City Council Meeting October 6, 2015

0:00:00the el cerrito city council meeting excuse me we're starting the meeting thank you i know it's nice to talk and socialize i'm glad that people can get here early and do that feel free to stay late and socialize too we are going to start with the pledge allegiance or observation of a moment of

0:00:20silence led by council member janet abels i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all please note that uh council member janet bridges janbridge is saying janet abelson jan

0:00:49bridges janice somebody sorry uh is not is out of town and won't be joining us tonight but all other council members are present first up is council and staff communications i have please go i actually have an ab-1234 report i attended um the league of california cities

0:01:14conference last week as did gabe and i'm on a couple of the policy committees one of them met i was also on the resolutions committee so i thought i would speak very briefly about that and the library speaker and i'll leave anything else to council member quintu i don't know if you're

0:01:39ready tonight to do that but i'll leave those any other topics to you uh if that's okay and um there were um four resolutions for that were under consideration by the league of california cities this is the state league last week and i will go through them one at a time

0:02:02the first one in order that i'm getting in in my packet here was actually referred back to committee and that was one on compensation for prolonged electrical outlets by the um provider in this case the concern area was actually southern california edison i believe

0:02:27it they were referring to pg e with uh glowing comments as a matter of fact and so but it was referred back because it really wasn't ready to go so that took care of one of them and then the next one had to do with ascension to the office of president of the league of california

0:02:52cities and through a series of incidents there's been a problem with the president being elected and then actually being able to serve there were a number of different causes for that one of them was that the it turned out that the person elected didn't actually get elect

0:03:13re-elected to his seat on the city council and so he was unable to serve for that reason and um then what starts happening is they so they had a previous rule about who replaced that person and then if that person couldn't serve who would replace that person and so forth and it wasn't working very

0:03:35well because what was happening is the person who ended up um in the year that just ended i think they had served two months on the board of the league of california cities before becoming the president and people thought that really wasn't working very well so they

0:03:55did it a new way and the and here's the wording that was actually passed the the immediate past president shall serve for the unexpired term of the president who was unable to serve or could not complete the term and upon election of a new president at the next annual meeting shall

0:04:21subsequently serve a full term as immediate past president immediate past president is in office on the board of the league of california cities in the event the immediate past president is not available to do that or declines to do that it shall be filled in the succession of first vice

0:04:42president to that office and that would be followed by second vice president and if i believe let's see a vacancy in the office of immediate past president is filled for the unexpired term by the last past president continue to hold a city office one of the requirements no matter what

0:05:10is that the person serving on the board be in fact currently elected to a city council so it's just been one situation after another where the person who they thought could serve in fact couldn't so the next item uh discussed had to do with the overconcentration

0:05:37of drug and alcohol recovery and treatment facilities in residential neighborhoods and the league was calling on the governor and legislature to work with the league and other stakeholders to address the following issues and here they are explore options to address over

0:06:00concentration of alcohol and drug abuse recovery and treatment facilities in residential neighborhoods while respecting important legal rights of patients and legal obligations of public entities to avoid the creation of institutional institutional settings when multiple

0:06:21facilities are concentrated in a single location while also reducing noise congestion and other concerns often raised by residents in residential neighborhoods and thirdly to determine the appropriate balance between not-for-profit which would include the county

0:06:42facilities and for-profit facilities in residential neighborhoods so that one was approved so that one is basically taking a position and and telling the state government to please figure out a good solution then the next one um let's see which one is this oh this has to do with um

0:07:18um airbnbs the um the short-term occupancies and um the position that the league took on this was to say that land use regulation and local tax collection are best overseen and implemented locally while temporary rental of residential units can offer innovative opportunities for travelers

0:07:46and property owners within the developing sharing economy cities must retain flexibility to address any problems raised by such uses in a manner that reflects the unique issues and conditions in their communities and also cities have existing legal authority and tools to

0:08:08regulate and collect revenue from the temporary rental of a residential unit and sb 593 provides the data and framework that supports and bolsters such local efforts and therefore that was the third part of it the league encourages cities to support sb 593 so those were the

0:08:34resolutions that we considered and with the one exception that was sent back to committee they were all approved by the resolutions committee and then the league board and um let's see i think that was what i was going gonna put on okay thank you very much oh in the library that's the later one i

0:09:00said it would do so we had a very very interesting and unique speaker and it was a state librarian and i thought it would be especially interesting for uh this group because we're always talking about wanting a better library so the state librarian has an interesting

0:09:24uh background he was appointed first of all by the governor and um if you ever get an opportunity to hear him please take it his name is greg lucas and he was previously a political reporter and so not not exactly what you would think of for a head librarian but he talked a

0:09:51lot about innovation and the use of the library not just for reading books but also for gathering places and all of those things but um he saw them i think more as a center for the community not a um place to you know sort of be quiet and study or something so he was quite

0:10:17fascinating and again his name is greg lucas so i'll just leave it at that thanks gabe any thing to add i i did attend a number of things that are very similar to what we're dealing here in el cerrito one is they had a panel regarding the smoking ordinance and many cities across california are going

0:10:45through that now and so knowing that we're in the forefront of this got a lot of questions from many of the mayors and council members and city managers up and down the state and i was able to attend and meet many of the council members and mayors from the asian pacific islander caucus and

0:11:07the lgbt caucus the latino caucus and the african-american caucus so they're very impressed by uh meeting so many of them many of them have been part of the league for over 25 years 30 years now so um it was an amazing event on tuesday i did attend the sierra club

0:11:32cbe event which dealt with oil and beyond oil and what we're going to do in the next few years regarding uh when it comes to climate change when it comes to our rising rivers when it comes to transportation so i found that to be a very informative and uh well attended event i am on the board of

0:11:57the sierra club and i just wanted to let everyone know that and i was very proud to hear uh from senator de leon about his plans and uh the state's plans on uh on transportation and uh the different fuels uh that will be available in the future now very quickly yep thank you i have a

0:12:24quick report um i want to thank the police chief and the fire chief for making resources available for tri-safety day for those that are not familiar with tri-safety day it's once a year and it's an opportunity for the public to sort of crawl over the various equipment that's out there for

0:12:40our departments to use the k-9 officer had a demonstration where they found drugs within a car and the fire department use the jaws of life to take that same disabled vehicle apart um and show how rescues are made it's well attended by our youth and and uh it's a

0:13:00fantastic event and i want to thank both chiefs for making resources available thank you thanks i attended the music for madeira event a couple of sundays ago at the community center council member lyman was there also that was sponsored by the trail trackers and the arts and culture commission it

0:13:19was a great concert it was a really hot day and attendance was a little bit disappointing but it was a great event also i went to the west county mayors and supervisors association meeting and we had a presentation on the ferry which will be going from the uh right by the crane wave pavilion once

0:13:40they build the ferry terminal there so that'll be a couple of years down the road and a very interesting discussion took place about the efforts of the metropolitan transportation commission to essentially take over the association of bay area governments or abac

0:13:58and we took a resolution saying that we don't support what essentially is kind of like a hostile takeover right now there might be some efficiencies to be gained from a merger and that those discussions should take place without a threat of uh essentially hostile takeover

0:14:18i think that's it one more oh one more i forgot to mention also that i am an alternate for the marine clean energy board and was able to fill in for [Music] my colleague greg lyman here and i'm excited about uh the possibilities of more and more cities here in the bay area are interested in

0:14:42what we have done and what other cities have done joining marine clean energies so um knowing that uh el cerrito all of our council members here are uh have chosen dark green and uh we have more residents uh using dark green and and opted in for dark green deep green

0:15:05green dark green all good i'm very proud of that then i uh it was an amazing all-day talk with many people from the different cities and i look forward and having two more cities from contra costa joined thank you thanks very much i just want to build on that just for

0:15:27our residents knowledge um the board in their annual plan the annual meeting that you attended did elect to actually move to a higher level of renewable resources as part of the portfolio so the marine clean energy has stepped up and we're we're now targeting by the

0:15:47year 2025 we want to have 80 percent of the energy portfolio renewable and that's 30 percent above the current target set by sb350 so that that that was the that was the thing that i wanted you to sort of announce and that is that the executive board did really step up the goal

0:16:07that marine clean energy and and therefore our residents will be benefiting from for clean energy thank you very much uh we're going to move on to oral communications from the public i understand we have a number of speakers for those who haven't been here before to speak

0:16:23we have a little light system to keep things moving along when it turns red that's pretty much a final stop when it turns yellow you should wrap up and it's for items that are either not on the agenda or on the consent calendar and i want to say that item 5b the tobacco retailer licensing program

0:16:48ordinance has been pulled from the consent calendar so we'll take up that item after we do the consent calendar so let's start rolling with the oral communications thank you mayor we have about 13 speakers the first is ruth kasdan followed by sydney manchester jones and jelena pike

0:17:09good evening mr mayor members of the council staff of the city and the public i am ruth kasden and i currently chair the el cerrito arts and culture commission with me tonight are two of my fellow commissioners molly hazen and paul fideli and we are the planning group

0:17:28for our big arts event as you walked in tonight to council chambers you saw this big wonderful poster and you've also seen banners like this our october is arts month here in el cerrito and we are running a major free arts day festival for residents of the city friends family the public and it's

0:17:51free to everyone we're going to have live music classical and also some surfer bands we're going to have a poetry reading a puppet show we're going to be filming doing a film screening in here of les blanc films we are going to reprise the craft activity that was such a success at the

0:18:134th of july event the reuse creative reuse we're going to have chalk art for the kids or even adults who like to think they're kids who want to do some talk on the streets photography workshop our an artist talk this is there's going to be food available for purchase we want to invite

0:18:35first of all everyone from the city council to please attend if you can and enjoy bring your family if you'd like to volunteer that would be terrific you were talking gabe you mentioned how we were in the forefront of so many things i think that this festival helps to put el cerrito in

0:18:56the forefront of cities in terms of celebrating and promoting arts and culture hope to see everybody there thank you thanks very much oh sorry what's the date it's october 17th a week from saturday okay [Applause] sydney manchester jones followed by jelena pike and glenda markler

0:19:29evening city council everyone here tonight my name is sydney manchester jones i'm a resident of autis rv trailer aka mobile home park uh you know i'm going to start by saying you know this is a wonderful country man you know we we we've united states in its history has done

0:19:54some you know really good things for this country and the world we've also done some not so nice things too and one of them is from the inception of the history of this country is the displacement of people by money power and in many cases forces of arms you know period

0:20:16now you know that's history you know that was then but you know that then is is now also you know today at outus rv park we're just one of many people that are being displaced by money and power in the form of mr edward biggs the landowner of outus rv park and uh and the development company

0:20:40you know uh mr biggs changed the name from outest mobile home park 20 years ago to outes rv park and trailer park he did that for a very good reason because if you're a mobile home park and you're being displaced or they want to develop the land you have rights

0:21:04resident impact report for one trailer rv park by law we don't have any rights many of us the ones that are still there today myself included have lived there a long time we paid rent every month we haven't uh you know you you only have three months like a lot of rv parks

0:21:31and then you have to leave or you have to leave one one day out of the month and come back none of that we paid every month continuously without ever leaving and uh we are permanent residents and we have rights this is the contention today he needs to do a resident impact report otherwise we are

0:21:52being cast to the wind period you know that's the issue there will probably be some other people to speak on that subject but that's where it stands money and power displacing people that don't have money in power for one thing myself included i'm a senior citizen

0:22:14i'm disabled and i'm on a limited income and the way it is right now we pay right up to the end and then goodbye that's the uh what the man's done you know he's not a nice man i'm done thank you thank you for your comments julina pike followed by glenda markle merkler and ray turnip seed

0:22:46hi my name is elena pike my family and i live in artists out at harvey park we're part of the group that's being displaced by this town home development this has been a real experience has been a real eye-opener for us not just the emotional impact of being evicted and

0:23:06losing our community group but the practical reality of trying to find a new home trying to find a similar home in near our area i've looked for many months and i have not found a safe similar environment near where we live i'm still being creative and networking and looking for areas to live

0:23:29it's caused me to really believe that in the buyers and sellers and investors and developers should have in their plans and budgets a provision for displaced people not just a couple affordable housing units in their development because affordable housing means nothing to

