City Council Meeting February 16, 2016

0:00:14good evening everyone I'm going to call to order the meeting of the city council of El Cerrito on Tuesday February 16th at seven o'clock uh please let the records show that all five council members are present and uh mayor Pro tem Janet Abelson would you like to lead us

0:00:33in the Pledge of Allegiance sure thank you I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God and indivisible with liberty and justice for all any uh Communications from staff seeing none any Communications from

0:01:00council members I will pass on one that came to us not too long ago the grand jury uh is seeking applications for grand jury service and the application deadline is Friday March 25th persons interested in applying may contact the office of the Civil grand jury at 925

0:01:33-957-5638 or visit the website at www.cc-courts.org grand jury hello hi just a minute at the Grand Jury no no I wish it was something as good as that um with that we'll move on to oral Communications from the public item three uh yes mayor we have seven speaker slips

0:02:04for our general comment and two are for five b and one for 4B the first person is Cordell hindler followed by Julia Heath and Al Miller he's somewhere mayor oh mayor Lyman uh council members my name is Cordell Handler and I'm a representative for Park Plaza neighborhood association

0:02:28I came once before um I think uh before about um but elsewhere the police uh on my street I have not seen them not one bit so that's one good thing and then um the second thing is um I pass around some uh some some Grant um uh um meeting forms um our next one would

0:02:46be uh February the 24th which is next Wednesday in the city council chambers um from six to seven thirty so that's the second thing and the the third is I received um I've talked with the manager from uh Walgreens and she informs me that um that it has been a problem uh

0:03:04every day uh people be hanging around there loitering and and the police's response times are absolutely unacceptable 20 to 30 minutes because if a business calls them um once they should the police should respond quickly but I mean I mean any business should I mean if a business

0:03:24calls the police they should be coming immediately so not wait 20 to 30 minutes that's not acceptable that's three and number four uh we we would like to invite the El Cerrito city council to um to a funny comedy called the clean house at at Contra Costa Civic Theater is is going to play through

0:03:41March 6th uh and the tickets are 11 um per person so I'll shoot out I'll send you the the I'll send the link out to you so hopefully it'll be all right and then finally at one of the at one of the meetings um I I enjoy listen the presentation of um one of your city

0:04:04employees here um about the about the El Cerrito star so I figured um now this is something that I'm more that I'm passionate about too because we want we want our kids to see what what it's like to uh be in like in the city department so hopefully at your um at a future uh

0:04:22meeting uh you would um you would have um um have have someone uh have one of the young people come to you know like and and demonstrate how um what's it like to be working in the city department so that's all I said um and like and all all and I said all that within three

0:04:40minutes thank you sir next speaker Julia Heath followed by Al Miller and howdy Gowdy uh good evening mayor and council members my name is Julia Heath and I'm a senior consultant for Contra Costa County climate leaders hopefully you guys have heard of us I didn't bring any brochures

0:04:59this evening to save paper we've just redone our website so please check out how you compare to the other cities in Contra Costa County at www.cc climateleaders.org El Cerrito always measures up very well and we thank you very much for that I know that you have

0:05:20passed the resolution to adopt the all the pace programs except for why green and we hope that you will decide to include the white green program and make it available to your constituents it's a little bit different than the other programs because it's the only one that

0:05:38operates under SB 555 and George pastopoulos is really interested in speaking with someone at the city and maybe Maria but he hasn't had a chance to get a hold of her lately so I would love to send you some more information about the Y green program or have a meeting with Maria or anybody else if

0:06:00she's available or if someone else is available regarding that and also thank you for adopting your climate action plan and please uh take advantage of the East Bay energy watch programs they're still offering the on Bill Finance program that I talked to you about a couple of

0:06:22months ago and thank you for taking advantage of the other programs that MIT and the cyes thank you for all the hard work that you've been doing and please keep it up and I look forward to speaking with you at the mayor's conference in Lafayette next month thank

0:06:37you thank you good evening mayor Lyman council members staff in the fall of 2015 the Rotary Club of El Cerrito once again asked the El Cerrito Library Foundation to join them in uh partnering with the their annual Sip and saver fundraiser event at Mira Vista Country Club

0:07:06we worked hard with them successfully with them and the community of El Cerrito uh and others who are offered the opportunity to come responded in an amazing fashion and we had another incredibly enjoyable and successful Sip and saver as I'm sure you've heard from

0:07:24all your rotarian friends the reason I'm here as president of the El Cerrito Library foundation and talking about this is because once again the El Cerrito rotary showed their commitment to the community their interest in playing a role in the community and their strong support and

0:07:43interest for a safe modern librarian El Cerrito and the combined efforts of the 2015 Sip and saver event resulted in another contribution from the rotary to the library Foundation this one of fifteen thousand dollars for which we are very very grateful and very proud to be have

0:08:04been their successful partners for the last two years so I told you that to encourage you with this next October about there will be the 2016 Sip and saver at the Mira Vista Country Club unless the creek Rises too much and you all and everyone listening here and watching here will have the

0:08:26opportunity to take part and I encourage you to come out and have one of the most enjoyable afternoons with the most beautiful view in the city that you'll have thank you very much thank you howdy Gowdy followed by Cordell Hitler and Greg Vicino good evening mayor Lyman council members

0:08:55my name is howdy Gowdy I live at [address removed] um so a couple weeks ago I spoke about um a vehicle purchase that was on the consent calendar and um that purchase was made a couple days from when you approved it but I just wanted to follow up on you know my experience of of that

0:09:17comment last uh last time because I found it um surprising and concerning that um you know a request for um something to be taken off consent for further discussion um received zero discussion and you know really not even acknowledgment at the meeting so um and I I do kind of feel like there's

0:09:42this misunderstanding perhaps of um you know my intentions or my you know uh position um before Council and staff and I just want to you know make it absolutely clear that you know these comments are in the best faith as you know constructive information to help the

0:10:04city make a better decision and um and I really you know I am open to the possibility that whatever I presented was not you know you know going to achieve that but I do expect that you know as an elected body that is supposed to be responsive to the public that you take that opportunity to

0:10:29explain in public why um you think it doesn't uh warrant further consideration so that's just you know a bit of good Democratic public you know process that I think we can only lose by neglecting and so I'm just encouraging this body to be you know very Vigilant to you know engage

