Concurrent City Council, Public Financing Authority and Employee Trust Board Meeting June 21, 2016

0:01:11good evening everyone this is the special concurrent city council public financing authority an employee pension board meeting of tuesday june 21st and let the uh record show that all five council members are present and we will convene and pledge of allegiance to the flag or observation of

0:01:35a moment of silence led by mayor pro tem i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states one nation under god indivisible oh did i leave that out did i not read it oh it's a joint meeting it's a joint meeting yeah um okay uh that's item one item two is council and staff communications i'm

0:02:14gonna look to staff they have one sure uh mayor members of the city council i would just like to take this opportunity to introduce our new finance director mark rosaya who doesn't know the seating chart yet so he's sitting up front [Laughter] we welcome mark i wish he was here for

0:02:37items seven b and c but um i'm sure you'll be seeing a lot of them in the future and actually councilmember friedman probably can do a better introduction than i can since they have a history together but we're really excited to have him here great thank you welcome aboard

0:02:53any announcements mark gabe you have one yes i had the pleasure of attending the east bay mud update last week along with mayor pro-tem mabelson and it was a wonderful event to meet with andy katz who is our east bay mud director although there's not a drought any longer he does requests to

0:03:19make sure that we do save our water and to make sure that we change over from a lawn to something more water-saving so uh um also know that uh i have some brochures here that i will leave uh here at the desk uh on some garden gardening upgrades regarding irrigation and caring

0:03:46for trees during a drought great mayor probe tim as council member quinto said i also was at that luncheon and i think it was really um interesting to hear the details of how the water situation has improved the reservoirs have done a good job of increasing the amount of water

0:04:16there but at the same time we can't really count on that the reservoirs are not full by any means and so we do as was said need to be very very vigilant in making sure that we don't overuse our water and and i think it's perhaps if i'm saying it right it's time to rethink how we do

0:04:42things uh not just for a year but in general that uh we just need to if we think dr drought all the time then it will help um present prevent a drought disaster i don't know if you would agree with that that's what was said but i think i think that's right and you are agreeing

0:05:03um so i would encourage you all to rethink about your yard and what you want to do with it and perhaps the city at some point can do some presentations to the public on different alternatives on how to how to make a drought tolerant yard and what materials to use what plants to

0:05:29plant i'm sure that would be really helpful to people at some at some point in time thank you great uh councilman quinto also uh al miller is back al miller and myself uh about an hour ago attended uh the cheng may home uh which is uh up on the corner of elm street and cutting and

0:05:56they had a historical plaque so el cerrito has one historical building actually two historical buildings i believe now uh so the chengday home is now a historical site and uh i i urge people to drop by there sometime and and take a look at the beautiful restoration

0:06:20done great and i've got two one i'm not finding but i'm hoping that mr miller will potentially speak to it during his opportunity to speak one is that i wanted to acknowledge that the stage board notified residents this last week that we will not be having a rate increase so

0:06:39i certainly want to acknowledge that that effort and the second thing it's on our agenda item for tonight to recognize relay for life of el cerrito in the july 16th 17th date starting 10 a.m on saturday july 16th at cerrito vista park you you are interested in signing up for a team

0:07:03to walk it's www dot relay for life that's the word f o r dot o r g slash el cerrito ca and that's for saturday july 16th through sunday july 17th 10 a.m to 10 a.m and that concludes item two which is council and staff communications we'll move on to item three item three is oral communications

0:07:31from the public all persons wishing to speak should sign up with the city clerk we like to hold our comments to three minutes there's a lighting system in the front which green is go yellow is a minute left or 30 seconds left i can't remember which one minute one minute

0:07:50left and red i will ask you to please wrap up your your uh comments uh we have how many speakers this evening we have two speakers of the speakers great uh cordell hindler followed by al miller so uh mayor lyman uh council members and staff i am cordell handler

0:08:09or two organizations park plaza n.a and richmond rainbow pride so i would like to acknowledge uh councilmember quinto and mayor lyman for for presenting uh our the proclamation for for june as prime month i i personally thank you uh both of you for for this proclamation so

0:08:28it was a complete surprise to me so that's one thing and then number two i forgot to send the link i forgot to bring the flyers for the for american idiot which you have to see it is a wonderful performance wonderful i'll send the city clerk the link so she'll forward to all of you so it's a

0:08:43wonderful show so that's number two and number three is um i came last month last week uh to discuss some of vacant properties and around elsewhere if you take a look outside of some of the vacant properties ufc you'll find out that um that businesses have been

0:08:59like have been moving out of there because of the either the the rent increase or among among other things so if you recall when uh when mr when the owner from well-grounded coffee came a couple meetings ago about the rent increase he thinks it's a good idea but but as far

0:09:16as you know like businesses go uh the rent increase i mean um the the property will go as as farther as they can but but people but new businesses coming into into el cerrito no thanks so you gotta think about you gotta look at the pros and cons pros money generated into the city cons

0:09:38money will be going out of the city because the rent is getting more higher by the minute think about those 3 000 a month nobody people are who are on incomes they can't afford that neither like me because we want businesses to to thrive in russian but you got to think about though 3 000 a

0:09:57month no way nobody would not set up a business in elsewhere because it's so high i mean you got to think about this though the minimum wage increase that'll help generate money for the city so i do hope the city city council will support this this amendment uh

0:10:15to attract more businesses to the city and that's all i have to say your turn now thank you sir good evening mayor lyman council members staff i hadn't planned to talk about our rate not increase but how can i turn down an invitation but very quickly two years ago steej implemented a

0:10:43rate increase that was projected each year for five years we've had a very fortunate incidence come out of the efforts it's a long story about how east bay mud wastewaterside and all of the cities that deliver our resources waste resources to them for cleaning have been

0:11:05sued by the epa and anyway we came out of that with much less requirements for the rate at which we replace our sewers etc with the property values in the county research you know coming up and the sales going up that helps us a little bit we don't have many property taxes but we get some

0:11:29but the short story is is that although we had to budget for the worst plan for the worst when the epa kind of gave us a a fair shake uh we found that we could survive very well with the current rates so we didn't have to rate them i raised them uh prop 218 requires any rate change when