0:23:53people who can't even qualify for an apartment so perhaps some city or tax benefit to encourage developers to make some ultra low simple ultra low cost housing in their development or nearby or some funds to help people move somewhere where they were willing to go

0:24:19if this development was displacing the point isabelle dog park i'm sure they would be required to provide an alternate area after all their real gain is our real loss thanks thank you very much linda markler followed by ray turnip seed and james todd bennett hi i'm glenda markel i'm also from

0:24:51artists and i'm here with my family and our friends from the california alliance for retired americans and i guess when you see people show up like this to support you in things you realize that we've been very comfortable and complacent i've lived at august for

0:25:1016 years i'm a i love el cerrito i love it i love where i live and now we are being displaced and we can't just go a couple blocks away to still make it convenient for work or even stay in the city of el cerrito because the rent since we moved in 16 years ago is now

0:25:33really unaffordable in the outside outside of otis so i guess we're just here to say that we would really like el cerrito as a city to take into consideration more communities like we have at august where people can actually live where they know their neighbor we spend christmas together we

0:26:00spend new year's together thanksgiving someone makes a turkey someone brings another dish and we don't have big places to eat it so we just always hope for really good weather or we have to split up a little bit here and there but we are family and we are totally losing that

0:26:21family and we've been safe there sound there happy there but just never just too comfortable i guess just never thinking after all those years marsha's been there in the same spot for 25 years that we would be displaced so we're so thankful for people that we just need to bring this

0:26:43to the forefront you hear about it all the time you just don't think about it till it's on your doorstep but we love el cerrito and i guess we're going to have to move so thank you for thank you very much well i'm back again uh three months ago four months ago i came here

0:27:12we have a problem up in el ceweto on navalier and gladys between there we uh we have a new school up there and we have a traffic problem and we went out and got a petition going we need speed humps we need some traffic control um you know i've lived in the city for

0:27:2960 years and there used to be a thing when i grew up i lived down by albany hill when i first moved here and there was a saying you're a lowlander you're a highlander if you're a highlander you're a better person if you're a lowlander you look down on you know and i find that's the same

0:27:46thing now i've been working with a city on this melissa tugbo talked to her about the speed humps we did our petition we've done everything i was told by her that we would have a traffic study in september the city council would have that information it would be before this board this month

0:28:07then there was a meeting about the school and about the traffic situation and i was told no that's not the case there hasn't been a study nothing's been done and i asked melissa melissa you promised me this would be done and she said i said i'd like a call when

0:28:25you said when it's going to be done in september so i don't i don't need to give you a call i'm very upset my neighbors are upset i'm not a second class citizen i don't like being treated that way if that's the way the city council wants that then there's gonna be a lot of problems

0:28:44more so people of el cerrito need to be treated fairly these people here they need your support they need your support for the trailer court too they're senior citizens i'm a senior citizen also and we're not being treated very well we're taking not seriously and it's just bad

0:29:04we're going to have 600 people going to that school they talked about the handicap parking up at the school 20 kids are handicapped mandatory federal law they have to have an area for that you know what they said we don't have to do it what kind of an attitude is that i don't

0:29:22know what kind of arrangement you have with the school district about what you do for some reason you seem to calculate to them and it's kind of sad the city council needs to take a very very deep interest in what's going on between the city and the school district

0:29:42and start taking control of the city and celebrating the school district run it because that's exactly what's happening and start running this city properly thank you thank you for your comment [Applause] good evening my name is james todd bennett and i'm going to be just briefly

0:30:07address the council on the same issue up in the castro neighborhood the big problem i think we're facing right now is when are we going to get some substantive action to protect what's left of the neighborhood after the intrusion excuse me after the intrusion of the

0:30:27middle school has been essentially foisted upon our community secondly and more importantly really having trouble understanding exactly where the city stands uh and who the city is actually representing at this point are you representing the castro neighborhood if you could bring

0:30:47the mic a little closer sorry could hear you a little better thank you are you representing the castro neighborhood are you representing the constituency of the district which is supersedes the city limits of the city of el cerrito one of the problems is we have an mou a

0:31:03memorandum of understanding regime in the city where we have interlocking memorandums of understanding with the school district in the usage of the parks and in castro just essential facts the city doesn't own anything in the castro park it's essentially it's a general law

0:31:25city it's governed by statutes the mou essentially gives the city some interest and use but it does not give it any property interest it's been owned by this district ever since 1947.

0:31:41so one of the problems we have is with this interlocking mou regime that we have here is just who exactly when decisions are being made in the castro are you really representing are you representing the interests of your co-partner the alpha dog in this case the district

0:32:04or you're going to be representing the community and one of the real basic issues that there's essentially three issues that are faced the community right now first is park access as long as there's an mou uh that's a given but it's gonna be up to the city to continue

0:32:27to guarantee park access because there's no incentive on the part of the district to continue to preserve the park access if it needs the rest of the park it could easily just as easily as the next renewal of the mou abrogate all that secondly parking the district doesn't

0:32:44have a plan they don't even have enough parking spaces for their staff on the on campus essentially their plan is just to dump all extra cars on on the streets of the community so with that in mind in addition also there was some discussion at this meeting on the 22nd

0:33:03as to how the parents were going to be delivering their children we essentially are going to have a series of drop zones with no controls in essence what i would just urge the city to do in addition to traffic controls and mr turner excuse me your time is up last sentence please

0:33:18thank you thank you for your comments thanks jacqueline aranda followed by nick galore and ronnie polonsky jacqueline aranda good evening honorable mayor and city council members my name is jacqueline aranda and i'm a resident of el cerrito and work with youth here in the

0:33:54community um in reference to the tobacco retail ordinance um i want to start my thing we're going to be taking that up as a separate item yes so the time to speak is when that item comes up okay thanks a lot nick galore followed by ronnie polonsky and mary jacodine

0:34:18um hi i'm here to uh in support of the artist park residence and artist park is located on el dorado street or avenue el dorado was a mythical golden city the goal of many fruitless explorations over the centuries the developers of artist park and el cerrito are calling their planned

0:34:41development on the site that low-income elderly and sick residents where they now live el dorado townhomes the search for a pot of gold is endless the native americans were caught collateral damage of the first search for el dorado today there are many eldorados in many

0:35:00parts of the world poor people are displaced and communities are destroyed all this is done in the name of development urban renewal redevelopment slum clearance progress etc we can however do something about this here in el cerrito are we going to let the owner edward biggs and developers

0:35:20get their pot of gold on the backs of the low-income artist park residents who have been paying rent for decades or are we going to stand up and say no we owe these residents we owe these residents our support we must work together to help them keep their homes perhaps by preserving the 25

0:35:38or so units at orders park as low income housing and clearly we need this resident impact report that's very essential thank you thank you very much morning polanski followed by sharon maldonado and tadd smith i'm also here to support the autist park residents um i've stood up here before

0:36:03and my face is probably becoming kind of familiar to some of you in i hope a good way um i have lived in el cerrito now for almost five years and i consider it a responsibility and a privilege to be involved in the workings of my city um today i'm here on behalf of the

0:36:20residents of the autism mobile home park i have been so fortunate to have met some of these people recently what a great group they are they're smart funny charming and a lovely tight-knit community as they've already told you they share their thanksgiving dinner and christmas

0:36:39they have they've helped some of the residents that are there now have helped some of the other residents who left find other places to live they socialize together none of the residents have lived there for less than five years and most much longer faithfully paying their rent

0:36:54some of the residents have moved out after receiving a notice to vacate within 60 days or have their rent tripled their landlord mr biggs who we've heard about here before is a multi-millionaire and has decided to sell the property and build 27 townhouses it's a beautiful piece of

0:37:11property i could see why he wants townhouses there the remaining residents are elderly and some are quite ill as a city we should be able to provide alternative low-cost housing to these remaining residents and i don't see why we can't my suggestion is that we put their names

0:37:30on a waiting list for affordable housing in el cerrito and allow them to remain in their homes until these residences become available so many times we stand up here and we all pour our hearts out on topics that really really affect us all and we don't really get any response from you guys and so

0:37:49i'm suggesting that we have the city council study this matter and come back next session with some plan for these el cerrito citizens they need our help and they deserve it thank you thank you good evening council thank you so much for giving me this time to speak with

0:38:12you i first found out about the displacement of aldis residents by reading it in the newspaper and it really broke my heart so i thought well i want to meet them i want to see what's going on and and i share with the previous speaker just a marvelous sense of their

0:38:30community i mean i have to tell you i think they were the happiest most cohesive and friendliest neighborhood in el cerrito and it's really a tragedy that this is happening to a group that has developed you know such wonderful affiliations with within the place where

0:38:47they live so it seems to me and i think other people have mentioned this tonight that what's needed is a demolition displacement ordinance in the city that's done quickly enough that it can you know save people's ability to remain in the city um there are a number of things to think

0:39:08about in terms of what they're losing on the one hand i don't know how you place a monetary value on tearing apart someone's neighborhood if it were single family homes i don't imagine a developer would look at it and say let's get rid of all this and put in something different

0:39:24but they did in this case with the trailers um i have a concern about the resident impact report that i hope you will look at it says for one thing that you should look at trailer parks that are 25 miles away the problem with that is that people have a schedule at their job sometimes

0:39:46that are split shift might mean they would have to get their job if they were to move that far away because there is hellacious traffic as we know going out to the east and uh you know for them to become part of those far-flung workers seems like another insult in addition to

0:40:06losing their friends and in their home should that happen i think that one idea that one of the residents mentioned earlier of seeing if the developer can provide some low-income housing on the site i don't know all the legalities of it but i know a few residents said to me you know we're used

0:40:29to living in fairly small places so a unit that might seem quite small to somebody else could seem quite reasonable to us and it seems like the developer is going to be making quite a bit of money these are three bedroom three bath town houses with uh double garages

0:40:48uh 27 of them that's going to bring in a lot of money it seems like with as someone else mentioned all that gold it should be possible to make sure that these folks are not either forced to grip their jobs homeless or in other situations that are quite precarious and terrible we all know what

0:41:09the um cost of housing is right now there's a tremendous please conclude shortage of affordable housing i think we're all very well aware that so i hope again you do study this and that we do find a way for these folks to stay in their community that they're obviously so spawned of thank you

0:41:28thank you chad smith followed by al miller and arlen robbins chad smith good evening my name is thad smith i live on lexington avenue in el cerrito um i'm concerned about the loss of both affordable and accessible housing i have i lead a ms community ms support group so i've

0:42:16dealt with trying to get people into housing some people under a thousand dollars and they've had to move up to sacramento to live in a board and care home and uh so i i also want to make the observation that uh the rental property across the street from an el cerrito sold for two years

0:42:37ago and is valued now at about one million one hundred which is what zillow says this property i know el dorado is worth this guy the guy across the street pays fourteen thousand dollars in property taxes the one mr biggs pays fifteen hundred i don't think it's

0:42:55an undue burden on mr biggs to provide compensation for these people thank you thank you oh miller thank you very much [Applause] good evening mayor friedman council members i'm ale miller i'm here tonight my role as president of the el cerrito library foundation

0:43:18to announce again that the rotary club of el cerrito is celebrating with its six i think sip and savor event at the mira vista country club on sunday afternoon october 11th from 2 30 to 5 30.

