county or marsh creek the martinez attention facility was built in 1978 which i mentioned earlier with no program space basically and it's

0:43:52outdated and extremely overcrowded and due to that outdated design the we're unable to provide robust educational vocational re-entry and mental health programming that it would otherwise be available to these folks if they were housed elsewhere currently what we can offer at the

0:44:10martinez detention facility is independent study some various religious programs and if you're serving time there you could check out a book from a library card that's really the extent of it and just give you an example on our mental health housing unit that that's

0:44:26your program space in martinez and you can see you can fit one maybe two individuals in there and it's not very conducive to any type of um specifically behavioral health type programming another example of program space in martinez and that space right there would be

0:44:49available to 90 individuals on a housing unit so again there's no technology built in and it's just not adequate for anything relevant at this point and there's a photo of inside our mental health housing unit and you can see there's really no opportunity to build or construct

0:45:07program space within the housing unit itself it's a very hardened facility cements pillars everywhere and we're not able to do any renovation in contrast you can see here from the list i won't read it all but this is just an example the type of programming that we're able to offer at

0:45:25our west county facility which of course it was designed for for this purpose and what we'd like to do is build a high security facility within the existing west county campus and be able to offer these types of programs and then some and i'll get into that in just a moment

0:45:42it's kind of an example of one of our existing classrooms at west county and for those of you that have ever driven down giant highway you probably wonder what what goes on inside that behind those trees well this is what it looks like on the inside a very park

0:46:01like setting very open actually it's a very pleasant atmosphere when if i want to leave the stress on my office i actually go inside the jail to to relax so imagine that here's another another photo so here's what we're trying to do we want to build a 208 room secure

0:46:26housing unit which has the dedicated mental health and reentry pods where the living space of these folks would live over 22 thousand square feet of program and treatment spray space and the entire footprint of the facility would be approximately 140 000 square feet

0:46:42between 130 to 140.

0:46:45we'll have seven in the individual pods built with their own program space on the housing and why that's important is when you have a higher level or high security individual who's incarcerated it's better to bring the programming to them rather than have them go to the

0:47:01programming where they're walking through an open campus setting so we'll actually be able to bring the program into the folks we'll have additional vocational space and this is something that's very unique and very exciting in my opinion for the county as we're going to create a child

0:47:17contact visitation center so we bought we're buying into the importance of family reintegration reunification and will not have the ability to have incarcerated parents under very clinical supervision in our parent and inside out program be able to have contact visits with their children

0:47:36an important note again this facility will be constructed within the secure perimeter of the west county detention facility on an existing pad already designed for future expansion okay so there was when the west county was originally built it was built with the

0:47:50intention that it would be other buildings would be constructed if we're successful with the sb 863 grant the facility would open in late 2019 maybe early 2020 so it's still some time off some of the programming that we'll be offering one of the most important elements to re-entry

0:48:11programming and when we buy into the jails to communities model is when you come into custody and then you have an assessment that's done on you so what we want to do is make sure that when you when you're brought in that an assessment occurs that we make sure we identify based on what your

0:48:26needs are and your length of stay or proposed length to stay we make sure we get the right type of programming to you whether it be behavioral health re-entry if you're in a re-entry track academics or vocation or all the above we will continue to offer robust adult

0:48:42education classes substance abuse treatment and of course i just mentioned the parenting class and child visitation and also we're going to design the child visitation center to include existing incarcerated folks at the existing west county detention facility to be able to have access to that center

0:48:59so we don't exclude them and that includes our women our female population as well we're going to expand our behavioral health services these are some of the what's listed here the moral recognition therapy dialectical behavior behavioral therapy and the rest are some of your

0:49:15industry standard best practices for behavioral health treatment we're also this isn't a sheriff's office idea we're collaborating with re-entry experts mental health experts and members of the community really to help us develop our detailed programmatic design

0:49:32and this includes a completely new jail needs assessment that we're currently just wrapping up we also it's interesting as we've gone through this everybody has some really great ideas on how to provide services for your incarcerated population but we thought well maybe

0:49:48it's important we even ask the people that we've been talking about all this time what they need and so we started a re-entry work group comprised of our current some of our current uh inmates and having them buy into this process and help us out along the way so there's a here's the

0:50:05an overhead view of the west county campus the building in white that's not what it's going to look like i just included this conceptual design to show that's the pad that the facility would be built that's your basic footprint 130 to 140 000 square feet and it will be

0:50:25designed to where it looks and it's the same color same motif as the existing buildings and including the landscaping drought resistant landscaping of course who would be housed there well it's no secret um we have a large segment of our incarcerated population

0:50:42this is a nationwide statistic that many of the folks have some form of mental health or men or behavioral health need and we would have we have 200 right now that could move over and start receiving more robust mental health treatment and then there's 183 other folks that for

0:51:00one reason or another could not safely be housed in a campus setting here's a list of our staffing considerations we'll move not only incarcerated folks out of martinez but additional personnel will go along with them we will have to spend some money to fund some additional positions for

0:51:19supervision and safety in addition to our treatment staff so the total project we're looking with the county's 10 cash match about 88 to 89 million dollars and in-kind costs do apply so the county would actually be required to come out of pocket approximately six and a half

0:51:40to seven million of that ten percent and we are currently calculating the annual net operating costs and also our funding sources for the program part of our jls2 community model is we created jails to communities council and this is these are folks that are comprised of

0:52:01members of the community our current mental health experts some of our jail staff and our medical staff that will sit on this council and ensure that as we go through this design of the pro or the programmatic array and implementation that there's some collaboration that's done it's

0:52:20extremely important to get the buy-in of all the stakehold holders so in conclusion we do have an urgent incredible need for new housing replacement and we've recognized this need over a decade ago we just haven't had any funding to fix it this is a room replacement project we're

0:52:39not trying to add additional beds into the our jail system we're planning to build new beds but of course we're taking people out of a situation and putting them into a better environment so those cells will remain empty and we we all believe and as we've done this presentation and reached out to

0:52:57members of the community i think the consensus is that this facility will have a long-term positive impact to our shared community through the ultimate goal of the reduction in recidivism and making our communities a safer place and that's it so any any questions or