0:11:54going up or one not going up or one going down you have to go through the same public hearing process so we held a advance notice published it in a paper had a public hearing at our last stage meeting and it should be to no one's surprise nobody showed up to object to

0:12:13the rates not being increased so for the next year they will not be increased it's still the same it was here this year and next year in april we'll be reviewing to see if we have to raise it again or we can keep it steady again so thank you great thank you very

0:12:34much mr miller the speakers for this evening great seeing none we'll move on to presentations item four uh tonight we will uh be presenting the annual sunder shoddy garden contest awards and i call forward our presentation good evening i'm landry wildwind and i'm

0:13:02this year's chair of the tsunder shoddy contest sponsored by the el cerrito garden club this is our anniversary year our 60th anniversary so it's a particularly lucky year in which to win this award because we're giving all the winners a commemorative bag along with their check

0:13:25i want to encourage any of you who have not looked at the display to go take a peek at it as soon as you can this was a really exciting year our our theme for the year was creative responses to drought we had 13 gardens submitted we had 12 judges and i am pleased to announce we have

0:13:50three winners all of them really different responses to drought different ways of converting a lawn to a to a garden that doesn't need a lot of water using a lot of stone and raising the level and providing fast draining soil for cactus so all of these approaches are beautifully demonstrated

0:14:14in these gardens and i know that these gardens are an inspiration to their neighbors and passers-by and we want to acknowledge these winners for the work they're doing to beautify el cerrito so i want to present the first award to nancy lyon for her beautiful garden

0:14:50she'll be getting a one-year membership in the el cerrito garden club and a check for a hundred dollars and i want to mention that all of our winners have agreed to come to a presentation on how they built their gardens for the club nancy nancy would would you be willing to share your

0:15:21address so we can encourage people to drive by and and see your garden for for yeah okay 1109 brewster great thank you very much excellent thank you very much congratulations i want to mention that these are co-equal winners uh they are all winners our second winner tonight is janice

0:16:00frederick's creighton would you please come up and get your award [Applause] and our third winner tonight is chris alsberger who cannot be with us because his family has some emergency and he's not here but he did want to participate in the fall presentation to

0:16:28the garden club which i also encourage all of you to come to it should be quite educational and and are those addresses available or are they yes they're all right here excellent um be great if you would let us know so we can let people at home know sure if you could read them

0:16:44off to us right now i'll reiterate them for the for people who are at home 22 2602 ellerhurst and that's uh janus frederick creighton [Music] 7005 blake chris alzberger yes great thank you very much and congratulations to all of them and and landry before you go what's the

0:17:29date of the presentation in the fall do you know that date now i do i can tell you it's going to be april i'm sorry it's going to be october 13th in the fall great and the location thank you that's going to be at the el cerrito community center time at 10 30 a.m okay 10 30 a.m

0:17:52great thank you very much thank you that concludes item four and that will bring us onto item uh five item five is our consent calendar it's adoption of the consent calendar we have two items on the agenda this evening 5a is approval of minutes and 5b is a proclamation to the american cancer

0:18:16society relay for life which is occurring on saturday july 16th 10 a.m through sunday july 17th uh 10 a.m move adoption back in motion by ableton seconded by friedman all those in favor please say aye aye aye let the record show it past unanimously um that brings us on to uh item six

0:18:38public hearings there are none this evening that brings us to item seven which is policy matters item seven a uh we will be considering resolution of support for the county-wide imposition of one-half of one percent sales tax to fund transportation improvements in contra

0:18:58costa and conditionally amend the growth management program in the measure j transportation expenditure plan good evening ms ortiz good evening mayor and council members i am yvette ortiz the city's public works director tonight's staff is requesting that city council consider and adopt the

0:19:17resolution of support that mayor lymon just introduced the contra cost costa transportation authority is responsible for maintaining and improving the county's transportation system by planning funding and implementing transportation projects and programs currently the transportation needs in

0:19:35the county significantly significantly exceed projected revenues over the next 30 years the county's population will continue to grow and this will result in increasing needs for transportation infrastructure and additional mobility needs the new sales tax measure is needed to

0:19:56keep up with all these demands if approved the revenue from the county sales tax measure would fund various transportation projects and programs on a county-wide level as we'll be discussed by randy iwazaki the executive director of the contra costa transportation authority who is here

0:20:13tonight to present on the item and now cerritos specifically the local street funding would help us address significant transportation needs specifically pedestrian infrastructure like sidewalks which was discussed by the council at the last budget discussion as well as addressing a handful of local

0:20:31streets that are in need of reconstruction and that can't be fully funded by the measure the city's measure a street improvement funds um so i now will turn it over to randy ibasaki who will provide you a presentation and as uh randy approaches the podium i want the

0:20:46audience to know that there is a handout that is available up here by the clerk that is specific to el cerrito and randy i assume you'll be talking about some of the details on on this handout yes sir great good evening mayor lyman mayor pro tem abelson and council

0:21:10members randy iwasaki executive director at the contra costa transportation authority i'm excited to be here tonight to tell you a little bit about hopefully getting your support and this is pretty important your support to allow us come to the contra costa transportation authority to place a

0:21:25measure on half cent sales tax measure for transportation on november's ballot for the voters to decide whether or not they're going to support that as you know we need 66.67 percent in order to pass the sales tax measure for transportation here in contra costa

0:21:43county the plan is to go for 30 years which generates about 2.8 billion dollars for transportation and you will be new revenue it'll start in april 2017 and it will end in march of 2047 by law we need a majority of the cities with a majority of the population to

0:22:02support this measure in reality we would like support from all of our cities in order to make sure that we get that two-thirds vote to pass the sales tax measure and with your permission i'd like to walk you through 12 additional slides may i proceed thank you i would proceed if i can get this to

0:22:25work on the side wait a minute let me turn it on here hold on one second ah okay i bet i'm okay all right contra costa has a long history of being a self-help county using sales tax to fund transportation we were the probably the third county in california behind alameda county and the

0:22:51first was santa clara county and we passed the sales tax measure with about 58 percent measure c in 1988 it was a 20-year sales tax measure generated about 1 billion dollars in 1988 and we have a saying at the contra costa transportation authority promises made