0:10:57those public comments and sometimes they might bear her some fruit sometimes they might not but they they deserve acknowledgment and a thoughtful um you know response so um the spreadsheet I shared with you is just an example of you know what you would have gotten for free as you know

0:11:18my volunteer effort helping analysts analyze this situation and you know as you can see there's a vehicle on there that was available from the same dealership that was lower upfront cost better gas mileage would have cost less over time and reduced the emissions by

0:11:3415 so even if the four-wheel drive was important which I don't think it was there were better decisions to be made if this kind of you know thought went into it and and we applied our climate action plan so um one of the things I wasn't aware of at the last meeting was

0:11:52that the city has experienced problems with their current electric vehicle which really shocked me because I think they are the perfect application for these fleet vehicles and that was what I was suggesting should be purchased instead of the vehicle that was purchased for Building Inspections and

0:12:08so I want to you know further offer my support to you know analyze and try to figure out what might be going wrong with the city's utilization on that vehicle because it should be a no-brainer and it would cost much less over the life of the vehicle so um I think it's

0:12:25basically because of sharing a public charging station and the city should you know start thinking about allocating um a small nominal amount of money to install um dedicated charging stations for EVS for city fleet vehicles because um it's really going to enable the

0:12:44transition that you need to make to meet the climate action goals so thank you very much thank you Craig vissanu and Valerie Snyder hi good evening my name is Greg vizno I live at [address removed] here in El Cerrito I actually wrote down what I wanted to say so I don't get off track and so I

0:13:11finish on time so this is in relation to an agenda item you have today for uh parking restrictions around the coromatsu middle school I want to start first by thanking Yvette Ortiz and Melissa tigbao and the rest of Public Works Department for doing a magnificent job for our

0:13:32neighborhood for their continued support and health throughout the almost three-year Middle School construction project our home at Lawrence Street sits right across from construction so this is no small item for us um so they've listened very attentively they've responded quickly and

0:13:51courteously and they've always acted constructively and professionally so no bad words for me with regard to Department of Public Works most recently regarding tonight's agenda item about the parking regulations they field many many written questions and comments from us on Lawrence Street

0:14:11emphasis on many we've had many much dialogue with them written in and otherwise uh they visited the site in person they've spoken to me personally and others in the neighborhood by telephone not at our request they've reached out to us um and they've always responded

0:14:30completely and concisely back in writing to us so again thank you to Department of Public Works I'd also like to thank members of the council for visiting the site so this is something my wife noticed last week someone I maybe it was you Jan visited and caught my wife outside and

0:14:47and so that's also refreshing so first-hand knowledge and lives of sight on the site is is very positive for us to see that that's happening we really appreciate that every little bit helps so with respect to the parking revisions that are on your agenda tonight no

0:15:03problems from us in the neighborhood at least from from my perspective and and those I speak to on Lawrence Street so um the recommendation we would be supportive I think that was uh recognized by public works and the comments to you at the council in preparation for the meeting today

0:15:23however and here's the there's always a however right so this is not just a past phrase but there's a however from our side a big caution moving forward from tonight towards the opening of the school as long time residents across from a 200 student elementary school so we've lived

0:15:41in the area for almost 35 years we experience many neighborhood difficulties over the years with parking traffic's flow congestion and property damage everyone's intentions for the new school are well-meaning if you have plans in place you have processes for adjusting later

0:16:03if they if something happens once the plans are put in place things will change most likely I know I'm out of time we hope we're wrong and that things will in fact flow smoothly but we anticipate significant difficulties from a 600 student school three times as big and not elementary

0:16:22students but Middle School students so we ask you to please be ready if we're proven right in our concerns We'll be asking again for your help and intervention so thank you very much for the help to date and the opportunity to talk to you it's really nice to be able to do this

0:16:40great thank you my name is Valerie Snyder I live on Everett Street near Donald and um I I just I have a prediction and that is that it's going to be very chaotic um when when the school opens even though you have this planned and you have these designated areas for

0:17:10drop-offs and Pickups it's going to be so congested that parents are going to be using some of the other streets so people on streets other than Lawrence Norvell and Donald have concerns that our streets are also going to be very congested with traffic um so I I don't know what the solution is

0:17:31um but I just you know I we've lived we've lived here for 29 years and when we bought our house we bought a house that was near a small Elementary School and a park and now we're living by near a 600 student Middle School the site was much much too small to put

0:17:53a 600 student School obviously you know it's built now so there's nothing you know we can't go back and undo that but um I think you need to be prepared for a very very chaotic um uh drop off and especially the pickup in the afternoon drop off in the morning it's going to go

0:18:14a little more smoothly because parents can come into the designated area the kid opens the door and gets out of the car and the car moves on what happens in the in the afternoon is parents wait for their kids and there just isn't going to be enough room for cars

0:18:28to pull over and park and wait people are going to be double parking they're going to be blocking driveways they're going to be making illegal u-turns um it's going to be really messy and chaotic thank you thank you um cordell's Handler would like to speak on the

0:18:48presentation 4B do I speak now okay great any other speakers for item three oral Communications from the public this would be on items that are not on the agenda or on the consent calendar okay so we will now move on to item four which is presentations um oh no I'm sorry oh sorry okay yes please

0:19:23please do okay hi there hi um it just occurred to me we're talking about schools and um since my wife's out of town but she's really passionate about Fairmont Elementary School because our kids go there I thought you might like to know that it's having a hard time uh getting

0:19:42rebuilt and um you know there's there are a lot it could just use your support since it's the last School in El Cerrito to get rebuilt and it's been promised to be rebuilt many many times and it seems to be getting the short end of the stick because it's like it's a uh you know

0:20:03it's a um it's a school that has a lot of um English Learners it has a lot of of special needs kids but it's it's a really special place because it has such diversity of um of people nationalities religions socioeconomic diversity um and it's just really unfortunate that

0:20:28it's having to struggle so hard to get its due um it's so impacted like they have Portables um they're they're there's a question whether they should move to to Portola to the Portola site the cuomatsu site and split the school just because of pressures from Charter

0:20:49Schools like if they leave the the site vacant for too long a charter school could move in they need help and you guys are the people to do it because it's your city and your kids and your families and if you care about helping like this is a social thing too like if

0:21:07you don't want these kids to to be earning just minimum wage in their future you need to help them out now get involved and and please make an effort to to get this thing just lock down an ironclad and no questions about it getting rebuilt because it the the um