0:53:17i tried to get through it as quick as i could no that was very comprehensive and sustained a great combination so thank you captain and undersheriff uh questions i just had a question how could you repeat again how competitive the grant was extremely well i mean

0:53:33it's the reason why it's so competitive is you have i believe there's 15 large counties in the state of california and in theory all 15 could apply for a very finite set of funding so if there's 240 million for large counties set aside we're competing for one of three

0:53:5080 million dollar awards and so when i say competitive we have to be very very careful on how we prepare the application that we show that demonstrated need that we show that we can pay for these programs because what the state wants to see a county demonstrate is if we're going

0:54:05to give you state dollars to build a facility not only do you have to staff it but those programs that you say you're going to provide you better show that you can pay for them over the long term and so that's a critical element to that um does that answer your question yeah um

0:54:23and then the second part of it was that with the mental health component it sounds like because there's not programming space in your current situation in martinez does that mean you're hiring staff or you use a county hospital or where all the per where are the personnel coming

0:54:40from so we would go to rfp there the way the national the the model is this when you want to provide expanded behavioral health programming to a large number of folks we don't have the county staff or the capability to provide that and not only that we couldn't afford to hire

0:54:5815 county employees that are all clinicians what you do is you go to rfp for a provider that's does this they first to be a qualified provider that can provide you with the lcsws and the qualified staff to come into your facilities and provide that mental health programming in addition to

0:55:14your current county staff it's kind of a team effort and they and they have some co duties but primarily it's outside providers that you bring in to accomplish that goal okay thank you any other questions any any public comment no speaker slips we're gonna turn it

0:55:32over to the chief now thank you mayor friedman i would like to close with thanking under sheriff castin and captain chalk for not only educating me about custody because this is nowhere in my wheelhouse but really for coming to el cerrito to talk about this project i

0:55:49will um i do want to ask undersheriff castin when he when he mentions the biggest member of the sheriff's team is sheriff livingston i think we'll have to closely define what biggest means and i think we could have most significant good to know and i would say that really any

0:56:08improvement to local facilities that increase our capacity for programs and services strengthening reintegration benefits not only our region but it benefits our city and i look forward to the additional meetings and insights and education that this very talented staff

0:56:26can provide me and the rest of our region so thank you very much the sheriff's staff and thank you for counsel to our council for inviting them thank you for having us you're always welcome thank you thanks all right next up is ac transit service expansion plan and planned outreach

0:56:45presented by robert del rosario director of service development good evening robert darrow's i'm the director of service development thank you for having us i'm joined by our our planner stephen newhouse will go into the technical presentation for you i come before you with a proposal and ac

0:57:02transit is excited about this we haven't had a chance to increase service in quite a long time i think 2003 was probably our last opportunity for true service expansion and ever since then we've had to deal with with the budget constraints and had to adjust our service accordingly so we

0:57:17aren't in a good opportunity here to look at service expansion we don't have dedicated funding sources at this point for uh for our service in el cerrito and in west county but we are looking at different uh potential revenue sources there's cap and trade funding out there there could

0:57:34be the potential for another uh sales tax reauthorization in contra costa county um and then we do have a slight bump in um in in revenues that we're generating at ac transit so all of those things could help us to providing uh service so uh stephen will present with

0:57:50to you the the proposal that we have uh we we do acknowledge that there are members of your council that do ride transit uh quite frequently um and are uh are quite the the transit advocates and we do want to work with them to make sure that whatever service we're putting out there

0:58:06is uh also accessible and we're willing to sit down with not only uh council members here but also in other cities uh in west county to make sure that we can put forward the best plan possible and so now is the right time we're in the comment phase and the draft plan phase

0:58:21and so we're looking to make adjustments and look forward to your feedback with that i'll pass it over to stephen newhouse thank you thank you so again my name is steven newhouse i'm a transportation planner for ac transit and i'm going to run through just a brief recap of our outreach so far and

0:58:37where we are in drafting these proposals so we'll do a quick introduction a summary of our first two rounds of workshops and then we have the drafts that draft proposals that impact el cerrito if we'd like to look at those and we can review next steps so we are branding this as plan act which

0:58:59is a three-part planning exercise the first part that i'm going to speak about today is our comprehensive operations analysis which looks at all of our resources our drivers and our vehicles and thinks about how do we use these resources most efficiently the the long recession forced us to

0:59:19change some routes and now that the economy is building back up as we are able to grow we want to make sure that we grow in a smart way the other two legs of this study which may be of interest to you are the major corridor study which talks about the infrastructure on the street that

0:59:35has a great impact on transit speed and reliability as well as amenities for our customers and then also the short-range transportation plan which sort of sets forth our vision and our policies for how we grow so just a really quick look at the timeline you can see that

0:59:56we have meetings stacked up for for all three of these and and we're currently uh well we're actually now well into summer and we are hoping to refine these uh these draft proposals for a public hearing in november so that we can begin implementing uh the first of the recommendations in march

1:00:22so as robert mentioned in alameda county measure bb has provided a tremendous infusion of operating dollars for us and and that has allowed us to do a lot of uh great things in alameda county in contra costa of course we're looking for perhaps some different options

1:00:41looking at cap and trade dollars thinking about a potential extension of measure j and so the way those shake out is going to have a big impact on how many buses we can put out on the street and what our service looks like so in the past year we've been going out to

1:01:02the public and asking for their opinions about how our routes are working for them and what we can do better in our first round of outreach we had 11 public meetings i think it was maybe actually 13 we had some some late additions and and we have to cover a district that spans 50 miles from end to

1:01:21end so we went all over the place we collected almost 800 surveys from from our customers and 120 written comments and we conducted small group exercises where we set out maps and we asked people to show us where they would like the service to be placed and of course we provided them with additional

1:01:41context that is important to transit planners such as job and residential density key destinations locations of highest ridership and we also conducted surveys and so just a brief summary of the survey results uh reliability and frequency were the the number one priorities for

1:02:06people when they they talked about what they consider when they make a decision about whether to ride transit we had a lot of discussions about stop spacing about route design about network design and about coverage versus frequency and these little diagrams sort of illustrate

1:02:27these questions and in almost every case the overwhelming majority favored uh service design that lended itself toward faster more reliable more frequent service so for contra costa county uh i'll do a really quick uh step through our services that exists today in the