0:23:07promises kept so we're going to deliver that transportation expenditure plan for you if we don't the voters will know that and they would never pass another sales tax measure so in 2004 the board placed another measure the extension of measure c on the 2004 ballot the laws had changed

0:23:25now it's a super majority that's needed to pass the sales tax measure i'm excited to say 71 percent of the voters in contra costa voted yes and measure j was passed that was a 25 that is a 25-year measure generates about 2 billion dollars in 2004 dollars and i'm going to show you some

0:23:44of the projects and hopefully the folks in el cerrito the people here feel like they've enjoyed some of the benefits let's talk about what's happening in the expenditure plan the proposed expense plan the board hasn't made a decision to place this on the ballot yet but we're

0:23:59getting the support now from the cities so there's a question on why we're discussing doubling the sales tax when we have 17 years to go on measure j and there are three main reasons as yvette mentioned earlier the county continues to grow for some reason people want to

0:24:16live in california and in the bay area so the population here in contra costa county is anticipated to grow by about 29 over the next years and so we're going to have to deal with a lot more population a lot of our population don't own cars they like to use transit so we're going

0:24:33to need to make more investments in transit plus i'm getting older as some of you may be getting older as well and so we're going to need different services to provide us with mobility in the future second we've been very successful in delivering major projects in measure j

0:24:49in fact we're going to be delivering 25 years of major capital projects that were slated for 25 years and 10 years and we do that a number of number of ways one is we use the taxes and municipal bond markets so we take future revenue where we bring it forward we were lucky enough

0:25:05to get the first bond sale when i was then when i got here in 2010 in 2012 we sold bonds at the lowest interest rate in the history of the bond market so we got 225 million dollars we invested that we're accelerating delivery of our capital program because i like to say that we

0:25:21don't the the taxpayers don't benefit from improvements in transportation by talking about it they benefit by building those and implementing those transportation projects and programs the caldecott tunnel is now open to traffic highway 4 and ebart are almost complete

0:25:36construction as you can see on interstate 80 at san pablo dam road is under construction we're leveraging our dollars with federal state and other local funds the third is that there's a there was a funding car there's a funding crisis in transportation there are no long-term

0:25:51fixes in sight from either sacramento or washington and so other than proposition 1b which was passed in 2006 in the federal recovery act under president obama those are one-time influx of funds we're no longer able they're no longer available to match our local funds so if we want

0:26:07to keep improving our transportation infrastructure and keep our people moving our economy heading in the right direction we need to help ourselves so the developing expenditure plan started in early 2015 working with the cities through the regional transportation planning committees rtpcs

0:26:24for short el cerrito is part of the west contra costa transportation advisory committee and council member abelson mayor pro-tem abelson does a great job representing all of you here in el cerrito on wcct attack with input from the public the rtpc is in a group of stakeholders for for

0:26:42nearly a year and a half the temp went through several iterations to ensure it's balanced and all priorities are met so you have sub-regional equity and we're looking at a balance between projects and programs the plan before you was approved by the contra costa transportation authority

0:26:57board on may 18th this was not an easy effort as we had some major challenges part of the challenge was to make sure everyone was heard and i think we did a good job of that lindsay willis is our director of external affairs she used new technologies telephone town halls

0:27:14robocalling mailings we got more comments this cycle than we did in the previous 25 years combined using technology of today we had 15 000 people dialed in and we took calls for over an hour and a half live and answering their questions this was not an easy effort but we think that it

0:27:32was well worth it we had several speakers at the may 18th meeting who said this was the most inclusive process they participated in so far we also heard from stakeholders that the plan was probably the best they could hope for when you consider the demands of all the residents of our county we're

0:27:46a very diverse county the western part of contra costa looks a little bit different than the eastern part of contra costa which looks a little bit different than the south part of contra costa so what is every so what everyone else knows what's in it for me and so let's

0:28:01see so one of the reasons measure c and measure j were successful is that all areas of the county got their fair share and receive equitable benefit your representative vice mayor mayor pro tem able and janet abelson always reminds us the western part of contra cos a little

0:28:20bit different and she fights for her regional share this slide shows the distribution of overall funding to the four sub-regions of the county based on population each regional transportation planning committee was asked to identify priorities for their share of the

0:28:33funding we did this in august of 2015.

0:28:37we then worked with the public and a large stakeholder group to refine priorities to see if there were any key areas missing this is a very long process and there was a lot of special meetings with both the contra costa transportation authority board and the regional transportation planning

0:28:51committees i'm glad to report that all the rtpc recommendations were accommodated in the plan big picture view of the funding categories in the plan over a quarter of the plan about 27 percent 770 million dollars is for transit primarily bart cars bart extension and brentwood and

0:29:09bus operations another six percent 179 million is repair transit and safe transportation for children that's almost a third for bart transit and paratransit a little over 20 percent goes for major commute corridors interstate 80 the worst commute in the bay area probably

0:29:27for the last 20 years state rall 4 and interstate 680 and highway 24.

0:29:33almost 42 percent is targeted toward local infrastructure about 23.1 percent will be distributed each year to cities for road maintenance and another 20 percent for defined programs geared toward improving communities such as ped bike facilities complete streets

0:29:49community development transportation program geared at livable communities and job creation so west county benefits the west county funding matches the message we heard loud and clear from the public our polling shows that the top priorities are bart traffic smoothing and fix it first fix

0:30:07the infrastructure so bart bart got more money and better access better bart they wanted better bart seats so we have 300 million dollars to add capacity to bart working through a regional solution with the metropolitan transportation commission our counterparts in san francisco and

0:30:23alameda counties 300 million each of us has agreed the other two counties to leverage 300 300 million each plus bart makes or mtc makes about another 462 million that will add and add train cars another 306 train cars when they fix the train control system so you

0:30:40won't get short trains here you're going to get 10 car trains along the richmond line in the future we have 55 million in the plan for the interstate 80 high capacity transit and another 35 million dollars for ferry and rail service in west county we also have 60 million to improve

