City Council Meeting March 15, 2016

0:00:00it's nibs it's in richmond good evening mayor alimon staff council members an answer or following up on your statement this california water environment clean water environment association cwea sponsors the competition annually and it's for large agencies and small agencies

0:00:30for treatment plants and for collection systems there are i don't know how many regions around the state of five or six maybe anyway what stage one was we were the best small district of the bay area in the collection system what that gives us it sends us to the

0:00:53state competition so we're very proud for the recognition and we're still in the running we hope and thank you uh mayor lyman for mentioning that the other thing i wanted to talk to you about you received a copy of this hopefully it is about the el cerrito branch of the naacp

0:01:16is featuring a meeting on saturday april 2nd at saint peter's cme church on 5324 cypress avenue here in el cerrito since the naacp cannot endorse candidates but they're very interested in creating opportunities for everyone in our community to meet candidates and talk to

0:01:43them and ask be able to ask questions and that's what this is it's kind of a meet greeting question the candidates for a california senate district nine there are four candidates uh catherine welch sandra swanson nancy skinner and rich kinney they've all committed to attend and we'd like to

0:02:06invite the community and encourage people to come there will be late refreshments and hopefully lots of good conversation thank you good evening mayor and council tonight i'm here on behalf of the fairmont school pta to invite the city council city manager and other staff to join the

0:02:31fairmont school community at our annual auction event as councilmember quinto just previewed for you it is coming up in two weeks march 26 6 30 p.m at the community center some of the fabulous auction prizes that you can bid on are passes to the california jazz

0:02:46conservatory cal shakes the freight and salvage san francisco ballet a year of bread from semi freddies and a tour of pixar i hope you can join us i have passed around a flyer with information about tickets if you cannot join us at the event you can still support fairmont

0:03:04by purchasing raffle tickets the grand prize is a four pack of disneyland passes tickets are only five dollars each or five for twenty dollars and this fairmont second grader would be happy to sell you some the event will feature live entertainment a kid zone and delicious

0:03:21desserts along with the live and silent auctions our auction is a pta fundraiser that raises money for fairmont music science and library programs that benefit every child at fairmont as you may already know the fairmont community is two-thirds free and reduced lunch so the

0:03:37pta depends on support from the larger community such as yourselves to make these programs happen each year attending the auction or supporting the raffle is one way to show your support for fairmont el cerrito's oldest public school thank you for your time thank you

0:03:57don't go very far because the council member is reaching into his wallet um any other speakers at this time i have no request to speak great thank you did you i think i think you want to speak at this time right macaulay okay if you would come speak into the mic and you can give your blue

0:04:15slip to the clerk after you speak or before welcome good evening uh mayor and council member and city manager my name is makalia aga and i have been a resident of el cerrito for over 30 years but the same prop resident for 21 years and lately there has been an issue

0:04:41in regards to the rent increase and for the last this is the second year is like 20 increase i mean i think it's a little bit too much for those of us you know who have a certain income and have asked the new uh owners why they have to increase it by 20 percent i mean

0:05:02you know normal four or five percent or at least look at the economy how it's doing and look at the people you know how they're doing but it doesn't seem to be you know uh um you know it doesn't it's always on deaf ears and so what i would like for the city council to take uh notice is that you

0:05:23know we do need some kind of regulation or some kind of ordinary ordinance that we can pass because here we're talking about okay you know minimum wage has been increased but then you know you have 20 percent increase on your uh rent so it doesn't just it doesn't uh

0:05:43it just falls apart it doesn't make sense to me and uh what i see also is you know we are saying that the city of el cerrito is a diverse community and you know would like to be inclusive if this continues in this manner it's not going to be diverse it's not going

0:06:01to be inclusive because the vast majority of us are minorities and i would like to also mention that so hopefully you know there will be some kind of you know solution to our problem in our city and i would like the city council to look into it thank you great thank you for coming and

0:06:24speaking tonight any other speakers great thank you hello my name is joel cakely i have concerns similar to those of makaya regarding rent control and i would think that uh the board council would be well advised to at least give a lot of thought to the potential for adopting a

0:06:49regulation of that nature it exists in a fair number of other cities where they use cla or other factors or a reasonable rate of three four five percent allowed per year max to go over i had i was fortunate enough to have owners for a long time that would raise it

0:07:09about 25 bucks every year and that was reasonable and i would understand why the amount would go up when new ownership would uh take over the apartment as is the case with mine but it went up 20 as macaulaya mentioned we live in the same complex so it went up 20 150 bucks for

0:07:28me personally i should point out that it was a little bit under the survey amount that they provided data on so i guess i shouldn't feel you know as bad as i could feel about it so that showed a little a little concern on their part but the economic reality is that it's uh you

0:07:48know quite difficult if you're uh just you know social security type of income source so the fact that they took a survey amongst other realtors um that you know in effect allows them to have an agreement amongst themselves realtors owners of that nature to jointly up things and legitimize that

0:08:11however it doesn't necessarily make it uh fair or reasonable in all instances so that's why i'm bringing it up and uh we just got another raise 20 again a year later that's 180 bucks so that's 330 over 12 to 13 months for me personally so i don't want to categorize them as

0:08:31necessarily you know way out of line since i'm a little under the survey amount but the reality is there of the amount of the percentages that are occurring and i would hope a cap of some kind could be placed on the rent levels that can be charged to the various residents so we can keep the

0:08:50place you know diverse and not just cater to those with tech fueled higher incomes etc not that that's the case in el cerritos so i currently shop at uh trader joe's and would like to continue shopping there for groceries and not pet food express so thank you very much

0:09:08thank you and if you do have a speaker card if you could turn that in that thank you mister it was kickley great thank you very much any other speakers are wait did you were you going to buy grapple tickets your seller is leaving wait miss cunningham before you go

0:09:24if your young man is if he really has raffle tickets we've got a purchaser go ahead councilmember we'll we'll wait for you [Music] is there a representative from uh who are you thinking of lonnie miss hancock's office in the house okay great thank you so this is

0:09:52we'll go ahead and pull the item so that she can speak to the item directly um if you would come forward and fill out a speaker slip on item five diaz and david that'd be great thank you all right um we will go ahead and move on to item five which is adoption of the consent

0:10:14calendar we have five items or four items on the consent calendar approval of minutes from march one uh proclamation regarding prescription drug abuse awareness month where we are to spread the word one pill can kill and do we have alternate uh an alternate proclamation for that yes you do okay so

0:10:39i just just want to make sure that there was that we do have a revised proclamation on the diocese with regards to item 5b 5c is stop signs at various locations there's actually two locations proposed and item 5d which will pull for public comment is opposition to shipment of

0:10:59coal through the marine terminal under development at the former oakland army base and council member thank you for your good deed and 5e it was i thought there was oh there it is i see what my problem is and there were five and 5e which is the contra costa county to act as bond issuer for

0:11:18bonds to be used to fund the hana gardens apartment i'll move to adopt items a a b c and e second uh b is amended right b as amended yes so what's the amendment um it was a it was a typographical error um that was caught so it's it's a minor it's a minor change

0:11:48we will let the record show that council member uh quinto is going to abstain from approving the minutes and uh council member vice mayor pro tem do you want to also abstain from minutes on march 1 okay i can however second it then i can second it i believe right i wasn't here

0:12:11i can still help with the motion i just can't correct um i think if you're going to abstain then you should abstain from the entire action okay then i'll do that it's abstained from the entire consent should we just take 5as a separate item then yes i mean you should if if you know

0:12:34that people are going to abstain then it would be best to to take separate votes on those items can i request the item be withdrawn by the motion maker yes okay um thank you let's start with a motion for 5a if we could i'd like to move adoption of item b c and e okay so we're going to

0:12:54start with b is abundant so we have a motion for five b c and e it's been uh moved by bridges seconded by abelson all those in favor please say i i let the record show it passes unanimously 5-0 uh can i have a motion for five a which is the minutes i'll move to adopt 5a

0:13:15back in we have a motion by bridges second by abelson to adopt sorry second by friedman to adopt the minutes from march 1st all those in favor please say i i those opposed those abstaining thought the records show that it passed 3-0-2 um do you do you you hopefully know which person's

0:13:41abstained thank you very much great um at this point we'll take up item 5d opposition to shipment of coal through the marine terminal under development at the former oakland army base for the purposes of public comment podium is always taller than me my name is isabel and cortes and i'm

0:14:08here on behalf of state senator lonnie hancock who represents el cerrito among the many other cities in senate district 9.