1:02:50service as we propose it and these lines on the maps are color coded by level of service so that represents the frequency how often the bus comes and on the left side we'll see the existing service and on the right side we'll see the proposed service so we'll begin with buses that come every

1:03:0510 to 12 minutes not a tremendous change here our major corridors are our major corridors they have been for decades and they will continue to be but as we look at our network of routes that come at least every 15 minutes we start to see a change particularly in contra costa county you can see that

1:03:25we've tried to or we're proposing to increase service on mcdonald avenue as a stronger east-west line through richmond and increase service on 23rd street between the marina and contra costa college and possibly up into hilltop mall further south you see that we have

1:03:48proposed to increase the frequency of crosstown routes um just trying to provide a little bit more access get folks to their their final destination and of course we still have to fill in around that with buses that come at least every 20 to 30 minutes because we do have a lot of area to

1:04:05cover so what does this mean in terms of who has access to the bus and what the bus does for contra costa county well if we look at if we draw a line from each bus stop that comes every 15 minutes and we draw a line out about a quarter mile we get these red blobs on this map which

1:04:26we would call walk sheds and this is basically who has access to frequent service and you can see that today that red blob is basically just on san pablo avenue and we're able to provide access to about 16 percent of the jobs seven percent of the population by creating this north south and east

1:04:48west line in richmond on mcdonald and on 23rd we expand that from sixteen percent of the jobs to forty percent of the jobs and from seven percent of the population to twenty four percent of the population uh in this next set of maps uh just illustrates where those frequent lines are in

1:05:09relation to the job and employment or excuse me the employment and residential density so deeper shades of red represent a greater residential density deeper shades of blue represent a greater employment density and so you can see that we've tried to concentrate the proposed service

1:05:27enhancements in those areas with the greatest density so now i can step through specific proposals if you'd like to see that i'll leave it up to you i'm sorry i'll step through the specific proposals if you'd like to see those uh how many of them are there uh i would

1:05:51say there's probably six or seven that we could talk about quickly yeah okay thanks so number one is the san pablo rapid the 72r so today this is a limited stop bus service that arrives every 12 minutes uh between 7 a.m and 7 p.m um and what we are proposing is to

1:06:14increase the frequency from 12 minutes to 10 minutes in the peak and to expand the hours of operation from 7 to 7 to now around 6 a.m to 12 i should say 12 a.m the difference here is that we would shift the underlying local bus service on san pablo avenue north of mcdonald so

1:06:39once this rapid crosses mcdonald avenue headed toward contra costa college we would propose to actually insert more bus stops than today today we stopped on average about every 2800 feet on this limited bus stop service and we would fill in so that stops are roughly every

1:07:02third of a mile apart next is the 72m today the 72m which runs along san pablo until it gets to mcdonald and then turns on mcdonald runs in tandem with the 72 local which continues along san pablo up to contra costa college today each of these individual bus routes run every 30 minutes

1:07:27and so they sort of dovetail and come together at san pablo and mcdonald and then hopefully arrive every 15 minutes as a team all the way down to oakland we would propose to shift all of those buses onto mcdonald we think that mcdonald avenue is a a strong corridor that deserves at least

1:07:48a bus every 15 minutes and this would be one way of doing it by shifting that local service and so it goes from a mcdonald avenue that served every 30 minutes today to a mcdonald avenue that served every 15 minutes and we would keep the span of service the same as it is today

1:08:08um so i'll just i'll mention this one really quickly uh because it does have impacts further down the line directly through el cerrito the 71 as it exists today is a a very long bus route that runs from richmond parkway transit center up giant and atlas past the west county

1:08:30detention center that we just heard about to contra costa college down to richmond bart and then along carlson to [Music] to the bart station and we're proposing to split that in half at the richmond bart station and to actually piece that carlson segment with colusa

1:08:52to create a line that runs from richmond bart to downtown berkeley bart and hopefully has a better on-time performance and then as i mentioned we're proposing to enhance the service on 23rd through richmond and potentially explore minor deviations to some other routes in richmond

1:09:22the other route proposal that i think has uh is maybe of interest to el cerrito city council is the 7 on arlington which today runs every 40 minutes we would bump that up to operating every 30 minutes hopefully a little bit easier to remember the schedule if it resembles a clock face

1:09:44and that's that's really about it there's a few other adjacent lines that get increases in frequency but that's the that's the flavor of it so just that's the end that i'll be more conclusive with my conclusion all right thanks so just a reminder uh that was anticlimactic yeah

1:10:08i kind of like to leave everybody with a oh um so we are accepting comments until the end of july and we can take comments a little bit after that but we are trying to give people a deadline to meet to make comments on the proposals and then as i mentioned we have a

1:10:30public hearing uh or we will schedule a public hearing for november uh to discuss these proposals hopefully adopt a final service plan that we can begin implementing in march because money is uh trickling in from measure bb we'll we'll probably begin with uh the proposals that are

1:10:51um that we can fit within our existing fleet today and then as we can expand our fleet we'll we'll go with the more ambitious proposals and and that is the end thank you very much questions comments please councilman i've actually been talking quite a bit to ac transit already and i thank you

1:11:15for your time um i have actually a lot of concerns about this proposal because it um eliminates the what's called local service up towards contrast college uh and to hilltop for that matter i guess so that would mean that if you wanted i think i have this right from

1:11:37here to go to contra costa college from this very stop that's right outside our door that you would have to transfer so you couldn't get there on bus one bus like you can now and i've heard from a number of seniors and disabled people that they're very concerned about it

1:11:56because to go to the rapid stops that will be put on the segment of san pablo avenue north of mcdonald in fact you're going to have to go up to a third of a mile i don't know if they said that right but and that's a concern for people who have mobility issues seniors in particular are a

1:12:20category that have that issue and because not only it's not just a third of a mile to the bus stop along san pablo it's also you may not actually live on san pablo you may live some who knows what distance off of san pablo so you have to add those two numbers together to find out how far

1:12:40you have to be able to go to get to the stop so i guess i so i have that concern um and um i have uh you know i can i consider it a real concern and um so there are a variety of other concerns um and so i'm going to be talking offline to uh robert de la sario zario