0:30:57interchanges along interstate 80 including central avenue and those 56 million for major streets complete street type projects that you will be trying to do here on san pablo avenue funding for other priorities are shown on that slide benefits to city as i previously

0:31:17mentioned almost 42 percent is targeted toward local infrastructure about 23.1 for return to source another 20 percent for defined programs geared toward improving communities this is a significant shift from the existing measure j where about thirty percent of the dollars benefit the local

0:31:34roads this is in response to the message from the public to fix our roads and the reality that cities are being hurt with cuts in federal and state funding specifically for for el cerrito the funding interest that you would be most interested is is reflected in this list

0:31:54the so-called return to source from the new measure is almost 541 000 per year this is in addition to the four hundred and five thousand per year that will continue under the eighteen percent measure j that will last until twenty thirty four that's a hundred and thirty three

0:32:09percent increase it has flexibility in that you don't have to just use it for paving for slurry seals you can use it for sidewalk repair and others but it's dollars that you could invest in preserving your infrastructure there are many other funding categories that benefit el cerrito such as enhanced

0:32:24bus service more funding for transportation for seniors and people with disabilities bike pad facilities and complete streets this is one point that i would like to one last point that i'd like to discuss you will notice that the resolution we are asking you to approve not only

0:32:41includes the expenditure plan but also proposed revisions to the growth management plan in measure j we we have a history of tying our transportation measures to growth management policies all the way back to 1988 with the passes of measure c we're the only measure in the state of

0:32:57california sales tax measure that has a growth management component to their measure and we've had it since 1988.

0:33:04measure j in 2004 made some modifications mainly to require the establishment of the urban limit line this measure proposes a few changes primarily the process whereby a jurisdiction can amend its urban limit line and additional growth management policies if applicable

0:33:21we propose that the growth management program in measure j we brought up the par with what is proposed in the new measure the additional burden is very minimal making this change allows your staff to fill in one growth management checklist for both measure j and the new measure

0:33:36to get to return to source dollars so let's make this happen thank you again very much for your time i hope to see you see the value in this for el cerrito in the plan to put forward that's being put forward by the contra costa transportation authority board i ask you

0:33:52to endorse the plan by approving the resolution in your packet and thank you very much for your time and i stand ready to answer any of your questions great thank you i will start on my right council member friedman thank you very much we have a letter here from public

0:34:10advocates does anybody hear from public advocates i guess they didn't come but in the letter they said that in the plan that there's no requirement for the projects that are identified in the plan to actually be implemented [Music] first of all is that a correct

0:34:31description of the process and then i have a follow-up question well there's there's a couple of answers to that that question so as far as amending the the existing measure there's only been a couple of times in the history of both measure c and measure j where the the

0:34:48expenditure plan was amended and that was because a project wasn't able to be delivered you had to move the money the process in order to make amendments which is in your in your document on page 52 is you ha it's a public process so what what happens is let's say

0:35:07commissioner x wants to make an amendment to modify the plan he or she makes that amendment it's approved by a majority of the contra costa transportation authority board there's 45 days where the the other cities that are affected can say we don't like that and

0:35:23so as long as they get a majority of the cities with the majority of the population that amendment does not go through so there's there's a public process of 45 days it's vetted in public it hasn't happened but isn't this i don't think it's hashem has it happened in the time i've

0:35:39been here in six years have we amended yeah so we i don't know the process because we've never done it but i was always told that don't amend them unless you have a project that you can't deliver a city and they want to move that money onto another project in that region or

0:35:53that city the other option is is this so we did an evaluation because the assertion is we didn't do an evaluation this that's that's not true i do have a copy of the performance evaluation that we did and so there's case law currently that a transportation expenditure plan does not

0:36:13need to be certified by an environmental document and it's it's a case against this it's a case that's been tried and tested and and so we don't have to do that what we did is we split the ctp the comprehensive county wide transportation plan and the transportation expenditure plan

0:36:30apart because senate bill 743 changed the way we measure impacts of development and so we were waiting for the new guidelines to come out from the office of planning and research from the governor's office to determine how we proceed with the comprehensive county wide transportation

0:36:46analysis of the impacts but we did one on the expenditure plan i can leave this here with you and it shows that there's benefits for all residents in contra costa county thank you you already answered my follow-up councilmember quinto uh one question how much of a percentage

0:37:05would pedestrian walkways and bicycle improvements uh how much of an increase do you have on that let's see i have the number right here you saw do you have that number off 20 20. oh yeah bikes four percent yeah four percent thank you plus whatever you decide in your return to source dollars

0:37:28to stripe and have bike lanes and things like that okay thank you you're welcome councilmember bridges um well thank you for your presentation and thank janet for fighting for us um and thank you for the public outreach that you had it sounds like it was extraordinarily

0:37:47extensive and unprecedented and that's always a good thing because we like that here in el cerrito too right um and i did hear you correctly that 66 of all the cities six this will have to pass by six by a two-thirds vote in all the cities is that correct is that what

0:38:03you said no it has county-wide yeah county wide it needs it needs us uh two-thirds okay well that makes i thought i misheard you and i thought maybe i did um two things that bother a lot of our residents here in el cerrito are the sidewalks so the fact that we could get a little extra money

0:38:24for that is a good thing and then the second thing we hear a lot of complaints about and if there's projects that go through on central avenue the interchange at interstate 80. and it looks like that's on the docket and that's that's a really good thing for us to to know about for our

0:38:39residents to know about because if you've ever spent any time on central avenue you can appreciate what that's like particularly on the weekends and a lot of that change happened when not only ranch 99 and that area came to be but also the interchange that changed off of peer street and marin

0:39:01which actually made all that traffic divert over to central avenue and el cerrito so that's a good thing so i'm glad to see that um so thank you that's all i had i go to eat at dymo restaurant there at central there's valera right there it's hard to get back on the freeway i i understand

0:39:16exactly what you're saying we have a project there that we're getting ready to advertise to do a short-term fix and then if we can get this measure passed there's some dollars to fix central and san pablo dam road phase two are you able to share with the short-term fixes

0:39:32yeah well sean's actually the pr the project manager on that but it's it's really a short-term fix if i remember correctly and correct me if i'm wrong but it's to uh to eliminate the left turns on to 80. there are people are coming out of out of costco and trying

