City Council Meeting September 15, 2015

0:02:12cerritos city council meeting we are now convened and i will ask council member gabriel quinto to lead us in the pledge of allegiance or a moment of silence one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all uh do we have any council staff communications

0:02:47city manager scott hannah actually it's me sorry here we go all right chief maples hi chief honorable mayor members of the council i'm your fire chief lance maples i just wanted to check in tonight i'm sure you guys have been watching the extreme fire season we're facing and

0:03:09give you a short short overview of what your fire department and the men and women of your fire department have faced this year as far back as mid-july el cerrito fire department was dispatched to the rag fire and i'm going to just kind of run through the incidents we've been to

0:03:24we were at the rag fire napa county the lowell fire in nevada county the fork complex fire in the trinity national forest the humboldt lightning complex in humboldt county the jerusalem fire in lake county the rough fire in the sequoia national forest the tesla fire

0:03:42in alameda county and the river complex fire in trinity county those are the incidents that we've responded to put in a lion's share of work for those agencies in those neighboring communities and come back safely with no injuries no equipment damage and all in

0:03:59one piece i'm sure over the weekend you saw the valley fire spring up and the butte fire spring up we are at that fire also chief gibson is at the butte fire currently as a staging area manager checking in resources for those communities oes 300 is at the butte fire

0:04:15working in fire suppression activities throughout the fire they have been there since friday on top of that captain james if you reflect back on what i just said we had an engine at the rough fire they were released after seven days but now we have a captain there working on the

0:04:30incident management team as a communication manager and he he has been there for approximately five days and will be there 21 days so the men and women of your fire department are all over the state really involved fully supportive of what we're doing for our neighbors

0:04:46i'm also happy to report i met with the labor group early this morning and we have pulled the troops and now put another engine into the system for possible deployment throughout the state that being said it gives us one full extra shift of cover to still cover our

0:05:00community if we have a situation here we would be able to double our staffing in a short period of time to cover our community i want to thank the city manager and the council for giving us this flexibility to help our neighbors throughout the state and i always like to say it's

0:05:13better to practice in someone else's backyard than ours so i just want to give you that short interview thank you so much chief and the men and women of the department and the mutual aid that you participate in both as a recipient from time to time and more often fortunately as

0:05:30providing that mutual aid to neighboring communities is just a very heroic and exemplary and thank you and the whole department i just wanted to say my daughter and her family live up there and we're within 10 minutes of the fire and many of their co-workers have lost

0:05:56their homes and my son-in-law is a firefighter up there who's currently stationed up there in fighting the fire too and i just want to say how much i personally appreciate um the men and women of our fire department assisting in this effort it really means a lot thank you

0:06:21other announcements councilmember quinto thank you mayor contra costa college on thursday along with the legal women voters of west county will have as our special guest christine pelosi and it will be constitution day and ms pelosi holds a jd from the university

0:06:41of california hastings college of law and a bsfs from georgetown university school of foreign service she has served as a prosecutor in san francisco a special counsel in the clinton gore administration chief of staff on capitol hill and she will be at contra costa college on thursday

0:07:02september 17th and that's contra costa college at la building la 100 from 12 30 p.m to 2 p.m so i like to invite everyone and and uh uh hopefully we'll get a a big group uh from el cerrino in west county to uh uh attend constitution day with christine pelosi thanks

0:07:27yeah i'd like to announce a few events these are all available on our website but i wanted to highlight them so that people were aware of them and potentially go to our website and get more information about them or sign up one is this saturday september 19th and

0:07:43it's uh join the el cerrito green team and friends of five creeks to clean up to spruce up and clean up cerrito creek and albany hill meet at the creekside park at 9 a.m to noon music festival for madeira open space sunday september 20th 1 p.m to 7 p.m and that's at the

0:08:05community center on moser lane donations are requested of 15 or 10 dollars for tracker members kids are free and there will be meals and desserts for purchase and another event that i will be participating in is right here city hall on wednesday september 30th 7 pm to 9 pm

0:08:29uh we'll be talking again this is sponsored by the environmental quality committee we'll be talking about phytophthora or plant destroyers these are soil pests that are being spread throughout native plants in california and threatening the lives of some of our native

0:08:48plants and lastly saturday october 10th 2015 9 a.m to 3 p.m it's the city wide garage sale and your registrations were due already but if you haven't registered you can be a purchaser at various yard sales around town so those are some of the things that the environmental

0:09:07equality committee is sponsoring thank you very much uh jan janet no um i want to add that this coming monday there will be a public forum on the minimum wage increase discussion right here at 6 30 co-sponsored by the el cerrito chamber of commerce economic development

0:09:30committee commission and i hope that people can join us and thanks to suzanne ayarla for her great work in organizing this we expect good turnout interesting you want to announce that you participate in this yeah sure go ahead all right a couple of weeks ago i participated in

0:09:49the unveiling of the banners for the anza expedition of 1776 when juan bautista de anza arrived here with a party that traveled a very long distance and came right along our neighborhood and there's a beautiful plaque in front of the police station on san pablo and the

0:10:09banners are down along san pablo thanks all right oral communications from the public for items that are not on the agenda or on the consent calendar yes mayor we have three items we have three speakers cordell hindler followed by tom panis and avash shrestha mayor freeman council members

0:10:33my name is carl hendler and i'm a resident of richmond i pass out some flyers for y'all um this coming saturday um the spirit and soul festival is um is going to be taking place from 1 pm to 5 at the mcdonald and harbor way uh it should be in front of it's a festival

0:10:52and fundraiser so if y'all want to come out that's perfect and then also next saturday we have um we're getting ready for college that is provided by the ed fund from 9 a.m to 2 it'll be held in the richmond convention center better known as the auditorium so and then also i'm on the richmond

0:11:11excellence serving our community um committee uh i'm trying i'm recruiting some high school students to be part of our our youth leadership committee that i came here last month uh so so the link is tinyurl.com richmond ylc it's perf for all high school edges so and the due date is this

0:11:31coming sunday on the 20th so so i'm trying to get these uh all of this filled out trying to get them all filled up beforehand so and i'm really grateful that um that the the el cerrito pedia and i was we're starting like get on the same page that i tell say please don't come down on my

0:11:48streets too often i mean because that makes my neighbors very um very worried so i guess um how much time do i have left the green light time okay so i'm just i'm i'm also grateful that the that the boy scouts are here so i was like yes i say this is so cool i mean two things

0:12:09that is happening in el cerrito so i applaud them and i also applaud you for um for you for your courageous um efforts uh for the city so i hope you take i hope else richmond city council can take a lesson from you all thank you very much tom pannas followed by avash restaurant

0:12:40good evening mayor friedman members of the council on city staff my name is tom panas and i live at [address removed] in el cerrito i'd like to thank the council for the study session on the minimum wage last month it was a very informative session i think the community largely benefited

0:12:55from the open discussion i say largely because i felt that the comment that the business model of kevin and jenny up on stockton avenue relies on exploiting their work employees was one of the lowest points in public discussion we've experienced here in recent memory

0:13:11so much so that i was surprised that no one set them straight i know the council has asked staff for a broad cleared ordinance i feel there ought to be a provision for small employers perhaps based on wages reported on the state de-9 forms if council wants to encourage small business here in town

0:13:31then it should direct council staff to craft such a provision thank you for your time this evening thank you very much next mr shrestha followed by mr al miller good evening mir and all staff members here yeah we are from five one on up apartment number five one one uh we are

0:13:55here to discuss about the rent increment by our owner uh which is 50 increment within the 30 days no by 30 days notice uh in previous notice he gave us the agreement in which it states stated that the after 30 after before 30 days they can increase 10 percent rent but now they have increased

0:14:17it by 50 percent and when we when we try to contact him he didn't response us back and now and when when when we open this letter and when we talk to her and they said whether you pay this friend or you can leave the apartment and we want to know about the rent control in el cerrito what's the

0:14:39law here and and the problem with our apartment is that they don't fix our problems there like for last month the laundry room was closed for a month and when we called them they didn't answer and um and that's that's the thing sir what's what's the address uh 511 oak

0:15:04street [Music] extreme thank you for bringing this to our attention and we'll work with city staff you know we have no rent control ordinance currently in el cerrito and due to state law there's limits on what you can do with rent control but uh 50 increase seems outrageous and yes sorry

0:15:26to hear about that and see if we can do anything okay thank you thank you very much for coming thank you thank you good evening mayor friedman council members i'm al miller [address removed] and i'm here to talk about a couple of el cerrito library foundation events uh

0:15:50next tuesday uh september 22nd is national voter registration day to celebrate that event the library foundation is holding a voter registration drive or opportunity at the library 6510 stockton from 12 30 in the afternoon to 7 30 in the evening so what this means to the people in el

0:16:14cerrito is that if you're 18 and older a u.s citizen you're not registered or if you're any us citizen that has registered but you've moved or your circumstances have changed and you need to re-register stop by your library next tuesday afternoon early evening and you can

0:16:35re-register the other event the australian library foundation is involved in is the 2015 el cerrito rotary club's sip and saver which will be held on october 11th at the mira vista country club it is a primary fundra annual fundraiser for the rotarians and they've invited

0:16:57the library foundation to participate again this year last year we had a rousing good time so there will be several wines brews and other beverages for sipping there will be finger foods and hopefully some chocolates for savoring many many many ravel prizes including an ipad

0:17:16and for the golfers a putting contest with a ten thousand dollar prize so if anyone's interested in tickets so you can contact me al miller at a m i l at sonic.net that's a m i l sonic.net or any rotary rotarian and you can get them another opportunity for people in el

0:17:42cerrito is that next tuesday night at the el cerrito democratic club are two bart directors you know el cerrito is split as far as bart is concerned and we have two bart stations we have two bart directors both of them have signed up to attend the meeting social half hour starts at six o'clock

0:18:05the meeting is at 6 30 and it's held at the zion presbyterian church 545 ashbury avenue so if you have any questions about bart gripes attaboys come out and share them the last thing quickly want to mention is that i support your intention to join with east bay mud to

0:18:28conserve water i'd like to bring everybody's attention to the evolutionary shower system the first redesign of showers in the last 100 years at least that's what they claim they claim it'll save seventy percent of the water that you use in a shower without having to catch it in a bucket

0:18:45before it gets hot and it's nebia n-e-b-i-a their site is www.nebia.com the downside is it's a startup but technical remember who's not a shower startup and the sales won't come until mid 2016. but check them out atomize shower thank you thanks very much uh now we'll move on to presentations

0:19:16this is an annual event we always look forward to is the presentation report on the el cerrito stars program will be presented by assistant to city managers suzanne yarla and corey mason from west contra costa unified school district take it away good evening mayor and council members