1:13:05and i appreciate your doing that and um i'm not really sure what the outcome will be but i am really concerned about it it also means that for example as currently aligned that there would be no service from el cerrito plaza bart up san pablo avenue north of what's

1:13:32called the split which is mcdonald's versus going north and that concerns me quite a bit um and um so there there's there are a number of concerns like that that i have that have been expressed to me by other people also so i'm not sure what the outcome of that

1:13:51will be but i'm i'm not i don't know if it'll be okay but some other things have come up along the way um which is one is that a lot of a number of people that i've talked to which actually came and talked to me rather than me going and talking to them wanted this stop right outside city hall

1:14:12which is also referred to oftentimes as the dmv stop they would like that to be made a rapid stop because otherwise the only service that will go north of here beyond the split will go towards down mcdonnell avenue and won't get to places like contra costa college

1:14:31at all or the city of san pablo for example so anyway those are some of the highlights of what my concerns are so i won't really go into that now but just to say that i do have a number of concerns as always we appreciate your leadership on these issues so thank you and i want

1:14:51to thank you for the presentation and it's so encouraging to see after so many times ac transit has come here talking about service cuts and you know decrease in access that you're looking at increasing frequency and reaching areas that haven't been reached before

1:15:09so thank you both very much for coming thank you all right were there any public comment on that no no requests i think we have a late entry come on up colonel handler richmond um i agree with everything that council councilmember abrams abelson saying about them about

1:15:34the about the seniors uh that uh that they need to put the rapids on right outside city hall because i'm because i mean every time i every time i take a bus it's like the 72 hour don't stop there so i said uh-uh we need to put the rapid on uh you know that's considered el cerrito as

1:15:50well so i figured so i'm on the same page as she is so so and i really enjoyed the presentation of it but um but the one thing that had me concerned was um um you know like the capacity you know like because like each bus route you know um comes like every like half hour or every 10 to 12 minutes

1:16:10depending on where you're going so i'm thinking that um they need to like put it like on um like like on a regular basis so when i first heard that they put rappers on weekends i figured okay this is really good that'll like start like bringing the capacity of people so

1:16:26i'm thinking that um that um that the next steps is um to get more people to put the put the rapid bus stops on outside the the city hall so so i'm just i'm just keep going um okay i didn't see the light going so i figured okay no problem you still got time okay so i'm thinking um the next

1:16:48step is um you know community outreach because i seem to recall last year when they had when ac transit came to richmond for the workshops i figured okay people got some you know concerns so i'm thinking this is good for richmond so this is great so so the one thing i had a concern was um

1:17:04i use i catch the i'd ride buses every day and i just figured uh the 74 they need a lot they need to like take it back to orenda like it used to but now but they don't because i talked with some of the neighbors uh from the el sobrante and they're saying that every time they catch the 74 they

1:17:20it'll take it don't take them to orenda anymore so i figured they need to put 74 to orenda like every like you know half hour so i figured okay this is good so so i'm thinking that um the ac transit is doing good things but they need to have more information for for young

1:17:36people for teenagers senior citizens etc so i'm thinking this is a wonderful uh opportunity for for el cerrito and san pablo and richmond and other places so so i'm thinking we want to keep we want to keep our we want to make our people feel more independent when they go on the bus so i'm thinking

1:17:58the presentation was good but but we needed like i'll be happy to work with them and as well as the city council to see what other um concerns that that that are going on with with our bus system so with that said that's it all right thank you very much i see we

1:18:15got one more tom panas good evening mayor friedman members of the council and city staff my name is tom panis i live at [address removed] in el cerrito i'd like to thank ac transit for coming tonight i'm really excited that the 72r service is going to be expanded from 6 to midnight that's

1:18:36amazing increased frequency that's great you know i've always maintained that perhaps before i die we'll have bus service that runs from the plaza bart station to the community center up the hill down the hill and to the north end of town that would do a lot to get people out of

1:18:56their cars you know when you get to be as old as me it's hard to walk up those hills and i hope someday that that dream will be realized thank you for your time this evening thank you very much okay that concludes the i'm sorry mr mayor i forgot one comment um i would hope that ac trans in the future

1:19:17would say they have the sales tax proposal perhaps measure j being extended there isn't a lot of clarity about whether that's extending the existing tax or raising it thank you and you didn't say it but i'll say it when when we have a new library we want to make sure we have

1:19:35excellent bus service to that location wherever it may be just planning ahead right okay thanks we move on to uh the consent calendar consisting of items five a minutes b agreement with saint francis electric c tree committee appointment d crime prevention committee appointment

1:19:58e reauthorize and increase funding for the older americans act and that's it a move to adopt from items 5a through e second all in favor say aye aye motion carries unanimously all right now we have three public hearings and the first one uh let's see is about expedited permitting procedures

1:20:26for small residential rooftop solar energy systems i now announce the public hearing and ask for a staff presentation from margaret kavanagh lynch our developmental services director good evening mr mayor members of the city council members of the el cerrito community

1:20:43section 65850 a of the california government code provides that it is a policy of the state of california to promote and encourage the installation and use of solar energy systems by limiting obstacles to their use and minimizing the permitting costs of such systems

1:21:01in furtherance of that objective section 65850 subsection 5g1 of the same code requires that on or before september 30th of this year every city county or city and county shall adopt an ordinance that creates an expedited streamlined permitting process for small residential rooftop solar

1:21:20energy systems the city currently does a 15-day review period turnaround with a pre-inspection that we have found useful in about 50 percent of the homes for two reasons the first reason is the roofs of many of our homes were never engineered for a wind load of a

1:21:40solar array and the second reason is a lot of the electrical panels never foresaw being have a solar array connected to them so as a result of trying to do customer service before the contract is signed with a solar installation group we've done a pre-inspection

1:22:01however to adhere to the new state law and to expedite the overall process which we are clearly in favor of the city will now require those two steps to be included in a checklist that would be part of the submittal process to the city of el cerrito's planning and building division

1:22:19we're hoping that that will help us address all those pre-existing conditions that we see while being compliant with the new state law we are also moving forward in part due to funding from the city budget we'll be expediting our permits being able to take them electronically