0:21:26the uh uncertainty make some families who have moved here with the expectations of that school being rebuilt uncertain like should I have moved here do I want to stay should I send my kid to another school instead of investing in their local school here so that's what I wanted to talk to

0:21:48mention right now thank you very much now we can move on to presentations item four four a is Proclamation commending detective Aaron Leon for his selection as officer of the year officer Leon will not be is not here tonight so we can we won't have a specific presentation unless the chief wants to

0:22:13make say any special words no okay okay so we will um I'm looking for a motion to approve the proclamation so move second moved by uh by consensus all those in favor please say aye aye let the record show that it passed unanimously um that brings us to item 4B a

0:22:36presentation on Contra Costa College update now when we begin to pronounce your name I will though good evening my name is mojda merizada I am serving as the interim president at Contra Costa College and first I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak before you this

0:22:57evening you have done much for our college and and we want to have an opportunity to tell you a little bit about us and where we are uh and uh answer any questions that you may have this evening so with that um I just want to mention that we are a three College District so

0:23:15Contra Costa College is actually the first college that was built in Contra Costa County it was approved in 1948 and actually the facility uh came to be at the old Kaiser Shipyard in 1949 and then ultimately in our current location in the early 50s but you'll notice that

0:23:35there are actually two other uh colleges within our County Diablo Valley College and Los Medanos College and we also have two centers and so we really Encompass all of Contra Costa County with approximately 55 000 students annually so a little bit about Contra Costa

0:23:54College specifically which is why I am here um you can see here what our annual head count has been over the last three years we were at just over 11 000 uh in uh the 1213 Academic Year um in the prior Academic Year we were down to just over ten thousand and one might wonder why did we have a

0:24:15decline in our enrollment and I will say that there is an inverse relationship between how the economy is doing and students that attend to community colleges so it's somewhat of an expected number however I will say that our decline percentage-wise is a bit higher than our

0:24:34two sister colleges and you will learn more about that in just a moment as I continue on uh so a little bit about when students attend you'll notice most of our students are are attending in the daytime about 76 percent of our students are daytime students about 24 take

0:24:52classes with us in the evening we expect that more will attend evening classes since the economy uh has resumed and individuals are oftentimes working during the day gender of our students the majority of our students as you can see here 57 percent are female and that's very much

0:25:11in line with what we see in higher education today and the age group of our students you will notice that about 61 percent of our students are at the age of 24 or younger we have a considerable population that's under the age of 20 you'll see the 31 percent and that is because we have two

0:25:34high schools on campus we actually have a a partnership with the West Contra Costa Unified School District where we um where we frankly have a full-blown High School on campus it is one of the more successful high schools and has won national awards as well it's

0:25:53the middle college high school program we also have a Gateway to College a high school program The Gateway to College High School program is for individuals that come to us in their Junior and Senior year oftentimes having struggled in a regular High School environment and

0:26:10and really need that Change of Atmosphere we have approximately 130 students that we're serving in the Gateway to College program that we actually started approximately three years ago so it is a growing student population you'll notice that um only about 15 percent of our

0:26:28population currently is in the 40 plus category this used to be a greater proportion of our enrollments and frankly we have had some changes that have taken place at the Statewide level with regard to repeatability of what the state calls um basically courses that are active

0:26:47participatory oftentimes courses in physical education in the Arts music and and frankly courses that oftentimes are are more senior members of the community may enroll in to continue to kind of expand their knowledge and and enjoy time away foreign ethnicity makeup of our students you'll

0:27:12see that our students are predominantly Hispanic and this has been a growing population for us over the past 10 years very considerably so the next highest uh population in terms of ethnicity are our African-American students when we look at West County as a whole we find that

0:27:31our student population is very reflective of the community in which we serve Contra Costa College very recently underwent a process to complete our strategic plan it's a dated 2015 through 2020. we had a wonderful Community involvement in the development of our

0:27:50strategic plan as well we held a community-wide charades and had individuals from the community who attended those at the college and provided some wonderful input and that input resulted in what you see here before us the mission of the college one of the major things that our

0:28:07community said is we really want you to ensure that you put that you've been around since 1949 as a community college and then really our focus on equity and integrated decision making process and ultimately in in the our effort to transform the students lives through

0:28:28their educational experience we're very very much focused on that within our mission and our vision points um very much the very same thing regarding uh being a premier College celebrating Innovation collegiality diversity and committed to transforming the lives of our student

0:28:43population and of course the members of your city the uh four items that you see before you are are four major strategic directions so as you might imagine as a community college we want to improve access for the population in our area and improve their learning and success

0:29:05obviously through the for the the lens of equity and our entire strategic plan is through the lens of equity we want to strengthen our community relationships and Partnerships one reason that I'm here before you tonight providing you an update is to ensure that you have an understanding of what's

0:29:21happening at the college and have an opportunity to provide any comments and questions as you may um we are certainly focused on Innovation and creating a culture of continuous Improvement and of course it's important for us to utilize our resources effectively in

0:29:37support of student learning and success so with these four strategic directions we actually have 72 objectives and those 72 objectives are assigned to different members throughout throughout our College organization and we provide an update on how we're doing on each and

0:29:52every one of those on an annual basis and that's available to you on our College website you're welcome to go out there and kind of see where the college is with regard to each of its objectives and you have an opportunity to send an email directly to the the individual on

0:30:08campus that is stewarding that particular objective any kind of comment um and and support from you is more than appreciated we want to make sure we're on the right track a little bit about the highlights of the college and things that we're doing today that we think are important based

0:30:25on feedback that we've received we're updating our campus tour program um individuals who are who have possible interest in the college come to our website and sign up for a tour we want to make sure that the tour is relevant to different individuals that it's not

0:30:39kind of a one-size-fits-all package and are working diligently to ensure that we do that um we are increasing our Outreach activities I mean certainly we have done a considerable amount of Outreach in the high schools but we'd like to continue to provide Outreach efforts as we do

0:30:55with community-based organizations but more importantly we'd like to have a greater focus on our faith-based organizations concurrent enrollment is a major Endeavor that we have I talked about the two high schools that we have on campus there was a legislation that was passed

0:31:11assembly Bill 288 just recently a couple of months ago as a matter of fact that allows us to offer classes at the local high schools and not require that they be open to the public right now any course that we offer actually up until ab288 passed had to be open to every

0:31:26member of the public which caused some trouble oftentimes for our high schools who are are closed and want to remain that way so this allows us to offer instruction in uh in the in the variety of courses at the local high schools and focused on high school students who can