0:19:40my name is suzanne airline i'm the assistant to the city manager and i'm very pleased to be here tonight to introduce mr mason and the el cerrito high school students who participated in our summer internship program ec stars just really briefly mr mason will go

0:19:58into a bit more history about the program but this is the third summer that the city has partnered with the school district for this program it's a paid internship for high school students from el cerrito and in addition to working in the office for about 15 hours

0:20:11a week each of the students also participated in weekly classes and had homework assignments for the academic portion you'll see a number of the interns tonight so i'll let them introduce themselves and what departments they worked in but basically the program is intended to

0:20:30give students skills that they can use both at school as well as on their resume when they're applying for jobs in the future or attending college it also gives them exposure to local government they get to see how the city operates and and learn a little bit more about

0:20:44the city where they attend school and it also enhances their educational skills through the academic components uh so i'll actually invite mr mason up at this time sure good evening mayor and esteemed council members it's delightful to be here citizens good evening all right hi y'all

0:21:04thank you uh in its third consecutive year of implementation ec stars students ready and training for success offers invaluable work experience for rising seniors a rising senior is a junior becoming a senior at echs our students are enrolled in two career tech academies i.t tech futures and the

0:21:22media academy we work very closely with suzanne in my role as teacher lead it's my happy task in the spring along with my tech futures colleagues chris merida and melody show would you wave please there you go hi team oh well done mikeronian hi mike mr michael aronian is here uh one of our

0:21:46leadership administrators from the district we recruit student candidates through job fair the job fair allows the students to meet briefly with the reps from various departments ask a few clarifying questions of that particular department the program presents a really remarkable in

0:22:06the world learning opportunity bridging the academic classroom and the workplace in the classroom context we have a broad and varied set of reflective tasks anecdotal tasks evidence tasks that's required for their academic portfolios our students apply their academic skills

0:22:24from the high school in genuine tasks in the daily operation of city government and services while developing what is called nationally 21st century skills appropriate to the demands of rapidly changing industries evolving career pathways along with interpersonal

0:22:41communication time management leadership skills we heartfully thank the city for its vision and commitment to this program and our students who have and will continue to benefit greatly from this powerful learning opportunity and if you please now we get to congratulate hear directly

0:22:59from our 2015 ec stars so i get to welcome danielle garrett hi danielle would you join us at the podium good evening mayor and council members my name is danielle garrett and this summer i got the great opportunity to work here at the city hall in the human resources

0:23:23and finance department my mentors were cheryl mosby megan mcdermott and lisa malik zade while i was here i worked in finance and what i did in finance i did business license renewals i informed people when they owed money for business licenses we did a lot of folding in the beginning it was a lot of

0:23:47work and it was tiring but we got to the fun part which was to work on the computer i got to um work with customers a lot anybody who came in i got to tell them where to go or i actually helped a lot of customers renew their business license which was really cool

0:24:04and i also did business confirmations in hr with lisa something that i gained was communication skills at school because as you know we love technology these teenagers now so um i feel like i gained a lot of communication to actually speak with people and talk and

0:24:27just learn how people actually you know interact with each other i also learned more about finance which my mom works in a finance department where she works at so it was really cool to learn what she knows what i learned was how to work with the public i learned how to

0:24:47inform my mentors about if i were going to be late even if it was a minute or two minutes i knew how to tell them two weeks in advance when i needed a day off or something like that so that was something really cool that i learned and i also learned new skills for future

0:25:04jobs so when i wanted to apply to different places it would be easy for me to do it because i had a really great job this summer and i would like to thank suzanne i would like to thank mr mason i would like to thank mr aronian and i would like to thank my mentors and

0:25:20the whole city for giving us this opportunity this summer [Applause] hello good evening uh city council members my name is wei chang chen and i'm an intern for the community development and administration departments throughout these weeks i have worked on various things such as restocking

0:25:50reformatting and updating forms and planning fees i have also processed letters and milling labels for permits and notifications other things include research on greywater systems for secondary water usages creating file footers and labels for filing planning documents to keep things organized

0:26:07managing spreadsheets data entry on surveys community outreach for restaurant week and compiling business license information using the city's web editing software called civic plus for the duration of the internship i have brought along and improved many skills some of the most notable ones

0:26:28include organization communication and time management organization skills that i used in school helped me in the office with all the forms and documents that needed to be organized especially when multiple planning cases were forms needed to be filed copy or updated

0:26:43communication skills from school came in handy with this job sometimes directions needed to be clarified by asking or emailing in addition i was able to help out with restaurant outreach as a language translator for restaurant week time management has always been one of

0:26:57the most important skills for me in school but it is just as important in the office for example in school a lot of times you will need to multitask get things done on time the same exact thing applies to a job there are times where multiple assignments are thrown at you but good

0:27:11time management will allow you to finish everything on time the city of el cerrito gave me a very welcoming office and colleagues to work with as previously mentioned i have improved a lot of skills throughout this internship but i've also learned how to use various new hardware and software

0:27:28such as microsoft outlook a mailing machine civic plus and other things i've never used before this opportunity was definitely a life learning experience that i will never forget the experience i've gotten from this internship will increase my readiness for college and the real world as well

0:27:46i would like to thank everyone in the city of el cerrito the planning and the mysteries and administrative departments margaret cavanaugh lynch suzanne ireland chris murray mr mason mr aronian the staff of ita and last but not least the west contra costa unified school

0:28:02district for giving me this amazing opportunity thank you thank you [Applause] good evening city of el cerrito my name is manuel espinoza and i was an intern for the city of the fire department in the city management department my mentors were brenda navalier and suzanne ayarla

0:28:27i went on many right exciting ride-alongs where i got to experience the drills and reactions of the firefighters in the work of field my favorite was when i participated in the controlled fire as you can you can see in the photo which was in rodeo it was a huge

0:28:43experience for me because i had to sorry about that and also went on a couple calls and also got to see live training oops sorry about that the projects that i was assigned to me was very exciting for the for city management i was able to apply my skills in graphic design and create

0:29:06no parking signs for the fourth of july event and also create postcards for local businesses now for the fire department i did a lot of data entry to find each location for the fire hydrants and knoxbox and also which was the project was very challenging but at the same time it was

0:29:28very exciting to see how everything worked um the reason i chose the fire department is because i've i was always curious in that field of how they work together and what they do in everyday life and how they overcome obstacles and dangerous fires from the internship i've learned many

0:29:54things such as situations firefighters have to go through every time they're on the job also how they must work as a team to avoid any hazardous situations i've also enhanced my charisma and my social skills and last got to participate and watch as firefighters

0:30:13train i was taught what each medic tool was used for many situations that occur in everyday life i want to thank the city council and the community of el cerrito for making this internship even possible for young adults like us thank you [Applause] good evening my name is katushika bortow

0:30:42and i work for the publix works department this summer at the el cerrito recycling center i had two projects while i was there the very first project had me working on researching information about advertising policies and standards this project was in place because the staff

0:30:58of the public works department wanted to start advertising under curbside pickup recycling trucks this project had me making phone calls and also emailing different organizations regarding information but also pricing while i was waiting for replies i started on another project about how to

0:31:16make recycling and composting more efficient in el cerrito high school this project also had me researching how to make recycling easier and fun at school and ways to compost i also had to call our dearest principal mr luongo and ask him questions what i learned this summer in this

0:31:36interesting job was managing two projects while assisting contra costa residents with their recycling questions how to present projects and also putting in work orders in the database lastly i would like to say thank you to the city of el cerrito the media academy

0:31:53maria sanders and the public works department for taking this taking time and helping me succeed with this amazing project thank you [Applause] good evening council members my name is chelsea martinez and i'm here tonight to show my gratitude and appreciation for

0:32:16the opportunity to work with the city i worked in the finance and human resource department this summer and was supervised by megan mcdermott all the tasks i completed contributed greatly to the well maintenance of the businesses in el cerrito in the beginning i

0:32:32organized and filed the old business licenses then helped to start the new year process of renewal business licenses once that was over it was time to input and update the renewable licenses into the system that took a few weeks of course but once that was finished we were allowed to complete

0:32:45other projects that were less stressful the skills i brought mainly included things i've learned throughout my life like addressing others formally while also appearing formal catching onto things quickly and efficiently and trying to figure a solution to a problem

0:32:59on my own first before asking others for the similarities between the academic and workplace there are many but what i mainly contributed to work from my school background with the same ethic the same attitude and respect towards peers and adults and all prior math knowledge the three highlights of

0:33:16working with the city are one having a first actual experience in the work field to having future references for future jobs and three getting to have a successful summer and a great jump into senior year overall i'm very grateful for this opportunity that was provided for me and

0:33:34i'd like to thank everybody who helped contribute to making this possible [Applause] good evening city council hello my name is andres multus clemens and i'm in the ita academy of el cerrito high and i was the intern for the recreation department uh over the summer i had two wonderful

0:33:59supervisors vivian brent and bridget cooney i started out working with vivian and learned how to use surveymonkey to send out surveys as well as eye contact to create a newsletter that we send out every month to about 5 000 people so it's a little stressful i also looked at the recreation page on

0:34:13the city website and made note of changes that could be made then a few weeks in bridget became my supervisor the first task i had was to create a brochure about the pool and splash park and advertise it and overall my tasks varied from making copies and folding papers putting things

0:34:29in envelopes to uploading new documents to the website and creating a park guide for the city of el cerrito the ita academy at el cerrito high gave me knowledge in adobe photoshop that i used to create icons for the park guide as well as edit several of the images

0:34:44that i took to make up the part guide during my internship managing my time in the workplace reminded me a lot of school knowing that after one task there was always something else i could be doing and picking up what to do and when is the hard part while i had a great experience

0:34:58throughout my internship over the summer there were definitely some highlights and some best moments for example now whenever i apply for a job in the future i can put some past work experience and what you usually was very blank i got to learn to use node programs like

0:35:13microsoft excel and publisher and civic plus and receiving paychecks was definitely a good feeling overall i learned how to coexist in a work environment and how to better present myself professionally i learned a lot about what it really means to be in an office i had no previous

0:35:29experience of seeing a place where everyone is doing something all the time and it's pretty hectic in the recreation department sometimes it was it was new for me this experience is going to help me bridge the gap from college to my career outside of school by adding work experience as i mentioned

0:35:43before but also the weekly assignments we had taught me a lot of how i can better better myself professionally and how to get a job that i enjoy i want to thank the city of el cerrito vivian and bridget for being fantastic supervisors as well as the whole department of recreation and the west

0:35:56contra costa unified school district and everyone that made this opportunity possible [Applause] that concludes our presentation if the city council has any questions myself or mr mace or any of the students would be happy to answer them i don't have any questions but just