1:22:39and we will our goal is to approve solar permits within five business days so i'm going to do a very abbreviated step report you had the ordinance in your packet but i did want to mention that while it is of course the purpose of the state of california it's clearly in this purpose

1:22:56of the city of el cerrito um both in our strategic plan and our climate action plan to incentivize the installation of solar rooftops so we are very much looking forward to this process and i'd like to answer any questions you might have any questions at this time

1:23:12uh yeah i have a couple questions so um you know i understand that we're going to be streamlining it and that's all good but what i didn't quite get was um we've got the checklist that's going to be happening but there was a statement and i should have opened my ipad because

1:23:33i asked that question i think how i rewarded it was verify to the applicant's reasonable satisfaction through the use of standard engineering evaluation techniques that this support structure for the residential the small residential rooftop solar does that mean that

1:23:51the checklist is going to require that they have an engineering consult or the homeowner themselves says yeah i think it's going to hold no uh it what we will be looking for is um something substantially consistent with what we do with our pre-inspection process now right now one of our

1:24:08inspectors goes to the home and look we'll go up into the attic and look at the rafters they look at the frame and exactly exactly and and they have by their knowledge of building construction a good understanding of what a roof would look like the framing of a roof

1:24:23that would look like that would be able to sustain the wind load of a solar array so in lieu of that um and i should say anyone who still wants a pre-inspection we are very glad to do that for the same price that we would do the expedited so if any homeowner says you know this

1:24:39sounds like a great idea but i would love to have the city of el cerrito continue a pre-inspection process we'd be glad to do that as well in lieu of that and to follow the state regulation on this topic we will also take there's some some standard engineering plans for roof framing that

1:24:57many homeowners have we have on laserfiche many of the plans that people had for their homes originally so we can use our own information we can provide that to the applicant to submit to the city as part of the checklist and we'll also take photographs submitted if they can really show us

1:25:14exactly how the roofing is applied and how the framing of the roof is is created so basically letting the applicant be the person looking in the attic and taking photos along with some standard drawings um or if we have those permits on record we can any one of those three things could

1:25:29be part of the checklist so we don't really have the checklist established yet so the building inspector is going to do that so uh is one of the checks one of the things among the list going to say you have to go to the city hall and look at your micro fish and see

1:25:43that your roof is substantial enough to do this or not the checklist will include a requirement for the solar usually it's not the homeowner that comes to the city usually it's the installation company that's working as a subcontractor to one of the big solar companies in the in the state

1:26:03the checklist will say prove to the city basically that the roof of your client can withhold or hold and withstand a wind load of the solar array proposed so that's the any we see in that checklist will be examples of uh meeting this condition include photographs throughout the attic um a

1:26:26framing plan for the attic et cetera so we would any way they can solve that for us we'd be glad to we have an open mind on how they can achieve that goal okay got it but that wasn't really personally clear to me um and then the electrical inspection is sort of the

1:26:40same thing they're going to yeah that's going to be what we really do today is we look at the main the main panel and it i was talking to our building staff about this about half the time uh it's a panel that was put in that predates the idea of solar installation

1:26:59and um many of them are no longer even um underwriter protected anymore they are really an antiquated system so by just taking a photograph of the cover of the electrical panel which typically has the model number and year and then opening the panel and taking a picture of the

1:27:17layout of the different fuses and buses that's enough information for us to call it right off the bat right thank you any other questions all right we will now open the public hearing is there any public testimony um we have one speaker howdy gowdy so good evening mayor friedman council

1:27:46members my name is howdy gowdy i live at [address removed] um i'm certainly in favor of streamlining our our solar permitting process i chose to speak mostly just to offer an anecdote that came to me through my role as eqc we were showing a film a month or two ago about

1:28:12energy and renewables and we happened we had a sort of discussion with the audience afterward and we happened to have two um solar installers that were present at that film that we showed and and participated in the discussion and you know they were pretty um uh

1:28:35you know forth with that el cerrito was a challenging city for them to interface with on a permitting basis and one of them said that they work for a contractor who will not take jobs in el cerrito so i appreciate that the building department is very thorough and and

1:28:54making sure that we have um you know excellent safe installations but i i really applaud the efforts to sort of look at the process and streamlining and and you know i didn't look at the details of this particular proposal but i hope that this isn't really the end

1:29:13point that you know the city will continue to really evaluate and and consult with you know the contractors the people doing the work and and really reflect on what's necessary to get um good installations um happening in the most expedient manner possible because as the state

1:29:34uh is you know indicating with with their action you know this is something that needs to be done a lot it needs to be easy and um and i'm just from what i've heard it's not as streamlined as it could so this is a great step forward and i hope we keep looking at things like this even further

1:29:56thanks thanks for your input i have no other requests all right we'll entertain a motion to close the public hearing i so move to close the public hearing all in favor say aye aye aye motion carries unanimously now if there's no further questions or comment we'll entertain a motion

1:30:16to vote on the ordinance and we must read the title of the ordinance okay i will also move an ordinance to the city of el cerrito adding section 16.03 0.065 to the el cerrito municipal code relating to the expedited permitting procedures for small residential rooftop solar energy

1:30:36systems second moved in second and all in favor say aye hi motion cares unanimously thank you very much but don't go anywhere next up is a public hearing on the floodplain management ordinance and we will have a staff presentation by our very own margaret cavanaugh lynch

1:30:59good evening again the federal emergency management agency or fema periodically updates their flood insurance rate maps one such update recently occurred and as a condition of continued eligibility for the national flood insurance program the city of el cerrito is required to adopt the

1:31:15floodplain management regulations that meet the national flood insurance program regulations the local office of fema has identified that the city's current floodplain ordinance did not meet their standards they provided the city with a model ordinance and suggested some additional

1:31:32tax to facilitate compliance that model ordinary that model ordinance was the basis of the ordinance that was in your packet uh distributed this evening the i think of note to the community in particular while fema has updated their map and asked us to update our ordinance um the

1:31:52properties that were in the previous flood map are still the properties in the current flood map there was no change to the boundaries of the map or the base elevations so again i know that you had to link the ordinance in your reports uh but if you have any questions i'm very glad to

1:32:07answer and this concludes my staff report any questions i'm sorry what did you say about the previous and the and the current or the there's no changes to the map okay that's what's the the problem is when we get the maps they're not in color and it's sort of hard to figure out what's