0:31:45complete college credits while they earn their high school diploma and of course it helps with the whole uh focus on college-going culture as if as a student's complete programs while they're still in high school they're more uh focused on ensuring that they continue on and obtain their college

0:32:04degrees uh major focus on financial aid we have approximately 45 percent of our students that currently uh receive financial aid we know that many many more students actually qualify for financial aid and I don't mean uh in which that they they have to pay back these are through uh uh

0:32:24state and federal grants that are made available to students so today we have a Board of Governors fee waiver that will allow students who meet the qualifications to have all of their enrollment fees waived we believe more students qualify for that than actually

0:32:39apply it's a one-page application there's also of course the federal Pell Grant which students can also qualify for unfortunately a much lengthier application process but really trying to get the word out to our students the college offers uh 62 degrees and 45 certificates oftentimes people don't

0:32:57know that there's a lot of choice that individuals have when they come to Contra Costa College should they choose to transfer on to a four-year we have Associates degrees in transfer that allow them to complete their first 60 units with us and transfer to the CSU of

0:33:11their choice while maintaining their minimum grade point average requirements of course they can transfer to many other UCS and and private institutions of course throughout the nation we also offer 45 certificate programs focused on what the community needs are

0:33:29and really what's happening in terms of various Industries so some of our more popular ones that you may have heard of are culinary program we have a an exceedingly strong culinary program uh uh a group of wonderful Chef instructors and our placement rate is a hundred

0:33:50percent in our culinary program we have businesses knocking on our door um we also offer a automotive uh technology program so individuals who can work in the various Automotive sectors including uh hybrid Automotive Technologies we have approximately 700 committed

0:34:10employees um so we are actually a major employer in the area as well so that includes certainly our full-time and our part-time employees the majority of our part-time employees are our adjunct faculty members and then where I'd like to focus the next few minutes that I have left with

0:34:27you is our new learning spaces and with that I want to thank you you passed measure a and measure a is one of the major projects that we have been undergoing at the college and you notice I talked about the enrollment decline that's uh that's taken place between

0:34:442012 and now 2012 is when we have the groundbreaking and basically the entire center of our campus was torn apart or I should say is uh still torn apart although there are some gorgeous new buildings that are arising there um and uh the buildings are named here

0:35:02we have the classroom building which has now been named the general education building there are 15 classrooms in this new facility it's a three-story building the third story has beautiful views of Mount Tamalpais it's a it's a wonderful place to study and daydream at the same

0:35:18time that classroom building has 12 regular General classrooms two laboratory spaces as well as a tiered classroom that serves 201 students and of course we have some faculty offices there as well we have a new community building named Fireside Hall it has a capacity

0:35:38for 138 individuals and we would love to invite you to come and utilize that facility it is built for you our community we also have a college complex where our Student Activities and administration building will be housed and in that we are actually having a brand new veterans

0:35:54Lounge an 800 square foot space for our veteran students to have an opportunity to congregate and receive services we have a brand new uh career transfer and sparkpoint Center that is opening up in the new uh in this new building and we have not had a transfer I'm sorry a career center at

0:36:15the college for many many years uh so it'll be nice to have that back um we also will have the bookstore cafeteria and restaurant that will be in the new administration building and uh some of you may have already visited uh and I talked about the culinary program

0:36:30our Three Seasons Restaurant it's open to the public right now our wonderful culinary students that run the restaurant the new restaurant will be in this new building with uh ample parking spaces right in the front of the campus which will make it much more easy for our

0:36:49community members to get to and we will be open both for lunches as we are today and we'll have select evenings where we will also be open to the public and the buildings will open fall of 2016 and we are extremely excited about that uh and we'll be inviting you

0:37:12um to a ceremony uh as we move into the new facility and look forward to seeing you there uh just a few pictures this is basically the series of renderings um with regard to the new facilities you can see the three buildings right here a wonderful ample open spaces for our

0:37:29students to congregate outside um just another view of the three buildings quick picture of what the Student Activities Building looks like inside so a really happy bright wonderful spaces for the students this is the tiered classroom that I spoke of that seats 201 students

0:37:53this is the new dining facility um really lovely open facility and then I also want to thank you for passing measure e that is the most recent bond that you passed for the Contra Costa Community College District and we are in the planning phases of measure e the measure e language

0:38:12indicated that we as Contra at Contra Costa College can construct a new science and Allied Health building or modernize current spaces where our science and Allied Health areas currently reside we are choosing to construct new it's actually going to be less expensive and

0:38:29much more powerful in terms of what we can deliver to our students and we have an opportunity to monitor modernize our gematics gymnasium locker rooms and other physical education facilities which are in desperate need if you have been to our Athletics facilities uh I am sure that you would

0:38:47agree with us that they definitely need a pretty major facelift and we are so thrilled that the opportunity that you and the taxpayers in our community have provided us to make this a reality again we're in the planning phases of this of these two projects right now

0:39:03uh we expect to have groundbreaking within the next 18 months or so and the projects will be phased in and uh hopefully completed by 2021 we want to get the most bang for the dollars that you are providing um and with that I just want to end and uh see if you have any questions that

0:39:22you would like to ask us before I do that I want to say very briefly that we have a college Foundation very well supported by Janet Abelson here who is one of our foundation board members and does a just a so much work for the college very much appreciate it great thank you questions yeah thanks

0:39:41for an excellent presentation uh of your 10 000 plus students how many are full-time how many part-time well the majority of our students unfortunately are part-time students um and oftentimes uh it is very much because community college students are are working

0:39:57um and that makes it much more difficult for them to attend a full-time we're looking at opportunities of creating uh pathway programs for them meaning pathway schedules so that it becomes easier for them to enroll in multiple courses in a more streamlined fashion

0:40:14and are expecting to implement that in the fall of 2016 time frame thank you go ahead quick question um can you explain more about the new veterans Lounge sure sure um so today we have What's called the veterans Corner um it's probably about 150 square foot little tiny space that's

0:40:36in our student uh um activity excuse me in our student services building we have today approximately um actually as a blast count 77 veteran students and we are really working at uh getting the word out to the veteran population in our community about the college and have been working with

0:40:55various uh veterans organizations uh including obviously the VA but other organizations in the area that are assisting us with getting the word out about the college so the 800 square foot facility that we are transitioning to in the new facility uh we'll uh actually include members of