0:36:21thank you for participating we always like hearing all of the very positive comments you have about the city my only high school job was i used to give out i was a candy striper and i used to give water out to hospital patients but i think the the jobs have definitely been upgraded in the last 30

0:36:38years yeah i want to echo those comments and thank all of our interns and all the supervisors and mentors for another fantastic summer experience and i can tell by the presentations how much all of our interns have grown and learned and thank you all for sharing your

0:36:59experiences and for helping to make el cerrito a better city so thank you all thank you all right do you need a photo op or anything yeah sure yeah let's do it okay i'll let him know oh [Music] oh [Applause] and we have one speaker cordell hindler so mayor freeman city council members um

0:38:36my name is codell hanlon i'm a resident of richmond i really enjoyed that presentation i think that this was a very wonderful opportunity that the city of el cerrito and the school district are collaborating on this project so i wish y'all can come over and come over to my territory so y'all can

0:38:53work with the mayor's office so that would be a big help so i'm thinking that uh this is this this thing should be like going on you know like for uh hopefully for by next year things will start improving uh because hopefully i like it when the when the city and the district you know is

0:39:09collaborating on this uh internship i think it's it's wonderful so i applaud the city and the district for uh for their hard work so i think kids should deserve this very this amazing opportunity it doesn't happen you know too often i mean i'm thinking yeah like uh

0:39:26councilmember bridget said she used to be a candy striper so though i mean the thought of you as a candy striper was just that's just that was way that was like back in the that was that was a good thing that that the students are doing so now i think that the dish i say

0:39:43i would tell them to say please come down to my heritage my territory so we can so so so the mayor's office can get more interns so thank you so much thanks for your comments okay we're going to move on to the consent calendar consisting of items 5a through 5f which includes the minutes

0:40:02proclamation pledging partnership with east bay municipal utility district to save water a contract with this summit k2 high school environmental review economic development committee appointment of shanti corrigan and then a review and authorization to submit draft recognized obligations

0:40:24payment schedule uh commonly known as rops on the successor agency the redevelopment agency you have a motion a move to adopt items five a through e second all in favor signify by saying aye aye motion cares unanimously thank you very much now we have a couple of public hearings

0:40:49and the first one is on the abatement of the fire hazard public nuisances on eight properties pursuant to el cerrito municipal code chapter 16.26 i have a staff presentation from christopher renshaw our fire prevention officer please officer renshaw good evening honorable mayor and city

0:41:11council members i'm captain chris renshaw your fire prevention officer i'm here tonight to introduce a resolution confirming the cost of force abatement on eight properties previously recognized as a public nuisance by the city council and allowing for the lien

0:41:24of associated costs against the properties so a quick overview we started in early may around may 5th this year driving and doing the inspections and initially there was 173 properties found to be in violation uh less than last year last year was 273 the initial

0:41:4422 were actually declared a public nuisance in july as opposed to 44 last year and unfortunately it came down and we had to abate eight properties and last year was two so the total cost for contractor work was eighty eight hundred dollars and administration fees

0:42:03is seven thousand three hundred thirty nine dollars and seventy five cents for a total of sixteen thousand one hundred thirty nine dollars and seventy five cents uh available to answer any questions if you have any certainly um one of the questions i had was it looked like about four of these

0:42:21were four or half or maybe even five were all on the same street i don't recall that happening in the past was there something about that street this year that that uh was different um they they're all four were vacant lots and they were all overgrown and they just needed they needed work to

0:42:41provide fire clearance or the structures above them and just to meet the meet the vegetation management standard yeah but but they like i don't remember those four lots being on a previous year and they were all in a block so they were contiguous empty parcels yes okay okay

0:42:58coincidence that those four they have four different owners or three different owners three different three different owners yeah yeah question i wondered about yeah they must have they must have pulled together in the past to treat this lot because i don't recall it

0:43:11being a problem in the past so chief good evening once again i'm your fire chief to close the loop on those questions wildcat canyon is abutting these private properties and from time to time these properties are frequent flyers they have been back um for the majority of the properties

0:43:30that we have to do forceful abatement on they usually don't get abated one year after another because after an abatement cycle they're cleaned up enough to go almost a year and a half or two years um this there's been some property ownership change on these properties um

0:43:45and we have just there's been absolutely no response from these four wildcat properties this year i believe it's probably bank owned properties and things of that nature where they're just ignoring the process because they're in foreclosure um that's that's what's the the commonality

0:44:00of those four properties right thank you thanks bridgette that was actually gonna be my question i think all but maybe one or two of these properties out of the eight are from out of this area some of them further northern california and southern california correct we don't get

0:44:16responses yeah the majority of the properties that we end up having forceful abatement uh there's not there's not someone living there um because we have a very robust program where fire prevention officer renshaw goes out after the mailings knocks on the door multiple times

0:44:30puts a sign on their property with the stake that has all the notifications on it really everything we always force forcefully abate their vacant properties are the landlords missing yeah thank you very much any more questions all right i will now open the public

0:44:47hearing and are there any public statements comments i have no request to speak i move we close the public hearing there second i'll second moved in second and all in favor signify by saying aye aye aye motion carries unanimously yeah sorry it's uh comments from us yeah any uh

0:45:10comments from my colleagues yeah i'll make one as as the fire department the fire chief will tell you uh later i'm this is one of my hot buttons uh and certainly reducing our fire risk in the city is one that i've been a champion of for many years and it and it with this

0:45:28drought year that we have it certainly is very important for us to stay on top of it and i want to thank you very much for i think you started earlier this year um and it looks like you did a very good job if we had 44 nuisances uh versus 22 last year um and we reduced it to eight that's

0:45:46pretty significant so i want to uh thank you for all your hard work on this and uh given where we are obviously we may uh have even more vegetation next year um with the el nino that's predicted and hopefully we'll be able to have a wet year through the year but

0:46:04thank you for your hard work you're welcome thank you uh do we have a motion sure i'll move and i want to double check this is one of those ones where you have two motions i think here's the language here i moved to adopt a resolution confirming the report of costs of abatement of

0:46:22public nuisance conditions resulting from the presence of weeds rubbish litter or other flammable material on the private properties designated in the resolution under the authority contained in el cerrito municipal code 16.26 been moved in second and all in favor

0:46:41signify by saying aye aye aye motion carries you honestly thank you so much captain rancho for you and the department's hard work on this welcome thank you thanks all right the next public hearing is on ordinance establishing a tobacco retail license program uh

0:47:05i think we have staff report from suzanne yarla right my name is suzanne erla and i'm the assistant to the city manager and um i am here tonight uh now to present to you an ordinance to establish a tobacco retailer license program for the city this tobacco retailer license program

0:47:57would help to achieve the city's strategic goal of ensuring the public's health and safety [Music] as you know smoking is an urgent health matter in the united states and in particular emerging products including e-cigarettes are also an issue that's affecting our nation and our community

0:48:20the goals of a tobacco retailer license program would be to ensure responsible legal sales of tobacco products to prevent initiation of tobacco use by youth and young adults and the license program would also fund an enforcement mechanism so that the city could do

0:48:36compliance monitoring regarding sales and this would also close gaps in federal and state laws that do not yet address electronic cigarettes and other emerging tobacco products staff has been working on this item for over a year and most recently in may the planning commission did recommend

0:48:57adoption did recommend that the city council adopt the ordinance the edits that the planning commission made are reflected in the ordinance it is before you tonight and additionally there were some minor changes that staff made in addition to that between those times

0:49:15that is included in attachment 4 of the packet if anyone would like to to see the differences between the may version and this current version reasons why the city is interested in establishing a tobacco retailer license includes to be able to regulate the sale

0:49:32of tobacco specifically from a zoning standpoint limiting where tobacco is sold can curtail youth access to the products as well as the social perception that tobacco use is normal and acceptable and that can be achieved in this ordinance is going to be achieved by

0:49:49creating buffers around sensitive sites as well as addressing the density of tobacco retailers a number of cities across california and and throughout the nation have established these types of ordinances and they have been found to be effective one area where el cerrito would be a

0:50:08model uh a leader in this uh topic would be including a prohibition on the sale of flavored non-cigarette tobacco products the federal government has identified that these products are starter products they are also marketed and attractive to youth and young adults because of their

0:50:31sweet flavors bright packaging and their low price point compared to a packet of cigarettes however neither federal law nor california law actually restricts the sales of these emerging products including e-cigarettes so the program before you tonight would require any retailer who sells

0:50:56tobacco products to obtain a license and renew it annually if this is adopted tonight staff will come back at the second reading of this ordinance with a resolution to amend the master fee schedule that would put these fees into place to highlight the program the proposed

0:51:15business standards of the program include to establish a minimum age so that the clerk involved in the sales transaction of tobacco products is at least of age to purchase those products it would prohibit self-service displays so the customer has to interact with a

0:51:30clerk it would prohibit the sale of flavored non-cigarette tobacco products as well as tobacco retailers from selling imitation products like chewing gum that is looked that is packaged like chewing tobacco or candy cigarettes and chocolate cigars and that type of thing

0:51:47it would also prohibit the sale of single cigars under a five dollar price point as well as small packed cigars the ordinance would prohibit cigar lounges hookah lounges and vape shops from opening in el cerrito currently we do not have any of these business types

0:52:05and it would also prohibit any new significant tobacco retailers as defined in the ordinance that would be a retailer who devotes 20 or more of their display area in the store to tobacco products or receives 50 or more of gross receipts from tobacco products there are

0:52:26approximately two apparent significant tobacco retail establishments currently in the city of el cerrito so the ordinance does include a grandfather clause to allow existing retailers to apply for an exception where they could continue to offer for sale at the same rate that they

0:52:43are selling now for up to 10 years this is a map that was created in 2014 that shows uh current tobacco retailers as well as this sensitive sites that we'd be buffering against i'm not sure if you can see the colors very well but around schools and parks there's a light blue ring to

0:53:10indicate a 500 foot distance and then each of the red dots is a retailer with a couple exceptions and that's a thousand foot buffer this map was actually created before cvs as a corporation stopped selling tobacco products and there's also one other retailer shown on this map who does not

0:53:30sell so this is just an illustration but it gives you a sense of of what those buffer distances look like so in terms of the separation the ordinance would require or would prohibit newer relocated stores within 500 feet of schools the library the community center and other youth

0:53:50serving areas as well as parks with an exception of the alone greenway and any future pocket parks that get established along san pablo avenue and there is an exception to allow existing businesses to remain in place and if any of those businesses that are existing