0:43:34there'll be a wine and brews to sip there'll be barbecue and finger foods to savor there'll be many many raffle prizes and for the golfers or the lucky people who feel lucky there will be a putting contest with a ten thousand dollar prize if anyone should win it

0:43:55uh tickets are still available you can go to the rotary club of el cerrito's website and purchase them or you could email me at am i sonic.net that's a mill at sonic.net and i'll be happy to deliver tickets for you the bargain price of two for ninety dollars expired on one

0:44:20october now they're fifty dollars a piece and the last resort you can buy them at the door it's a great cause and if you wonder why someone from the library foundation is advertising the rotary club is that some of you will remember that last year they asked us to

0:44:38partner with them in the event and we did it was very successful and i had the honor to stand in front of you showing you 11 000 dollar check that the rotary club donated to the library foundation so we're working harder to make it even bigger event this year because the library foundation will be

0:44:58the principal recipient excuse me of their event thank you very much thank you [Applause] good evening mayor and our mayor and all of our council members i am also here speaking on behalf of the members of the autist park mobile home park even though it's being

0:45:26called something else um i feel as if we're really allowing them to be displaced because it's privately owned property and i know that el cerrito has in the past expressed a desire to care for our limited income citizens we've it's hard to resist the higher property

0:45:52taxes when there's new development and because that's very desirable for us and it helps us to create new services but um these folks are being they're falling through the cracks and i think that what we don't always take into consideration is that we lose a valuable human

0:46:15resource when we allow the elderly and the disabled and the underemployed to dissipate and dissolve from our presence i want to challenge the city council and our city staff to look into what alternatives there are because that is privately owned property and whatever

0:46:39else happens he's going to do what he does with the property according to what's allowed but i know that there are lots in our city for one thing while this exquisite building was being built we had our city offices on a parking lot a nice big wide parking lot on san pablo avenue

0:47:01maybe something like that could be re utilized repurposed turned into a beautiful green park where there's tiny homes i wanted to urge you to look into the tiny house communities because there are some very clever things being done and usually there are grants for them

0:47:24in in terms of creative developers mobile home companies that might donate something i think that it is possible that we could find a way to give these people a new home in their town in their city and allow them to continue their lives with their work and everything else that they do on

0:47:51behalf of our city and on behalf of the people that they care about and perhaps while we're doing something like that while we're looking into that kind of affordable not affordable low-income housing which is very different and low-cost housing maybe there are others

0:48:12in our city who are currently struggling with similar kinds of problems and we could help them at the same time thank you thanks very much nicholas arzio good evening i'm nicholas arzio i live at [address removed] i'd just like to urge the mayor and council

0:48:43to treat the residents of the hottest park reasonably and fairly i think it's it's it's strange that with the city's housing element that we're going to see 31 parcels which are essentially functioning as affordable housing replaced with only 27 luxury condominiums

0:49:06so i hope we can find some way to make up for that thank you thank you very much thank you very much for your time my name is helene maxwell i don't live in el cerrito but i do live in the bay area i live in oakland i worked with students with disabilities at college of alameda for many years i

0:49:31know what it is for people to try and find housing when there's not enough money they're not getting enough money to do it and so why am i here because i learned about what was happening at august and i thought it's not right okay this is not right when i learned that

0:49:48um autism was a mobile home park at one point and then mr biggs decided to call it an rv trailer park but i also learned that oh gee in rv trailer parks people are supposed to be transient they're supposed to come and go and i learned that the residents at autis

0:50:07some of them have lived there for over 20 years they are not transient they are members of the community and they need to be afforded the same rights that people in a mobile home park would have because mr biggs has been operating audits as a de facto mobile home park

0:50:28so he's been taking rent from residents every month some of them for over 20 years but now he calls it well no actually it's an rv trailer park and so they have no rights and i think as council members and as the mayor to see these residents as having rights they should have the same

0:50:50they should have a commensurate buyout or whatever that mobile home residents would have because that's how it's been operating so i hope you take that into accordance into into account and that you do the right thing by these people thank you thank you very much

0:51:15uh that concludes the public comments oh we have one more i apologize mr hardy gotti um good evening mayor and council members my name is howdy gowdy i live at [address removed] um i would also like to speak in support of the oddest park residents i think it's very important what has

0:51:40been mentioned several times that there is this discontinuity between the stated you know approved use which is um a rv or trailer facility which is supposed to be transient use and um and a mobile home park which is how it has actually been operating so i'm concerned that you

0:52:03know the owner has been allowed to have this non-compliant use happening and i i believe i mean i don't know the legal details but it seems like that potentially opens him to a legal liability that you know he was misrepresenting you know his operation and and frankly perhaps even the city has a

0:52:25legal liability that they were not enforcing the correct use of of that site so it seems like both the city and the owner and the new developer have you know an incentive to get together and you know do the right thing um whether it's you know really um tightly

0:52:49obvious in the law or whether it's just you know listening to all this you know testimony i mean i'm impressed by the community the support for these people and you know i believe you know independent of whether there's a legal case there it's a moral matter all of us need to be

0:53:10prepared to step up and say this is wrong to displace people of lower income for people with higher income for the profit of others it's just simply wrong and and you should be prepared to say it you know as private citizens just as all of us are saying i'm very heartened to see how many

0:53:27people have said it here tonight but if enough people say it then you know it's it's really um it's really part of a caring social contract you know it's not law anymore it's just what we do for each other as a community and and doing the right thing and so it's really

0:53:46i want to urge you i mean i appreciate the efforts that the city made so far to get the owner to conduct the resident impact study that they should do because it's operating as a mobile home park but you know don't give up you know return to that discussion you know the the new developer seems

0:54:07willing to engage that process so please you know allow you know negotiate so that the residents can stay there until the new developer you know completes that process and and and let's get you know a good outcome thank you anyone else who committed a slip or wants to speak and

0:54:31hasn't submitted a slip okay i just want to make a very brief comment that city staff and the city attorney have put a lot of time into this issue and is looking at what all options may be available also i have a meeting scheduled with rather residents and advocates next week

0:54:51so you know when when lawyers are involved you have to be careful what you say but i just want to say how much i appreciate the heartfelt comments from the residents and those who care about the residents and it's a very compelling case and thank you all for being here

0:55:23okay we're going to move on to the consent calendar item 5b has been removed i move items 5a and c through f yeah then that includes i just want to you know read out what this includes one of the items 5c is a proclamation declaring october 18th to 24th as freedom from workplace

0:55:45bullies week we have a proclamation declaring october domestic violence awareness month and uh we are granting co-sponsorship to the el cerrito library foundation so i just wanted to highlight a few of the between 5a and 5c through f second moved and seconded all in favor signify

0:56:03by saying aye aye motion carries unanimously we'll now move on to item 5b the tobacco retailer licensing program ordinance and i think staff member assistant to city manager susan erla will step to the podium good evening mayor and council members um tonight passed out uh to you at the

0:56:36meeting was a revised copy of the ordinance that you did pass on first reading last month um last month at the council meeting there were a number of changes made at the meeting itself including a provision for significant tobacco retail establishments who wish to continue to

0:56:54operate at that level to require signage that customers entering their store would be at least of minimum age to sell the tobacco products and where that was inserted in the ordinance does not provide for a 24-month grace period for existing retailers to transition

0:57:17to compliance for that so before the council tonight you could of course adopt the ordinance that you passed at first reading last month that would make that new provision that was included last month effective when the ordinance goes into effect or the revised version before you

0:57:37tonight in addition to a couple footnote changes the the change to the ordinance would be to include that provision um along with the other exceptions for existing businesses to have 24 months to implement those certain business operations thank you any questions i know we have some public

0:57:57comment yeah i i just want to understand what your your what loophole you're trying to amend or correct and i do understand it's a reference to um 320.7 which is the posting of the age and it's a cross-reference back to that to allow them 24 months to put signs up

0:58:21and to stop having customers that are under the age of 18 in their store so the provision um that allows a consideration for existing retailers is section 6.100.340 and that actually gives existing retailers a 24-month kind of grace period to comply with a number of

0:58:43elements of the ordinance and those would be that the clerks participating in the actual transaction sale of tobacco products would be at least of minimum age to purchase tobacco products the stores could no longer have any self-service displays for any type of

0:58:59tobacco products and no sale of flavored non-cigarette products and no sale of single and small pack cigars so those are the current exceptions that are in the ordinance that was passed on first reading so if council was interested in passing the revised ordinance that would add to

0:59:18that list the the new requirement or regulation for significant tobacco retail establishments to limit folks coming into their store to be at least 18 years or older and was this in response to any uh retailers making comments this was in response to a significant tobacco

0:59:39retailer confirming to me didn't he have 24 months to do that and in looking at it as it's written no it would go into effect when the ordinance goes into effect so this was in response to a retailer bringing up that question i'm more than willing to hear public

1:00:00testimony at this time thank you any other questions before we do that why don't we start with the young lady who is patiently weighted who was up before good evening honorable mayor and city council members my name is jack ananda and i'm president of el cerrito and work

1:00:26with the youth here in the community i'd like to start off by thanking the council for adopting and implementing the tobacco retail licensing program that will reduce access youth access and exposure to these harmful tobacco products and i want to share with you my concern

1:00:43about the 24 month transition period for the ordinance to take effect 24 months seems like a very long time for stores to come into compliance there's no tobacco retailer that has 24 months worth of small pack or flavored tobacco products in its storage rooms i would hope that to see the grace

1:01:00period reduced to 12 months to sell stock on hand and i i am excited to know that the council is setting a separation requirement of a thousand feet between new and existing retailers to help her to reduce outlet density but as i understand it any new tobacco retailer may apply for an exemption to

1:01:19the requirement while i understand that there may be specific retail establishments such as grocery stores whose social and economic benefits may outweigh the negative effects of having another tobacco retailer on the block i'm very concerned that without defining

1:01:35which types of stores can apply for exempt exemptions that the exceptions may become the rule as a resident of el cerrito i look forward to the implementation of the tobacco retail licensing program and would like to thank the council for prioritizing the health of our youth and

1:01:49community thank you thank you very much for your comments mary jacketing good evening council members i'm mary jacketting and i'm representing the contra costa tobacco coalition and on behalf of the coalition i want to congratulate the city first of all on the licensing ordinance this ordinance

1:02:12will undoubtedly become a model for other communities and we really do thank the city for all its hard work we'd also like to ask you to reconsider some of the provisions in the ordinance at our last coalition meeting we showed the video of the hearing that um was about the tobacco retailer license

1:02:30and i can tell you our members were very impressed by your commitment to youth to public health and to the environment and it's really exciting to hear city council members say that they do not want economic development in their city to be based on tobacco the current ordinance however does not

1:02:50capture the strength of your commitment and i'd like to discuss three of the points that we raised in the coalition's letter the first concerns a two-year implementation period the cdc's recent study found that in just one year between 2013 and 2014 current use of e-products by high school

1:03:10students went up 200 percent and so i'd like you to think about el cerrito high school students for a minute and we can assume a far lower growth rate let's assume something very modest like a 100 growth in the two years while we wait for implementation what that would mean is that for

1:03:3011th grade gauchos the percent of students who use e-products will jump from 10 to 20 so the question becomes is that acceptable given that these products are dangerous they are addictive and they are being marketed specifically to young people i want to talk about the grandfathering

1:03:53clauses as well city council made findings that the location of tobacco retailers impacted youth use yet the two separation requirements in the ordinance won't change anything in el cerrito for a minimum of 10 years because of the grandfathering clauses wouldn't it be

1:04:12better for youth if these businesses started selling healthy products now as opposed to 10 years from now and finally the requirement of the thousand-foot separation between tobacco retailers contains an exception for new retailers that is so wide open it guts the rule

1:04:32there's no limit on the number of exceptions that can be granted and there's no clear criteria for granting those exceptions so in short there's no protection for this council sentiment that economic growth should not be based on tobacco so i'm going to ask you to reconsider

1:04:51these provisions before you finally adopt the ordinance thank you very much thank you very much i have no other speakers for this okay we'll uh take it to council for comments questions motions uh let's see i think it's a motion to close public hearing uh this isn't actually oh this isn't

1:05:12that one okay all right sorry a little confused that's right 5b 5b um i guess you know any of the changes that were suggested by the the speakers both speakers would require us to start over as my understanding is that correct that is correct as would the the suggestion from

1:05:33mizirilla about um that was the basis for the request to pull it from consent in the first place i'm sorry say that again so this would be our first reading again is what you're saying yes so you would have to introduce the ordinance with any changes it would then come back at a subsequent

1:05:49meeting for adoption with those changes okay great thank you for that clarification yeah um i will say i'll start with with an opinion statement um two years to post signs and start restricting 18 year olds is uh is is unrealistic and and i would prefer the change item 7 under 320 and just add at

1:06:12the end by a date certain so for example the tobacco retailer is required to post signs restricting the age of customers to the state mandated minimum age for purchasing tobacco by april 1 2016. uh there's if they can't do it by january i can understand potentially that that is

1:06:29a hardship but there's no reason that they need to do uh 24 months to post signs and train their employees to to prohibit underage customers i'm actually comfortable with it being january 1st but it but if there is um a you know business reason for a date other than