0:39:46to get them to move on to 580 and then back onto eight yeah that's right yeah yeah that'd be great thank you you're welcome mayor pro tem ableton um i don't know if i have any questions um however i think i can tell you why i support the major if that's useful at this point yeah i have a few i

0:40:06have a few questions and then we have members of the public we might uh we have three speakers we have three speakers so what do you want to speak before or let me just speak um okay go ahead they're kind of like facts the i think it's important to know that one of the

0:40:26concepts we used in figuring out what projects and programs we would have is that each share each part of the county has you know their own share of the money and and that we can use it the way we see fit in that region and that's been a real uh success it was a big success in major

0:40:50j and it's what enables us to for example um we'll take buses for example in other parts in some other parts of the county people complain about empty buses in this part of the county on san pablo avenue people can't get on the bus it's full and that's kind of the the reason why

0:41:12these differences in different regions of the county are really important and why i think it's important when you look at the materials to to to think about it that way um you know it's a it's not a one size fits all we we really like bikes here for example and we want to have

0:41:35access to bike lanes you know we have our complete streets plan on san pablo avenue that we're all real excited about getting funded and so this is an opportunity to to do summer all of that and other parts of the county really don't maybe care about that but they care

0:41:56about something else so it's important to think about it i think when you look at all these numbers and charts and everything that i think it's important to think about it that way that's all i kind of wanted to say great thank you um 30 years a long time um the if i heard you correctly the

0:42:17capital component would be expended roughly in 10 years so that current rate payers can enjoy the benefit as well as future rate payers did i hear that correctly that within 10 years the bulk of the net present value would be expended no currently under measure j it's a

0:42:3625-year measure we have a program called 25 and 10. so we've accelerated 25 years of projects into 10 years and we did that for a couple of reasons it's great question one is when when i came in 2010 the great recession we were getting very low bid so we try to accelerate everything into

0:42:54construction at that time and have these great bid savings 25 under the engineer's estimate and so we didn't make money but we saved a lot of money and we put that on the next project and put the savings on the next project put the savings on the next project and so and plus with the bonding market

0:43:10being so low we accelerated that the current measure is going to be 30 years and we can accelerate some of that work you have to get the projects ready to go you have to have a design all done unless you're you have to have designs for a company mechanic to place

0:43:26a bid on so if you don't have those ready then it'll be um we'll be unable to accelerate but i'm pretty sure the cities and country cost of transportation has already worked together to do that so so the the because the second part of this same question is that there's about i think

0:43:41you said at least six percent is services and that those services obviously need to run the full 30 years and i'm assuming that the the timing of expenditures will cover the full 30-year period that's a great question so in the in the current measure the way it's

0:43:55split is we have bonding authority against forty percent of the measure to build projects sixty percent including return to sourcing at sixty percent is is pay as you go on a year by year basis by by formula so for example return to source 18 of 100 million dollars you'd get 18

0:44:14million dollars a year in our case we get about 82 million this year and so 18 of that divvied up by road miles and population go out to the cities in the county so those are on a yearly basis and then what's left is for capital projects that we paid debt service now

0:44:28in principle much like your house correct yep the public advocates letter that we received criticizes the commitment to sequa but i'm certain that we are committed to sequa it's just as you said the projects haven't been defined yet and that i'm the question is will there

0:44:47be adequate sequa on the individual projects as they're brought forward i have not met one i have not seen one project in my 30-some odd years where we've not done a sequel checklist at least at a minimum you have to do that by law that was since ron reagan was our

0:45:02governor and so we're not going to get by on suica we're not saying we're going to circumvent sql we're just not going to do it twice in this case because we have to split waiting for one in order to figure out what the rules are going to be and then moving forward with our

0:45:14expenditure plan all the projects will go through the eir process and if they're federally funded eis excellent i've got uh two questions that are sort of related and they have to do with again the duration of this if future traffic analysis recommends that more money should be switched over

0:45:32to bus service can the expenditure formula expenditure plan be modified to allow for more transit projects rather than capital projects yes that's what i thought you were going to say and then similarly uh how are how does the plan the future of the plan address the population

0:45:57changes as predicted by mtc el cerrito is projected to increase quite a bit through mtc's numbers and so does this plan anticipate mtc's numbers or does the population formula that that division of formula where where west county is only getting uh 23 does that change over time or is that

0:46:15formula split broken it locked in places by the expenditure plan yeah so so the population numbers we got work from mtc right or yeah so you want to answer that question great if you'll state your name please uh hisham remy engineering manager with ccta uh the the way the funding was divided

0:46:35between the sub-region was based on 20 30 population so we that's the media of the measure that's why i chose that here actually we took that into place so so it's based on the it's based on a mid-year 2030 population correct excellent thank you that concludes my questions

0:46:54one more point this is a follow-up to council member bridges and where i think the confusion is if you look at the analysis it says pursuant to public utilities code transportation expenditure plan may not be finally adopted and placed before the voters and until it has received the

0:47:14approval of the county board of supervisors and city councils which in aggregate represent both the majority of the cities and towns in contra costa and the majority of the population residing in the incorporated areas of contra costa so you were referring to that but

0:47:32then to her question you said two-thirds vote so in order to get it on the ballot you need this majority right yeah so my opening statement i was i said this is very important i said we need your support we need a majority of cities with the majority of the population

0:47:51so that the contra costa transportation authority can put this measure on the ballot for the voters to decide and then the question was what percentage do you need it by city and its overall county if the voters decide six point six seven percent plus one whatever that number is

0:48:09then it passes if it's less it fails i think seeing no further questions for mr izakaya i will bring it to public comment we have three speakers cordell hindler followed by dave campbell and debbie toth so uh mayor lyman council members on codel hendler park plaza nc so

0:48:35i really enjoyed the the presentation of of the um of the transportation i said oh wow this is so amazing so as you know i ride ac transit on a regular basis as mayor pro tem abelson does and i said oh this would be wonderful uh because we need because we because it'll be it'll