0:54:05today sell within 10 years the new business owner would also be granted this exception in terms of addressing density of tobacco retailers the ordinance would prohibit any new stores from locating within 1 000 feet of an existing tobacco retailer all the existing retailers

0:54:26would be able to remain in place and there would be an exception where a new business could apply to locate within a thousand feet of another retailer and this would actually provide the city with a mechanism to balance the need for economic development with the needs of trying to

0:54:46create a safe and healthy environment in the city also to assist the current retailers the ordinance allows for a 24 month or a 2 year transition period for existing businesses to comply with a number of the business standards and there's also an incentive for the

0:55:06existing retailers if they comply uh sooner to receive a fee reduction in the annual license fee based on input from the planning commission staff would also be able to develop a brochure or handout to share with retailers about free and paid business development resources for

0:55:30example through the small business development center or renaissance entrepreneurship center and there was also the discussion that the city could maybe offer a reimbursement for existing tobacco retailers who take certain classes that they could seek to be reimbursed after completion

0:55:50of certain classes so just in summary based on input from the community from retailers there are a number of considerations for existing businesses which are summarized here in terms of implementation this would be a multi-departmental effort with the city manager's office heading up kind of

0:56:17outreach and education the finance department would be the department to actually administer the license and the renewals each year community development department and police department would work together in terms of the enforcement and inspections so in terms of

0:56:36actions requested tonight um if you have any questions myself or other staff are happy to answer those questions and then after you hold the public hearing hopefully you'll be able to consider making a motion on this ordinance tonight thank you very much for a very good

0:56:53presentation do we have questions from the council at this time i just had a clarification question so when it comes to cigars if they're less than five dollars a single cigar is being single sale of cigar under five dollars is being banned correct um and also a package of

0:57:20less than five correct so if you sold more than five or you sold scars more than five dollars that was that would still be allowed that's right i had another question about the thousand feet um in the zoning could you explain that again one more time for me it was probably about five

0:57:38or six slides back sure um so to address the density of retailers their proximity to each other the ordinance would prohibit any new retailer from opening within a thousand feet of an existing store all of the all of the existing stores are able to remain in place but any new

0:57:56stores would be prohibited however there was a lot of discussion um both at the council level and at the planning commission level about the need to balance the city's economic development goals you know with the goals of this policy and so the idea that was developed and is included in the

0:58:14ordinance is that a new business if they wanted to locate say a grocery store and it happened to be within a thousand feet of another tobacco retailer if their approval was at the planning commission level they could appeal to the planning commission level for an

0:58:30exception to the store to store buffer and at that time the body who's making that approval decision would be able to weigh the specific situation if the benefit of a neighborhood serving grocery store outweighs the benefit of adding one more tobacco retailer that could be addressed

0:58:50on a case-by-case basis so it allows the city some flexibility so would that be determined i guess i'm looking at sky for this would that be term determined ultimately only by the planning commission would it come back to us because this is would be an it's an ordinance so i need clarification

0:59:07about that i'm a little confused the way the ordinance is structured the decision-making body that has control over the issuance of the permit would also be able to decide to make an exception to the to the buffer in essence so if the new business would be within a thousand feet of an existing

0:59:23retailer and would under the terms of the ordinance be prohibited but for example they required a conditional use permit to be approved by the planning commission the planning commission as part of the cup approval could make the decision to allow an exception for that

0:59:36business and to further the city's overall economic development goals that decision would be appealable to the city council and so ultimately the council would have the ability to review the planning commission's determination for any permit or land use approval for such a

0:59:51business that required the city council to make the decision the city council would have the ultimate decision-making authority regardless of whether or not it was appeal to the city council so is that only made on the condition of economic development the standards that are set out in the

1:00:06ordinance focus on furthering the city's economic development goals this is something that came up i think at multiple levels of discussion if i'm remembering correctly where there wasn't a desire to try to strike a balance within the way the the orange was structured to recognize that there

1:00:21may be circumstances under which a new business um included tobacco sales as as a portion of what it does and that the overall economic benefits of the business would be sufficient that the city could make a policy determination that despite the addition of additional

1:00:36tobacco sales that having the business in town would be worthwhile okay thank you any other questions at this time i believe there are currently 18 tobacco retailers in el cerrito and there has actually been only a few enforcement let me look up those numbers for you um

1:01:24there are only been a few times where the police department has looked into this but we don't have a proactive approach right now to um to to do an operation to to check on that so the numbers may be different other communities have found before they had a program in place the numbers uh

1:01:44were lower but by having a proactive uh a funded program you're able to do more investigations and that type of thing but i can look up that number for you and get back to you okay um while you're doing that um i'm hoping that you can i learned a new tobacco term today um s-u-n-u-s

1:02:08snooze snooze i don't know it and could you just describe what snooze is because i'm not it is it is not snuff it is a different product it's actually a moister product that is not a smokeless tobacco but as compared to chewing tobacco the user doesn't actually

1:02:28spit the juices back out and some users feel that it has more flavor because it is manufactured differently than snuff so it is a different product so while you're looking that up i many of our whereas clauses are based on several reports and i actually read a couple of those reports

1:02:48and a lot of the question i asked before about enforcement the businesses in el cerrito are not necessarily selling to minors but this ordinance isn't necessarily to prevent sales to minors it's really to prevent minors from from seeing smoking and seeing the advertisement and being enticed to try

1:03:12to try smoking so i'm just curious how would we i mean if we go forward with this there's going to be a loss of sales revenue have we any idea of what the sales revenue would be of these flavored tobacco products that we're banning i know that the city council did receive

1:03:34some communications from retailers and a number of those retailers did indicate that the flavored tobacco products so the e-cigarettes and other emerging products are a portion of their business and this would impact their their sales in terms of the violations

1:03:53for penal code 308 which is uh that a person firm or corporation furnishes to a minor tobacco so that may or may not be a retailer in 2012 to 2013 1 2014 0 2015 1 i'll have to look up what month this report was presented to me and in terms of pc 308 b so a minor

1:04:25being in possession of a tobacco cigarette or other products 2012 5 2013 6 2014 5 2015 5 and that would have been a partial year number for 2015.

1:04:39so these these numbers are low and a number of retailers have not received you know any recent violations uh but in terms of wanting to combat the social perception and youth seeing that these products are available this would go a long way to help towards that

1:04:56the california retailers association's uh claimed that you know access sales to minors is really not the issue because many of their retailers or most based on those numbers are not um selling to miners and the high school survey that was attachment uh three you look at that and and there's 48

1:05:20percent the seniors claim that 48 of them believe that it's easy to get tobacco products and so it's it's not a matter of sales they're getting them some other way i think i read again i read in many things today and i can't remember which report it was but that

1:05:37most people are getting most miners are getting cigarettes and tobacco products from their friends or from other parents or from other sources not necessarily from sales so again the purpose of this ordinance is to reduce the concentration of advertising and distributors in our city

1:05:59as a way of preventing new users it's not to stop sales of tobacco diviners because we have no evidence that that's happening on a great scale the ordinance would prohibit the sale of flavored non-cigarette products to customers of any age does the and this might be for council

1:06:22does the fda guidance document uh issued in august of 2015 as referenced in the national association of tobacco outlets changed the ordinance anyway we ask the question if you would yeah the national association of tobacco outlets in their letter uh makes reference to

1:06:41the fda guidance document of august 2015. i pulled that out that guidance document up and it looks like it's mostly with regards to enforcement and i don't see that it would contradict our ordinance but i wanted to ask the question does it does our ordinance need to change as a result of that

1:06:59guidance document um it's my understanding is that it does not i mean i as i understand it the the fda has finalized some regulations that have been um proposed for some time um they have their own enforcement scheme for sales of tobacco products to minors but i don't believe that the way that

1:07:20the statute that authorized and directed the fda to develop those regulations precludes the city from enacting more stringent enforcement provisions which is which is what i believe the um national association of tobacco retailers or whatever the the name the exact name of

1:07:36the organization yes um while they made the point that the city's um enforcement is um more stringent than that outlined in the new fda regulations but i don't believe that the that the statute that authorized those regulations precludes the city from an acting more stringent enforcement

1:07:56provisions thank you in the cigar association letter similarly they mentioned that fda is about to come out with a flavoring some form of flavoring guidelines or flavoring restrictions and i'm not certain that it has any merit on our ordinance but i wanted i felt due

1:08:17diligence that i should be asking if that if there and that's the um it's the last letter in this package it's the no it's not it's uh cigar ordinance is [Applause] i can't remember which one it is but it's in this package eighth comment received in your supplemental report i believe yeah from

1:08:41jack james james jack number eight um james jack iv they talk about flavoring and the fda is about to come out with restrictions or some sort of guidance on flavoring again would we need to adjust our ordinance for that pending pending guidance again i don't believe so as i understand

1:09:00the structure of the statute that's in the background of these comments um the statute plus the fda have promulgated standards for flavored tobacco products um although maybe limited to cigarettes but i'm not i'm not the the i'm not absolutely positive of that but um

1:09:22there while the standards themselves are preemptive of state and local regulations um the statute itself contains a carve out from its preemption provision that says that state and local agencies retain the power to prohibit the sales of products and so my understanding

1:09:40my view on the ordinance that's in front of you tonight is that it falls in the category of a prohibition on sales and not an attempt to develop a standard that would contradict the federal standard great thank you following the flavoring item for the moment the

1:09:59national association of tobacco outlets in their letter identifies that the average smoker of pipe tobacco is 50 and in your staff report you identify that i don't know the source of it but you identified that pipe tobacco is about 1.5 percent uh of the use and i i know that pipe tobacco has been

1:10:26flavored for many many years and that that's not it's not new and it's not it's certainly not attempting to attract uh youthful um youthful clients but first i don't know is there are there any sellers of pipe tobacco in el cerrito and um you know why would we ban a product

1:10:51that's i understand what we're trying to do is trying to reduce the amount of new users young users that are attracted to to this this habit pipe tobacco is not is not falling into that category in my mind i'm just curious i've made this comment before during our work session

1:11:13why are we targeting pipe tobacco are there any pipe tobacco sellers in el cerrito i would imagine that some of the tobacco retailers probably do currently sell pipe tobacco staff's approach to the flavored products was to to have a comprehensive ban on on those obviously if the city

1:11:34council believes that we should have an exception and allow the sale of pipe tobacco the ordinance could be amended if that was your desire i'll come back in comments and make that and make us comment about that if necessary i do want to make note that there are a

1:11:51couple of footnotes missing from the ordinance and and my understanding is staff is going to make corrections to those um i also want to make note that i did find a couple of typographical errors that are minor if anything um capitalization of an r and a placement

1:12:08of a quotation mark which which i'm assuming that those will occur uh administratively let's see there was one other question that i had for you earlier that i wanted to go through one of the questions i had earlier was with regards to the 10-year exception which i believe is

1:12:55[Music] section 340.