0:14:17senator hancock has been a long time environmental activist and has for a long time represented this area in both the assembly and the senate at this moment i would like to bring forward a proposal or um and i would also like to thank council member abelson for

0:14:36her leadership in bringing these to the agenda and to the city council meeting i'll give you a brief background as to why senator hancock would like el cerrito to pass a resolution opposing the shipment of coal through oakland and the transport of call from utah and the

0:14:53export from call of call from oakland to china and other asian countries in 2006 the oakland army based project initiated an environmental impact report and in that report the developer did not specify the call was a commodity to be shipped through oakland and we learned last week that the utah

0:15:20legislature passed sb 246 which allocated 53 million dollars to the city of oakland for the call expert facility in the former oakland army base project senator hancock finds this project absolutely not okay and she believes that the use of public funds for an environmentally damaging

0:15:43commodity for west oakland and for cities like el cerrito el cerrito would damage the bay area's image and california's image as an environmental leader the california transportation commission also allotted this project 242 million dollars from proposition 1b funds proposition 1b

0:16:05was meant in 2006 to really emphasize the projects receiving these funds must address the state's most urgent needs and reduce pollutant emissions not increase pollutant emissions and senator hancock more than anything wants to also protect the citizens of the bay area in which coal would be

0:16:28transported it would come on open rail road trains that are four to six miles long from utah and would pass utah nevada and california including cities like el cerrito richmond obviously oakland vallejo sacramento and if this project was to move forward west oakland would become the largest export

0:16:54facility of coal in the u.s pacific western pacific currently very little coal is shipped from the port of richmond the port of long beach and the port of stockton but not not nearly as much as as the coal that would be imported transported from utah and imported to

0:17:15china right we have also learned that the developer that is working with the city of oakland um believes that he has all of the vested rights to continue with the project despite the city of oakland's current proposal the the contract that was signed contains a health and safety

0:17:36hazard for the residents of west oakland and um i know i'm in el cerrito but because this project would be located in west oakland i would like to read a couple of environmental facts that greatly damage the population of west oakland and that would also damage people who would breathe cold

0:17:55dust if it was to be transported west oakland last year was designated by the california environmental protection agency as a disadvantaged community for the high rates of asthma and pollution and the community of west oakland is already heavily impacted by goods

0:18:14movement west oakland residents breathe air containing three times the amount of diesel particulate matter than air in other parts of the bay area which translates into a 2.5 times greater risk of cancer children in west oakland who suffer from ailments like asthma at higher rates and

0:18:33children in other neighborhoods in the bay area and west oakland residents are two times as likely to go to the emergency room with asthma as people in other parts of alameda county it's also very drastic that we are planning to export this call to a country like china that has already

0:18:53great environmental injustice and that is trying to deviate from fossil fuel and is trying to renovate and come on board with the rest of the world in terms of a clean energy and a clean environment i have a lot more information and that i could really keep um going but senator hancock asked kindly

0:19:16that you reconsider a resolution to oppose us as richmond and us has the city of emerald and the city of berkeley the transport of call through oakland and specifically in her community thank you so much right thank you any other speakers on this modder i have no spec sleeps okay um we'll take

0:19:40up a motion at this time i'll move support the second the record show moved by friedman and seconded by quinto ann davison um all those in favor please say aye aye opposed abstentions let records show that it passed five zero unanimously thank you thank you we will move on to item

0:20:06seven we have no public hearing tonight so we'll move on to policy matters item 7a is the mid-year budget update good evening mayor council i'm lisa and alexa day the city's finance director also here with me this evening is stacy johnson she is our administrative

0:20:57analyst who joined the finance department in december so this evening i'm here to provide the mid-year budget update for our current fiscal year 1516 also to discuss the proposed budget amendments that are proposed for council consideration this evening as well as talk briefly to you

0:21:20about the process for our upcoming budget adoption for the next two year budget so starting with our general fund this first slide gives you a high level summary of our revenue i'm happy to report as i have in the last few budget presentations revenue is continuing to trend up

0:21:42so the first couple of columns just give you some reference to where we were in prior years the fourth column over is the budget that council adopted back in june and then the fifth column is any amendments that we're proposing which we are not for revenue and then of course the

0:21:59second to the last is what we are projecting will end the fiscal year this is based on what we've seen in the first six months of the fiscal year and i'll just go through the major variances of things that we're projecting different from the budget that council

0:22:14adopted in june the first one is in our property taxes it's about 982 000 that we are projecting to be over budget and the one of the items i had talked about in the first year in the first quarter update in september is from secured taxes it's about 330 000 the other item

0:22:35is related to our residual property tax increment and that is based on the first payment that we received in january and then the rest is related to what we project for the rest of the fiscal year so those are the two major drivers for our property taxes that are increasing

0:22:51that number the next variance is in our business license taxes and i did talk about it in the staff report but one of the reasons that we're seeing we think a decline in our property taxes has to do with what we've received some feedback from our community some business haven't some

0:23:08businesses have not received their renewal notices businesses are still required to renew their licenses but we know that they do rely on those renewal notices so we are getting in contact with all of those businesses that we haven't heard from but we do think just based on overall

0:23:24activity that will be about sixty seven thousand sixty eight thousand under budget so we've made that revision the other change is one we've talked about um several times which is our utility users tax right now the trend it is trending at budget so i am taking sort of a

0:23:42conservative approach because we've been we've seen this trend in the past few years and i'd rather be on the conservative side and if i'm wrong that's great but we have revised our projection down to about 107 by about 171 thousand dollars so overall our taxes with those changes

0:24:00will be about 743 000 to the good our next major variances and is under the intergovernmental revenues and there are a couple of items that are driving that number and that includes 175 000 dollars in lieu fees that was also talked about in the first quarter update there is 244

0:24:24000 of reimbursement from the office of emergency services this is one that you see we've been seeing in the last few years just due to the increased response by our fire department responding to mutual aid calls and then the other item is a 527 thousand dollar one-time item i think

0:24:44it's been discussed at council a few times this was the distribution of reserve funds from recycle more there were several cities involved in the jpa and el cerrito's share was about it was about 575 000 but 527 went to the general fund so that's that number under charges for services we're

0:25:04actually reducing our projection urine projection and that is related to a decline that we're seeing in enrollment or usage in our child care centers so that is that item and then the final item is a one-time payment permit fee we talked about this at first quarter as well this is for a

0:25:22development project again a one-time item that we received early on in the fiscal year so the total of the changes to revenue that we're projecting is about 1.7 million dollars to the general fund so the next item are the expenditure side of the house and personnel is is the first category

0:25:47if you'll remember when you adopted the budget we assumed about 1.2 million dollars of salary savings this was actually a reduction from prior years when we actually included more salary savings but this year we had enough revenue we plan to increase some of those positions

0:26:02that is happening but it hasn't happened at the level that we had budgeted so we're actually projecting a little more savings than what we included in the budget to about 687 000 recruitments are still ongoing and those positions will be filled but they're just not going to be as filled as

0:26:19quickly as we had budgeted jumping down into our non-personnel line items and there is a column here you'll see um as with revenue that has the amendments proposed amendments for consideration this evening and those do have items that we'll talk to we'll talk about shortly

0:26:37the first is in professional services that's the second largest change and that is a couple of different items one is a correction simply a correction there was an error when the budget was adopted and we had to add had to add back funds for legal services so that's

0:26:56the largest change there and then let me see what else we had some legal settlements that council had approved in separate actions so that includes that under our property and capital this is related to the item i just talked about with the permit fees those permit fees

0:27:16were being used for public safety equipment and so that's the appropriation for those items and then finally the last item under financing costs has to do with a 675 thousand dollar payment that council approved this is related to the repayment to the department of finance

0:27:34and this is that first payment in this year there's also about twenty six thousand dollars included in there and that is we had a slight deficit in our vehicle replacement fund which is funded by the contributions of other funds and so we want to clear that deficit so we're

0:27:49going to be making a transfer um on that last item the 675 we've paid it on protest and if the settlement if our lawsuit prevails we would get that back is that correct i'm going to let our city manager answer it yes yes good thank you okay so the total of the changes um to

0:28:08the non-personnel to to the expenditures i'm sorry is about six hundred thousand dollars so this next slide just looks at the impact of these changes to our projected year-end general fund balance again 1.7 million dollars more in revenue about 600 000 more in expenses

0:28:29which leaves about a million dollars more that we can put toward our general fund reserves we adopted a budget assuming six percent reserves and with this additional million dollars we're actually increasing our reserves to about nine percent and can you refresh us on the policy

0:28:44that the reserve policy we have it's to be at 10 with a target towards 15 over five years is that that's exactly it yes so so we're closing in on 10.