0:48:55be helpful for everyone to you know support this map this measure so i'm asking the council if you can approve this so we can get everything on the right track so that's it um next speaker mayor lyman and council members dave campbell i'm the advocacy director with

0:49:17bike east bay formerly east bay bicycle coalition working to make all cities in the east bay contra costa county alameda county more walkable more bikable here in full and strong support for this transportation expenditure plan we worked very closely with the contra

0:49:34costa transportation authority and the rtpcs in particular wic tech to develop this plan and a lot of groups collectively called the environmental coalition if you will to make this plan strong on walking by bicycling in transit and we feel we have done that broadly the plan

0:49:56directs a lot of money to bart to fix bart along with bart's own bond measure uh bart is the core of our transit system here in the bay area super important uh but this plan also directs a lot of money to fixing our local roads and our sidewalks and then as a very overarching concept the plan

0:50:15recognizes that we just can't keep expanding and widening our roads and freeways we've got to make what we have work better to move people and not just cars and that's where we've really come in you've asked how much more money do we have for walking and biking by my

0:50:30estimate we've doubled the money for walking and biking we've tripled the number for bicycling and that's super important to bike east bay and eve in west county we've done even better but that's a county wide average and then the other thing we've done is we have a very strong complete street

0:50:47policy which means all the money that we're going to spend here we're going to make the money work for everyone who uses that system and and i think el cerrito and i know west county can really benefit from the major streets complete streets program uh and it's not that bike east bay plays

0:51:04favorites with which projects to award that are competitive but your san pablo ave complete street project is the signature complete street project in the county right now and if we can get this passed it's going to be in a good position to get funding through the major streets

0:51:21category and and i'll be at richmond in a few weeks in san pablo next week encouraging them to cue up their projects as well may the best project win but uh i think y'all are out of the gate first on this with the san pablo app and i would love to see a project like that

0:51:36funded a project that makes a busy street like san pablo have worked for everybody imagine that a street like that working for everybody so no matter who's traveling that corridor they feel like they have an option of how they want to get around and i think this plan

0:51:50is going to get us there thanks mr campbell i would encourage you to review our active transportation plan that was passed in march april uh it has several projects that i'm hopefully you would be able to support as well i hope too we need to get some money first thanks

0:52:07david toth followed by nicholas arzio good evening mayor lyman and honorable members of the council my name is debbie toth and i am the ceo of rehabilitation services of northern california we serve contra costa's frail elder population and adults with chronic multiple

0:52:27disabilities i'm here tonight in support of this measure because of the investment that it makes in accessible transportation historically what we have done in our tax measure is to fund a non-funded mandate the americans with disabilities act which says that if we provide fixed

0:52:47route transportation we have to provide a comparable paratransit option that option is curb to curb and that option is only mirroring the fixed route service which means that people who need door through door service with groceries with medical appointments with other

0:53:03things are excluded from having access to the funding i understand why it was done i'm not making any negative comments about that i'm just saying that we need to think more broadly moving forward uh in contra costa county over the next 44 years the california department of finance

0:53:23projects that the aging population in contra costa county from 65 to 74 is going to grow by 125 percent that age bracket the next age bracket from 74 to 85 is going to grow by 198 and the next age bracket which is 85 and older is going to grow by 299 percent the next down is the college age group

0:53:45and that is going to grow by 50 at that same time so we really need to invest in accessible transportation for this population that is going to be massively growing and something that we have to serve people shouldn't age out of a transportation system and this measure

0:54:01puts forth four percent toward accessible transportation not just accessible transportation but mobility management mobility management what a weird word right mobility management is very much akin to what we see happening with the affordable care act and managing people's health care and making

0:54:17sure that there's communication and making sure that everybody has access to that person's medical record and knows what specialists are touching them when how and how we're providing services same thing except that mobility management looks at how we use evidence-based models in an innovative

0:54:34way and put the writer at the center of the trip and it's a really phenomenal way to move forward and i urge your support thank you thank you nicholas arzio evening i'm nicholas arzio i would say that i i like a lot of the a lot of the focus that this tax would

0:55:01bring on uh improving the streets and maintaining the streets and also increasing accessibility on our streets i am a little bit concerned about the regressive form which the tax uh takes i do think that this would bring the total sales tax to 10 and a half percent making it the highest

0:55:23to my knowledge the highest in the state uh and possibly the country so it might be it might be nice if this could have taken the form of a parcel tax or another less regressive form of tax thank you thank you any speakers seeing none anyone else would like to speak on this matter all

0:55:41right we'll close it and bring it back to the dice for comments and emotion any comments uh mayor pro tem abelson would you like to make a motion i would love to make a motion uh i move um that this council adopt a resolution of support for the county-wide imposition

0:56:03of a one-half cent one-half of one percent sales tax to fund transportation improvements in contra costa and conditionally amend the growth management program in the major j transportation expenditure plan a second motion by ableton second by bridges any discussion seeing none i'll call the

0:56:24question all those in favor please say aye aye opposed abstentions let the record show it pass unanimously thank you uh at this time we will move on to item seven b item 7 b is adoption of the city's biennial budget for fiscal years 2016 2017 and fiscal years 2017-2018

0:56:57will approve fiscal year 2016-17 spending authority by fund for the city employee pension board and the public financing authority and approve the fiscal year 2016-2017 annual gan appropriation limit and i'm sure there's a presentation in my future there is thank you mayor members

0:57:18of the council um i'll basically repeat what the mayor just said um you have before you four resolutions uh the first one is related to the biennial budget uh for the overall operating operations of the city uh the second one is related to the el cerrito public finance authorities

0:57:38spending authority the third one is related to the el srido employee pension board and the fourth one is to set the gan limit which authorizes our spending which we are once again well under that limit at our last meeting on june 14th i gave you a pretty detailed presentation

0:57:59on what was in this year's proposed two-year budget since that time we went back and we based on the comments we received from the council and others including the financial advisory board crafted the staff report and the attached resolutions based on those comments what our plan is

0:58:23and what changes we will make when we do the final budget similar the process that we're using exactly the same as we've done my 15 years here is all clarifications edits typos that we we have found or others have found um we will make uh before we consider the