1:13:01and this sorry it's the um exceptions 100 320 and the exception is for significant tobacco retail establishments and i just want to make sure it's clear i know what your response was earlier and i would love to have your response go into the record that that exception

1:13:27is only for the size of the retailer and not for any other exception they don't get an exception for 10 years for example for flavored tobaccos that is correct so the the grandfather clause for existing significant tobacco retail establishments to be exempt from

1:13:46operating as a significant tobacco retail establishment is limited to that one section in the ordinance and that would provide those existing retailers with 10 years to adjust their business model and their merchandise to come into compliance after that 10-year period but they would

1:14:04be required to comply with all other statutes of this ordinance they would also be granted the month transition period that all retailers are being granted in terms of those certain business standards so they would have 24 months to divest or sell their their current stock

1:14:28of flavored tobacco products for example but that exception is just to operate as a significant tobacco retailer and it's only for businesses that right now are operating in that capacity right a couple more um one of the changes that came out of the planning commission that did not specifically get

1:14:47it enacted into the ordinance was the separate um paragraph prohibiting smoking lounges and uh which was their suggestion was to make 6.100.360 uh prohibition on smoking lounges and as you pointed out six 6100 220 adequately covers that so i wanted to make sure that if anybody was actually

1:15:14reading as carefully as i that that you had intentionally left out one of the planning commission's recommended suggestions which was to put in six one hundred three sixty um so i wanted to make sure of that uh the other one that uh i wanted to talk to you about was or ask about was um one of the

1:15:34final whereas clauses so this is on page four of the ordinance and it's the second to last whereas clause and it reads whereas the city has a substantial interest in promoting compliance with federal state local laws intended to regulate tobacco sales and use in discouraging the illegal purchase of

1:15:54tobacco products by miners in promoting compliance with laws and prohibiting sales of cigarettes and tobacco products to minors and finally and most importantly in protecting children from being lured into illegal activities through the misconduct of adults and i'm trying to

1:16:11find where any of the studies talked about the misconduct of adults none of the other whereases or or studies specifically talked about misconduct of adults and as we discussed earlier there's very few violations by the by our local retailers so i'm not certain that they can be accused of

1:16:32misconduct so i'm just trying to figure out where where this the basis i know i know your answer at least the answer you gave me earlier today but i'm but i bring it up because i i want to find out uh the source of it with regards to this for all the rest of our council

1:16:46for a later discussion sure um so in terms of that language it did come from the model ordinance that this ordinance before you tonight was based on from change lab solutions um the city attorney has indicated that there doesn't need to necessarily be a citation for that information i think

1:17:06one example that might help you think about this would be if someone of legal selling age is approached by a minor uh to purchase cigarettes on their behalf um and so then the the young adult or any any person over 18 goes into the store legally purchases the product and then

1:17:25turns around and gives or sells them to a minor would be an example of misconduct of an adult and as i testified earlier this evening i read somewhere that that is the number one way that uh underage youth are obtaining their tobacco products is not necessarily from the misconduct

1:17:44of retailers but the misconduct of other adults so i so i just wanted to have that discussion thank you thank you um on the stores that are specifically tobacco stores i think the two in our town are tobacco outlet and san pablo discount cigarette um is it possible not just to

1:18:08say that they can't sell to minors which of course no retailer can but that miners can't enter those establishments that certainly could be an approach that we take it's not in the ordinance as drafted but there could be a provision for in order to be a significant tobacco retail

1:18:27establishment that you must be an adult only establishment that would be possible that is not currently written into the ordinance though okay are there any other cities that have prohibitions like that that we know of i don't know off the top of my head i certainly have been in uh tobacco

1:18:45retailers that have that policy back in washington dc there's several that are that way and there are some i can think of cigar lounges um or vape shops that that also are adult-only establishments and so therefore the person has to be 21 to get into the store so they're not

1:19:02even uh needing to worry about the young adults who are of age to buy tobacco but they go up to 21.

1:19:08thank you any other questions please i have one other set of questions and that was about the other cities in contra costa county which i think are probably concord richmond san pablo and some incorporated area of the county have already passed retail ordinances

1:19:26that was listed on the sheet you gave us do we know um if they've had 100 ban on electronic and vaping and some of the things that we're outlining doing do we know a little bit about what they passed el cerrito would be the first uh city in our area for sure if we

1:19:44did prohibit flavored tobacco products so the e-cigarettes and the other emerging products so none of our neighboring communities have uh that in their ordinance so even though they scored an a and they're reducing it it didn't omit that i mean they they allowed it

1:20:03still correct and um do you know if their penalties for um violations were similar to what we are drafting or what are considering drafting i believe they are somewhat similar without specifically comparing ourselves to another community when we looked at what the violations um and consequences

1:20:24should be we were looking at uh what other communities did and um with the cigar sales and the five dollar and the number five and all that do you know if that was also in their ordinance or do you happen to know that um i could see if i could look that up here tonight i might not have that level

1:20:41of detail with me but i could see if i could look why do you think they scored so high um so the american lung association's grading of cities and and their tobacco control um has a number of standards that the lung association is looking at i'm going to see if i can

1:21:05pull that up for you and i'm not sure if there is anyone from the lung association here tonight i believe you did receive a letter from the lung association and they might be better able to describe their process for you but let me see if i can find it quickly in general they are looking at

1:21:25cities have a license and that the retailers are required to renew it annually in order to sell products that there is the fee for the license set high enough for the city to have an effective enforcement program and to cover the administration of the program coordination

1:21:43of regulations so that if a retailer violated a state or federal law that there could be a local license consequences of that financial deterrent through fines and penalties and more recently they are looking at emerging products being included in there so let me look

1:22:04through my notes a little bit more and get back to you denise dennis the head of tobacco control for contra costa county is here and she might be able to shed some light on some of these questions denise thank you suzanne is doing a fabulous job by the way so tobacco retailer licensing is a separate

1:22:22standalone policy and the american lung association report card graded communities on whether or not they had a standalone policy and that tobacco retailer licensing is strictly focused on reducing sales illegal sales of tobacco products to minors so hence all of the findings that are

1:22:45related to sales and reducing sales to minors so when the lice when the american lung association grade it they are grading just on tobacco retailer licensing which just means that law enforcement goes out and does decoy operations they assess whether they do decoy

1:23:07operations on a regular basis to all the retailers they get a sales rate on an annual basis that's all tobacco retailer licensing is and then the um if somebody sells then they get their license to spend it and it has been proven to reduce sales to minors in throughout the state of

1:23:27california what you have here is you have tobacco retailer licensing that is the skeleton for all these other very model policies which is uh and you're using tobacco retailer licensing as an enforcement mechanism for all the other policies that you're considering does that make sense

1:23:47no so we got an a the county has an a for tobacco retailer licensing we don't have all the policies that you're considering but we do do decoy operations um under tobacco retailer licensing so does richmond and a few other communities in contra costa i hope that's clear

1:24:05and if you look at attachment 3 in your report which is the grades for communities in alameda and contra costa counties you'll actually see that there's a section that they refer to as bonus points for emerging issues so a community could receive an a grade in this area without having addressed these

1:24:24emerging areas so that's the difference briefly so basically we might be the only city that would be doing this hey hayward if i look correctly in alameda county hayward had both flavored tobacco products and minimum pack size and union city had minimum pack size in

1:24:44alameda county in alameda county correct so we we may become state of the art here any other questions all right so i had one that i forgot um and it had to do with uh section uh 340. um and this was the uh let's see if i can find it for you guys real quick page

1:25:13should be page 12.

1:25:19and it's consideration for existing retailers item 2 the tobacco retailer is not closed for business or otherwise suspended tobacco retailing for more than 60 days and i came to my attention or i realized that some number of these are gas stations and they may be forced to close

1:25:38as a result of underground storage leak underground uh leaking storage tank and and so that 60-day closure may not be optional for them and i was just curious if there was some sort of discussion about an exception or up exception process by which they could toll or freeze that 24 month as a result

1:25:59of complying with other state laws i was just curious if that had come up in any of the process discussions it did not come up any previous discussions um so the council could uh make amendments to the ordinance or additionally if uh if it was the the council's desire that if that situation

1:26:19were to arise in the future staff could come back to you at that time on that case-by-case basis and ask for an exception at that time so it could be handled either way it's a it's a great idea we could include it in the ordinance or we could handle it if that unique situation

1:26:35did actually occur and it it's it right now would be have to occur within a 24-month period starting january 1 but it maybe we need to put a a nod to it just so that people know that we are thinking about their their businesses um that concludes my comments sorry thank you nothing to be sorry for

1:26:54thank you very much all right we're now going to open the public hearing and call for public testimony yes mayor we have eight speakers first of which is cordell hindler followed by sarah and alejandra and brian davis mayor freeman um council members my name is carl hendler and i'm a resident of

1:27:14richmond i think this is a very um good presentation but to me the the seeing tobacco uh in cigarettes is just like ugh not good for me because i am a uncle of um of 10 and i'm trying to teach my little nieces uh it is not good to to see an adult you know smoking i mean it just affects

1:27:36their i mean health mentally to me i'm thinking that um that cigarettes is bad it's bad for adults i mean not good for for little kids but but not good for adults so please think this um this ordinance through so that's it thank you very much sarah and alejandra

1:28:02good evening honorable mayor and city council members i'm ali and i'm sarah we're students at el cerrito high school and residents of el cerrito and we support banning the cell of all flavored tobacco products including the little cigars and eat cigarettes we want to share with you that we are

1:28:17concerned about the availability of cheap flavored tobacco products in our neighborhoods and near our school cheap fruit and candy flavored tobacco like cigars chew and e-cigarettes are made to appeal to young people teenagers also see them everywhere such as the 7-11

1:28:33that is a block away from our school we know that low-cost flavored cigars sold under brands like good times and swisher sweets are especially harmful because they entice young people to start smoking they use super cheap prices and candy flavors to lure youth into using

1:28:47before they're old enough to fully understand the consequences of their actions for example swishers are sold 2 for 99 cents and good times are sold 3 for 99 cents overall we would like to see el cerrito become a healthier community for kids and families to live and shop where kids

1:29:05are safe from tobacco marketing and exposure to these cheap flavored products we urge you to establish a tobacco retail licensing program that will reduce youth access and exposure to these harmful products thank you thank you very much for the great tandem brian davis followed by janna katz and

1:29:23mary jacodine there we go good evening mayor freeman and members of the council my name is brian davis and i work at tri-city health center in fremont we provide health services to the people of southern alameda county where as has been mentioned two cities have recently passed ordinances similar