0:28:54we are closing in and at a faster rate than anticipated so that's all great news you know there are some things in here one-time payments which have really helped that so but that's actually gone a long way to helping the reserve so great thank you so this next slide focuses on our

0:29:13special revenues the other side of the budget the ending balance in that first column is reflective of the balances in our kaffir for the year ending june 30th and then we also have updated projected revenue and expenditures for each of the funds as well as the proposed amendments

0:29:32that have been reflected in the numbers that are presented in the ending balance um you'll much like our general fund we're also seeing those same savings in personnel so that's adding to the savings and our revenue is pretty much tracking on target with what we included in the

0:29:51budgets so with the exception of our capital improvement fund our funds are going to end either at budget um with an ending fund balance that they started with or a little bit of a surplus the issue with the capital improvement fund which we've talked about at in previous meetings

0:30:09is that one of the items that's driving the deficit has to do with a disputed item related to a streetscape project from years ago that's disputed with the department of finance that they were discussing with them to pay the other part of the deficit has to do with the timing we have to expend the

0:30:27funds before we get the revenue and so there's always a timing issue at the end of the year so that's the deficit in that fund and with that i am going to turn it over to stacy who's going to talk to you about the budget amendments this particular chart is a summary of

0:30:53the actions that we're asking city council to consider tonight these represent changes to the general fund as well as some of our special revenue funds of the 2.6 million in proposed amendments about 695 000 represents encumbered carryover across all funds encumbered carryover consists of funds

0:31:17with which city council approved in a prior year and those funds were not expended but have been delegated or set aside in anticipation of a planned expenditure these funds need to be carried over to the current fiscal year the proposed amendments are also inclusive of adjustments

0:31:38total requested adjustments are about 1.9 million the adjustments are a summary of requests some of which city council has already approved through separate actions these funds are being requested to cover new initiatives that have come up since the fiscal year

0:31:562015-16 budget was we adopted proposing that these new initiatives be covered with new allocations new revenue or available fund balance and the items that stacy went over are part of the resolution we're asking council to adopt with a new spending thor a new spending authority by fund

0:32:23that would reflect these changes and in closing we just wanted to give you a summary of sort of the dates that we're thinking council will be considering another two-year budget and this we're still working out the details and specific dates but this just gives you an idea of what we're

0:32:42looking at of course we're here this evening with the mid-year budget update in april and may we will be coming forward with the proposed changes to the master fee as well as the special assessments and then between may and june we will be presenting council with the city

0:32:57manager's proposed budget for 1718 in 1819 and then of course we'll have some follow-up discussions and ask that council consider adoption in early june and with that we'll take any questions i'm going to start on my left any questions for staff um i just had um

0:33:18probably just one question we and already paid thousand dollars to the dof but we have another installment probably of a hundred thousand it's about a hundred thousand and that is covered in this six due in june i believe yes correct and it's covered in this amendment okay so

0:33:40question yeah of the variances between the projected expenses or revenue what was most surprising to you i don't actually know if there i mean obviously some of the one-time revenue wasn't something that we anticipated although we had talked about the recycle more money

0:34:02i think we're all a little bit concerned every time we see these numbers we're like oh are those numbers real because we just want to make sure that we're being realistic in our projections so i think what we'll see in you know another bump next year in terms of property

0:34:17taxes but i think then will start to flatten out so nothing other than the one time that was really surprising thank you any questions any questions i just want to it's a question for clarity as we are looking at the changes to the appropriations there's this one large

0:34:35number 1.3 million and it there's a long litany of things and you covered all of those during your presentation about legal settlements professional services corrections to the attorneys city attorney's budget transfers to vehicle replacement funds all of those things were covered so so

0:34:54even though it's presented as one large number it was discussed all the components were discussed in your presentation because i don't want people to think that we don't understand what is in that one point three million number so i just wanted right and when we show it there it's because council

0:35:08adopts at the fund level so that's why it's a summary number but yes you're right they're all just each individual item is discussed right thank you do we have any public speakers on this item we have one slip cordell hindler mr hendler please come to the mic oh jeff says mike though

0:35:28so mayor lyman uh council members my name is cordell hanlon i'm a resident of richmond i want to thank these two for for a wonderful presentation of i really got a good glimpse of um what the budget is going to look like for the next two years and i said okay i see where this is going so

0:35:46i just wanted to say um that was a good a wonderful presentation everything was just well put together so thanks thank you any other speakers on this item seeing none will come back for comment and motion any comments i just thought it was a thank you it was a very thorough

0:36:09thorough update and i appreciate your work on this lisa and stacy and the fab group um and uh thank you for this great in your introduction you told us that you asked you suggested you would give us a process for the two-year budget so i was i wasn't sure if you covered that

0:36:29we just covered the dates at this point sort of um high level but we will be coming back with it will be the normal process that council has considered in the past and that's typically the same time frame excellent um and i want to echo council member quintos uh

0:36:46you know thanks to you both for putting this together um and and i do want to uh acknowledge that you know we do have this additional revenue um both from property taxes and the one time from recycle more and that certainly has relieved us of some uh stress uh because we are uh have

0:37:09restored a good chunk of our uh reserve so going from six percent to nine percent is to be really uh acknowledged and appreciated uh that that we've been able to accomplish that this year i want to echo those sentiments and nice to meet you stacy welcome accord

0:37:31uh i'd like to move resolution to the city council of the city of el cerrito amending the spending authority by fund for the city of el cerrito for fiscal year 2015-16 i'll second that we have a motion by uh friedman seconded by quinto all those any discussion seeing none i'll call the question all

0:37:48those in favor please say aye aye opposed abstentions let the record show it passed unanimously 5-0 thank you very much ladies all right that brings us on to item 7b a update to our economic development action plan welcome thank you good evening council members in a

0:38:41somewhat related topic to the budget i am here to present the economic development action plan the 2016 update i'm my name is melanie mintz and i'm the city's community development director and i'm joined tonight by catherine alquist our new community development

0:38:56analyst who will be charged with carrying forward a lot of the and monitoring the implementation of this plan and i'm also joined by patrick o'keefe an advisor who's been working with us for management partners also to help develop this plan plan and help move forward some of its

0:39:13timely elements so tonight my presentation will be pretty brief and you have the draft plan in front of you thank you i'm going to briefly review the purpose i need glasses to look over there the purpose and contents in the schedule in which we've developed the plan

0:39:36i'm going to review some of the changes just briefly that have occurred since the adoption of the or discussion of the 2006 economic development action plan um and then i'm going to jump into the goals and strategies and implementation measures proposed in this and briefly

0:39:51touch upon some of the current activities as it's a pretty dynamic environment i should note as i'm going through this that as we develop plans and strategies often one of the things i love is that with all the thought that goes into it a lot of times we're able to advance some of

0:40:04those efforts in this case obviously with economic development there's much that we can do to try to attract investment which i can get into a little bit and a lot of it is also um a result of external factors like the the larger regional economy and past efforts that we've taken so

0:40:24one of the things with economic development that i think is interesting is when we look out there we see one thing and we can't always see what's coming and so i'm happy to report and we'll try to touch on some of it but that we're seeing a lot of interest in activity on our san pablo avenue

0:40:38corridor which i know all of you have worked hard to make happen so the purpose of the economic development action plan is really to build upon and consolidate the information from previous planning efforts not just the economic development action plan but other items