1:32:20what cheryl could you turn on the screen just appear on ours okay i was just for the members of the public it's the part of the city along central avenue um with the border with of richmond is the general area right so this would include the dolan site is that correct that's correct yeah

1:32:45yes okay all right any other questions all right let's hope that that's correct yeah yes that is important we're going to open the public hearing so uh we now open the public hearing and we obviously have at least one public comment please step to the podium can you say your name jordan herman

1:33:24thank you i live at [address removed] i've been there for 23 years i'm a homeowner i live about 100 feet from cerritos creek and it's in horrible condition i'm a retired civil engineer so uh it just gives me the chills when i look at the condition of that creek

1:33:42if you can imagine a pipeline to carry water that had trees growing in it that's that's basically the condition of the creek we don't know what a 100 year storm is anymore a hundred year storm may be a thousand year storm we don't know this area has flooded in the

1:34:02past there is a there is a storm control structure block from me down the creek this is a very serious problem it is one of the lowest areas in the east bay we have a very serious problem that's not been addressed and i think susan was talking about this the uh

1:34:26maintenance and things that are needed and uh one of these days it's gonna be we're going to have a very bad flood we're going to and i think the whole state's going to go from a drought from drought conditions to flooding conditions very soon so anyway uh i think we need to be prepared

1:34:43thank you very much is there additional public comment yes mayor we have two speakers tom panas followed by howdy gowdy and then we have another if he could fill out his slip okay tom is up now and yeah oh you're gonna see go ahead i'm sorry please yeah my name is fernando mariscal

1:35:10i own a property on belmont street the backyard is to the creek and i survived or i experienced let's put it that way i experienced the flood of 69 my my little house is three steps to to enter the house from the street level and the water was tapping the last step

1:35:38before going into the house there's an apartment house on the left side which sits the the bottom units sit even with the street the water was inside their house like 30 inches back when they were planning to do the building on uh on central i um i sent some pictures to the

1:36:04to the uh the richmond planning commission and on on it you can see the mark on the building that was about as high as those uh those shelves right there maybe a little higher and and uh the um this is gonna happen again uh i don't know what the conditions uh are gonna be improving or what they're

1:36:32planning to do but the whole belmont street was flooded central the lumber yard that used to be there dolan uh i've been a homeowner there for almost 50 years so i know the area very well and i was very concerned when they were going to do the the the apartment complex there

1:36:56uh they were talking about racing the floor to keep the the parking level from flooding you can imagine that that what that would do it would shove all the water towards belmont and the neighborhoods so i don't know what the status is of the building or what the planet is at this

1:37:19time so i'm glad that it's not happening soon maybe i don't know but i'm very concerned about the improvements of the flooding that you guys are planning to to have done thank you thanks very much for providing some historical perspective good evening mayor friedman members of

1:37:43the council and city staff my name is tom panis and i live at [address removed] in el cerrito i have a serious issue with definition 33 in the revised ordinance which relates to historic resources we have three important historic resources we have had three important

1:37:58resources preserved in the last few years the chiang mai home contra costa florist and the rodini home none of these structures would be preserved today if the incomplete definition of a historic resource that's proposed in this ordinance had been the rule on el cerrito

1:38:14the proposed ordinance emits the provision that initially protects almost all historic resources this provision protects the cider structure once an individual who meets the secretary of the interior standards finds that the citer structure appears to be eligible for listing on the local

1:38:29state or national register this query deficiency can be fixed by adding a section either his definition of historic structure proposed in the ordinance this section would read under the context of historic structure means any structure that is e determined by a

1:38:44person who meets the secretary of interior standards to appear to be eligible for a listing on a local register of historic resources the state register of historical resources or the national register of historic places i request the council please direct staff to update this language so we can

1:38:59properly protect our historic resources a separate deficiency i see with this ordinance is that his title is changed from a flood hazard area ordinance to a flood plain management ordinance in fact not just his title has changed its applicability has in that it no longer appears to be

1:39:15relevant outside of the fema flood zone established for el cerrito this is a real problem i live at the south end of town in the branch of cerrito creek that flows along the south border of the cemetery and along calusa avenue floods every several years i believe that some of you have heard

1:39:30residents of that area comment at council meetings about the damage it's cost to their property this change in the focus of the ordinance is inappropriate the ordinance should apply to any area in town that's subject to flooding not just to the fema flood zone west to san pablo avenue

1:39:45leaving the proposed ordinance as it stands as a grave misstep and is a disservice to residents in other parts of towns that see occasional flooding i urge the council to direct the staff to revise this ordinance so it applies to all areas in town that experience

1:39:57periodic flooding not just the county line area west of san pablo avenue thank you for your time this evening and regarding the 5620 central project that looks like it's gonna long-term hold okay thanks uh have you given that language to staff now you have thank you

1:40:19uh uh mr gowdy right good evening mayor freeman council members my name is howdy gowdy i live at [address removed] um so it's hard to you know think about flooding in a time with so much drought except i think over the weekend we got a very good example of what can happen with

1:40:44the you know i-10 blowout and closure and very serious infrastructure collapse from a pretty modest rain they only got two inches of rain in it so so we have to be very cognizant of what you know our flood hazards are and and be very attentive to making good decisions

1:41:04to avoid those kinds of problems so i also noticed as tom mentioned that the the title had changed of this ordinance and i would like to know why it was changed if that's something that fema required because they have very specific um criteria about uh what what they want to

1:41:26see in in something like this but even if they do require it and maybe it's fine for this you know specific uh you know ordinance that pertains to their regulations to be worded that way i think we need to be more inclusive as a city in our our flood hazard management

1:41:46and so if it's possible to to you know keep that focus in title and in you know scope of the ordinance more broad i think that is the appropriate thing to do so you know in this particular area that that is a significant hazard we're you know we're talking about

1:42:09very low laying flood prone area but we're also talking about distances that are um fairly far hundreds of feet from from the sources of of a flooding hazard um i have to bring up you know again when you have a situation like at you know 1715 elm where four feet is you know the distance that