0:58:43book adopted in terms of changes that we want more more broad changes that we will make before finalizing based on the comments from the council is we will add it as a goal enhanced for enforcement of the city smoking ordinance by the police department we will add a measure a swim center chart

0:59:06and description which was emitted from the proposed we will under city-wide revenues add a description for fines and forfeitures which actually includes parking vehicle code enforcement citations we will include funding for the new senior center as a challenge and under the building division

0:59:27we will add considering an amnesty program as something that we want to consider going forward um additionally there was discussion about trees tree maintenance tree removal tree repair i wanted to point out that as you might recall earlier in last in this current fiscal

0:59:47year the council authorized 35 000 in sort of emergency tree repairs related to the drought what may not have been clear and i didn't point it out at the last meeting is we brought that 35 000 forward as part of additional funding for our tree program and based on the council

1:00:04comments we we're going to reprogram money throughout the city's operating budget to add an additional ten thousand dollars so the overall budget will actually be forty five thousand dollars higher related to the trees and tree maintenance um than it was a year ago

1:00:20uh finally a few things we want to do in the future because we think maybe it would add um more clarity is that we will make sure that the where we have line descriptions for our capital program they are they tie better to the cip section of the budget so it's easier to bridge what is capital what is

1:00:41not i think um over the years we've you we've gotten we've kind of used certain things interchangeably and we probably need to be a little more thorough on what is actually a capital expense versus a project that we may have included in the cip just so you you and the public can see

1:01:00there is a project for undertaking but that may ultimately not be capitalized so it doesn't appear in our capital numbers so we will reconcile that to make it a little bit clearer since we had some comments and we'll make sure that all of the special fun descriptions um as we've

1:01:17talked about are are clear and they all tie together maybe a little better than they did in the book um additionally uh it's my understanding the chair of the financial advisory board is here tonight uh they were fine tuning their recommendations so it didn't make it in

1:01:36the staff report so i believe he wants to address the council i will say i along with other staff have attended the last three financial advisory board meetings and really appreciated their input and believe the budget reflects their thoughts so uh with that i mean we included once

1:01:55again my transmittal letter and i'd be happy to take any comments or questions but otherwise i'm ready for you to take action thank you i'm going to start on my left council member bridges um yeah i i i appreciate that you already added in um because it wasn't necessarily in our

1:02:14packet but the specifics of the edits and clarifications not necessarily the typos but the additional bullet point under number two and then three and four that followed and um just for clarification not necessarily to me but just in in general to the public is that even if we

1:02:33ended up adopting this biennial budget um we're only approving a spending limit for 2016-17 correct that's all i had great thank you mayor pro tem no comments quite questions or comments seeing none um yeah i in light of the previous item um i certainly want to emphasize

1:02:58that uh you know having additional funds for street trees and trees in general is certainly good um and it sounds like uh one of our comments was about sidewalks and it sounds like uh you know if that measure passes there would be additional funding for sidewalks

1:03:16because certainly that is certainly something that is instrumental and i do want to thank you for responding to [Music] the additional descriptions of special funds and including the amnesty program and including the senior center as one of the critical buildings that needs to

1:03:38be re you know try and find funding for that so i want to thank you for for incorporating those into the final budget book with that i have no other questions we will move to public comment at this time we have two slips cordell hindler and um pete ranach is here from the fab

1:04:02so mayor lyman a council member the cartel handler uh park plaza n a so i really in when i was looking at the budget i was like oh wow seems like money is coming a long way so the only thing that i'm asking for the council to do is adopt it and approve it and that's all i have to say so

1:04:28next speaker thank you sir uh good evening uh mayor lyman council members staff and members of the public i'm pete vronich chairman of the financial advisory board of el cerrito um we fab has met and discussed the proposed budget on several occasions as city manager mentioned

1:04:51march 8 may 10th june 15th with study periods individually in between time because we were getting a lot of materials throughout the process and we wanted to thank staff for all their hard work under difficult circumstances this year and some surprises and we also appreciate their efforts to

1:05:13get us involved early and throughout the process so um tonight so we've met in discussion here i'm here tonight to present you with our recommendation we recommend that council adopt the fiscal year 16 17 and 17 18 by biennial budget and we have four recommendations to make

1:05:34and you do you have did this get in okay so i won't read it verbatim um but uh one recommendation was to clarify some of the duties and day-to-day operations of the departments where appropriate that was discussed with city manager and finance department and i think we you know we need to do there

1:05:55the second one is that council should conduct a public review of compensation provided to the city's elected of council on boards according to the contra costa grand jury report 1104 the third recommendation is more like an opportunity i think there's what fab is requesting is that council

1:06:16direct us to to review the existing uh debt long-term debt of the city for any um restructuring or optimization opportunities also uh in light of uh some long-term debt proposals that that may come our way as well and then last we just want to acknowledge or ask the council

1:06:37acknowledge that while we've made a lot of progress in the last few years to restore the general fund reserve we're not quite at 10 and that that you keep an eye on that and continue to have that as a goal so if there's any questions that you have or anything clarified be happy

1:06:54to do that otherwise i i think i want to thank you very much for the financial advisory board you know you guys met an exceptional number of times this time of year um as you do every year um so i want to thank you for the service that you've done and and thank

1:07:13you for your recommendations that you've delivered thank you okay you're welcome it's our pleasure thanks speakers uh one last one nick arzio hello so i'd like to ask that um at some point that the data presented in tables 2.1 and 2.8 be uh changed to reconcile with the line

1:07:38items in appendix 6 they don't they don't add up so i was promised that that would be changed and i hope it will be changed at some point and also it wouldn't be nice to have an explanation for the reclassification of revenues from intergovernmental revenues to the category other taxes

1:07:56um this was a change that was made this year and there was no explanation for uh for why these revenues were reclassified i hope that that will be done as well before the budget is passed thank you any other speakers no mayor excellent and i will bring it back and ask um the city manager with

1:08:18regards to at least the first three bullets of the financial advisory board recommendation and i i will look to both sides i think as a council we can acknowledge the fourth bullet uh and and uh you can take that back to the financial advisory board that we do acknowledge