0:40:55we really try to take a holistic approach to what's going to make a vibrant commercial environment the economic development plan in particular really tries to provide focus for our current and upcoming activities so that we can plan for it and request budget items as needed

0:41:11the contents again include a summary of the last plan i think many times we don't like it when plans sit on shelves but i want to daylight it and also congratulate us for some of the things that the city has done since adoption of that plan i also want to highlight the items that

0:41:25are either underway or not yet started kind of touch upon a little bit some of the ongoing constraints and challenges for economic development touch briefly upon also some data that we've collected in terms of the current economic climate and then finally jump into some of the goals and

0:41:44strategies that we have set in this update so this has been a pretty quick um process maybe depending on when you start but when we actually started this so we really over the last few months developed with pat cat and myself an outline and we brought that outline

0:42:01to the economic development committee for their comment uh we then developed the plan and brought that to them for their review and are now i'm coming before you as you'll see in the plan going forward we'd really like to present an annual um progress report on how these items are

0:42:16going partly because we do think there's constant um um adaptation going on being able to make sure that we're being as proactive and responsive as we can be and then we anticipate trying to at least do an update every five years so of course right after the 2006

0:42:35um economic development plan action plan was updated and right when we were doing the theater in the streetscape the regional economy really took a turn um and then in 2012 our main you know city's main tools for uh redevelop for economic development um were eliminated

0:42:53through the legislation that dissolved the redevelopment agency i think the redevelopment agency of course provided a way for the for us in the redevelopment area to collect tax revenues to reinvest in that area so we've really had to get adaptive us in other cities across the state and

0:43:13figure out what to do next there's some gaps um largely in affordable housing um that are that are challenged to address in the meantime um as you all know the city was pretty proactive in in those years and really took the time to do a lot of planning and really i think is

0:43:29paying off as it readies us for the current climate where i'm hearing really from developers and potential business partners how impressed they are with the groundwork that the city has laid i think our vision is really clear and also the different planning efforts

0:43:44have really helped us leverage both outside capital funding and continue to help us leverage other funding to put things in place importantly the strategic plan which you adopted in 2013 and updated in 2015 both in the mission and vision statement for the city really articulate how

0:44:01thriving businesses and commercial environments and our economic sustainability are a part of our overall vision and mission developing or updating an economic development action plan was identified in 2013 as important and in 2015 you updated that um to clarify that you wanted that plan

0:44:18to build upon our existing strengths including diversity arts culture and environmental sustainability and i hope that both in this economic development action plan you see that interwoven in here and you see future steps that will help us do that um so again just to kind of step back

0:44:36and look at what did the what happened since 2006 in the city of el cerrito um some of the key areas that were identified as needed were sustaining leadership and vision that it's not it's not something you can do um in the short term it's something that takes the long

0:44:50term improving the physical environment both the phys and and especially in our commercial areas um making sure that we're really have the products um ready that will help support the development and ongoing communication and promotions i think some of our our biggest

0:45:05accomplishments were both thinking um integrating economic vitality into other efforts um you'll see in the urban greening an active transportation plan very specific goals and projects that aim to support economic development the san pablo avenue specific plan um

0:45:23you know was a long time in coming and we really are hearing from folks that it really does create clarity um and as we see projects go through we'll start to see the results of that and then of course the physical environment i think one of the things that's funny about the physical

0:45:37environment is once it's changed that's kind of your new starting point and i think it's fun to look at old pictures i don't have a before and after but since 2006 we've done all of our san pablo avenue streetscape improvements the olonian greenway improvements we built

0:45:50city hall we built the cerrito theater we did our streets our public art program started so i think really our physical environment and i think that's partly just the beginning i think the next step is going to be a lot of the changes in the built environment that the private sector helps to bring

0:46:05in terms of product readiness i've talked about that but that includes the multimodal capital improvement program complete streets eir and the specific plan and communication promotions our former redevelopment agency had started some of these so some of these have

0:46:18discontinued and some of them we are hoping and proposing to continue and recreate and again the specific plan is kind of a marketing tool in itself the opportunities are ones that we're aware of of course bart stations i think catalyst projects have continually been

0:46:35identified as important for a whole host of reasons including just sending a market signal to those that don't realize that a plan would allow such a thing um also really reestablishing the real estate comps so that people can get the financing that they need to be able to build projects

0:46:51um of course our bart stations are an asset i think we've all really enjoyed the improved perception of the city and all of our place making efforts that we've all i think citywide really prioritized over the last decade um constraints continue to be some that are outside of our control and some that

0:47:09we can affect so we really try to look at where we can affect some of these you know our older buildings are a challenge they're can be costly to bring them up to current code i'm happy to report that we do have one unreinforced masonry building that just got brought back up to code and is now

0:47:25going to be opening as a business as the himalayan grocery and part of it we often get people who some some investors really want large parcels we don't have a lot of them i'm also happy to report however that we are seeing a lot of interest in some of our small

0:47:40parcels which is actually what we have a lot more of um unmotivated reluctant property owners and this is also one that's kind of an ongoing challenge but i'm also happy to report when i talk about how dynamic the environment is there's something out there and i think it's

0:47:55land values have changed for a number of reasons but we're finding that there are properties that are beginning to switch hands and switch hands with ambitious goals for those properties and again this list partly comes from strategic economics who's working for us

0:48:09under a grant um they also you know learned this is true in other communities as well as us but that there's still some perception of community resistance to new development and that's a real risk for developers and that again points back to the opportunity which is once we have

0:48:24catalyst projects that show people what our expectations are and what we are looking for that can be send a real signal as well um so i'm just going to summarize some of the strategies and implementation steps um you have them all in front of you in the draft plan

0:48:40but the the goals and strategies and implementation steps really are all kind of aimed to support three kind of broad areas and one of those is to help new existing um existing and expanding or new businesses to thrive that means to both help them once they're here but to find

0:48:58them and get them here continuing place-making efforts which i've talked a bit about and attracting new development so those three things are really what all of this the three kind of three-legged stool that we're trying to support through the economic development program

0:49:14four of the goals in the proposed update are carryovers from the last plan and one is added which is financial sustainability so goal one which is again um every time that we've had economic analysis done people have really talked about real really the importance of

0:49:29bringing residents and high quality development to san pablo avenue that when we get that foot traffic and and and more intensity and density that businesses will naturally follow so maximizing opportunities for new and expanding businesses and development and i have a list of items that you've

0:49:48discussed some of them and have come up so do we need to do a permit fee study are is our cost structure competitive we want to revive our small business business assistance program so making sure that we're really there to be able to link potential businesses to

0:50:03resources or potentially uh existing businesses to resources and to consider potentially a facade or tenant improvement program we've talked about we know that sometimes accessibility upgrades are expensive when someone's thinking about doing some other type of improvement is

0:50:18that where we want to invest and this of course can also help our place making efforts um you can see in here one of the the last item i have up there is developing an affordable housing strategy and as you heard from the earlier speakers and in this um inside the edap we know that maintaining

0:50:34both diversity and the character of the community that that our goals support is going to require some pretty um proactive um and a variety a whole suite of tools probably to be able to do that a strong sense of place and i think this is where we mostly really can kind of

0:50:54try to support some of the arts and culture and environment and so we talk in the plan about working with the arts and culture commission and the human relations commission to identify different activities the difference by really putting it into the economic development action plan is that

0:51:08we really want those activities to support our commercial districts and create a sense of identity in our commercial districts um also continuing to work with developers to to highlight make their green building elements both legible and maybe to exceed requirements

0:51:26our economic development program committee is really interested in looking at pop-up and mobile type of businesses and events and activities partly just to really get a lot of foot traffic in our commercial areas and again many of the other plans that have adopted also identify ways that we

0:51:41can continue to build upon our sense of place and all of those plans also really look at how does new development really get balanced by continuing to green the environment such that it's a really high quality of life for both existing and future residents and businesses

0:51:58in terms of being ready for development it's um really interesting for a lot of us again we're beginning to receive applications for project more multi-family housing than we've seen in the past a couple of decades um and so as we're doing that we of course learn about what we have and don't have