0:41:14the various organizations that will help support and uh make themselves available in the new building we've also had a major donation that's been provided to us in the form of fifty thousand dollars to actually um uh uh what do I want to say burnish the new space

0:41:33um and uh we're we're really hoping for a great turnout I just wanted to mention I've been a uh had the honor of serving on the scholarship committee a number of times and one of the things that I've been completely impressed with is the dedication of the students these are not

0:41:55just students who are there full time when one says the student is there full-time what one really means in this case is the student is there the student has a job and the student may also be supporting a family all at the same time so it's it's not just your um you know graduate from high school

0:42:19and start school and life is easy it's very hard for a number of these students yet they do persevere and I think that we these students are to be commended for their dedication to school and to providing a better life for themselves and their families so I just wanted to

0:42:43underline that thank you very true councilman bridges any questions when your predecessor was last year I think it was about four years ago during the one of the measures that you discussed today the nursing program was was highlighted and and like the culinary

0:43:01school then it was uh not producing nurses fast enough I was just curious if that's still the case today we um we do continue to offer our nursing program one of the challenges so I would say certainly we have more students interested in the nursing program than

0:43:18we can actually serve but I will tell you there there are some challenges that we are facing in the nursing industry and specifically with the hospitals hospitals are now looking to ensure that nurses have a bachelor's degree so although they are registered nurses and

0:43:36and they graduate with extremely high marks we in terms of finding employment quickly there are some challenges so we have now partnered with four-year Institution to have a direct pathway from our associate's degree program into their bachelor's degree program so that

0:43:55our students can continue on while taking on some you know some other positions that are in the health field and frankly able to sustain their families while they continue their education great thank you you bet and president Med dezada that is that a perfect um thank you very

0:44:12much for for coming tonight and and giving us an update on the progress of these both measure a and measure e thank you thank you very much very much we do have one public speaker on this item so if you'll yield the mic we can you bet your Mr Handle comments yes um I really oh I really

0:44:33enjoyed your presentation I thought it was very interesting so I just wanted to say that so so the question is um dear what other programs are are the colleges have um in terms of you know like um arts and drama and all that something so I'm thinking um respond to that um

0:44:55okay so yes the answer is yes so we do have programs in arts and we're actually making modifications to our art program uh adding in digital art related fields uh we have as I mentioned just so many different programs our programs are identified in our College Catalog which

0:45:16is posted online on our College website so you're welcome to take a peek at that College Catalog the other thing that I would say is feel free to sign up for a campus tour we would love to have you come on campus and really showcase the college and tell you about all of the

0:45:32different programs that we offer okay thank you so much all right thank you and thank you again for coming uh that brings us that concludes item four that brings us to item five we have uh the consent calendar items 5A and 5B 5A is approval of the minutes from February 16 2016. and I B is uh various

0:45:58parking revisions around koromatsu Middle School which we have I apologize profusely for the inadvertent clerical error on the minutes should be February 2nd ah February 2nd great thank you the agenda is stands corrected so I moved as corrected I I thought I heard that there was a

0:46:20desire to pull one item I'm pulling I'd like to pull 5B okay so uh so 5A has been moved uh which is the minutes from February 2nd all those in favor please say aye aye aye we'll move on to item 5B um I just I actually just wanted to make some clarification points

0:46:44um not necessarily for staff but uh actually acknowledge the police department and all the staff for working so well with the community I think they've witnessed or you witnessed tonight that they were very pleased with what's been happening so far and I think that they're pleased with the um the

0:47:03proposal that is on this agenda item but I also wanted to stay say that it's um I ask questions of Staff about how the parking the drop-off was going to be handled and although the police chief isn't here right now I know that the police department is going to be there

0:47:24public works will actually be there and they have a whole Cadre of parent volunteers that are going to be monitoring the parking and I think that the neighborhood needs to be aware of that and there will be citations issued if people are dropping off mid-block not

0:47:40at crosswalks and double parking and so I think that the neighbors should be um hopefully reassured that we're on top of this and trying to be proactive so that this goes smoothly for all concerned and that it's safe for the students as well great you want to make the motion yeah would

0:48:01you like to move oh yeah and so I'll um with that being said I'd like to move item 5B that's been moved and segmented by Abelson all in favor please say aye aye aye with the record show that it passed unanimously um item six there are no public hearings tonight that brings us to item seven

0:48:23which is policy matters uh and we tonight will be having a study session regarding paid sick leave and service charge regulations related to cities minimum wage policy foreign and council members my name is Suzanne Airline and I'm the assistant to the city manager and tonight the item on

0:49:17your agenda is a study session that's in follow-up to the discussions and the council's action regarding establishing a local minimum wage um those discussions were held late last year and at that time the concept of having enhanced paid sickly regulations as well as developing some service

0:49:40charge regulations were brought up by both the community and our partner ensuring opportunities and staff had requested if we could hold off on the discussion on those particular regulations and focus on minimum wage which is how we did proceed at that time so we're back tonight

0:50:00um to to revisit those two topics and uh I can see that there are a number of public speaker slips that came in so I don't know if your preference is to hear from the speakers before or after my presentation your presentation first would be excellent great so in terms of the structure for the

0:50:23study session tonight I have some information I'd like to share with you about both the enhanced paid sick leave and service charge regulations and if it was the council's desire to move forward with staff developing one or both of those regulations I do have a series of

0:50:40of questions that could kind of help guide the discussion and give staff Direction regarding development of those two policies um so first to give you a little bit of background information about existing paid sick leave Law so last year in July the state of California

0:51:04enacted a paid sick leave law that provides uh workers with basically a minimum of three days or 24 hours if the worker is on an eight-hour typical shift three days of paid sick leave each year that benefit accrues at the rate of one hour earned for every 30 hours that the

0:51:26employee works and the state law requires that employers have to provide a minimum of those three days or 24 hours however the employer can have a more generous program the state law also does provide for employers to be able to cap the amount of use at 24 hours per year so

0:51:48even if the employee or the worker did accrue more leave the state law does allow for employers to limit the use paid sick leave is um obviously a benefit to workers particularly low-wage workers that are maybe working less than full time in an hourly position they may not have other

0:52:13benefits Associated through their employment and so it is in particular very helpful for low-wage earners who were the focus of our discussion regarding increasing the minimum wage locally in El Cerrito having paid sick leave also provides a public health benefit because if a