1:42:32that new construction is is being allowed i mean that's a very serious concern for flooding and we we need to be consistent about how we um really mitigate this kind of flood hazard so i encourage you to strengthen the scope of this ordinance thank you thank you any other public comments i

1:42:53have no other request to speak could i ask ms kavanagh lynch to address some of the items by the various speakers to the first speaker's point of adding the definition of historic resource staff has no objection to adding that definition that we would um there is a discussion about variances in

1:43:17this ordinance there's a discussion about historic resources um there's always a balance when you have an historic building on how what you can require in terms of changes that might alter the integrity of the building so we would like to work if there was an historic building

1:43:30identified in the floodplain we'd like to work with the homeowner to strike a balance to protect the historic nature of the home and possible flood damage to the second point that first speaker made and i believe the second speaker did as well the language is from the model ordinance

1:43:49the um so whether they mandated us to change the name of the ordinance i don't think that was that strong a a direction from the federal agency however this ordinance is specifically directed towards that area of our city and it's based on the federal government's determination of our

1:44:10floodplain so i do know that we kept section 8.35080 that's a new numbering but it's an from the former ordinance basically saying it is illegal to obstruct any natural drain because we wanted to keep the city-wide protection of keeping our waterways safe and unobstructed

1:44:30uh if the council would like to direct staff to revisit how flood control happens in other parts of the city i'll be glad to do that but um this ordinance is specific to the flood zone except for the part of that i just read to you um and i would be very anxious to

1:44:51change the language without um serious consideration because it's based on the female model ordinance yeah thank you i was just go i'm just going to add a brief comment that that it's important to understand that that fema's request that the city update the ordinance to comply with the model

1:45:13ordinance is part of a comprehensive regulatory scheme that relates to the national flood insurance program so these are standards for new construction and expansions of existing structures within the floodplain and the standards are in place because it relates to the

1:45:30insurability and the insurance rates and the and the flood insurance program that the federal government operates if the city council were interested in looking at regulations outside of the floodplain i'd echo ms kavanaugh lynch's comments that that we would do that

1:45:44separately but but for the consistency of the program i think it's important that this ordinance remain relatively intact and comply with the model ordinance so that property owners within the floodplain will be able to come to meet the standards and therefore qualify for the flood

1:46:00insurance program thank you for that clarification i'll now entertain a motion to close the public hearing also move second all in favor say aye aye the public hearing is closed now any additional comments or i'll entertain a motion and vote on the ordinance i move adoption of

1:46:24the ordnance um the floodplain management ordinance uh what else do i need to say you have to give the whole title here okay let me get it's on page one over here it's right here thank you yeah okay uh that ordinance is an ordinance of the city of el cerrito repealing el cerrito

1:46:48municipal code chapter three point excuse me 8.35 flood hazard areas and replacing it by adding and adopting el cerrito municipal code chapter 8.35 floodplain management and would you like to include the uh um additional language from mr panos yes okay and we have that in writing

1:47:15so do we have second okay moved in second and all in favor say aye aye motion carries unanimously thank you very much all right next public hearing is on fired hazard abatement and presenting that will be it's here on my sheet i know it is please sorry good evening honorable mayor

1:47:47city council members i'm captain chris wrenshaw your fire prevention officer i'm here tonight to provide an overview of the annual weed abatement program and introduce two resolutions the first resolution will be declaring el cerrido properties identified in the

1:48:00revised exhibit a as a fire hazard and public nuisance for the purpose of abatement the second resolution is ordering the abatement of properties declared a fire hazard and public nuisance in the prior resolution these properties are also identified in the revised exhibit a

1:48:18a brief overview of this year's activity i started approximately may 5th i've inspected approximately 12 000 properties of those 173 properties were found to be in violation after working with property owners and doing several re-inspections i'm happy to report there are only 22

1:48:38properties to be declared public nuisance tonight i will continue to work with these property owners in an attempt to mitigate violations of all properties to avoid any forced abatements i'm happy to answer any questions any questions at this time nope i will entertain a motion

1:48:58on a resolution declaring a nuisance uh and now we have a revised exhibit a it's part of that resolution yeah yeah the first step is to vote declaring a nuisance and the second step will be a public hearing move that we adopt a resolution declaring weeds rubbish

1:49:22litter or other flammable material on certain real property as identified in the attached resolution which is succeed constituting a public nuisance and let's see here if i can now get to that [Applause] excuse me i think that's enough for now right i can't i'm having trouble finding

1:50:10anything else um this would be the resolution declaring that weeds rubbish litter or other flammable materials on certain real property constitutes a public nuisance yes okay that's right yes that's what she said okay that's yeah okay moved in second all in favor

1:50:24say aye aye aye motion carries unanimously now we will announce a public hearing uh to adopt a resolution overriding objections and order abatements so the public hearing is open and are there any additional questions from the council nope just thank you for the work this is

1:50:45important work and just as mr gowdy stated bridge collapsed due to rust from my understanding corrosion of a bridge there was also a fire that jumped a freeway in the riverside county also so we know how important it is and with the drought i think firefighting and our

1:51:04nuisance properties are not just a summer problem they're around nowadays that's right uh is there any public testimony i have no request to speak i'll entertain a motion to close the public hearing so moved all right well thank you moved in second and all in favor say aye

1:51:22aye public hearing is closed now we'll entertain a motion to vote on the resolution overriding objections and ordering abatement we're having problems because there's a lot of paper our script isn't really exactly the same um so i i don't know i don't know what

1:51:45they're gonna see here um here it is it's on uh is it attachment six i'm on five okay and one behind you right attachment six yes this here it is the resolution of the city council of the city of el cerrito overriding objections by property owners and ordering the city manager

1:52:06or his designee to abate certain public nuisances pursuant to chapter 16.26 second move ten seconds all right we'll give this second to uh councilmember quinto all in favor say aye aye all right motion carries unanimously and thank you so much fire captain rancho and for the

1:52:28department for your excellent work i do have a question sure you said that you inspected about i don't know what was over 10 000 properties correct how did you do that what was the process uh driving uh some on foot some driving um lots about two weeks worth kind of amazing thank you you're welcome

1:52:55yeah we appreciate it helping to keep us all safe okay we now move on to uh policy matters first is 7a an ordinance establishing the measure a swim center parcel tax rate for fiscal year 2015-16 christopher jones recreation director good evening honorable mayor and council