0:52:13in place so we're constantly trying to be kind of self-critical for lack of a better word and really look at what is it that we can do to keep making this better this was also important to the economic development committee um i think a special expertise that i hope that we are

0:52:32cultivating is really being able to identify i'm really trying to train all of us to listen for where are there obstacles that are things that we can actually address um you know and you can see a list of some of the types of things up here that we're thinking might make the process

0:52:46either clunkier or slower less certain and we're always trying to balance what is it that the investors and developers need and what is going to get the city how is it going to meet our vision the most um financial sustainability this is both looking at how do we get more um

0:53:02participation and buy-in from our partners so business districts how do they participate to help also maybe do some beautification and um place making in their own areas but it's also really leveraging we hear a lot there's a lot of um we should have a uh east bay express just did a great insert

0:53:18called good local money and it's really looking at how do you really look at community capital as a way of generating local money for businesses for the types of things that you want so there's a lot of interesting investment mechanisms out there being developed

0:53:32um and then we also mention in here just as we start to see redevelopment on san pablo avenue especially our property taxes in that area are going to change a lot and so i've talked with our finance director and city manager we've talked about just is there a way that we can

0:53:46kind of start to post redevelopment capture some of this to be able to reinvest to continue doing more economic development and creating better financial sustainability and um communicating marketing making sure that our businesses in residence know of opportunities know what's

0:54:03happening uh really building community really beginning to use the social media platforms to be able to get the word out about who else cerrito is and to really try to develop partnerships as attachment a in your plan you'll see all of the narrative is kind of consolidated into a table and this table

0:54:23helps us look at who's going to do it when when is there budget that needs to be allocated and we expect that in the budget years we will come and ask for some of these programs depending on how they when they need funding a lot of it can be done by staff but sometimes we need some added

0:54:39assistance similarly there's a template for the annual annual report that'll just help us be accountable and help engage council and the economic development committee in a dialogue about given uh what changes in the marketplace and what we're seeing i think that

0:54:56city manager and i often talk about you know i feel like we're on a fulcrum so it's been a long time that we've been wanting to attract the development and there's been certain things that until that occurs that we can't put in place but once that starts to occur we might

0:55:07start looking at things differently and we start to learn i think we can course correct and we can enhance our vision and goals once we start seeing that investment um this is just a kind of a small list of kind of things that we're currently doing with cat on board we're really

0:55:23able to really provide new businesses or new potential businesses somebody who can really both help them through the process but also i think it's really great having somebody new on board who's getting to help assess and pull together fact sheets you know what is need and be

0:55:38more proactive and understanding she also has a great task of working with planning and building and public works and others to identify if something's not working how we can all maybe make it work even better um so as you've seen out there we actually have several new businesses

0:55:53that have opened over the last year are coming and some of those have been made possible through a streamlined review in the specific plan so many of those have tier one they're minor upgrades to existing buildings so they have a pretty streamlined process another big thing that she's doing is

0:56:06kind of curating is the only word that i keep coming up with but just trying to have a list of businesses that might be interested in being here really understanding what opportunities exist in our current inventory but also we're looking at places like when eden gets built next

0:56:20door or when the loanee gardens got built or we have a project right now that is being proposed for the mcnevin property or the mayfair property so we want to start to have a list of the types of businesses that want to be here so that we can start to build the suit potentially or at least

0:56:35start to kind of play yanta between those different players continuing place making efforts public works is really taking the lead on getting the ohlone greenway access safety and placemaking improvements done we got a three million dollar grant to do that and that's at both bart

0:56:52stations restaurant week is something that edc will continue and we've heard from several restaurants that they really enjoyed again we're looking at new types of open space with new development the edc is looking at kind of different pop-up activities potentially in

0:57:06working with the centennial committee to do some things that are support the commercial environment and continuing to try to fund some of the projects for which plans have been adopted and i've talked a bit about attracting new development and we do the mayfair property

0:57:24is beginning to move through the rfq rfp process and we have several other properties that are either in the application process or are um inquiring and we're getting a lot of calls about what can be done on different properties um as that occurs we're also working to get funding

0:57:40to be able to create potentially nexus studies to be able to create certain impact fees that will both develop city funding to be able to leverage outside funding for some of the transportation improvements that we envision but also it helps provide clarity to developers and this would be

0:57:55for our sanitary system um we don't have an impact fee right now so it's on a case-by-case basis and we think that as we see more development in a couple of areas we'd want to take a more systematic approach and that is my presentation any questions i know i have some but i'll

0:58:14defer to others to start i'll go ahead and start um so do you think that primarily what's provided somewhat of a catalyst already is the fact that we have the form-based code and the specific plan for the avenue and that's provided a clear vision so the little projects that are coming

0:58:36forward now that we're seeing is already do you think that's what spurred some of the turnover and the properties that have either been underused or for that matter vacant is that part of why we're seeing that now i think it's it's a large part so i think it's um

0:58:51it's it was a necessary part i don't think that we would be seeing some of what we're seeing without that and of course the economy the larger economy and the demand um but again by switching to allowing more residential increasing the amount um that you can build on a particular property it's

0:59:07changed land values quite a bit um so we're definitely hearing from property owners who were previously reluctant um to sell are beginning to um and we're hearing from the development community just constant accolades for um that it's meeting really what their needs were in order to be able to build

0:59:26creative projects that respond to the current market and demand and as far as promoting arts and commercial areas is that something that i guess obviously the art commission would be involved with with the economic development committee um and that's something that they could sort of just

0:59:42do on their own they could identify an area that that might take place in and and move a little bit forward yeah i think if you look at their strategies there's they have they have a whole host so this sort of puts emphasis on if as and i think a joint session so

0:59:57for example um they have several goals and also attachment there's an attachment in here that art takes the goals from the arts and culture master plan and other plans so if they have a multi a lot of different goals we by working together can say let's uh fast forward the ones that focus for

1:00:16example on getting arts in our commercial districts and getting restaurants to host art or maybe we fast forward the utility boxes or we can talk with them about um you know one of the interesting things about new development coming is our one percent for art a lot will be generated there so

1:00:31we are definitely encouraging um to look at the master plan we have many that seem to want to be providing it on site um which is great because it's in the commercial areas very visible gateway type projects but also working with them in terms of some of the expenditure of the

1:00:46public fees that they end up gaining and kind of helping to prioritize where those were those efforts so i think it's just putting more heads together to think about the ways that it can actually specifically be targeted in the commercial areas one of the the obstacles that was identified is

1:01:03community resistance are we is community resistance more about height and density or i mean we constantly hear and even we appear talk about empty storefronts and vacancies so it's not about that so what's what more are you referring to so i think it is again that was coming from

1:01:24when our consultants interviewed developers who are active in the east bay about why they might or might not be jumping up the corridor and that was still one of the things they were hearing so i think your adoption of the specific plan which of course did have a

1:01:38lot of public comment showed showed that there was community support but i think getting our first projects in the ground and you know that depending on what they are so i think it's mostly to that i think that we haven't had any resistance to new businesses opening to this point

1:01:59can you explain what community capital efforts are what community capital methods are i should go i will give you also an east bay express whole insert so it is there's like several different categories but it's everything from like gofundme okay type type of things and there's different

1:02:15rules governing them some of them are actually for accredited investors but it's still others are more for investing and you get you know five free breakfasts um but it's ways um that either certain banks might not sometimes loan certain amounts or to certain businesses

1:02:32because they don't have a track record and so it's a way that a community instead can support and it's actually um the small business alliance and different uh there's it's it's growing to a great degree in oakland and we plan to kind of explore that so i look forward to exploring we can talk more

1:02:46about it but i think there's a lot of potential to potentially raise funds and sometimes that's again for investment in actual that that people become investors in a business for actual capital returns and there's state laws governing that and sometimes it's it's a

1:03:02lot softer but it's really beginning to use the social media platform kind of matching consumers with the businesses they want got it and um what is op sites op sites is a newish two-year-old platform um that is also um kind of was started by planners and developers

1:03:22to for cities they particularly want cities to be able to put in opportunity sites that show what would the city support so that's really one of the things they're looking for developers is certainty they don't like controversy actually although they're in the middle of it a lot they