1:29:44to what you're considering tonight the cities of hayward and union city have passed tobacco retail licenses which require their police departments to conduct youth decoy operations funded by those tobacco retail licenses to reduce the sale of tobacco products to

1:29:59underage youth whole point of a tobacco retail license is to reduce tobacco sales to underage youth and enforce other tobacco laws applicable to the retail environment which such as the minimum pack size requirements for cigars which also was adopted in union city and hayward and

1:30:18which you are also considering the minimum pack size is also important by the way because it would increase the cost of these little cigars which are often sold in packs of two or three for less than one dollar as was just demonstrated over 100 studies have shown that higher

1:30:34tobacco prices result in lower youth smoking rates uh thank you also for considering limitations on flavor tobacco products which as was mentioned has been done in hayward these are very attractive to children and federal regulations as was asked earlier they do only apply to cigarettes

1:30:54and not cigars and other brands cities and counties all over california that have passed tobacco retail licenses and have used these funds to conduct youth decoy operations have seen often dramatic drops in illegal sales to youth in berkeley the sales rate was 38 before

1:31:14the license and is now 4.2 unincorporated contra costa county went from 37 percent before the license to 3.8 after this means that teenagers are less likely to have access to tobacco products in those communities and therefore less likely to experiment with and become addicted to nicotine

1:31:33successful tobacco retail licenses utilize youth decoy operations to reduce underage youth sale rates thank you thank you for your comments janet katz followed by mary jacodine and denise dennis it's been very interesting hearing the staff report and i just really want to

1:31:56commend the students who gave a very effective presentation if you don't listen to what they're saying you're not listening to the youth that are here in el cerrito my name is janna katz and i'm here representing the american cancer society's cancer asher network which is

1:32:11advocating on behalf of cities and counties and the state of california for stronger regulations of tobacco and particularly focusing our attention on the fact that young people once addicted become tomorrow's public health problem so even if the city of el cerrito is not

1:32:30showing a large amount of people being arrested or cited if you will for selling to underage kids that doesn't mean that those numbers can really be trusted as you've heard having a strong enforcement is going to show you the numbers of sellers who may be winning or unwitting selling to youth

1:32:54and as a parent i would like to know that my city if i lived in el cerrito was making sure that youth were not able to go into 7-eleven near their school and purchase tobacco from a clerk who might not be 18 years old and you know look the other way so i commend the city

1:33:13of el cerrito for looking to the public health and thinking about those future smokers and saving lives in the future i would also like to point out too that i think 10 years is a really long time for retailers to come to terms with the fact that they have some restrictions if

1:33:31anything you should be strengthening the laws and not allowing the loopholes for example you could for example say you've got 18 current tobacco sellers and prior to a new retailer coming in meeting the criteria of the buffer zone you might say you know we can stick with

1:33:5018 and wait for one of those other companies that may either change their policy like cvs did and maintain the status quo don't add to your tobacco problem by allowing more retailers frankly i think there's many other ways that the city of el cerrito can deal with your economic development than

1:34:12balancing your budget on the backs of people who are addicted or future addicts of tobacco it's uh incredible to me that 80 percent of smokers started before the age of 18.

1:34:27and if any of you have ever been a smoker you know how difficult it is to quit an addiction to nicotine so why not be proactive why not get an a plus grade and go for the bonus points go el cerrito you can be a leader don't look to other cities look to your city

1:34:45to be the best you can be thank you so much thank you for your comments hi good evening council members i'm mary jacodine and i'm a co-chair of the contra costa tobacco prevention coalition and i'm here because one of our coalition's goals is to prevent teen tobacco use by addressing the influence

1:35:10of the tobacco industry in the retail environment and the coalition thanks you for taking on this issue each year the tobacco industry spends over a billion dollars in the state of california promoting its products and this investment really pays off research has shown that exposure to

1:35:28tobacco marketing in stores has a more powerful influence on teen tobacco use than even peer pressure as because of this the coalition supports tobacco retailer licensing laws density restrictions and a 1 000 foot buffer zone around schools parks and places where young people gather

1:35:49these are very important protections and they need to be put in place without exception and without long implementation periods 24 years or a 10-year grandfathering period are just way too long the coalition also supports policies restricting the sale of products that

1:36:09are designed to appeal to kids and just like you have have seen and heard from the teenagers they are out there in the stores near schools and i have here some examples i have some tropical fusion swisher sweets some watermelon jackpot cigars and some grapes cigarillos all

1:36:29these things sell for 99 cents and that's less than the price of a candy bar or a bottle of juice if you go to a little store i also have the split orillo here this is my favorite one it is designed to be split open and filled with marijuana and that's that's how you smoke that one

1:36:47you can buy single cigars you cannot buy single cigarettes and that decision was made because singles are very very affordable and appealing to young people and then there's a whole array of the e-products you've seen some pictures before they are characterized by their

1:37:04flavors this one is is kind of basic this is blueberry blast but you can find these things in chocolate gummy bear fruit loop you name it these flavors have been banned in cigarettes for years and it's just because they are very very appealing to kids new data from the cdc and the fda

1:37:24show an alarming growth in flavored product use between 2011 and 2014 hookah use doubled and i have some orange swirl hookah which is pipe tobacco so it's pipe tobacco that's just exploded and there's also been an 800 increase in the use of electronic smoking devices

1:37:44so just as in the past the tobacco companies are making products for kids because kids are the most likely to try them and to become their addicted customers there's big money at stake which is why you've heard from nato which the american lung association points out was launched by tobacco

1:38:01companies and all the big tobacco companies are nato members so please um when you're considering this ordinance don't let the interests of businesses that are selling deadly products trump your concern for the health of the youth of el cerrito thanks very much i also

1:38:17have a jar of your time's up yeah i know i have some snooze here too if you want to look it that way i think we get the point but thank you good evening honorable mayor and city council members i um my name is denise dennis and i work with contra costa health services tobacco prevention

1:38:42project a letter from our new contra costa public health director daniel petticord was forwarded to this afternoon i wasn't sure if it came in time for your packet so i asked karen to distribute it research has demonstrated that youth are more likely to experiment

1:38:58with tobacco products when retailers are located near schools and that the number of tobacco retailers in a community affects youth smoking behaviors as well as access to tobacco products restricting the location of all tobacco retailers near schools and other youth

1:39:12sensitive areas as well as within a certain distance to each other creates tobacco-free zones and reduces tobacco influences in the community flavored tobacco products and small packs of cigars and other tobacco products are strongly linked to youth uptake of tobacco use and i think

1:39:30the last time we were here we talked about a recent survey in contra costa county that showed that 80 percent of stores that were surveyed in contra costa are selling these flavored tobacco products that mary described there are several jurisdictions across the country that

1:39:46have adopted laws to regulate pack size flavored tobacco products and address density issues i'm really happy to tell you that the board of supervisors are considering very similar policies to what you're considering this evening and berkeley is also discussing the same policies at

1:40:02their city council meeting this evening tobacco retailer licensing is the most effective tool available for addressing illegal sales to minors as well as monitoring compliance of other sales laws the effective policies require that every retailer that's selling a tobacco

1:40:20product get have to get a license every year and that a fee set that is sufficient enough to fund administration and enforcement of the ordinance including annual decoy operations by law enforcement um and then that it really is important that if there is a violation of the law that

1:40:40uh the retailer license be suspended uh it's important to note one of the provisions i think uh under consideration is to have a fine in lieu of suspension a fine has not been demonstrated to reduce tobacco sales to minors or to bring retailers into compliance with our

1:41:00to other tobacco laws and you may want to think about that in your considerations i'm happy to answer any questions about the county's tobacco retail or licensing ordinance if you'd like thank you thank you very much bill coleman followed by al miller good evening city council my name is

1:41:25bill coleman i live at [address removed] and i encourage you to delete the restrictions on the sale of flavored tobacco and single and small cigar packs because these will also ban the sale to adults if we say we're against tobacco products for minors i think we can all

1:41:43agree on that but when you go far to also ban the sale of these products to adults we learned a lesson in prohibition that making products illegal doesn't work we can't get out of our own way fast enough to make marijuana legal for municipal purposes why would we want

1:42:04to go the other way on tobacco products i think we can be tough on tobacco i think we can help our kids make better choices without forcing the adult citizens of our city into illegal transactions out of the back of chevy's in dim lit parking lots thank you thank you for your comments

1:42:25al miller hello again you all know i'm not an expert in tobacco projects or tobacco regulation but i wanted to share an experience i had last evening at the el cerrito high school ptsa meeting a woman you just heard from i believe was there and the thing that it took a while to sink

1:42:50in but the message that came across to me is this industry has insidiously gone out of their way to design a product putting a tasty beverage tasty things in it to get rid of the evil taste of tobacco because that's enough and to smell that's almost enough to try to

1:43:11keep us away from it they design the size of the product and the packaging of the product to get rid of the depressing effects of high tax on a pack of cigarettes because these are so cheap they design change the design of the product they don't wrap it uh some of

1:43:32the products that were shown that didn't wrap it with paper anymore they wrap it with tobacco because apparently that gets out from some other definition of cigarettes that would prevent it from doing this so the retailers are presented with an industry whose purpose is

1:43:54don't care about us they don't care about our kids they just want to make money it's kind of like the gun industry right but i just wanted to share that because it brought me here tonight to give you a strong support of your plans to work on this regulation but

1:44:16please when you pass it don't disregard it when it's enforced i hope that there will be sufficient data gathered to see that is it working to do what you want it to do so that if it isn't you'll have the information you need to come back with the revision to make it as tough as

1:44:33we can thank you thank you very much i have no other request to speak all right i'll consider a motion to close the public hearing also move second moved and seconded all in favor say aye motion carries unanimously the public hearing is closed now we'll have additional questions and deliberation

1:44:54from the council who wants to start yeah sure i'll go ahead and start so um you know there's great irony and and what we're thinking about here we haven't any violations and yet we're restricting a sale now there's a real problem with tobacco that maybe one expert here has talked about

1:45:18and that is the reward circuit that exists in your brain when you smoke cigarettes it releases dopamine dopamine gives you adrenaline rush and it gives you a high i mean there's a reason why you see ball p players with pockets because they get their adrenaline going

1:45:34and you know when they start surfing when you talk about smoking cessation 70 of people who are adults who smoke they want to quit you know man how many can about four percent either can or actually do quit so we know how addicting it is and you know the problem

1:45:51i have with the e-cigarettes is you know we're hearing at least one person testify that we're perhaps preventing adults from making their adult decisions but if all you have to do is see that commercial that's on television it's priceless with all these little five-year-olds sitting there with all