1:53:18members i'm chris jones the city's recreation director the item before you this evening is an ordinance that will return the measure a swim center rates to the level approved by el cerrito voters in two thousand which is fifty eight dollars and forty six cents for single family residences

1:53:35forty five dollars per multi-family residential unit and four 410 dollars per acre of non-residential property per year these rates would remain in effect through fiscal year 2019-20 or upon council action during your meeting on may 19 2015 council gave direction to determine what

1:53:56additional revenue would be generated by returning the special tax rates to voter approved levels and estimate the amount of funding needed to address current and future capital equipment and infrastructure needs at the el cerrito swim center on june 24 2015 the park and recreation

1:54:13commission approved a recommendation to the city council that they measure a tax rate be increased to be in line with what was passed by the voters in two thousand included in your packet is a reserve capital analysis prepared by noor systems the city's swim center

1:54:30consultant it details over 1.5 million dollars in probable expenses over the next 15 years at the swim center the amount consists of items that should be addressed soon such as the pool plaster and the swim center concrete deck to items that will need to be replaced within five to fifteen years

1:54:50such as the pool heaters filters and pumps additionally in consultation with general contractors and drying on past experiences staff has identified an additional 280 thousand dollars in estimated expenses not covered by the nor analysis which includes work in the swim center

1:55:09locker rooms building roofs stucco landscape improvements and painting amongst others also a 20 contingency budget was factored in both for unforeseen issues and desirable future projects especially projects that can reduce the swim center's carbon footprint and

1:55:29reduce maintenance and operation expenses altogether staff has identified over 2 million dollars of expenses over the next 15 years on the revenue side if voter approved rates are enacted almost hundred seventy thousand dollars per year would be generated compared to

1:55:49approximately four hundred forty thousand dollars in past years of the six hundred seventy thousand dollars four hundred thirty thousand dollars will be used for the swim center and solar lease debt services and other costs and fees associated with the tax collection

1:56:05leaving an estimated 237 thousand dollars available per year that could be devoted to capital projects at the swim center if this amount was collected until measure a sun sets at the end of fiscal year 2019-20 approximately one million one hundred thirty-five thousand dollars could be raised to

1:56:25address current needs and establish a fund for future ones combined with the current measure a fund balance of 100 190 000 dollars just over 1.3 million dollars could eventually be available to offset future needs at the swim center though this falls short of the estimated

1:56:43two million dollars of needed expenses it will still significantly protect the general fund from contributing to swim center needs for several years and it will give the council time to consider a a way to fill the budget shortfall should you choose to if council approves a proposed ordinance

1:57:02tonight staff will begin to seek out contractors perform the additional detailed work necessary to determine more exact costs and prior prioritize which projects need to happen first staff will engage and solicit input from swim center patrons through user meetings and other methods such as open

1:57:21el cerrito and bring recommendations to the park and recreation commission for consideration and public review and comment finally tonight i want to note that section 4.56 of the municipal code provides for the full or partial postponement or reimbursement of the

1:57:39payment of the measure a special tax to qualifying senior citizens blind or disabled property owners based primarily on incomes established by the state of california thank you and thank you any questions any questions at this time i i have one question and on the locker rooms

1:57:58i'm told that uh they're rusty even though they're less than uh 10 years old or 15 years old is that included yes the swim center itself is about 12 years old and i did include costs for on table two um under locker rooms all all trench drain frame replacements five thousand dollars

1:58:26okay thank you thanks any other questions any public comments no all right i'll entertain a motion and we have to again read the whole title of the ordinance which is attachment one um i just want to say that you know i i asked uh chris about the the same thing that gabe asked about you

1:58:52know a 10 year old facility that has the metal frame around the trench strains of the i think just the women's locker room are failing but they're not failing in the family areas in the men's area so this seems to be a peculiarity of some sort that might it's it's not

1:59:09throughout the whole facility so i would say the trench drains are failing in all of the locker rooms it's the radiant heating that has an issue oh okay only in the women's locker room okay my bad thank you gabe you want to take this one sure i mean i make a motion on an ordinance of the

1:59:29city of del cerrito setting tax rates beginning fiscal year 2015 2016 for the special tax imposed pursuant to chapter 4.56 of the el cerrito municipal code serious hacking second all in favor say aye aye motion cares unanimously thank you very much now we will tackle the

1:59:55tax and revenue anticipation notes with our finance director city treasurer lisa alex today good evening mayor and council i'm lisa malek cidae the city's finance director the item before you tonight is to adopt a resolution approving the borrowing the issuance and sale of the tax

2:00:13anticipation notes the tran is a short-term cash loan that we issue each year to help us in the periods of time when our cash is low while we wait for our property taxes this is five million dollars it'll be paid back within the year and we have worked with west america

2:00:30bank for the last several years to issue the tans excuse me the trans this year again we have had our financial advisors work with west america they offered us the same competitive rates as in previous years and we are asking for approval to issue those as well as for this the city to

2:00:49enter into agreements with nha financial advisors in jones hall as our legal counsel to prepare all the financial documents thank you very much any questions any public comment no mayor a motion i'll make a motion at least i will try here um i'm a resolution of um

2:01:14the city council of el cerrito approving the borrowing of funds for fiscal year 2015-16 and the issuance and sale of 2015-16 tax and revenue anticipation notes do i need to say any more is that that does it okay thank you moved in second and all in favor say aye

2:01:36aye motion carries unanimously thank you very much all right we move on to item eight council local and regional liaison assignment reports do we have any i just wanted to mention that i have been uh really busy working on the possible and that's the right word possible reauthorization

2:02:01or extension or addition of a new ordinance of for major j which is the transportation tax and it is undetermined yet what might be in it if it were to uh be put on the ballot but it is not known for sure that it is will be put it on the ballot so uh when we hear about it we need to

2:02:28always associate the word potential with that and um there have been a lot of um transportation interest groups that are expressing their opinions about various things but for the moment we don't know what would be on such a potential measure um but it would potentially be on the

2:02:51ballot uh next year in 2015.

2:02:56and next year 2016. excuse me excuse me um and that that's about all i want us okay about it thank you i think we are adjourned thank you everyone you