1:03:37don't always like it um so they it's an opportunity for cities to say this is what we're looking for and then they have a whole developer network so it's again using social media to bring it out one of our challenges with that is again if you they encourage you to even list property

1:03:52owners i'm trying to figure out the issue of if the property owner isn't listing it it's trying to get sites that are off market actually because really the mls in other ways you can find sites that are on market so it's really trying to identify what is the city's vision and trying to

1:04:05put the development community to figure out the market pieces to put that together with the property owner they don't necessarily work with um the property owner who doesn't really yeah you always have it's always willing seller right but it's coming and figuring out how to cultivate the

1:04:18relationship so it's just putting it out there in another way it's basically another way of marketing this specific plan it's kind of a new emerging it's being used across the country to sum a success and i think that's life thank you and thank you was really really good it

1:04:34was um very in-depth and um we have um it's specific enough for us that we can actually do we start checking things off and we've already checked off many since 2006 even though it seems like we've been stagnant a little bit for a while in reality we've done a lot that was one of the

1:04:53things that we really wanted to highlight because i think that helps build momentum right you go wow we did do that let's what's next yeah i am very excited about this i think this is what people have been asking for um and it will um give us many of the things that we have

1:05:13been you might even say pining for for a number of years but because of various things like the recession um and so forth and business owners who are not interested in selling we haven't been able to do the kinds of things that we've wanted but it seems like now it's now is really the time

1:05:35and so i'm just really looking forward to this period of time and it looks to me like the things that have been done such as the specific plan have really gotten us in a really good position to do those things and i like the way you know our arts and culture commission can

1:05:56do some art things our economic development board is involved you know it's it's it's multi levels of involvement and especially it's of with the community being involved so i think that's going to really carry us a long way and um thank you i am really excited about uh the future

1:06:19of our city and uh um recently i spoke to the tibetan community and uh they are definitely interested in uh having um some a festival in el cerrito uh the chinese american community as well and i know the japanese american community they have done festivals on their own at

1:06:44their churches but with over 30 percent api um they definitely uh would like to celebrate diversity and i'm excited that our arts and cultures uh commission and uh our economic development team together uh we'll we'll create that so i appreciate all your work on that i am getting phone calls

1:07:08from people i just got a phone call uh a couple nights ago on and i forwarded that over uh to you and i'm very excited about getting these phone calls and emails from people that are interested in investing in el cerrito and so thank you and and thank you to kat for

1:07:28for joining the team and uh thank you for your hard work and in getting this for us questions yeah could you go to the slide with the opportunities and constraints please great thanks um unmotivated reluctant property owners under constraints this has been something we've been hearing for a long

1:07:53long time is that starting to turn around because the economy and market has gotten to the point where maybe they feel that what used to be an unrealistic price is now closer to being achieved in terms of what they can get for a lease or sale of their property so i would say in a few

1:08:12instances yes and definitely i'm hearing uh quite a bit from some um owners and family members that that is um you know it's it's it's motivation i mean i think one of the things that's going to be interesting is not all sites are going to be valued the same so because some are sold high hopefully

1:08:31that doesn't create others who think that they're going to get the exact same amount because it really does you know location still matters even on a three-mile corridor so that's one thing the brokers have you know um and i've been talking about um there's definitely

1:08:43um a lot of buzz about what people are being offered for for their properties and so i think that there's several that have changed hands um lately or that are either in contract or that are actually already done there's others that are encumbered by long leases so the one that we hear

1:08:59about constantly is the mosur safeway and so i think that they're going to be offered the same amount um i think it's you know it's a great site um but whether or not so it's interesting even talking even with the prices as they are there are times according to the brokers that i've

1:09:16talked to that there's still either there's the word that i've heard used a lot is there's something sticky about it right so there's a long lease or there's something um other times there's just actually the current situation is working well enough for the owner so it doesn't mean that

1:09:30everything is going to change but it does mean those that have maybe thought about it and some we've heard about are off market so sometimes somebody who knows somebody it's a lot of it is relationship building but that is what we're i mean the prices have definitely

1:09:42changed dramatically for the for the raw land uh next question limited number of available large parcels have there been entities that have come to this city looking for space and you tour them and they say there's just nothing big enough there's a lot of times people will call

1:10:00and they want sometimes two and a half acres which is very large for us often over an acre so there's just some some developers there's opera you know mobilization costs there's some types of development but i think it's something you can see in the strategic economics

1:10:15analysis that's summarized in here and we'll give the full thing um they were both pleased but they were pleased to see however that there are many small parcels that seem to be of interest too so we've definitely received inquiry on smaller parcels which i think will be one of the

1:10:29things we talked about with the specific plan is not everything's going to go to the full height a smaller parcel is going to sometimes be smaller where people are inquiring about different types of town homes set up so depending on the site and how it fits into the

1:10:39context i think we'll end up with a good rhythm um from an urban design perspective um as well as from a different types of ownership and rental models so there are some that want large um what kind of businesses are those generally i'm talking about in this case

1:10:57it's actually for new construction so it's mostly for new residential construction and a long time that ends up being sometimes mixed youth mixed use with ground floor commercial you can see in this study actually building new commercial is also large commercial is a challenge here because

1:11:14the rents don't quite meet what it it's this tension between you don't want rents to be too high but if they're not high enough people don't invest and um so i think it talks about it in the study that the commercial rents don't really warrant building new commercial

1:11:26that would much more likely be something reoccupying something that exists at a larger commercial and other than restaurants which we've seen several open in the last year or so what type of businesses other than commercial um apartments or condos or seem to be most

1:11:47interested in coming to the city now so it's interesting to think about what does the city want like we've heard people talk should we be doing more spotify asking people what they want it's okay but it's really what does the market data say i mean i think sophisticated business owners look at

1:12:02more than spotify although it might be having some impact in some communities so it's um i would say um maybe you can talk more about inquiry we've had a computer innovation center we actually have um bobbles and beads i believe is about to come in upstairs from

1:12:19batteries and bulbs and which is moving their corporate offices from berkeley to here and moving more to an online type environment and otherwise i would say it is mostly food and food is a little challenging because we don't have besides the cairo site we don't have available restaurant space

1:12:34you know when you look at some other nearby commercial areas there's always restaurants turning over so there's both a known market and available restaurant space here you have to build your restaurant and luckily noodles fresh built a restaurant so we have a another

1:12:45restaurant as you've seen some of them on the north end yusun and yokohama got re turned into another business and we hear that uson is in the process of potentially becoming a food business as well so i'd say mostly we are hearing from food related businesses i think we want

1:13:04others and we want to keep exploring there's um i've actually recently heard of an architect that's planning on both occupying a storefront on the avenue and then potentially creating a co-working space in front which i know people have talked about um so that's mostly what we're hearing from

1:13:21at this point but we'd like to keep curating and we've heard people want bicycle shops um you know other kind of goods and services so we'll keep looking and try and and you'll see one of them one of the items in here is to maybe work with a retail broker to identify

1:13:34to hone in in our different nodes so uptown midtown and downtown what because we do think that at the mcnevin site we're going to end up with four commercial spaces we're going to have two commercial spaces next door um garden still has one space available so we do have spaces and that's where i'm

1:13:50talking about curating trying to figure out what are the types of businesses that want to locate here and trying to make those matches thank you okay go ahead i'm i am also excited uh to hear about non-profits that would like to move to el cerrito and uh uh and

1:14:08that's that's another group uh that is very interested in opening up shop here in el cerritos so uh yeah yeah and i do think one has potentially located atalone gardens um so that's exciting fantastic staying with this slide what you didn't put on here from the

1:14:26report is and you reference a ccta study a contra costa transportation authority study but i don't see the date of that study underway oh it's underway okay some are new challenges identified in the study so one of the challenges that you didn't list here is inconsistent vision

1:14:47commitment and resource allocation and i'm just curious if that was from 2006 or if that's from a more recent survey result i think that was carried forward yeah so that was carried forward from 2006 it wasn't something we're seeing now so i think when i look at our

1:15:03accomplishments however it's something that's always possible that it could lurk again so in some ways i think by including it this time and correct me if i'm wrong it reminds us that that is a constraint that if we don't actually invest you know we talk about wanting economic