0:52:35worker needs to choose between going to work when they're not feeling well because they need their paycheck versus staying home and caring for themselves or if they have a family obligation and need to care for a family member without having paid sick leave they would not um

0:52:52be able to uh have the the same paycheck coming through that week if they needed to take time off that was unpaid obviously having paid sick leave does impact some businesses and industries differently than others if the business is very small or workers are very Specialized or

0:53:14if a certain number of workers are needed to produce the service or the widgets in a given day so the impacts do vary within Industries and within the size of businesses um in terms of paid sick leave benefits there are currently two initiatives being proposed by two

0:53:36different branches of sciu to put a ballot measure on the November ballot one of those measures relates to minimum wage but does not have a provision regarding additional paid sick leave the other initiative that is currently in the process of of working its way on both of

0:53:59them are working their way onto the ballot actually would increase paid sick leave benefit at the state level for an additional three days for a total of six days so because this is a active discussion at the Statewide level stops recommendation regarding paid sick leave

0:54:16is actually for Council to wait until after the November election to see the outcome if if something happens on the state level or not so I could pause here and let the council discuss any questions of clarification for the present presenter at this time forward to talking about Hospitality

0:54:42service charges and then we'll Circle back to council's Direction well it won't take public comment first and public comment of course pitality service charges um so as I mentioned uh when the council in the community were talking about minimum wages um the concept of establishing

0:55:05regulations regarding um what Hospitality employers could do with the money raised through a service charge came up advocates in including ensuring opportunity who developed a model ordinance for a minimum wage that did include a proposed Hospitality service charge felt that this type of Regulation

0:55:30might be necessary to help protect workers because the hospitality service charge would require the employer to pass on the money collected through this type of fee directly to the workers who were performing that specific task so if the fee was to carry your luggage from

0:55:51your car to your hotel room this type of Regulation would require that all 100 percent of the money collected by the the hotel in this instance would give that money to the employee or employees who directly did that service carried the luggage up to the room uh

0:56:11as it stands right now without any regulation If an employer were to um charge a service charge it would go into essentially what's their equivalent of a general fund that the the employer or the business can choose however they wish to spend that money the regulation would actually

0:56:29limit what they can do with that money and and who it should go to if council did want to pursue a Hospitality service charge obviously we could Define which employers are considered hospitality employers and and what types of service charges would be regulated the example

0:56:48provided through ensuring opportunity did have some some definitions and some structure around that so if we would like to move forward with that I have some more specifics I could get into at that point in time and then additionally after we talk about those two items the third action

0:57:09item for the study session is actually an appropriation of money for the city to start implementing the minimum wage program and doing Outreach to local businesses that would be impacted so that's the additional action that staff is looking for Council to conduct

0:57:26tonight does that conclude your presentation yes unless we would like to go through the details for either of these regulations at which time I'll come back up and we can walk through those okay great um any questions at this time for staff okay seeing none we'll move on to public

0:57:48comment I think you have like five that's five or six five or six seven okay Cordell Handler followed by Sue Goldberg and Al Miller oh yeah so uh mayor Lyman um council members Cardell Handler Richmond I I like the presentation so far so um the only thing the only concerns that I

0:58:15have is um is this is a two-part question so so um so if if the council does um no wrong question um what jobs are what city jobs are in El Cerrito that uh that's going to be impacted by um if a family member uh if someone cares for their family so uh I think that

0:58:37would be a question for uh Suzanne um that's that's all I will come back up in a minute so if you did well once you finish all of your questions and then and then we'll uh see if that when the replies then okay that's the only question I thought I had a two-part

0:58:53question but that's just only one okay great thank you next speaker please Sue Goldberg followed by Al Miller hello can you hear me yes I'm Sue Goldberg I live here in El Cerrito and I spoke at the meeting city council meeting where you've adopted the past the ordinance to increase the minimum wage

0:59:30which I think all of you very much for doing at that time I spoke that I felt it also needed to include paid sick days which the ordinance didn't include at that time so I would just encourage the council to please adopt an ordinance that does include more paid sick days

0:59:56I understand that people that there is an attempt to put a ballot initiative for November to have it on the ballot around this issue but that would be implemented a year from now essentially almost a year from now and we don't have any guarantees at this point my understanding is it's not even

1:00:23on the ballot yet um that they may not have enough signatures to me it's sort of an iffy matter about if that will pass and actually get implemented so I would just encourage the council to please go ahead and adopt some paid sick leave days thank you thank you

1:00:49Al Miller followed by Jessica Lange and Nicholas arzio good evening again uh first off I don't know enough about the details and the effect of a paid sick leave or the hospitality service charges in our community uh I do know that several of the businesses that I patronize in the city

1:01:14are talking about it some stronger than others so at least I'm glad they're aware of it and I would encourage you to continue the city's Outreach to our commercial uh residents and members of the city to be sure they feel comfortable and they have an opportunity

1:01:33to let you know their concerned so you'll make the best decision on the part two of agenda item seven I strongly support the allocations of resources requested having passed the minimum wage law which I also supported that but I think you need to do everything you can

1:01:54including going out of the ordinary to make sure that the requirements of law are understood so that all of the businesses can comply with it in the least aggravating and least frustrating manner thank you great thank you Jessica lynam followed by Nicholas arzio

1:02:15and Tom panis mayor members of the council Jessica lynam with the California Restaurant Association on behalf of the El Cerrito members I've spoken to you in the past about service charges they are very complex and especially to the restaurant industry other Industries do use service

1:02:31charges so I like that to be noted and the house does keep those service charges for those Industries now for the restaurant industry it is heavily regulated by labor code 351 where it states that the patron leaves any part of a gratuity it has to go to the employees the house cannot keep that

1:02:49what several restaurant tours do do with large parties I'm sure you're aware if you go to a restaurant for a birthday you have a party of six or eight more they do provide that service charge and that that allows the restaurant tour to split that gratuity amongst all the cook

1:03:04staff the Busters and everybody who took part in serving your party so the house does take that but they have to distribute them per labor code 351.