1:06:51uh january 1st or whatever date will now be an effective date um i would prefer that we amend item 7 and just put a date certain in there can i make a comment on that uh i agree with you and actually part of the rationale for this is give them a chance to sell their inventory

1:07:09well they can't sell that inventory to 17 year olds anyway so what good does it do to have those kids in the store it doesn't do our community any good so i'm fine with january 1st yeah i'm i mean i understand that our businesses are are may not be able to implement

1:07:27immediately but um you know they should be able to implement something as simple as a sign and training their employees to exclude uh underage people that's something that shouldn't require a 20 more four-month wind-up period so i i respect staff's recommendation but

1:07:45that one doesn't uh doesn't carry weight um with regards to some of the reductions i know we've discussed the 24 month in the 10-year at our last meeting and and there certainly was a testimony from a member of the planning commission that you know had many comments about the

1:08:03fact that you know this is um this is a business in our city and there's businesses across the street and and there's you know giving people the opportunities to transition out of this business uh to a better business so i i'm not you know we i'm not prepared to change

1:08:20those dates but the the requested to delay the implementation of the minimum age i cannot support so i'm i'm that's the only change i would propose at this time or or reject or reject what staff is proposing i'm confused what you just said there um we with regards to reducing the 24 month

1:08:43transition period or changing the grandfather clause for 10 years i'm not willing to change those times at this point because we discussed at length last time and there were compelling testimony from both members of our community as well as businesses suggesting that

1:08:59that those transition times are give them time to move out of the business entirely with regards to the staff's recommendation of referencing and allowing 24 months to put signs up and start excluding minors from us from a significant retail tobacco retailer i cannot support that

1:09:22so so we you know whether it's a date certain of april 1st or or january 1st or whenever this ordinance goes into implication implementation i do not accept staff's recommendation of uh modifying section 100 340 to incorporate the uh the signage so that that so if we make no changes

1:09:48this could be the second reading right that's correct if you make if the council is satisfied with the ordinance as written you can adopt it tonight it will go into effect 30 days from tonight if you want to make any substantive changes then it would have to be introduced with

1:10:02those changes which would require the second reading in adoption so i would with that with that caveat or that understanding i would be moving it the way it was published in our 72-hour notice or or whatever four-day notice last thursday and and move it in that way but

1:10:22which already incorporated i'm looking for staff that our that already incorporated the footnote all the footnote changes three four and ten and eleven only three and four so so the is a footnote substantive um we felt after a a fair amount of internal dialogue we felt that um some

1:10:44changes could be made administratively but that others couldn't and so adding the additional substantive footnote would have would have required exactly the process of bringing it back to you for reintroduction but three and footnotes three and four were actually

1:10:59listed there just wasn't any text there so we felt that administratively we could we could add the text and that was missing because we couldn't figure out how it had not appeared in the version that had been printed but three and four are in the version that was published

1:11:12last thursday yes and and and my question is the one where 10 and 11 become just 10 was that also published last thursday i do not believe so now no okay is that substantive one way or the other because those are on the those are on the whereas clauses aren't they not

1:11:33if i remember correctly those are that's justification for our whereas clauses it would have been substantive because it would have required adding an additional additional citation that had not been so let's go back to the beginning there was a version that was in front of the city

1:11:46council when you first took it up that was the version that was initially made available to the public council member lyman had suggested um splitting adding an additional footnote with an additional citation um that but that did not make its way into the motion and so we determined after the

1:12:03fact that that we were concerned that would be treated as substantive and so we we did not make that change but we did um add back in text for footnotes three and four so those appear in the ordinance that's in front of you tonight otherwise the footnotes are as they

1:12:17appeared at the at the last meeting correct and and those footnotes are on our whereas clauses and justify the basis of our clause they do not substantively change the ordinance itself i'm not suggesting we have to incorporate footnote but just to be clear the rule is not whether or not

1:12:34it's substantive to the ordinance it's whether or not it's a substantive change to the text that was introduced so the way the brown act works if the if the ordinance is introduced in one form making making substantive text changes after it's been introduced requires it to be introduced

1:12:50again okay and since that was my request i i would be content in moving the ordinance as it was uh given to us originally last thursday with no changes uh as uh recommended by staff in uh in this stat in the current staff report uh do we have a second i have a second

1:13:12okay just to be clear because when we talk about 100 this and 100 that i don't think the public knows what we're talking about sorry so um so to be clear um i can either restate what i think you're trying to say or you can do it no please do actually it might be more informative if

1:13:31you do it and see if i got it in um language that you don't have to know what 100 means in order to interpret it um so what we already did on a previous occasion was to um restrict smoking in our city okay that's already passed that's already actually in effect

1:13:54okay that does not affect this the implement whether or not we pass this it's already a done deal okay i think i said that in english um including a done deal hopefully then with um the issue here is whether or not we're giving them as was originally presented uh 24 months

1:14:21the people who sell it or whether or not some it's some other number like [Music] january 1st of 16 or march 1st or whatever month it might be that's the issue we're dealing with at the moment for the and also what is known as the second reading in order to pass an ordinance we have to

1:14:46have two readings which means we have to as a member as members of this council we have to uh vote on it twice in the same form meaning the same language did i get that right you did excellent thank you okay so the issue then is about the issue is whether it makes a

1:15:09difference the the having at a closer date when they can no longer um um it no no no so where the that has to do with the signage correct okay well actually the issue is if we adopt the ordinance as passed previously there is no issue what was proposed by staff is extending the

1:15:3924-month period for implementation to the provision about preventing 16 and 17-year-olds from entering a significant tobacco retailer that's the only issue well that's the that's the issue before us at the moment so far and then there's the issues raised by this i'm a little

1:15:59confused about so before would would they have been able would 16 year olds say be able to have entered the business they can do until this is passed correct which would be if we do it today 30 days so 30 days when you say before so there's there's two states of the world there's the

1:16:24current state of the world in which anybody can walk into a significant tobacco retailer as in uh this morning as of this morning there is the version of the world that is in the first reading of the ordinance that the city council has passed once approved once

1:16:38and remember your what you said which is that it requires being passed by the council twice if the ordinance if you did if you approved it the second time tonight then when the ordinance went into effect people younger than the minimum age to purchase tobacco products would not be

1:16:54able to enter a significant tobacco retailer staff had proposed at the request of one of the significant tobacco retailers that the 24-month grace period for the implementation of other provisions of the ordinance also include that prohibition on people below the minimum age to purchase

1:17:12tobacco from entering into a significant tobacco retailer that is the only that is at the moment that is the only change that staff has proposed council member lyman has proposed simply adopting the ordinance as you passed it the first time at a previous meeting

1:17:28which means that a um a um person of the rel of the let's say a 16 year old or a 17 year old would not be able to enter the store as of the effective date of the ordinance which is january 1st first january 1st so if we're happy with that we would vote yes correct okay thank you it has been moved

1:17:54and seconded yes it has um i want to address one of the issues raised by the speakers i agree about the provision that would allow exceptions for up to 10 years of the significant tobacco retail establishments but i'm not necessarily willing to delay the first reading until

1:18:21tonight if we do amend that and the reason i support what the speaker said is i think that if there is a compelling reason for us to attract a business here that insists it has to have tobacco sales to make a profit or come to our community at that time if we saw a

1:18:40compelling reason we could amend the ordinance so if we did not have that provision of the 10-year period it would be a cleaner and clearer way to go to me but i'm not necessarily willing to start the clock again for that so it's been moved in second in any other comments

1:19:06i guess not all in favor signify by saying aye aye motion carries unanimously uh mayor friedman i we had one additional speaker for the one item on the consent calendar that i didn't catch for item 5c arlene arlen robbins i'm sorry no problem you did get a chance to actually

1:19:28finish your business though he jumped right out all right well greetings again to our honorable mayor and our city council members um i'm arlen robbins and i have been a resident of el cerrito for over 33 years i wanted to take an opportunity that was afforded by the

1:19:57freedom from the workplace bullies week proclamation to express some very personal thoughts about bullying and the reverse of bullying you know it's all well and good for us to say we're going to say you know we're going to encourage workplaces to not have any bullying but

1:20:18some people don't really have a clear picture of all the things that go into that word it's not just you know clobbering a weaker person like we used to see on leave it to beaver it can be using one's position to pressure or intimidate a fellow worker it can be acting grumpy enough to

1:20:39frighten another person into silence when they would have spoken out and it can be implying that somebody is not worthy of hearing so that no one else will give them an ear there are a lot of things like that that i personally would include in the phrase bullying

1:21:04um what i would like to suggest is that when we talk about freedom from bullying what we really want to impress upon people is to remem remember what we were taught as children the golden rule to treat others well to treat all with respect and if possible to put yourself in their place

1:21:31before judging and that's all i wanted to say thank you thank you very much all right we're going to move on to public hearing regarding the adoption of an active transportation plan including mitigated declaration and mitigation monitoring reporting program we will start with a staff presentation

1:21:57from yvette ortiz our public works director ms ortiz good evening mayor council members um as you mentioned um my name is yvette ortiz and tonight staff is requesting that council conduct a public hearing and consider adopting the mitigated negative declaration and mitigation and

1:22:29monitoring and reporting plan for the active transportation plan as well as adopting the active transportation plan the active transportation plan updates the um circulation plan for bicyclists and pedestrians that was adopted by the city council in 2007 and that

1:22:47circulation plan was the city's first master plan for pedestrian and bicycle improvements throughout the city the development of the active transportation plan has been a team effort between multiple city departments most notably the community development department and public works department

1:23:04and as well as our consultant fair and peers they're experts in planning and designing a pedestrian and bicycle facilities joining me tonight are keri nielsen with baron pierce and also melanie mintz the city's community development director they'll help me present and answer

1:23:22questions that you may have overall tonight's presentation will be i'll be providing you a background on the active transportation plan the development process public outreach general outline of the active transportation plan including the major updates to the circulation plan from

1:23:422007 highlighting the key points of the environmental document and then again opening it up to questions for you so back in 2007 as an implementation measure of the general plan the city council considered adoption of the city's first bicycle and pedestrian circulation plan

1:24:06that plan really set the stage for the city's investment in bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure and facilities and over the last eight years that it's really been the plan that's guided investments in in those types of facilities it's helped us apply for grants and city has been

1:24:27successful in applying for grants for multiple projects we also used existing city funds such as measure a and the measure measure j return to source the city was able to install its first bike lanes on carlson boulevard and east shore boulevard we completed pedestrian bicycle safe

1:24:49pedestrian improvements at on fairmont central avenue we've also rehabilitated the ohlone greenway using that as a guide and also strike various bike routes with cheryls throughout the city since it's been since it had been at least five years so in 2012 since the city had installed

1:25:14a significant amount of infrastructure but there was changing demands in the city changing goals and also updated best practices in terms of design facilities the city the city staff applied for a grant from the metropolitan transportation commission a tda grant a transportation development

1:25:33act sorry a transportation development act grant to update the plan and we're really focusing on what the next phase of improvements would be for the city so we wanted to take a look at what we've done so far reach out to the public again especially focusing on those corridors and projects

1:25:54that had been identified for additional evaluation under the 2007 plan and so we'll walk you through some of those major plan updates and i'll now turn it over to carrie so she she can take you through those steps great thank you my name oh i'm sorry i skipped a i skipped a

1:26:13slide just in terms of planning context this um active transportation plan builds on past city efforts including the el cerrito strategic plan and the climate action plan and it works together to basically reduce the vehicle miles traveled in the city as well as improve

1:26:31livability and overall safety in the city so it builds on past plans but it also was developed concurrently with various other plans most notably the san pablo avenue specific plan which the city council adopted in september of 2014 as well as the urban greening plan which

1:26:48is currently un under development i like that daisy yeah that graphic they're very good my name is kerry nielsen i'm a senior transportation planner with fair and peers working on this project and so as yvette mentioned that coordination with other plans is really

1:27:06integral to this process and so the active transportation plan update was developed in tandem with those other two major plans overall we we started looking at reviewing policies and existing conditions and had public outreach really staggered throughout the process

1:27:21we did a refresh of the network and project list developed focused study area concepts and so those are really getting into depth on some more walking and biking projects really providing some more project descriptions concepts and cost estimates and then again coming back to the

1:27:36community uh presenting those ideas back finally drafting the plan presenting that again at workshop three and then we're here tonight um talking talking with you all in the city council and so the public outreach was a really key component of this and as you mentioned this was actually done in

1:27:51tandem with the san pablo avenue specific plan as well as the urban greening plan which really presented an opportunity to really get get a lot of people involved in that conversation who may be interested in other issues and could also engage with walking and biking issues so we started

1:28:04with workshop number one back in july of 2013. this really focused on the existing conditions issues and opportunities goals and policies this is really about listening to the community to understand uh where they were and and and what areas they'd like to focus on

1:28:18that was supplemented both with a bike audit and a walk on it um that were conducted in 2013 and then we took that information back with us and and put together uh an update to the network as well as some initial con concepts for the focus study area again those are the

1:28:33biking and walking um kind of concepts and then uh use that to create the the draft plan and that's that's where we are this evening is uh with the revised draft plan um for presentation to council and so that last workshop was in july of 2015.