1:15:18development but do our investments align but but you know i would say that we have had a pretty consistent vision for the last four to six years so i'm just that's why not all ten years that this that this refreshment uh of our plan captures but so i was surprised to see that

1:15:42carried forward because i'm not certain it hopefully it doesn't capture our current um approach to development in town yeah and pat if you want to add something but i think that's a that was something that we struggled with in putting this together we're giving you a snapshot

1:15:58sort of of 2006 to now i think that there is quite a bit in place um right now that um does address that so um we could delete it as a constraint we could risk we could choose you know it's um um but i don't know if there's something you want to add to that but i think it's um

1:16:19i think i think the testimony you've given us tonight i not saying strike it from the document but it does as council member friedman pointed out with these it does cause us pause to find out what we have done or are doing to address these constraints so that these constraints become

1:16:38no longer obstacles to the type of of community improvements that we're looking for the type of investment in our community the type of businesses that want to come here you know whether it's a perception of resistance or a perception of inconsistent vision i certainly want to root that out and

1:16:56remove those as barriers and i think we have and and but leaving them in the report as reminders is fine yeah let me add to that just a moment which is um as as we talked about we lost redevelopment and we lost the staffing associated with redevelopment um we've been

1:17:13kind of shoestringing it and um i think a lot of what we've done has been cip or planning efforts so there's specific items in here that are much more targeted towards economic development right so whether that's tenant improvement or retail broker or i could probably think of a number of

1:17:30other items um we have to decide whether we're developing those programs or not so i think that is where council and staff you know staff will be making recommendations but we have to in terms of all the different you know looking at do we try to create basically

1:17:45the small business assistance program but there's not a line item budget for that for example so i think what it's looking at is there is a moment that we have to put you know both our resources where our efforts are so i think it's highlighting it in that way which is that's again

1:18:01there's things we have to do to i think that there's vision and it really is are we going to align some reason you know do we align resources with that vision and i think that's why updating the plan helps us try to identify what what some of those things are and as you can see some of

1:18:14them do have dollar items lines next to them thank you for the the introduction to my next line of questions um thank you for putting attachment a together and and carving this elephant up into 96 bits and i do want to notice that staff time uh seems to recur quite a bit here and

1:18:36cat i hope you are very efficient um because you your your time has been carved into at least 96 different uh tasks that hopefully you can always say cat no it says staff it's a step but but that's a lot of multitasking but i do want to focus on a couple of these

1:18:56because in in reality the outside of staff time the the number of dollar signs in here is actually quite small but there are a few where there is you know triple dollar signs which is a euphemism for we really don't know but it's a lot more than 25 000.

1:19:14um one of them is include funding in the capital improvement program for one or more projects and the other is implement urban greening plan concept for lower fairmont avenue and these are item two e which i believe is is that place making yeah strong since a place so so uh so i'm

1:19:33just curious you know what the what the time frame is for those and and what you know where are we in the planning process for that type of investment um so just curious they caught my eye certainly it's not this year it probably isn't next year but just interested in knowing more

1:19:53about your thoughts on on those uh specific implementation tasks for for goal e2 or 2 goal 2e um so it's been many many years since the city's had funds available to put into its capital improvement program aside from restricted funds from the streets measure or grant funding so

1:20:17we've been really proactive as you know in getting grants for capital improvement projects so that kind of remains to be the case there's some things that have come up it came up that i think mayor lyman it actually came up at the chamber luncheon that you went to people

1:20:35talked about lighting for example there's still while we've done some lighting improvements there's still lighting being requested where would that come from that's hard to get a ground for actually that's one of those that's one of those triple dollar sign ones yes

1:20:47you know number you know 2h 0.2 um identify feasible funding sources for lighting and signage design and installation okay so again that these are i'm not trying to pin you down but these are things that that we'll be working towards again this is a five-year plan

1:21:05sometime in that five-year horizon these the these you will be requesting funding for these projects is that what i'm hearing yeah so some in a way by putting it here it brings it front and center right so whether we bring it or you ask for it or somebody else asks for it it's

1:21:18front and center right so it's in it's in the in the pot to be negotiated um some of them it brings up front center so that we know to ambitiously seek funding when there's funding available for example lower fairmont and i think otherwise you know some of it is also do we

1:21:36identify and i think this has been talked about sometimes as our reserves grow do we once we get to a certain point do we start to at least identify funding maybe to be used as matching funds to better leverage funding um so for example for the buffered bike lane you know what's our commitment we

1:21:51know we cannot pay for that entire thing and it's really a regional objective to see some of the mode shift we want to see but it's still looking strategically and that can be something you know depending on like you said in a five-year plan where it all shifts out

1:22:03but just when do we look at strategically how to keep improving our opportunities to leverage funds for those or to identify or to move those projects forward there's only two more with uh three dollar signs and uh so so that's again i want to emphasize there's not a lot of dollar signs here a

1:22:20lot of staff time but not a lot of dollar signs so this really actually should be achievable within overall the other two with dollar signs are both for um goal 3 c which was its capital improvements um let's let's pull it up 3c is create a program with steve sanitary

1:22:45district for more streamlined provisions of new service and i was wondering if you could expand on that a little bit more because that certainly uh you know for example create a fund to assist key businesses with cost of assessing sewer lateral condition or other stage imposed permit conditions

1:23:03just curious where what what the thought is behind this program since it seems to be the significant portion of our unknown investment in this in this plan so i'm glad you asked it's timely we've been in communication with siege staff and i think that they are proposing that they invite the city to

1:23:25their may it's a saturday in may may 19th or something may 24th i'd have to pull out my calendar but to their may long range planning meeting so we have talked to them we found next door um with the eden project we found that sanitary was um an issue and as i stated one of the

1:23:41interesting things as we do more development we're gonna you know we didn't you don't always know um so the um i don't want to sure somebody can correct me if i say um something um mostly i've heard that the uh siege doesn't have a master plan um for future to expand its capacity it

1:24:00does have a plan to comply with all the environmental laws but it like the city we didn't know when this was going to occur we've talked about development for many years so right now the way that it occurs is each development is asked to do a capacity study and this includes even a small any

1:24:17any new restaurant so if a restaurant goes into a place where a restaurant didn't exist before they have to do a capacity study so right up front there's a twenty thousand dollar it might be ten but i think it's twenty um maybe depending on the business so as a capacity study just to find out

1:24:30whether there's capacity that doesn't include the actual hard costs um with new development what's occurring is they also do that on a one-off so elony gardens did one creekside did one um eden did one um the hotel the proposed hotel is about to do one but they're doing one separate

1:24:47from the mayfair project who will then do one so you can see without a master plan sometimes the you know increase a pipe from one size to another might be asked for but then you might have to do it again when the next project comes so there's a real need for a master plan

1:25:01also sometimes once that master plan would take place you could switch more to an impact fee so what it would be looking at is looking at all the financing mechanisms and then what we'd have to look at is how much do those upgrades cost do they would they fit within with an

1:25:17impact fee that would be sufficient would that fit within performance or would that start to make development too cost costly and i don't know the answer to that um so those are the types of things that we would want to look at so we're going to talk to them about

1:25:29that um we i'm in touch with mtc to modify an existing grant we have um which is so the ccta grant is underway the mtc one hasn't started and i'm asking for more time but it is so identi the goals of these grants are to identify barriers to achieving our priority development area

1:25:48goals and this is potentially one of them it might not be one of them but it's not a it's a bump if it's not a maybe it's not bigger um so that does that answer that question it does very well thank you and then again depending on how many dollars to answer it further

1:26:02is whether we need to find a mechanism to close those gaps if there is a gap so one is just the planning exercise the other is where it becomes more dollar signs is if there is a gap great thank you thank you for pointing that out i know the real estate association has talked

1:26:18to me about that uh two years in a row now um regarding uh uh updates on pipes and and the restaurants and and uh so this is something that that uh i look forward in having siege and the city work on together great thank you any speakers from the public i have no request to speak mayor okay

1:26:42excellent we'll bring it back for uh comments and emotion um i'll start with the comments because i think we've heard most of everyone's comps i actually want to thank you very much for bringing this forward i know we discussed it uh last fall as something that was uh