1:03:15um Additionally the IRS has clarified that for workers and how they claim it on their taxes so service charges are heavily regulated um not only at the state level but also the federal level the cities that have instituted service charge languages regulations and the language provide to

1:03:33you provided by insured opportunity is very um murky and the the issue with that is that it states that no um non-non supervisor and no manager can receive any part of a service charge and that's really a really big issue where a lot of restaurants and other cities have just

1:03:55done away with service charges at all because the servers who are maybe the staff the staff supervisor for that shift or the manager who is running around just as much as everybody else is unable to receive any part of a service charge and how the restaurateur does

1:04:11divide that so um I ask for you to please wait and please work with us the restaurants within this community I'm not sure I know I've spoken to staff how many restaurants actually do have a service charge implementation within the city for example the city of Berkeley

1:04:26only has four restaurants so I can imagine that El Cerro doesn't have very many but I don't know that answer nor does staff so please work with us let's find some language that we can all agree on some language that will allow restaurants to continue to operate

1:04:42for paid sick leave I'd like to also state that the state does have 24 hours it is a minimum so it's not the maximum they can go more than 24 hours we've only had that language for six months so we don't know how it's working but I can tell you that the cities that have more time have had

1:05:00lots of issues a lot of my members have had to create legal documents explaining to employees what the paid sick leave time does a lot of my members have had their staff leave them high and dry because hey I'm going to take a couple hours of paid sick time and no note is

1:05:18needed so I again ask you not only to work with us as restaurants and as the business Community but to educate not only owners but also employees on these policies so that everyone understands what they're for and what the purpose of them for and also to allow us to see

1:05:34what goes on at the state level great thank you Nick arzio followed by Tom panis and Kevin O'Neill hello I'm Nick garzio and I live at [address removed] in El Cerrito so there are three topics being discussed today the first that I'd like to address is the approval of twenty

1:06:04thousand dollars for outreach purposes and I strongly support that for reasons stated by Mr Miller and others that it's vitally important that when we enact new ordinances that affect businesses in El Cerrito that we do everything we can to let them know about the new laws so I

1:06:24think that that would be twenty thousand dollars well spent regarding the paid sick leave benefits um I appreciate the staff report that was presented to you um it starts by presenting the value of of sick leave benefits particularly the community value of preventing or

1:06:45um limiting the amount of uh illnesses spread in the workplace promoting work-life balance by allowing us a family member to care for a sick love a sick loved one and then they also mentioned that there are some business concerns and under the business concerns it focused almost

1:07:04entirely on the impact on small businesses mom and pop businesses what I didn't see a whole lot of in the staff report was the effect on large businesses and what I also saw was a model ordinance from I think it's called ensuring opportunity which says that large businesses should

1:07:26give up to 72 hours a year of sick leave but I didn't see anything in ensuring opportunity that says that they propose anything for small businesses so it could just be an oversight but I think that there is a Common Thread there that bigger businesses have the

1:07:44ability to pay the extra sick leave I think that there's not a whole lot of disagreement on that so I think that that would be a given that that because this is so important to the community that at minimum uh larger businesses should should have to give the extras a sick

1:08:02pay and that uh El Cerrito should pass an ordinance that requires larger businesses to give the addition to give sick pay above what the state is what's being proposed at the state level so I think that ensuring opportunities said 70 up to 72 hours as far as large businesses are concerned

1:08:20I think that that I would agree with that um I think that's the impact on small businesses could be researched a little bit further so until we have more information about how this would affect small businesses I don't have any recommendations regarding sick leave additional sick leave

1:08:37requirements for small businesses thank you great thank you foreign members of the council and City staff my name is Tom panason I live at [address removed] in El Cerrito I feel the council should consider going beyond the state minimum unpaid sick leave if it does so I would hope the council

1:09:04would discuss any ordinance's impact on small business also I feel that the amount of sick leave should be based on hours worked when we passed our ordinance running the minimum wage last year I was very disappointed that the council did not choose to seriously discuss its impact

1:09:22on small business I feel that you do a disservice to our business Community when you don't have a sincere discussion about their concerns thank you for your time this evening great thank you final speaker slip is Kevin O'Neill hello um my Impressions about this bill and that

1:09:50it's even being considered makes me wonder what your relationship is with this organization ensuring opportunity and that um it just seems kind of suspicious or that you all have some sort of special relationship with this organization that you just vote for it whatever they seem

1:10:08to put in front of you you do um I also get the impression that you hate business owners and businesses in general and small business owners in particular foreign you're considering raising um or cutting into the income of my business two and a half percent if you adopt this

1:10:33that's and there's no margin like some months I'm negative some months I'm positive two and a half percent is is a breaker if and that assumes all my employees actually use use all of this but anyway how would impact impacts my business and I talked with other business owners who

1:10:52aren't here because they're working right now is it's an additional administrative burden to deal with this we already have the state to deal with the county to deal with the federal government to deal with I would rather just send you the payment for my business license fee and be done

1:11:09with the city okay the the minimum wage ordinance let you get into my books even more you guys now have written yourselves the right to come and audit my books congratulations you can come and look at it for yourselves um and I I don't think that you should pass

1:11:28it at all and I don't trust you guys to even um you implement the the um requirement of 10 employees like because you didn't want any exemptions Janet ableston for small businesses so I'm not even expecting you to do that um you need to understand the business environment that we're in remember last

1:11:54time I was up here I mentioned from your own City staff information 170 business licenses were gone uh there's a high vacancy rate here Pier One is leaving and being replaced by yet another discount retailer GM walked away you know your legacy is an empty OSH that's your legacy

1:12:15empty okay now where are the throngs of employees demanding this you don't have them here nobody's asking you for this except for insuring opportunity so I don't think there's some sort of demand for it um I think that your priorities should be to focus on social issues like

1:12:35rooting out the human trafficking going on and massage parlors right here that nobody seems to want to talk about and the vacancy rate here of businesses you are known to be an anti-business city council and it's not helping the city now and I think that's that's all I really

1:12:56need to say right now thank you any other speakers okay we'll bring it back to council for discussion and any follow-through questions all right thanks um service employees International Union United Healthcare workers has submitted more than enough signatures to

1:13:28qualify for the ballot I'm pretty confident that that will qualify if they go forward that does not have sick days service employees International Union State Council has another measure that they are collecting signatures on that does include the additional sick days

1:13:49I also hear that there's negotiations taking place with the governor's office about increasing the minimum wage legislatively in which case if SEIU signed off on that they would withdraw both of those measures so I'm comfortable waiting on implementing the additional sick days until we see what

1:14:14the ballot is not necessarily till November because if both measures are withdrawn and whatever is negotiated with the governor does not include additional sick days then I'd want to go forward with a full discussion and decision at that time rather than waiting until after the election if the