1:28:51the plan is organized similarly to the previous circulation plan has goals and policies existing conditions the proposed network priority projects performance measures and also includes funding and implementation it also includes a crosswalk policy but there's three major kind of plan

1:29:08updates that i want to highlight to you all um the first is refreshing the bicycle and pedestrian uh networks and so this was um just a lot's changed since 2007 when you adapted your last plan so there's a lot of great best practice guidance really focused on innovative walking and biking treatments

1:29:24and so there's a lot to incorporate back into the plan and to do that refresh of the project list and so as such we we did that update to make sure that those improvements really reflect the latest and greatest in terms of design and planning options the second focus area is the development

1:29:42of the focus area and grant ready projects and so as i mentioned before what this really is is some more robust project descriptions consolidating background information and also developing concept plans and cost estimates for these projects and the intent is that this will make the city a

1:29:58little bit more competitive for grant funding having these pretty concise documents that the city staff can take forward as they as they pursue funding to implement these projects and as we've already talked about the third area is just really coordination with these two plans making sure that

1:30:14the recommendations are internally consistent and that those city priorities are really identified in all three of those documents and then i want to talk a little bit about the actual kind of content of the network and the focal point both for the bikeways and pedestrian pieces

1:30:29so for the bikeways network the update was really meant to acknowledge that bike riders really have varying skills and comforts we refer this as all ages and abilities networks sometimes referred to as the 8 to 80 really capturing the young as well as the old um

1:30:42and so in some cases that means that bicyclists are really willing to write on streets they're comfortable riding in traffic some of the community really falls into that category today but there's also a lot of people who may not feel comfortable biking in traffic they

1:30:53really want to be on paths they want to be really off the street removed from traffic and there's also people who fall somewhere in between that spectrum who might be interested but concerned and so the what the bikeway network really tries to do is appeal to all of those

1:31:06different user groups and so it does so through a variety of different kinds of improvements so on the one hand you might have traffic calm roadways or bicyclists are really given priority as in a bike boulevard but that's also kind of coupled with a parallel route that might

1:31:18be more direct it might be better for those who are already more confident riding in traffic so really seeking to to address all of those different kinds of users and so as i mentioned the bicycle boulevards um this this plan includes some of the city's first proposed

1:31:32bicycle alerts on lincoln and norvell um and so these are not necessarily the most direct facilities but they're really meant to connect community facilities schools in particular and they're really intended to be family friendly in that way and to serve all ages and abilities

1:31:48the other major route improvement which was already previously adopted by the council is the san pablo avenue proposed cycle track which was included in the specific plan work and that's really critical because it really provides that last mile connection to the businesses on san

1:32:01pablo avenue so really making sure bringing people um to those important uses and it's also important to say that the network has really developed through multiple rounds of discussion with the community and through really careful consideration of the bikeway types based

1:32:13on the character of the street and so as the atp evolves in the future and as community needs and priorities shift naturally really over time there'll be opportunities to revisit this network and projects going forward and the pedestrian network is also really a key here and so kind of given

1:32:29the topography and the character of el cerrito this network includes a variety of different kinds of walkways so sidewalks paths stairs trails crosswalks and curb ramps it's really the full gamut of the walking environment and so the 2007 pedestrian routes were

1:32:43developed really to provide accessible and direct routes between all sorts of key destinations so schools public facilities recreation areas and transit and in general the safety and connectivity improvements are really kind of the focal point so that's improving uncontrolled crossings and

1:32:57closing sidewalk gaps those include proposals on arlington boulevard as well as some pablo avenue there's also other routes that we identified for accessibility improvements including sidewalk rehabilitation repair and curb ramp installation those include richmond petrero and barrett

1:33:13and then other routes were identified for streetscape improvements such as stockton avenue and then i also just want to identify the focus area projects and and just so you're oriented them kind of geographically geographically in the community um we've looked at nine

1:33:28different projects the first is bart to betrayal access this is really about walking and biking improvements to connect from plaza bart through richmond over to the bay trail the second focal area was the ohlone greenway trail crossings and so that looks at enhancements really consistent

1:33:43enhancements throughout the greenway a citywide wayfinding program that focuses on the design guidelines and kind of the content and what those signs would look like a fourth is in the hills arlington boulevard walkway improvement so that looks at some sidewalk and protected

1:33:56walkway and crosswalk enhancements in that area the east side bicycle boulevard which you mentioned before that's really the all ages and abilities bikeway that connects the various schools along the east side of town key boulevard bikeway and walkway improvements

1:34:11near del norte fairmount avenue bikeway enhancements again on the south side of the city and then also the petro avenue bikeway and walkway improvements and so when we're talking about those we're really we're talking about walking really for all ages and abilities and

1:34:23and also for people who may have visual or mobility disabilities as well and the last thing i want to highlight in terms of the updates to the plan is really the goals policies and programs section and so we kicked off this project by actually doing a benchmarking

1:34:37assessment to identify the city's strengths and opportunity areas really to focus that in and so what you'll see in the plan as compared to before is updated and simplified goals overall and then also some more detail in terms of policies to help support those goals and to help the city

1:34:51and implementing them now i just wanted to move to the california environmental equality act sequa review that the city undertook city staff undertook for the active transportation plan uh the city um sql requires that that the effects on the environment be evaluated through an initial study and

1:35:19the city prepared both an initial study and a mitigated negative declaration for the for the plan to evaluate the impacts and potential mitigation measures we identified eight areas that had potentially significant impacts and identified mitigation measures for them

1:35:44as required we did a 30-day review period we released the plan um the documents for reviewing on june 26 um through july 26th we received one public comment back from caltrans overall caltrans was supportive of the plan specifically the improvements on the bay bar to bay trail access project

1:36:07the central avenue improvements they just ask that we coordinate with them in the future and as well as coordinate with the i-80 central avenue interchange project which we are closely working on with the city of richmond and the contra costa transportation advisory committee

1:36:24i didn't get that right but the ccta um and so we um the documents that you have before you today include the mitigated neg deck the city's response to caltrans acknowledging their comment and as well as the mitigation monitoring and reporting program after that we released the sql document

1:36:48received comments we went to the planning commission on in august to present the active transportation plan and the environmental documents we received public testimony and the planning commission received public testimony and the planning commission recommended

1:37:05that city council adopt the environmental document and the active transportation plan with changes to policy 3.1 they just wanted to clear the clarify that bike parking is already required so they ask us to drop that language and i also wanted to more clearly indicate that development projects

1:37:27build adjacent bicycle facilities when there is a nexus when it is feasible from an engineering standpoint and when it is proportional to the impact of the project that concludes our presentation and we're available for questions lights please thank you okay the

1:37:47order of events is we'll take questions from council then i'll open the public hearing and then we'll hear public testimony then we'll close the public hearing and then we'll deliberate so i know council member abelson has a lot of questions um yes and i i'm not sure when i should

1:38:04make a statement but i'll i'll just start out by making it now i actually have um i'm first of all in terms of the concept of this plan i could not be more supportive i am you know i'm really truly extremely supportive however i do have a lot of comments and i do have a lot of

1:38:22concerns and i feel that it would be very difficult to incorporate all those things tonight and i've asked and it would it wouldn't be a large problem uh to what's the right word uh is that what would postpone postpone the decision is that the right way to say that

1:38:47can you help me with it i think you mean continue the public hearing okay thank you and okay i'm if i ask council member is your question on the plan or on the mitigated neg deck oh i thought we were talking about the plan what are we talking about our action tonight is to accept the mitigated neg

1:39:06deck on the plan maybe the changes you're proposing the plan do affect the analysis and maybe they i think they would all have to be discussed and whether or not they can adequately be discussed and should be discussed at this level is the question and so what could happen is

1:39:25that a dis a decision could be postponed um until a date in the not too distant future a couple of months probably and i just wanted to clarify that the action before the the requested action before the council is both to adopt the the mitigated neg deck and monitoring

1:39:43plan as well as the actual plan itself so it's it's two actions so um i think we should take any and all public comment that is here tonight uh i i also have a lot of comments and um and i asked some of them already and i could see that i mean it's like an exchange in any way

1:40:08i'm not really sure if anyone wants to get down into the weeds like i would in the same way um and um so i would at the end of all of the comments what i would like to do is to postpone a decision until another date so that i would have time to get my comments and concerns adequately

1:40:30addressed my comments and concerns are primarily about pedestrians um and in particular about people with disabilities primarily about people in wheelchairs and their ability to move around the city um so i think they're these are all things that are workable i believe

1:40:50they just need you know it just takes up some time and i'm you know i'm perfectly convinced that that can be done with our city staff i think they're quite good you think that could be accomplished by october 19th which is our next meeting um i could certainly do that but i it's

1:41:09up to whether or not staff can get it all done by then i don't know it's up to them so i don't know at this time once we get comments from all the city council members we can determine what the timing would be to come back to council and as council member lyman suggested

1:41:26it's possible that some of the changes might require re-noticing an additional review period for the for the secret document we just don't know until we see them all right and so that's why i can't really say and so i but like i could enjoying the weeds in which you know i do yes i know

1:41:43i would love to be there i would love you to to you know i can still certainly have to respond to every comment that you get tonight so i'm not certain it i if the idea is that we are going to continue i would love to at least be introduced to the to the comments that you're making sure i would

1:41:59and i introduction to the weeds but not the the full version in the weeds yeah i can do that and i would also like to suggest that i would like to see a um as part of this whole thing a resolution that supports the concept this is simply that a resolution of support for the concept we've used that

1:42:22concept to introduce many items such as a lot of the environmental work that we did and i would i feel so strongly in support of uh this item that i would like to do that here too so that somebody could easily go on our to our website and get a capsule that says how we what

1:42:41we think other people should do not only ourselves so but that is a separate process and i don't want to intertwine it in this just to say that i would like to see that done separately so would you like me to go into the weeds now some of it's not in the weeds yeah sure

1:42:59okay what's wrong okay thank you and uh when you've had enough weed for tonight i'd be or maybe we should take some public comment first because maybe some of the public that want to comment don't want to stick around for all of them okay or come back next time right right and i do have some

1:43:17questions but that's okay i'm happy to do whatever all right well why don't we hear from the public and then we'll hear from my colleagues so i will now open the public hearing and ask for public testimony we have i have three speaker slips tom panis followed by howdy gowdy

1:43:33and paul fideli [Music] good evening mayor friedman members of the council and city staff my name is tom pandus and i live at [address removed] in el cerrito i'd like to stay to thank the staff for this for the enormous amount of work and many years that have gone into the

1:43:52active transportation plan and also for the hours they have spent gathering and analyzing public input i strongly support the plan as proposed even if in my mind it isn't perfect lots of things i'd like to see changed but i'd like to get going on it it's a great plan that clearly sets us

1:44:10on a path to a more desirable and more livable community and to a better future thank you for your time this evening thank you very much good evening mayor freeman council members my name is howdy gowdy i live at [address removed] um so i also support the active transportation plan um i think

1:44:39it's a very solid plan um i'm particularly complementary of the the more visionary aspects like the cycle track although i guess that was already part of san pablo's specific plan um but in contrast so i i guess to put in context to what you're considering now i'm i was