1:26:58desperately needed and and actually now have it in our hands and as i pointed out we have 96 the elephants chopped up into 96 bits they actually seem manageable and i'd certainly encourage staff to to to work on them not necessarily all 96 at one time um so that we can actually not be so

1:27:23um divided with our time that we aren't completing any of them but it's it's nice to see this and i really am looking forward to it being implemented starting tonight right hopefully you know who knows what's next um any other comments seeing none i'll entertain a motion at

1:27:41this time i'd like to think of this okay okay um i think it's um attachment one motion right the resolution of the city council the city of el cerrito adopting the 2016 economic development action plan as an update to the 2006 economic development action plan great

1:28:02motions made oh go ahead second by quinto um all those in favor please say aye aye opposed abstentions let it record show it passed unanimously thank you very much and congratulations and thank you all right that brings us on to item seven c uh miss vince is walking away so it must be

1:28:28uh miss malek zeta that's going to be presenting good evening mayor and council um yes i'm going to be presenting i'm lisa malek's a day finance director but melanie mintz our community development director is also here if you have any questions um the item before you this evening is

1:28:44to approve the refunding of existing successor agency bonds to approve contracts with the consultants working on their refunding as well as request oversight board approval to re to refund the bonds uh this action will allow the successor agency to take advantage of better

1:29:02interest rates and terms the refunding is estimated to save about 83 000 over the life of the bonds and it will be of benefit to all the taxing entities stat if you'll remember staff came to council in december to approve a repayment with the dof department of finance for 1.9 million dollars over the

1:29:21next three fiscal years this refunding will help reduce the enforceable obligations to the successor agency which then allows more cash to flow to the city for the residual property taxes residual property tax distribution funds and that revenue helps to offset the

1:29:39impact to the city for those repayments and so also here this evening is rob schmidt with our financial nhar financial advisor so if you have any questions i just clarify i think i know the answer but that 83 000 savings includes all the fees that we'll have to pay in order to

1:30:04obtain this financing and any closing costs etc correct that'll all be part of the total it'll be paid out of bond proceeds i i have a second question so that works well with our overall city cash flow question mark correct we budget about 165 000 a year in the residual property

1:30:26tax distribution the less enforceable obligations the successor agency has the higher that residual tax distribution is and that flows to the city's general fund so thank you i like motion um i actually want to i noticed that there was tax exempt and taxable components to this to this uh

1:30:49refunding and i'm just curious on the taxable uh was there a limit on that and what what was it for what aspect of of our payments would required us to issue taxable bond proceeds i'm going to let our financial advisor answer that question my interesting is that taxable goes

1:31:14towards things like operations and and other things that are not eligible for the tax-exempt status and i'm just curious what aspects trigger that in this case so since this was a refunding of old debt the old debt had both taxable and tax exempt components so we have to keep that same ratio of

1:31:33taxable tax exempt on the new debt okay and what was the ratio ooh um i would have to calculate it do the math yeah it was important i don't have it on hand it was quite large actually at least it looked like it was large give me a few seconds i may be able to pull it up

1:31:55i have our and and therefore you are probably not in a position while you're doing that you're probably not in a position to tell us what it was used originally for that triggered the taxable status i do not have that on hand right because it's a refund because

1:32:08it's a refunding and you're just brought on board for the refunding yes yes um i believe um it was from low low income housing okay it was related to the tax exempt if that would sound right right yeah um so that would be the taxable portion exam portion so of the existing debt that's being

1:32:30refunded um it's approximately 13.8 million dollars um three and a half million is taxable that's of the existing debt okay so i'm still confused typically i would have thought that we would have been all tax exempt so that's why i'm confused why there's such a large

1:32:51portion that's taxable because it was related to the housing set aside um so the housing set aside is not tax exempt because it's already tax exempt so we have to issue taxable so it was already taxable on the original debt i understand this is refinancing so maybe i can get an offline uh answer to

1:33:14my question because uh i'd have to go back and look at the correct the original arguments that would be a good question for the bond lawyers yeah fine thank you for the low income the low income housing was taxable taxable yes because it's already we don't know why we'd have to go back

1:33:32and research historically why the redevelopment agency issued taxable bonds for low and moderate income housing but it did and since those are outstanding bonds that are being refunding that ratio needs to be maintained in the in the refinance bond issue correct it's

1:33:47probably because the tax-exempt status was already utilized by the whoever was issuing issuing the the um doing whatever their action was because so i i'll accept that answer thank you um and with that are there any speakers on this item no i'll bring it back to the dice for

1:34:08comments and uh motion i'll take i'll make a motion okay okay i um let's see here that i had it better you might just read this one from where oh there okay um i move a resolution of the successor agency to the el cerrito redevelopment agency approving the issuance of

1:34:30refunding bonds approving the execution and delivery of an indenture and escrow instructions requesting oops requesting the over oversight board approval of the issuance of the oversight board and off rising actions related there to and approving contracts with nha

1:34:57advisors and frazier and associates excuse me for related work okay motion by ableston second by bridges any discussion on the matter all those in favor please say aye aye opposed abstentions i'll let the record show it passed unanimously that concludes item 7c thank you

1:35:22we'll move on to item 8 which is council assignments and liaison reports looking to my right looking to my right looking to my left looking to my left and you can you know oh well okay i'm i've got two i've got i think i've got three i've got three yes i'm going to talk about two one is as

1:35:51your mayor i went to the contra costa county mayor's conference on march 3rd we had a presentation workshop emerge regarding the merger the possible merger between abag and mtc and uh that was by management partners uh who obviously mr o'keefe is from management partners also

1:36:15um and there was quite a bit of discussion as you might expect from the mayors with regards to local control uh there were some advocating for the combination and there were some advocating for continuing with two separate agencies so it was a quite lively discussion

1:36:34um with that at that meeting we also elected our representative to the to the delta commission and it was the representative drawing it was oh shoot i apologize i should have made note of it before it was uh pittsburgh mayor ben johnson was selected as the delta commission representative and

1:37:10walnut creek council member bob simmons as an alternate um and then on march 7th monday march 7th i went to a technical committee meeting for mce that included a a report on greenhouse gases the greenhouse gases for mce continue to be a greater reduction than the comparison

1:37:37to pg e and so there is a quite a bit of documented reduction by mce for their overall product blend so that that was probably the highlight of that meeting and they gave us an update on communities that are asking to join and there are quite a few communities that

1:38:01are asking to join mce all five napa cities in napa county have requested to join and most of them i believe i believe they were all they had not all finished their paperwork for uh for joining but most of them were on their way to doing that and um there was uh

1:38:28there's at least i think it's either oakley or another city in walnut creek lafayette actually um did not was it moraga didn't move it over but there are two there are several cities in contra costa that are considering bringing it forward and so that was an update that we got

1:38:47and that concludes my updates on item eight um i did have another one um west contra costa integrated waste management we did meet last thursday and at that meeting we continue to discuss what the purpose of the jpa is going forward we began to have discussions on the

1:39:18jpa's current powers and how many of those powers we want to carry forward an example of a current power that is being evaluated is the right of eminent domain a jpa has all the powers that the individual cities have and unless it's been reduced in some fashion

1:39:41um so that's that's one of the powers that i can say that uh several of the uh board members spoke about uh not necessarily wanting the jpa to have con that power going forward another power that the current jpa has but has never exercised is flow control over solid waste and and recyclables

1:40:06and they've never exercised that uh as evidenced by the fact that el cerrito continues to have an independent garbage collection and in a separate recycling program um so that's that's one of those um uh powers that the jpa has that we may or may not support going forward

1:40:27this will next be discussed in the may meeting for uh contra costa waste authority so i will may seek guidance from you before that meeting on these powers so i'll have to work with the city manager to determine if that's something we need to bring forward for discussion i did learn that a long time

1:40:52public works person for the city of hercules passed away suddenly on the third dean allison for those that may or may not know him he passed away suddenly of heart failure while on the job and working hard actually and our meeting at that night was adjourned in his honor

1:41:17because of all the work he had done as a technical advisory committee member for the waste management authority that conclude that concludes my report brings us to item nine which is our adjournment uh we will be adjourning now for to the next regular city council meeting which

1:41:38is tuesday april 5th 7 p.m here in city chambers you