1:14:35election doesn't have um any provisions for increase in sick days and the hospitality service charge I think um it's clear that there are very few if any establishments that we know about currently using this so if it's not broke don't fix it I guess and wait and see as staff suggested if

1:15:04that does become a problem with the you know part of the repercussions of the increased minimum wage so to me it makes sense to see how that develops and take it from there um so I appreciate all the staff work that's been done I think uh particularly Ms erla has done a terrific job of

1:15:28becoming an extremely well steeped in all of these issues and helping to educate the public and uh all of us about it so we can make informed decisions as best we can and it's clear that we're never going to make everybody happy from this uh course of action but

1:15:47I think it's really important for the reasons that were stated that public health as well as the health of those working and their co-workers if they're exposed to illnesses because they're co-workers can't afford to stay home because they don't have the appropriate

1:16:07sick day so I think it's a very important issue but one that it's probably prudent we've already made a pretty significant change with the minimum wage increase and that may have repercussions that affect this so I think I'm comfortable with the staff recommendation with the amendment that

1:16:27we wait and see what the ballot actually holds regarding this issue point of clarification so what you're suggesting is that we would have a workshop like tonight in July or August if nothing is on the ballot yeah or if there's no legislation sign that addresses it yes

1:16:44that's exactly what I'm saying I I feel likewise I feel that um you know since we already know that we're just waiting for Secretary of State to certify at least uh the petitions that have been submitted already by the first proposal um the shorter proposal by SEIU that

1:17:02it's prudent to probably wait and see um how that works out the other thing is is regarding the service charges I believe that there's probably two that we know of um one being Mira Vista Country Club and I also think Macaroni Grill does service charges on their catering

1:17:21um but other than that I don't think it's a big issue in in our city at this point in time um I do think the money is well spent for the Outreach I think that's a necessity and um I actually think that it's probably that being said it's probably a little too early for us to weigh in on how this uh

1:17:42the minimum wage ordinance is actually going to affect small businesses and to encumber them with an additional um legislation or a an item like this I don't I think it's a little premature so I think for me that's another reason to wait and see what happens and I agree with Mark if

1:18:02you know nothing comes through from the governor then we can revisit it later in the summer or whenever I agree with what was said I think it was very helpful to have the staff presentation that was uh done tonight by Suzanne erla and I'd like to thank her for that uh it lays out the issues and I

1:18:26think it does a really good job of that so I I would be comfortable with waiting to see what happens at the state level I agree with my colleagues here in the city council and thank you Suzanne for uh a very thorough presentation on this I very much appreciate it and and to the

1:18:48speakers uh thank you for speaking out and and giving your opinion I very much appreciate that so I definitely would like to wait and see great and I also want to Echo uh councilmember quinto's comments to the speakers on both sides of the matter um it this is uh obviously an issue that

1:19:11is complicated and it's going to take lots of input if we have to move forward as an independent entity it's going to take lots of input as we go forward um however I would concur on both uh the matter of um sick paid sick days and the service charges tonight is not the night to to

1:19:34go any further with those topics until we know more one on the service charges we have people coming and complaining about it that it's not that it's not working the way we want it and with regards to the paid sick leave uh let's take let the state hopefully the state

1:19:51Take the Lead so we don't have any additional costs of enforcement um which is part of the the motion tonight if there there is no other discussion I would love to entertain a motion of the resolution that's in our packet I I move approval of the twenty thousand

1:20:15dollars for the items as designated in the staff report to implement minimum wage do we need I'm looking at you you already anticipate we need it read correctly right we need the title and also the for the motion to include the adoption of a resolution all right

1:20:34I move a resolution number 2016.

1:20:38resolution of the city council the city of El Cerrito authorizing an appropriation of twenty thousand dollars from general fund balance to implement the city's minimum wage standards for fiscal year 2015-16 second moved by uh Quinto seconded by Friedman all those in favor

1:20:56please say aye aye aye let the record show at pass unanimously thank you all right that concludes uh policy matters item seven and brings us on to item eight which is Council assignments liaison reports uh councilmember Quinto last week I was in Sacramento for an

1:21:24abag meeting and we met with uh our Bay Area leaders in the Senate and also the assembly uh and we spoke about uh possible legislation regarding affordable housing transportation and I I think that on Saturday we will also meet in Oakland to further discuss the a-bag situation

1:21:54and I can give you another update on that next time okay so since you last saw me I have had two Solid Waste meetings the regional Waste Authority recycle more I am no longer the chair um the chair is now Pete Murray and the vice chair is uh JL Myrick from Richmond

1:22:25um and we are beginning discussions about the future of the organization where where it's going uh so I will try and keep you posted on on that um what we did at the most recent meeting was discuss the goals and objectives of the of the organization um I can say that in addition to

1:22:49Richmond and El Cerrito that there are other cities that are taking their disbursement from uh from the authority and that seems to be moving along fairly smoothly at this point um I have also attended on your behalf a meeting with the MCE the Marine clean energy and uh I can

1:23:14tell you that they are moving into their budget session their annual year is April 1 to March 31st so they're bringing up some budget items uh and they're they're moving those forward they uh the pcia which is the consumer exit fee they are preparing for a public hearing on

1:23:35that matter with the California Public Utilities Commission and that will be something that they are well prepared for and I believe that's the March 1st so our our next meeting is also the same day that they will be meeting with the cpuc um on January 28th we did have the West

1:23:59County mayor's meeting here we are currently the host of the West County mayor's meeting and we had a presentation from uh doesiel I can not remembering is Tom Tom dasigal from the county uh on the new uh pollution discharge elimination requirements that will be increasing our costs

1:24:22um and then uh let's see that concludes all of my requirements I don't know I did attend uh the the um League conference up in Sacramento just like uh council members uh Abelson and Quinto on the Environmental Quality committee and that brings us up to date yes

1:25:00um one other celebratory note to to point out is that I did um attend in uh the core Matsu day Fred coromatsu day that was held at the new uh location and I'd uh I can tell you that not only is our city staff taking seriously all the traffic and and congestion around the campus but the

1:25:22principle is as well as he told me he was going to personally knock on every door to introduce himself and give his business card um and it was a wonderful date with many performances including several by the middle school jazz band which is a very talented band

1:25:43concludes my report for tonight which is item eight brings us to item nine which is to adjourn this meeting our next city council meeting will be in these Chambers Tuesday March 1st at 7 pm