1:46:09this stuff laid out in front of them just like you had and they're like wow these are toys can i have this you know can we keep it i mean that's what these kids are saying i i just don't i don't find that these things are being marketed the electronic and some of the

1:46:25flavored tobaccos are being marketed for adults i mean i don't know too many adults that have gone from cigarettes that are going to blueberry bath blast it's just not happening so you know it's just i think you're absolutely right al i mean they're really marketing this for

1:46:43children and i think we all know that and if you if you are actually curtailing the access you're going to curtail the use and i think we have to ban it i mean i kind of feel i think it's a little unusual that it's us and el cerrito but we have you know an environmentally

1:47:03forward city who thinks a lot about very helpful things and i think it's appropriate for us to be the leader i don't have any problem with the thousand foot density i do think that i would like to add something that was brought up earlier tonight and that is to prevent 18 anyone

1:47:24under 18 into these establishments and consider them adult only i think that's that's a nice step we had roughly 12 letters in emails in opposition we had one speaker and we had no opposition to this proposed ordinance and we had nothing from any of our residents isn't that telling

1:47:48i mean who put us up here our residents so you know i don't have any problem with this um you know there are some some of these letters stated 80 000 decrease in their their sales well if they're selling if they're if they expect to lose 80 000 in their sales they sure are selling a lot i mean

1:48:09that's that's why i look at it i don't i don't want to think about our economic development being based on tobacco i just have a problem with that thank you i i guess the um i'll just start out with your last comment and and say that i also don't uh see our economic development

1:48:30being based on the cigarettes sales and in particular i don't want it to be um so i would hope that we don't create an ordinance around that principle and i do think it's very important that [Music] i'm particularly concerned about these flavored cigarettes and

1:48:57products and um and i think back to when i was a kid and i did see kids smoking cigarettes and um my cousin died from the effects of it um and she died in her 50s from emphysema and the in my uncle who was i think 19 years older than i was died from it he had cancer

1:49:26so you know they they both started smoking you know i think as teenagers and um so i've in my family seen that kind of thing happen i've never myself smoked but um i um you know i do have that family experience and i'll say that and um it i also think that it has a um

1:49:53the um to encourage to do anything at all that would encourage children to to do those kind of behaviors is just something i can't comprehend i spent a lot of my time trying to make this world a better place for for people and in particular for children when i am not doing city stuff i do a lot of i

1:50:17spend a lot of time uh with pta stuff and um you know this is totally totally um not supportive you know the uh the sort of thing let me turn that around what we're trying to do tonight i think is a totally positive um thing that we can do and it's part of an overall package that

1:50:42we've already implemented the other part of and i don't know if it's all the way there i kind of think it's not actually but i think it's a very good next step what we're proposing and so i i would like to move forward with it and i thank the city staff and others who have worked on

1:51:05it i thank all the public speakers for coming tonight and taking your valuable time especially the el cerrito high students go gauchos and um so you know i know that it's a lot of paper to go through and things to look at thank you councilmember lymon for for being the

1:51:27expert in going through all of the detail it really does help us all thank you um the um so i i think i'll just leave my comments there a lot has already been said that's mario king town um i echo my uh colleagues here in the council and realized that just a few weeks ago i attended a garden

1:51:52party and saw a woman that i haven't seen in many years and i was friends with her daughter many many years ago and i saw her yeah fragile with emphysema and and on an oxygen tank and i do not want that for young people to grow old and and to have to go through all these medical

1:52:21expenses because of smoking cigarettes so uh um i don't have any problem with this ordinance i think it's a an ordinance that i'm very proud of and and thank you to our staff uh very very much for for looking at everything uh and i very much appreciate that so thank you

1:52:42mayor pro tem lyman certainly being the numbers geek that you all know i am i did take some of the uh numbers that were provided to us in some of the letters one letter talked about uh sales loss between four and five thousand dollars a month as a result of losing flavored

1:52:57tobacco another two letters uh some to a hundred thousand dollars for those two establishments uh they're they're saying that they're gonna lose as a result of not just the flavor tobacco but the ancillary uh products as well gasoline and and beverages those sugary beverages

1:53:14um so i told that all up and it's about 750 000 in in retail sales and el cerritos 2 would be less than 30 000 so this isn't about economics um this this is uh really about um and it's not about sales to minors you know i i am confident that the stores in el cerrito try to comply with

1:53:37state and federal laws and don't sell to minors maybe they've got a few incidents and maybe we'll know more about their behavior after the enforcement goes in place or the ability to do more enforcement now this is about the flavors that are tar the flavors and packaging

1:53:54that's targeting our youth and despite our retailers uh compliance nearly 20 percent of el cerrito seniors have smoked an entire cigarette and 26 percent vape with some regularity this is about reducing exposure of youth to cigarettes and tobacco and nicotine products

1:54:20this is about reducing the long-term medical costs on society and reflecting the values of el cerrito residents the environmental values and finally for me this is also about trash the single and small volume packaging is one of the most noticeable waste i see blowing around as i walk

1:54:45around on the street so this is this is not just about uh you know reducing this sales of these products to youth because i'm not certain that we're selling them to the youth it's about their exposure one of the reports the hendrick reports talks about the fact that there's almost

1:55:03a five to ten point increase in smokers associated with the high density in your schools so you know for me it's it's a multitude of things that i can go to support this i do want to build on one of the things mayor that you suggested uh that uh council member bridges also brought up i do believe

1:55:23that significant tobacco retailers should be adult only and i think we should be working towards language tonight to put that in um you know that uh that we mention or at least acknowledge that potentially if there is an underground storage tank uh you know reason for

1:55:44somebody to cease their business i certainly don't want them to try and stay open uh to have people walking through a construction zone just to maintain their their cigarette license so i certainly would like to make sure that if it's not in the ordinance itself that

1:55:58at least staff has is made clear that that's something that that is feasible as our businesses um do comply with other laws that we want them to comply with i want to toss out and and i'm not married to this but if the significant tobacco users were to sell and and i didn't know that pipe tobacco

1:56:19came in swirly cherry or cherry swirl or whatever um because i've always been uh introduced to the the classic uh flavored pipe tobaccos but one of the ones that i would potentially wanted to acknowledge especially if we're saying that um significant tobacco users

1:56:37significant tobacco retailers are adult only is that potentially we allow them to continue a practice of selling the traditional flavors and i don't know how to define traditional flavors of pipe tobacco but that certainly i'm not married to that but i do want to at least

1:56:53acknowledge that that would be one thing that i would like to see us consider thank you very much and thank you all the speakers and thank you staff for a wonderful job i read all the letters from the tobacco retailers both the lawyers and lobbyists that represent them as well as

1:57:14the individual retailers and i i have sympathy for small retailers but i have no sympathy for the tobacco companies that are making a profit off of the small retailers and off of young people and off of addicted smokers i like council member abelson have direct experience in my family of death

1:57:36and disease from addiction to tobacco their small-time retailers are selling poison and i think it's a shame that people have to have a business model that makes profit off poisoning people of any age but then i also agree with planning commissioner coleman that i

1:57:57don't believe in prohibition but i do believe in restriction of poisonous products like tobacco certainly there are no lack of places that somebody who really needs to get their blueberry blast uh vaping or their uh pineapple flavored swisher or whatever it's called

1:58:20they'll find a place to get that legally in some other community until we get the surrounding neighbors to adopt similar ordinances to ours but there are no lack of opportunities for adults to attain these addictive poisonous products so i don't think we have a responsibility

1:58:40to provide that opportunity any greater than this ordinance permits tobacco sales to go on in our city i am confident that the citizens of el cerrito are supportive of all of the restrictions we've been placed we've been placing on tobacco use and multi-unit housing in public spaces and

1:59:03now in regulating retailers i have never gotten any negative uh feedback on that other than a few emails from some people who are hopelessly addicted to tobacco and don't want to see further restrictions to their ability to feed their addiction so i think this is

1:59:28an important step forward and i'm glad to see that other communities are moving in the same direction and just as local communities in the bay area were the first to ban smoking in restaurants and bars and it spread to being statewide i think similarly what we're doing here

1:59:47is part of a movement for the public health i'm not at all concerned that we're more restrictive than the federal government because i know that the tobacco industry has a stranglehold on many aspects of the federal government and of congress they do not have that same stranglehold

2:00:05on the city council of el cerrito and i think we need to send a strong message to the tobacco industry and to local retailers that we're not a city that wants to be a party to furthering the attraction of products to young people and the further attempts to get them addicted at a very young age so

2:00:26i'm very supportive of this ordinance i would like to also add the aspect that councilmember lyman did about making tobacco retailers that just sell tobacco products and related items adults only and i'd also like to take a look at eliminating a fine in lieu of suspension

2:00:50for violations as was mentioned by denise dennis what section would that go in i know where the retailer one is both the fine instead of i definitely support that but i want to make sure we put it in the right place where was the where were the fines discussed they were certainly under

2:01:11enforcement um agreed penalty in lieu of a hearing is on page 18 so uh seven 6.100.700 what was that section what was the section six point one hundred point seven hundred i believe it starts on page eighteen yeah we've got it so they still have to stop selling for

2:02:02seven days and they pay a penalty of five thousand dollars so the proposal to be it would be i mean we in lieu of i'm not certain i know what the in lieu of is uh so this provides uh retailers who are being investigated regarding a potential violation to agree to these penalties instead of

2:02:26going through the hearing process and the hearing process would require them to stop saying sales for longer than uh seven days is is what i'm hearing um let me confirm that i think that's after the second violation after the first violation it's two days correct

2:02:49in both cases they have to stop sales so it's so i'm not certain it's completely in blew up so i'm not uh ms dennis can you you brought this point up can you elaborate on a little bit please looking myself for um in your ordinance what the oh so if you went to suspension

2:03:23then and it's on page 17 of the draft ordinance if you went to suspension then if there's a violation of the chapter the retailer could have their license suspended for 10 days which we have found has brought the retailer into compliance um with sales to minors and with other

2:03:48violations so but if you do the um if you do a fine in lieu of the suspension period it's a shorter suspension period and it also sets up an un level playing field so that the larger retailers who might violate the law have much more access to paying a hefty fine

2:04:07than a smaller retailer might so perhaps before this comes to us for next time we could you could work with staff on some language what i'm what i'm hearing let me see if it correct me if i'm wrong we would just literally delete uh six one hundred seven hundred

2:04:31because suspension is already discussed in here the only thing i don't see is the twenty the 22 inch wide placard is still in 60 in 100 620 so one way to address this would just be to remove 700 in its entirety yeah makes sense are we ready for a motion um and then back on uh 6 100 320 on page 12