1:44:57assuming the plan was being adopted tonight so i'm i'm not necessarily expecting these comments to like get into the plan i i've had chances to comment and some of those have have been incorporated so i appreciate that um i'm mostly speaking just in the concept of moving forward and and

1:45:16maybe thinking bigger and broader as we implement um implement this plan um so i mean one of my concerns is that you know there is a heavy reliance on what i would characterize as you know lower quality you know bike facilities so sharrows and bike boulevards are

1:45:37you know something it's an improvement it shows a commitment but i think you know when when we're really talking about increasing ridership we we have to go beyond that it's it's just not enough of a um incremental step to get a lot of additional writers out there i think you

1:45:57know the people who are already comfortable with the way the things are are going to have a a better experience but it's not necessarily as transformative as what we would like and and that goes along with um i think sort of a projection i saw on the plan which was

1:46:16trying to shift like eight percent of trips um you know so car trips are upwards of like 80 of our total trips and and we're only going to be shifting eight percent of those to other modes over 40 years and we're already 15 years into that and it just struck me that that's

1:46:35you know it's a little bit too uh small of a notion i think we should be you know bolder in in what we're trying to accomplish so um you know i i guess uh that's that's my main uh idea is that i think we do need to be more expansive and more bold and and the plan talks

1:46:59about you know controversial things like reducing parking and and getting better facilities i think we really have to embrace that you know challenging but really necessary um nugget which is you know asphalt for parked cars is about the lowest use of land we could have around

1:47:17here and i think we just really need to challenge that so thank you thank you very much mayor friedman council members i'm paul fideli and i'm a resident of el cerrito in arbor drive i'm also the manager of government affairs at bart and i want to commend the el cerrito

1:47:41city council for this active transportation plan and its ongoing efforts to make access to transit more easier to get to at bart we're working to improve access to make sure that that last mile that we've heard about tonight becomes an easier thing for all pedestrians and people that need to

1:48:03get out of their cars we have a new bike policy bike lockers paths new paths for pedestrians and disabled improvements they also the el cerrito plan helps us get there and i hope we can work together especially with the new modernization plans that bart has for the del norte

1:48:21station coming up so that we can make transit easier for everyone and to get more drivers out of their cars so we hope there'll be a long-term working relationship this is a great plan and i'm speaking generally here and i think there may be a lot of work to it

1:48:35but what a great innovative step el cerrito's making thank you very much thank you for your comments the last speaker slip i have is for al miller mayor friedman council members and staff i'm about to preach to the choir earlier this evening we heard concern from one citizen on the traffic around

1:49:01the new school of korematsu location one of the things that i've heard in different ptsa meetings etc is kind of like a hopeful wish that someday we can return to the past when our kids could bike to school so following up on that i ask that i have to admit i haven't read the

1:49:26papers on this i don't know to what extent if any any provisions extra provisions for bicycle safety around pedestrian safety around schools and access to wherever they're coming etc i know there's drop-off points etc but i urge that staff to as this plan develops and implements

1:49:49uh to consider to the extent that special care around our new school locations that would encourage uh biking and walking to school and added protections to the students that do that thank you thank you very much no other slips okay we're not going to close the public hearing but we are

1:50:12going to hear from my colleagues starting with council member abelson okay or would it be better to hear from everyone else and then no no you because you're probably going to cover a lot of things that i would cover so okay um but i am sort of specializing in uh the

1:50:29topics of pedestrians so as long as that's um and i that's what i tried to do actually so i figured that there would be other people that would cover the other importance with other parts which i also think are important um okay so um i'm going to kind of do it in order

1:50:50um and um in order okay so my comments so um my my part of my problem was that it was of course at the league of california cities convention and my sister visited as she does once every five or ten years then and that and then now we have uh today so so um one of the issues that i have

1:51:20found and this is down and very down in the weeds greg you'll recognize it if you don't mind my teasing keep going okay is the curbs that are occurring in the design of sidewalks now that are causing i know i've had a few accidents including one one that messed

1:51:38up my chair where there are curbs on the side of the sidewalk or sometimes they're part of the curb ramp which is where the wheelchair goes down into the street or they could be getting to the push button that you push pedestrian push button and those are causing a lot of problems so i

1:52:03would hope that this plan can address that if it's possible for this plan to address that is it possible for this is that the sort of thing this plan can address so this this plan isn't getting into design details um one of the things we could add to the plan is that the

1:52:24city developed sidewalk design standards versus a city-wide use we have standards that design standards that were developed as part of the san pablo avenue complete streets plan for san pablo avenue they don't necessarily translate to all of the other streets just because our

1:52:44right-of-way is so much narrower on residential streets but it's something that we could um it could propose as a program or a practice so in the comments that i make tonight that are appropriate for that you could just sort of set aside in a list or something and

1:53:01for that okay so that so one thing would be to um do i have to write this down or is somebody else writing this down what i'm writing it down okay thank you okay so um one of the issues that i've observed and this does actually relate to bicycles is that uh on the ohlone greenway

1:53:24uh when you come to uh street crossings uh there are stop signs maybe always for bikes or maybe mostly i'm not quite sure but um rarely do bicycles stop um and uh that has for pedestrians some impacts and as well as uh for whether or not a bicycle will um potentially have a collision with a car

1:53:50uh for that matter and um so there was some discussion although it wasn't suggested for implementation here of making it a yield sign but what concerns me is we don't have a solution for that situation so we need to have some sort of a situation and um and i would

1:54:13maybe it's not possible that i would hope that this plan would address that situation because it's um pretty real and you know i think all of us at least i've not known a number of people who have been hit in that situation uh and i myself have been hit in that

1:54:29situation sort of um at uh um i mean i was hit by a car um and and there was a bicycle component to the accident um but the um so there there are a lot of issues in terms of safety around that and uh would that get addressed here would that be some other place also

1:54:52so initially one of our goals was um to look at the lonely greenway traffic control devices especially for bicyclists and determine um traffic control program that would improve safety for all users and it was um a topic that we saw um that we discussed at two or three of the

1:55:13workshops it's a difficult situation an urban class one trail with multiple crossings is a difficult problem that other jurisdictions are also facing there is no clear cut solution i think there's still research being done and maybe kerry can talk to that we wanted to identify a solution but

1:55:36this is a planning level document so we couldn't at this point what we've included in the plan is improvements to slow down cars on the cross streets so traffic coming along the streets to slow down cars as they approach the greenway that's in the plan also in the plan is

1:55:56some parameters that the city can consider in terms of obtaining or revising the traffic control along the greenway but you're right as far as our discussions with the public the conflict between pedestrians walking along the sidewalks and the bicyclists along the green one greenway

1:56:14came up so our initial um proposal to con to remove the stop signs and uh and add the yield signs instead at not all locations but locations where there was adequate site distance and where we also um lower traffic volume we thought it would be best to actually look at each crossing on a more

1:56:35detailed basis a more detailed engineering evaluation before uh proposing traffic control devices at this high level planning document did you want to add yeah i think that's right and i just want to emphasize the kind of issue of this this is an issue a lot of cities

1:56:50are struggling with and there's also a really important piece of regional consistency the greenway is a trail that travels through multiple jurisdictions and so we did look at some more innovative solutions maybe you know replacing the stop signs with yield signs as yvette mentioned and i think

1:57:03there's really a question of consistency not only then within the city of el cerrito if we were to say replace the stop signs with yield signs on maybe low volume residential streets where that might be a more appropriate treatment but really wanted to create a clear and

1:57:15consistent message that people are traveling the length of the green where even multiple intersections can really feel like they understand and it's a little bit more predictable what should be happening at each of those crossings if i may it project two council member it is all about this and

1:57:31and table and table uh five one does discuss this but but your point that i want to emphasize and it's a takeaway for staff um is that yield for a bicyclist they're thinking they're yielding to the automobiles and they have our their motor vehicle and they have to yield to

1:57:52both motor vehicles and pedestrians and so i would make sure that the signage emphasizes that they need to yield to the pedestrians and i think that's your takeaway message is that the the bicyclists can't uh just look at the automobiles and ignore the pedestrians that our signage needs to

1:58:08remind them that it's state law that they need to yield to pedestrians that are in the crosswalks that of the i think you guys refer to it in the cross-direction because you're talk you're looking at the ohlone greenway and then all of your discussion is uh to the cross traffic

1:58:26in this case the cross traffic is pedestrians or people in wheelchairs and the bicyclists have to yield to them as well and i i think that's what your your comment is is that they're they typically don't yield to the pedestrians because all they're thinking about is the vehicle the automobiles

1:58:42they are an automobile on a trail so they need to yield to pedestrians and i think that just in the hierarchy of signs the way finding signs that we potentially can emphasize that hierarchy so i i believe that builds on your comment right um but it's occurring outside of the greenway to um i know on

1:59:03it occurred i mean it occurs everywhere i think that people just don't really recognize the issue as being a safety issue to the extent that i think that it is from what i've heard from a variety of people for example on ashbury avenue even it's very rare for a bicyclist to yield to a pedestrian i

1:59:30know i cross it almost every day and and and this is in a school crossing crosswalk at um c street i think it is on in ashbury and uh that's a very ashbury is a really frequently used uh bicycle way now which is which is actually from my point of view and a lot

1:59:54of other people's wonderful i mean it's really working there and in fact the the comment made earlier i think you made it howdy um that you have to have a um a um [Music] i don't know what the right word is but a um one of the higher levels of bicycle paths designations

2:00:19in order for it to really attract writers but when you do which is what ashbury ashbury has a separate specific lane for bicyclists and it's really being used now so um but there is a lack of recognition and some of what i think anyway the fact that you say it's it's

2:00:40not known really what the right answer is uh is something i think i already i guess knew intuitively um but at some point we will know the answer because there will be research done that will point out what the answer is and um and maybe it's a variety of answers for

2:01:01variety of circumstances but what does that let's say that so that happens five years from now let's say and what does that do to this plan how does it interact with this plan so this plan is not uh identifying what type of traffic control is should be installed along the greenway

2:01:26it's identifying a potential solution and also saying that additional evaluation engineering evaluation is needed for determining the appropriate type of traffic control device what the plan is would the concept in the plan is calling for traffic calming improvements along the

2:01:46cross streets so that's something the city could move forward with it doesn't um prevent changes to the type of signage that's installed along the greenway to control um bicycle trap travel okay a question along those lines so on the greenway if you're riding your bike

2:02:05there's a stop sign at the intersection and for the cars there's one of those yield pop-ups right who has the right-of-way so right now all all the greenway crossings for bicyclists are stop controlled and the vehicle on the cross street is not controlled there is no yield or

2:02:31stop on those cross streets so the bicyclist needs to stop i understand that but there is a yield sign in a lot of those intersections there's a yield for pedestrian signs at the intersection it says yield it doesn't say for pedestrians i know because i got hit by

2:02:47a car when i was riding my bike crossing there because he didn't yield it's two out of the four of us yeah exactly well it needs further study go ahead i'm sorry so um at such time as we know the answer let's call it five years from now just to have a number uh would we um

2:03:09because we had done some work earlier to make improvements where we spent saying some grant money would we go back would we be easily able to go back assuming we had more grant money or funding and put in the improvements that would be indicated by the research then

2:03:30yes the um signing and striping improvements are a pretty low cost improvements that could be implemented on top of any more physical like traffic calming improvements that the city implement but we don't know what the improvements to be suggested would be what if they were signals for example or

2:03:50something expensive at least so we could build on that we we would still you could still build um traffic calming like curve bull belts um to slow down cars you could still build that and then later come up come in and install the signal and pull out the the bulb outs if that

2:04:10were so indicated i'm not saying it would be but you know if it were there's inherently no conflict with those two types of devices okay thank you okay um let's see here i'm gonna try to make this as fast as i can um and i'll skip the ones i can't read rarity um

2:04:40so in looking at the bike racks this actually is a bike comment um which was figure 3-6 actually i won't bother to find it right now but anyway it it didn't seem to me it was completely up to date because um i i think i knew of bike rack locations that were installed that were not on the list

2:05:06um we tried to capture as many by bicycle racks as possible there may be a few locations that we missed overall you're looking at the map to get a sense of on a city-wide basis where bike racks have did somebody actually go out and look at the way it is now or did they go

2:05:23did they look at a report from um we based we based it on information of where we previously installed bike racks we didn't conduct an additional inventory but used our dish available records to create the map so so we may have gone out and installed more right racks

2:05:46in fact one of the ones that i was thinking of when i sort of mentally started checking it in my mind was installed that way so this actually isn't um an up-to-date list this is um as of whatever point of in time that um was correct and okay and what about then recent installations

2:06:09like um doesn't aren't there some bike racks installed at the alone gardens would those be included i don't know where they are we really were looking at the public right-of-way on this map so we didn't document all the private development that have installed okay

2:06:27but we do require them there now don't we i hope bike parking is required both short term and long term in in um as part of private developments okay with on their multi family for housing okay the answer is yes i guess okay thank you okay um the um one part of the report said that

2:07:00there uh if you look at um the number of um fatalities and injuries that there are that um if you had a like number one is the worst and we were um in the lower third of that approximately i believe um which meant that's not good that means and this is for cities of the same

2:07:23size of our size so this didn't actually surprise me i think because i just know too many people who have been involved in as pedestrians in accidents but i'm just wondering um if if we really think that this plan is aggressive enough in dealing with elements that

2:07:52prevent this from getting worse and maybe even make an improvement in it i'll start answering the question and hopefully kerry can help me as well one thing to note is that the rank el cerrito is a small city and in comparison to other cities we may have a higher high number of pedestrian

2:08:13collisions but we also have more pedestrians i guess is one thing to put it in context what we found is when you look at where pedestrian collisions occur they occur at intersections um and they typically tend to occur at intersections so the plan does focus on

2:08:32improving pedestrian intersection at both i mean intersection pedestrian safety at both uncontrolled and controlled crossings there is an appendix a that includes measures to improve crosswalks throughout the city it's important to note too that adding that crosswalk policy makes the city um

2:08:54what's one of the elements that makes um our active transportation plan consistent with the the state active transportation program guidelines so it's definitely a step beyond the the previous circulation plan it that lacked that type of policy and and gets us going in the right direction

2:09:15yeah i think that crosswalk policy is really the the right thing to emphasize here so the intent of that is to create a consistent citywide policy and one to install enhance and remove crosswalks citywide so i think that's really going to be a boon in terms of i'm really focusing on

2:09:28safety at intersections and so whether that's a controlled or uncontrolled location that will provide really clear uh guidelines for implementation also in table 3. 3-5 that highlights the locations with two or more pedestrian involved collisions between 2007 and

2:09:442012 and actually um through this project between the san pablo and a specific plan and the active transportation plan really looking at four of those locations for for direct improvements as a result of this so projects that are actually called out in that so they're also addressing those

2:09:58safety hot spots that were identified in that review as well i think one of those was where i was hit although i don't think it was that year but i can't remember for sure how about you mark mine was seven years ago seven years ago yeah you weren't in that that should be a dot on

2:10:17one of these you should be one of these pink dots i think there's a spot of blood there all right still there the choice of color for you know collisions was not necessarily the best i'm look for those that are at home i'm looking at figure 3.7 where there's little uh pink and red dots representing

2:10:36moser that's for my rosier and the green one yeah anyway um let's see let me move on here um so um uh i think i have to leave this to later so there are a lot of comments about ada access during uh construction uh so what i what that's kind of addressing it as i understand it that's when you're

2:11:18was in at the end in uh i think i didn't write down the page number um it's in the section that talks about um oh the low and medium goals minor goals that'll be end of chapter five um that would be uh my page numbers are about half of them not there so i have a little trouble with

2:11:50yeah so that would be the um immediate the low goals would be anyway if you look at them and especially if you look like at least about two or three pages in you start seeing that they have the word accessible on them so which is saying that the um those are identified as low and medium

2:12:12goals to do accessibility um and um it's my understanding that um 101. the ada calls for people with disabilities to get the same according to a friend of mine lousy access as everyone else which is a joke by the way so you're supposed to smile now what it means is that uh it's not

2:12:35supposed to be cadillac uh access it's just supposed to be the same access you know so if everyone else has bad access and people with disabilities have bad access too i hopefully no one's getting bad access but anyway i have a lot of concern that uh it's in the goals

2:12:56the goal is it's a low and medium goal to give people accessibility it it ought to be the same access you know why that shouldn't be a thing that's sort of if you look at it and go through them you can and just look up for the word accessible it appears too many times

2:13:17and can i clarify i mean that definitely was not the intent of the plan to make accessibility improvements lower priority it onset on page 57 of the plan it's um chapter four proposed networks we do emphasize that except providing a safe and accessible and comfortable walking environment is

2:13:39the highest priority unfortunately the the way the the projects represented in section 5 does seem could be interpreted that it's a medium priority but um really it is a highest priority for the city and it's our accessibility improvements are guided by the ada transition plan we

2:14:04look at providing ada accessibility as part of all projects but you're right unfortunately the choice of you know the choice of parts the words in that um chapter were not the best ultimately we just tried to emphasize as much as possible accessible routes and so we

2:14:23repeated that term in almost every project on every chord or just to highlight its importance not to make it a medium or low priority so i would suggest that that low medium thing sec although you know the wording there needs to get modified so that it doesn't make it look to the

2:14:43reader like uh it is a it's not a top priority even though it may have said somewhere else it is it you know it's it it's inconsistent to me at least um and um anyway that's my comment i guess if you want to call it that um the um oh so is there really isn't is

2:15:13there was a reference to there being an 8 um i call it ada committee but i'm not really aware that we have one do we we have a working group an 80 access working group that we're supposed to be convening we are going to be convening them soon with the city has just implemented

2:15:34installed several curb ramps that were requested by the public and we're in the process of installing several more that were requested by persons with disabilities so we've made some progress on installing curb ramps that the working group had previously reviewed in this

2:15:50last year and so we want to go back to the working group to discuss the next phase of curb ramp installation and other accessibility improvements such as audible signals and um an uh removing mid-block obstructions so um we'd go back to the committee report on the accessibility improvements

2:16:10we've done over the last year and then seek guidance on the next kind of next priority again the ada transition plan the ada transition plan says we should prioritize prioritize requests that we received from persons with disabilities which is what we've done um so far and

2:16:29it and if there's funding available after that they prioritize corridors and those corridors overlap with the corridors in the active transportation plan it's our guide as um and the quarters are prioritized based on the access to public facilities schools transit and

2:16:51so that's what's guiding prioritization of accessibility improvements exclusively not exclusively but but guides the city's um improvements so um did um was there a substantial review of this plan by that group they did not do a substantial review because it was supposed to go hand in

2:17:13hand we weren't changing the ada transition plan this is building on the ada transition plan the original circulation plan was adopted in 2007. the ada transition plan was adopted by city council in 2009 we were building on top of that plan making them consistent

2:17:31they're not um so so they're supposed to work hand in hand so i'm wondering if well first first of all um it would be nice i think what it's telling me is if there's a plan like this that involves particularly pedestrians it would be good to have a review where the people doing the review are

2:17:51actually users of the system system so for example if you want to find out about curb ramps then you're really talking about people in wheelchairs and there's a special component of it having to do with people who are blind and visually disabled which are not one in the same i mean you

2:18:14know they have sometimes conflicting needs but i'm also the the transition plan as i remember it from the um the ada was passed in 1990 as i remember and cities were required to do a transition plan um and then um and they were supposed to then do the things in the transition plan but it

2:18:36would seem to me at this point we need to have something more modern than a transition plan and maybe we need i'm wondering if we need to at some point do some sort of a document around that what what it ought to be now if we you know start our statement ought to not be about a

2:18:56transition plan but about where we stand on the issue um and i'll just make that as a comment now and move on um about how many i can stop anytime you like uh i i'm just trying to engage i know i i go on quite a way so i can stop right now i think you have a flavor of what your

2:19:19comments are like yes but you know for example the last one you brought up about uh medium and low priorities um you know that's actually a concern that i would you know looking back through this reading page 57 where indeed it does say that ada accessibility is is a high priority but

2:19:41then you go to the prior prioritization criteria on page 100 and ada accessibility is not one of the things you provide scores for in prioritizing these smaller projects so the the comment that you've given um you didn't necessarily take it to the next step of trying to provide staff

2:20:02with a recommendation that we would uh would like to see which is the inclusion of ada accessibility as one of the pri one of the things that would prioritize a project um you've got these you know potential to shift bicycles and pedestrian modes you know gets two

2:20:17points but you know does it does it increase accessibility to ada might be a appropriate criteria to include there or not i mean it looks like uh you have a thought on that yeah just so in terms of the criteria so the the focus study area projects in some ways are treated like high priority

2:20:35some extent you know they are given more attention and they're not they're not called high priority they're the focus study area projects but those do include considerations around looking at ramps and things accessibility type issues and so we may need to do a better job of

2:20:48calling that out in those focused study area projects for example um but in terms of the criteria itself those were used to sort the medium-low priorities so if if the concern is around the fact that accessibility looks like it's only called out in the medium and low term or

2:21:02low priority then that might not be the best way to resolve it may make more sense to to call that out in the focus study area projects for example yeah no i in the focused area projects do have accessibility features it's not that it's not that any of these projects

2:21:15don't have accessibility they all have accessibility features the question is with regards to ranking these projects should there not be a score assigned to its accessibility so so you have projects that increase more bicycle mode and they get a high score but you don't have a

2:21:37comparable ranking criteria for for projects that increase increase accessibility so i'm just curious if that would be an even a criteria that you could score upon i think part part of the answer is that all the projects improve accessibility and all the corridors all the

2:21:57corridors streets on the network our accessibility improvements are being called on all of them so they would all get the same amount of points um for for that element so it wouldn't be a differentiator right well this is why i actually didn't go into the details is because that's why i

2:22:16think we need the extra time outside of this meeting to do it however i would not agree with that statement uh there are many projects that go on that reduce accessibility um in reality um and um it just depends on the details if you know if you i you know i could probably

2:22:36tell you what my layperson's opinion is about whether each and every project i knew about did or didn't do that but they don't all improve accessibility sometimes for example i've seen perfectly good curb ramps replaced by ones that are lousy you know they don't work very well at

2:22:56all and it's all in the name of progress but they don't really do that so in that and so you wouldn't want to score anything just because it put in a curb ramp for example if it's replacing a curb if you had to replace a curb ramp because you did the project because you tore out the street

2:23:15so now you've got to put in a curb ramp to putting it back together you haven't actually done anything that increased accessibility so that to me would get a zero even though you did a curb ramp but but the the the project the the plan that we're looking at tonight

2:23:34is a plan that would if there is no curb ramp would require a curb ramp if there is a curb ramp it would require the replacement of a curb ramp and what you're commenting on is that the design of a specific curb ramp is better than the design of other curb ramps and this plan doesn't get into

2:23:56that level of detail of looking at the design features of the curb ramp that's only part of it the other part is if you if the if an intersection had a curb ramp and then to do the um the movement the bulb out no the whole let's say you're just redoing the intersection for whatever

2:24:16reason doesn't matter you have to redo the curb ramp just because you tore up the thing the one that was there before and in order to do the improvement then when you put the new curb ramp back in that's not an improvement yeah i think you made that point earlier what i think

2:24:34we need is perhaps on page 57 to strengthen the language of accessibility as an overarching priority and or criteria for what's to follow so that way it doesn't get into the question of whether it's points or not but that that we make it clear that as a city this is

2:25:01our priority would that help um i don't know i i guess the just like go through the plan and sort of look at everything that's why i think we need some extra time to get it right actually but if there is a if there is tonight even but if if for example the proposal is

2:25:24that we need to reduce the crossing distance such that there's a bulb out and therefore you are ripping no those are two separate things you're reducing the crossing distance of a sidewalk from 50 feet to 45 feet by extending a curb five feet into the travel way that's

2:25:40called a bulb out right and in the process of doing that you're moving the ramp from its current location to five feet further out that you are improving that intersection to pedestrian movement you have not changed it you've not made it worse or better to ada because you

2:25:58all you've done is move the ramp exactly except for the fact that under your criteria your earlier comment some ramps are better than others and so the the that but that that some ramps are better than others is that level of detail that is weeds but it's not the weeds that this