2:05:04with the um city attorneys with the certain attorneys at blessing we would be adding a number seven requiring the tobacco retailer to post signs and restricting the age of uh clients and what i didn't know was is it 18 or 21 if we if we said we wanted no minors

2:05:30it'd be 18 correct uh i believe the legal age to purchase tobacco products is 18 currently so so what i'm proposing would be a number seven on page 12 near the end of section 6100 320 that says you know the tobacco retailer shall post signs restricting the age of

2:05:59customers and obviously enforcing that sign yeah i think we should say uh to the state mandated um age for purchasing tobacco because there was an effort in sacramento to increase that age to 21 that did not succeed so far so far so it should just be the state age

2:06:19yeah state minimum age right do you need does anybody need additional direction as to if the motion is made with those two changes uh one adding a minimum age in six one hundred three twenty and one the second change would be eliminating six one hundred seven hundred

2:06:40is that do you need additional direction no i think that's adequate i i would just say regarding the limitation on um on the age of people allowed to enter these retailers that i mean i think that it's not an issue that we've researched prior to this um i don't know and i don't know the answer

2:06:57sitting here about whether or not it's potentially problematic i'd suggest go ahead and introduce it with that addition if that's what the motion is we can always do the research later we can't delete it from the second reading but we can always bring an ordinance back to delete

2:07:12it later on if we do discover that it's problematic and councilmember lyman you had also mentioned potentially wanting to include a provision in that same section regarding the being closed for or suspending um sales of of tobacco products for 60 days um i did have some suggested wording for

2:07:35that if you wanted to include that in the motion as well i'll be curious to see what you're like which is it would be actually in the next one 6 100 340 which would be the where i'm i'm assuming at this point that the significant tobacco retailers are not also selling gasoline

2:07:52that is correct so so under under 320 even though it says 60 days there i'm not concerned that they're going to be closed for compliance with other laws sorry it would be 340. yeah so so go ahead it would be in that same subsection just at the end rather than like where where the semicolon is i'd

2:08:10add comma unless required to close or suspend tobacco retailing to comply with other laws in which case the 60-day period shall be told until the tobacco retailer is legally allowed to reopen or resume tobacco sales and i'm i'm i'm good with i would like to make that suggestion just as a

2:08:32concession to our our gasoline retailers sure yeah and i think it's i mean i just when i saw that suggestion i thought it was a worthwhile one just in general beyond even that that there may be other there may be reasons that a business is required to close um for legal reasons

2:08:45um that that it would be reasonable to not include the not start the clock on the 60-day period when their their closure is unrelated to or to comply with another law right couldn't we make a statement that says that if there's another reason for closing it takes precedence

2:09:11something like that that's similar to what the city attorney that's what you're saying yes it's the same concept yeah and the only other one that i tossed out which is you know to allow significant tobacco retailers to sell pipe to flavor type pipe tobacco but i'm

2:09:27ambivalent about that it's just a idea seeing no one supporting that we then the motion would be to just adjust those three changes that we've talked about and that's the motion you're making yeah well i gotta find the actual language somewhere in here but yes that would be

2:09:43the motion that i'm moving an ordinance of the city of el cerrito requiring the licensure of tobacco retailers and amending the el cerino municipal code by repealing section 1920 to 10 amending section 19.46.060 and table 19.07 a and adding a new chapter 6.100 tobacco retailer license program with

2:10:11three changes an addition in uh 6.100 320 to restrict the age of customers to the minimum age allowed for tobacco purchases by the state addition in six one hundred three forty point two to um told the 60 day uh time clock for closures required by other laws and the removal of six one hundred seven

2:10:49hundred uh the agreed penalty in lieu of hearing section been moved in second and all in favor signify by saying aye all right motion carries universally thank you ms erla and to everyone who worked on that uh next agenda item is council local and regional liaison assignment reports do

2:11:21we have any yeah i'd like to report on a few things that are going on at uh marin clean energy um which is our community choice aggregate provider uh one of the things that and i've got to find it here uh mcp right one of the things that was made aware to me at our last board

2:11:53meeting with them was that pg e is petitioning the california public utilities commission to increase rates um three these they have three effects these new rate increases have three effects on our residents one is a request to increase the fee for wheeling the energy it's it's the and i

2:12:14don't i must admit i in the context of those meetings i understand what this is but it's the pcia fee it's essentially a fifa wheeling for delit for using the power lines to deliver power to our residents and pg e is increasing that homeowners with solar will lose

2:12:34rates uh based on some of the fees that pg e is petitioning say that sentence again yep homeowners with solar will lose some of their rate choices and it reduces their benefits basically what pg e is doing will change peak pricing benefits to homeowners and the third

2:12:56thing that pg e is doing is reducing the discounts to care customers care customers are low-income customers that get discounted rates and discounted rate structures as a result of their fixed income so i wanted to alert you guys to to that so if you if you're out and about and

2:13:16people are talking to you um pg e is is certainly out there trying to change their rate structure and it will have effects to our custom our residents um we did uh pg marine clean energy just recently completed a business plan and implementation plans and we authorized

2:13:34the filing of these with cpuc we are out in front of what pg e and other power companies are doing and we're hoping that the business plan will lock in some of the community choice aggregation choices that pg e and and some of the other power companies are opposing and

2:13:54it's actually a very handsome plan and it's available online for you to look at um then this thursday marine clean energy is is having their annual meeting it's an all-day meeting and council member quinto will be going on my behalf i have a conflict and two of the topics there that will be

2:14:19discussed are community how to increase or how to add communities and what constraints should be on new community inclusions and and those things how to include them and part of that discussion is how the the shape and look of the decision body um and and that will be discussed this

2:14:45thursday so that will be what mce is up to um with regards to our waste management board our waste management board uh is in the process of going through three workshops to evaluate the future of the board the the jpa part of that is establishing some policies on what reserves we should have

2:15:19the right now the the agency in various forms has between seven and a half and seven point seven million dollars in reserves um and your your counterparts on other councils may speak to you about this this is they all have different opinions about what should happen to that reserve

2:15:42some portion of that reserve is due back to el cerrito and and should be dispersed to el cerrito at some point and that's associated with revenue that was generated by the sale of marin county and other jurisdictional recyclables from the building we paid for and

2:16:08not that we've had a discussion on the matter or well we've had lots of discussion on the matter not that we've had a vote yet but if i can read the tea leaves el cerrito would get a significant portion of that back to to us north of a half million dollars so that's something that i wanted to at

2:16:27least alert you of the discussion is that the disbursement of that has been slowed down by um the discussion of what reserves are for and um how much the reserve should be and and such but i suspect that that's something that will either occur in october or november so hopefully i'll be

2:16:46able to come back with some good news on on the recycling agency and some of the disbursement of their funds and hopefully at some point some good news about the direction of the agency going forward closer to home the financial advisory board had met just this last week

2:17:10they got a present wonderful presentation from melanie with regards to our local housing program they were interested in staffing reductions so they've got a presentation on staffing reductions and they seem to be doing quite well so they were reviewing the housing element

2:17:32as it relates to [Music] costs that the city financial matters the environmental quality committee is meeting and they met last week as well and they are going through their annual plan with a number of uh events which i already mentioned that concludes my reports thank you any

2:17:53other reports oh i do have one more i um sorry i have one more um i as part of a dual hat i know council member emblem rsvp'd but i went to the tony thurman's state of the estuary precursor and they're they're they're they're releasing uh three reports this week about the state of the

2:18:16estuary in the state of san francisco bay and one of the reports is about the water quality of san francisco bay and and the water quality in san francisco bay is improving um the mercury and pcb problems is very slow in in improvement it's don't eat the fish uh

2:18:34you know because it's still present um the one this that's one of the reports was the water quality one of the reports was about the future of uh tide lands around the rim of san francisco bay and it paints both a a sad picture and a hopeful picture with sea level rise there will be a reduction

2:18:57in tidal marshes around the bay but there is opportunities and things that decision makers can make to increase to reverse that that trend and so that that's very hopeful the third report the state of the estuary and you will see news reports on that this week the state of the estuary

2:19:18includes the bay delta so it goes all the way to sacramento and that report is uses the terms crisis and dire and you know troubling and system ecosystem crash all sorts of very um inflammatory terms intentionally because the delta and with the drought the delta

2:19:44and what we've man humans have done to the delta over the last 200 years has really significantly altered the ecosystem there and the scientists can document with great accuracy that the delta is suffering and dying and in dire need of the same type of attention that we

2:20:04gave the bay water quality so 30 years ago we the bait water quality was very poor and we made a lot of decisions that we wanted to improve the bay water quality through storm water improvement programs etc and we did and this report now comes out and says that the bay delta uh

2:20:25portion of our estuary the delta portion of our estuary is in a similar place as our bay water was 30 years ago so you'll see headlines on this and it's just something that a lot of the decision makers were invited to participate in and although we don't have any

2:20:45bay front we obviously are part of a larger environment and our residents may be asking us about what we can do with regards to improving the delta and a lot of it has to go to water conservation and returning that conserved water back to the environment so that's that's my report on an

2:21:07interesting topic that i professionally am also interested in thank you very much okay i was just going to say i attended the mayor's conference which was held at the orenda library and um it was a the presenter had been trained by the al gore program and i think by al gore himself

2:21:29um as an update to and he presented a speech called an update on an inconvenient truth if you remember that was al gore's original um spiel and um his name so the volunteer's name was uh we tai ko and um so i was interested interested in in kind of hearing that and um so it was

2:21:57interesting it um brought up a little bit of controversy from those who i think have not yet bought into the idea that there might be a problem with our climate needing fixing but anyway so there may be a opportunity at a later later mayor's conference for someone to present what was called the

2:22:23other side and but meanwhile we had a very interesting update and the next mayor's conference will be held at the walnut creek library thank you thank you yeah yesterday i attended a panel at the city of san pablo at their senior center dealing with senior issues our

2:22:49congressman was there as well as assembly member thurman and our county supervisor and standing room only and and know that our city which has a large senior population i'm hoping that they'll be able to the three of them come here to el cerrito and speak on these issues and inform the public

2:23:14of a lot of programs that are at stake and that need to be renewed and and i'm looking forward and having them speak here in el cerrina thank you i hosted a meeting with assemblyman thurman and former school board member glenn price and about 40 folks in our school district looking at maybe

2:23:41reforming a group called the alliance for public education that i helped start over 20 years ago and the feeling is now would be a good time for all those who support the continued resurrection of our school district to kind of put our heads together and support quality public education

2:24:02i'd like to adjourn the meeting in honor of recently deceased dr joel ford a long time stalwart member of our community and national leader in public health we are adjourned you