2:26:18plant gets into because this plant doesn't necessarily talk about the um the the type of ramp that would be there it just says reducing the crossing distance is a good project and and to that end this plan does identify where sidewalks should be be put in um it in a roundabout way it describes

2:26:39where sidewalks might be removed or crosswalks not sidewalks crosswalks are added crosswalks are removed it talks about um in in the focus area projects putting in more protected sidewalks more sidewalks in some places where we don't have sidewalks at all all of those

2:26:57features accomplish the goals of the plan which is to create a safer environment there are some policies that i certainly highlighted in my comments for example you know there's a discussion about removing vegetation again i actually focused on pedestrian also because i think the bicycle

2:27:14coalition did a fantastic job of influencing it and and the pedestrians weren't necessarily as well represented but the you know the in vegetation removal or sidewalk repair does not necessarily have the highlights or the emphasis that i would like to see but um and but that's policy not

2:27:35necessarily design and most of the comments that i've heard you make tonight were but for the the discussion about the accessibility and i think uh mayor your your i reread paige you know this proposed sidewalk and pathway network it definitely talks about accessibility

2:27:56but it may not have the emphasis that councilman ribelson is looking for with regards to you know every project needs to have accessibility as a key component and and it does definitely talk about accessibility you know it was developed to provide accessible and direct routes um you know

2:28:18accessibility is in every one of these but maybe we there's a way for us from a policy perspective to elevate some projects really don't um it isn't necessary i mean what i'm saying if you were scoring something um and there were no curb ramps in the project area

2:28:38right and and and before the project a person in a wheelchair i mean we're just talking about wheelchairs but there are other things but a person in a wheelchair could go along there you know something's changed but it's not about that then you wouldn't give it

2:28:55that one a score on accessibility it's not it's just it's good there's nothing wrong with this project probably but you know it's not an accessibility project but another project that in fact made put in a curb ramp which is the difference between a person in a wheelchair being able to

2:29:14cross the street at all and being able to cross the street that one does it so that one should get on the accessibility if you had that kind of a ranking the um that project should get a score that's the difference right so so i'm going to call the minor projects

2:29:34it it's the there's the focus area projects and then there's the minor projects and the minor projects and this is table five two i think it is on page 100 roughly um you know there's there's and they get ranked but in in reality page 101 actually in reality these are

2:29:56all minor projects projects that could be implemented independently yeah page 108 yeah page 101.

2:30:05so these are these are all effectively minor projects that from a sql analysis perspective a mitigated neg deck perspective have almost no physical impact but they're all mo go towards improving pedestrian movement right these all these all go towards moving pedestrians and

2:30:30and handicapped uh pedestrians um and and your your comments correct that some of these may not implement new ramps and therefore there may not have the same uh priority as as a project that would modify and and make improvements to uh to handicap movement but but for me these are all minor

2:30:58projects and the design of them is they have no they have no um the design of them hasn't necessarily been improved completed i mean we've got just dollar signs one dollar signed to four dollar signs it looks more like a restaurant review than it does a a specif a project level right the

2:31:19difference is by postponing all these things which is what it looks well actually a reconstruction to me means during construction is that what that is that right i just i if i could just add a little bit accessibility definitely is a city priority the plan is meant to um convey

2:31:37that and we will do consider accessibility improvements as part of every project no if it's just a sidewalk project or if it's more of a streetscape project or a bike project we look at accessibility improvements at uh for all different types of projects i think

2:31:57we can strength strengthen the language in section four um and clean up the language in section five it so it's not the the the projects that are labeled medium and low priority projects are not really lower priority projects they're just other projects that were

2:32:18not identi um studied in detail as part of this plan they're minor projects that could be implemented at any time once funding becomes available or or so at the if you read section 5 yep 5.2 at the beginning of that section i'm doing this from memory because i'm not looking at

2:32:39that page um it talked about those would be done by a certain year which is far into the future yeah the whole project has implemented over 20 years let's see if i can find the section you're looking for the text you're describing um it's white well you're looking for

2:32:56that i want to see if council member quinto has any comments questions just real quick i'm looking at the bicycle auto collisions uh figure 3-8 and this is from 2007 to 2012 and and and looking at this and looking at the blue dots um i'm wondering uh i know some of the

2:33:23um in a lot of the intersections actually most of them you have that yield or that stop sign or the electronic sign so has that since putting that in in most of the intersections especially next to bark has that improved what i see here and especially next to the bart stations

2:33:52the accident collision data that's in the plan is from 2007 through 2012. so we've definitely implemented a lot lots of improvements since that time or right around that time as well that addressed some of these hot spot locations already when we look at accidents three years

2:34:09down the line hopefully those locations are our goal is that those locations are no longer the as a bigger dot as they are now thank you and then one more question i'm looking at uh figure 4.1 and on the northern part of el cerrito like let's say for example my street on

2:34:30conlon avenue um it says proposed park trail connector what what does that entail i can't find it so this was coordination partly coordination with the urban greening plan but also a connection we heard from the community that there's there's a pathway that goes

2:34:51through canyon trail park and baxter creek gateway is another green space but it's also an important connection to the greenway so it's connecting a park so it's a park trail connector to and to to different parks but it also meets multiple goals of providing access to transit and other

2:35:10regional facilities thank you i i just noticed so many people walking more and and using their bicycles in my neighborhood and i'm just very impressed with that so thank you um why don't we take about five more minutes of comments and questions and then try and uh

2:35:28talk a little bit about a process for getting to some conclusion so uh councilmember lyman yeah as you know i've emailed you several questions and and i thank you for responding most of those there are a couple that i do feel uh i would like to highlight for this group to to consider

2:35:48because i do believe their policy level um one is a it is the it goes back to the small projects the minor projects the the ones that start on page 101 and and looking at the distances by which those projects influence some of the paths that uh councilmember quinto

2:36:09just point out some of these paths are quite lengthy some of these sidewalks are quite lengthy and yet the project proposed in in uh in that table five of dash four i think it was um you know e 5-2 on page 101 some of these projects are very small central avenue .05 miles which is

2:36:38250 feet if i know my math somewhat cutting boulevard 0.12 miles that's uh a thou not even a thousand that's like six or seven hundred feet so so these these these distances are are very small and and yet on when you go to figure four one which is the figure that that council

2:37:01member you were just pointing at some of these pathways some of these areas are very lengthy and so i'm just curious should not wouldn't we want to promote more projects um on to this list that's table five two uh 101 page 101 so very the very first one uh council

2:37:28member wilson is central avenue and the um the second distance down stripe and signed bicycle lanes between carlson and san pablo and that is a very short distance i understand that but central avenue when you look at page figure 4.1 which was on page um that one i flagged also

2:37:49uh 4-1 is on page 62.

2:37:53you know the the the distance is carlson san pablo central avenue you know is a very long red line indicating it's a proposed pedestrian route but we don't have a very long distance of improvements so i'm just just wondering from a policy perspective um if if this list which is

2:38:20a a long list of potential projects that you know with 33 million this plan identifies 33 million and of course there's very little funding for it so i i know i'm you know creating more work with less funding um you know competing for the same funding but i'm just trying from a policy

2:38:39perspective why are we curtailing our our projects on table 5-2 to such small areas that wasn't the intent and i'll have to look at those numbers again and and correct them as appropriate that wasn't the intent and so um ultimately like you said it'll change just it'll increase the

2:39:00the cost uh for the ultimate implementation of the plan yeah like council member abelson you know i'm i'm most familiar with the and and council member i'm most familiar with the neighborhood i'm in the and the facilities i use and i will say that i walk up and down cutting to get to bart

2:39:18uh you know it's it's a route of of a high priority and i think on table 4-1 it it is a red line going up and down the the uh connecting the arlington to bart yet yet all of cutting has 0.12 and 0.06 of work which i can tell you from first-hand experience the there's you know sidewalk issues up and

2:39:48down that street and and the homeowners aren't necessarily making the improvements and and i'm just curious again this is the other policy related question for this group is to to figure out how the city can economically make improvements to sidewalks that are the obligation

2:40:09of the homeowner you know homeowner a might decide to you know replace it with with asphalt and homeowner b might decide to you know grind it down and use a quick seal and homeowner c might say oh i'm gonna rip it all out and put in a really nice textured uh concrete that's the highest quality

2:40:28all of those currently are acceptable and they have such a they leave with such a patchwork that that erodes potentially our overall sense of of community and and so one of the things and i think it's in what section was that in where there's a basically there's a policy it's i think

2:40:49it's in policy two about um you know uh it's page 32 it's in it's in paid group two which is policies you know there's there's several policies in here potentially where we could you know require some sort of of high quality or city program for replacing sidewalks so

2:41:12i i just wanted to to again elevate that for us to consider at this time i i do want to say that the current municipal code does require that a homeowner pull an encroachment permit to do even though it's the homeowner's responsibility to maintain the sidewalk when it's not due to a

2:41:31street tree they are required to pull an encroachment permit from the city and we require that they built the sidewalk per city standard which is a standard concrete um that's if they're building it but you know in order to get rid of a lip they could grind it they could patch it they

2:41:49could you know that that's if they're redoing the sidewalk and and frankly you know i some of these are street trees so not all of them are are the homeowners responsibilities but you know they're the inconsistency of the treatment may be something that we want to avoid

2:42:07um and and that's one of the the things that i want to make sure that that as a council you know in areas that are these red lines uh on figure four one we potentially want to have a high quality sidewalk and not one that's just patchwork and repaired as people

2:42:29are addressing settlement or or you know some other issues so those are the two that i sort of wanted to bring up to to our attention um for discussion or if not tonight at maybe staff could take consideration on those and bring them back with suggestions thank you

2:42:48um i think that this is a very well done plan i appreciate our consultant and ms ortiz and other staff who worked on this this is represents an incredible amount of work and synthesizes a lot of information that aligned with the plans as you indicated in the daisy chart

2:43:12towards the beginning of your presentation so i think a lot of these questions and comments are at a granular level which the plan was not intended to get to it doesn't mean they're not important issues or questions but they don't necessarily preclude us going forward as

2:43:33we will need to do to move the mitigated negative declaration forward and eventually adopt the plan so seeing that at least two colleagues are not ready to move forward without some modifications i suggest maybe appointing council members abelson and lyman as a task force to go into the weeds

2:44:05with staff and come back with something that's ready for us to vote on it our earliest possibility and and i actually you know being somebody who does appreciate the weeds i'm not certain that most of our our dialogue would necessarily modify the plan right to the point where it would be a

2:44:27new analysis um and in some cases some of the discussion we've had tonight is much more appropriate to the implementation of the plan and not necessarily a change in the plan so as as much as i appreciate the the the weeds that we'll get into as a subcommittee i'm not certain it'll radically change

2:44:49the plan um so it's it's not something i'm expecting to see you you may see you may hear that we've done a lot of work and there won't be a lot of evidence of that hard work is what i'm trying to caution you yeah i think that i understand that and we might end up with a two-page

2:45:08introduction to the plan that incorporates some of the perspectives and issues that you've raised to make it clear that these are considerations that the council embraces and maybe won't modify every chart and every part of the plan because frankly i don't know what our contract

2:45:28is with you but there's probably a limit of how many hours of additional work we've contracted for you to put in and not to mention the staff time that's already gone into it so if these this newly appointed and thank you for accepting that task force can keep that

2:45:46in mind and we can move forward with as much speed as is appropriate yep my my goal comments from the city attorney i was just going to suggest that that from the sound of things i don't want to assume emotion but that somebody but that a motion to continue the public

2:46:03hearing to a date uncertain with a subcommittee of council members abelson and lyman to work with staff um to address the concerns don't be afraid if there's that but i will no the chair can make a motion can't hear the chair can make a motion i can't make okay

2:46:21are we are we in a roberts rule or not under robert's rules i thought we yeah that's right we're in sturgis right that's correct okay as straight as they can moved and seconded all in favor signify by saying aye aye aye motion carries unanimously i i'd like to i just have the clarifying i like my

2:46:38question answered i guess which is that when we come back we are still in the public hearing so we would uh welcome uh any new public comments that's correct it'll be re-noticed reposted republished so that the public will understand that there's an opportunity to comment again okay

2:46:56all right thank you thank you very much uh any council local and regional liaison assignment reports that can't wait but we haven't already heard all right we now adjourn thank you all you