1:08:35that 9.2 is not 10 and that we still are striving for ten percent um so i'll now come to the city manager and ask the city manager um if if the recommendations for the first three uh bullets from the financial advisory board affect the book or can be factored into

1:08:52the book if necessary and are they appropriate for us to move forward with directing the fab to take up those actions yes i believe so i was active in the discussions with the financial advisory board um it was a bit of a give and take so i appreciate their their openness uh so

1:09:11yes i think it's fine i i would add um related to the recommendation about the council compensation um i i would suggest that that discussion start at the financial advisory board um and let them as part of their role uh do an analysis of the compensation and then they or

1:09:30staff can bring it back to the city council rather than have starting that discussion here and you know now look at the um city attorney if we're going to give direction to the financial advisory board is that in the form of a motion um yeah i mean it doesn't require a resolution for the

1:09:49city council to to send a direction like that to the fab okay so emotion should be adequate emotions should be adequate great thank you um so at some point we'll i would like to take up that uh giving the fab uh the direction that they're seeking um a question for the city manager with

1:10:06regards to the last speaker mr arzio the request that he's made with regards to line items in tables two one and two eight and an explanation of the changes between past books and the current book with regards to how uh some revenues and expenditures are are grouped together can you speak to you've

1:10:28you've told us the other changes you're planning on the book uh to before we adopt it are these two changes that we can count on that that or we should we count on them to be made we'll we will clarify why the way certain numbers were classified in those tables were done the

1:10:43way they were done okay excellent um with that i'll bring it back for uh any additional questions or comments at this time i'll move i'll make a motion okay we're all ready um i'll move to adopt a resolution approving the biennial budget report fiscal years 2016-17

1:11:05and 2017-18 and authorizing um fiscal year 2016-17 spending authority by fund for the city of el cerrito before it was seconded i was going to ask the city attorney do we have to acknowledge that all the changes that mr hannan outlined in his uh presentation as well

1:11:29as the two there at the end in the motion i believe they're reflected in the resolution oh okay well once the ones tonight with regards to like changing to table two and two one and two eight would not necessarily be there but but those are is that considered a minor modification

1:11:51wasn't there something in here about minor modifications i thought that that that was incl i would need to double check the resolution but i thought that it actually encompassed leeway to make changes along those lines um but let me quickly review what says clarifications

1:12:06so i i think that in that case if you would like to revise the motion to make sure that those um changes are incorporated into the motion so before i read the motion for clarity it was it it wasn't necessarily second because i didn't have a chance to read the motion

1:12:22so i'm i'm going to ask the motion maker to clarify so um is it going to be tables one and two one and eight two one and two eight were the two that were called out of to be modified as well as descriptions explanations of changes between previous budget books and the

1:12:43current budget book that was on intergovernmental do you want me to be specific yeah it was on your right it was on intergovernmental correct okay so i moved to adopt a resolution approving the biennial budget report of fiscal years 2016 17 and 2 17 and 18 and authorizing fiscal year 2016-17 spending

1:13:10authority by fund of the city of el cerrito and making sure that the tables 2-1 and 2-8 are clarified in an explanation of the internet inter governmental fund changes from previous books is also clarified in the final document second okay we've had a motion that's been made

1:13:29by bridges as seconded by quinto before i call the motion i want to actually thank the city manager and the finance staff for their hard work on preparing this budget i know it was not an easy task given the changes that occurred this year and i really appreciate the hard

1:13:51work that was done to get this budget book to where we are i also want to you know acknowledge that tonight we are um as council member bridges said we're we're setting the we're we are essentially proving the assumptions and the expenditures that the uh city manager and staff have have put

1:14:14before us for the next fiscal year so i just want to acknowledge that that is a commendable task and that we're happy to be where we are and moving towards that 10 percent uh goal getting 9.2 percent in our reserve fund with that i will call the question all those in favor please say aye aye

1:14:36opposed abstentions let the records show that this resolution passed unanimously um now on to uh the s el cerrito public financing authority can i get a resolution resolution to the city of el cerrito public financing authority adopting the fiscal year's 2016 17 and 2017

1:15:0118 budget with the same amendments as appropriate that were just in the other motion second moved by friedman seconded by abelson uh all those in favor please say aye aye opposed abstentions let the record show it passed unanimously um now i'm looking for a resolution of the city of el cerrito

1:15:21employees pension board mr quinto yes a resolution of the city council of the city of el cerrito setting the appropriations limit for fiscal year 2016-17 and selecting the california per capita personal income and contra costa county population adjustment factors

1:15:41second a motion by quinto seconded by friedman all those in favor please say aye aye abstentions are opposed seeing none let it pass let us show that it passed unanimously this next one is the resolution of setting our gan limit and i just want to make sure i want to make sure that the public

1:16:04knows that we have no serious intention of getting to our gan limit which is uh shall not exceed this fiscal year 125 million um and so it we won't we won't be getting to that limit but this is required every year for us to set our gan limit by uh government code and so we will be doing

1:16:28so kind of a motion to set our appropriations limit for the fiscal year i'll do that i move adoption of a resolution approving the calculation and establishing the fiscal year 2016-17 annual gan appropriation limit second and i will pause to ask the city attorney if we needed to talk about

1:16:55selecting the california per capita personal income and contra costa population adjustment factors let me double check that it's in the resolution i thought it was yeah it's already built in the in section one of the resolution great excellent um so we have a motion

1:17:17by ableton seconded by uh bridges all those in favor please say aye aye opposition abstentions seeing none let the record show it passed unanimously great thank you that concludes item uh seven b we will move on to item seven c seven c is the tax and revenue anticipation notes uh 2016-17 short-term

1:17:42cash flow financing thank you mayor members of the council for i believe this is our fourth year in a row we're asking the council to adopt a resolution approving a borrowing of funds for 1617 and issuance of tax and revenue anticipation that's known as trans it's actually

1:18:02quite common for local governments to do it those who are particularly count on property tax revenue and as you know the timing is spaced out because obviously our finances have changed over time and with our reserves being lower than they were in the past but additionally

1:18:24without really significant capital projects or housing money and particularly redevelopment agency money in our pooled funds um our cash at certain times of the year just becomes incredibly tight um so with that we started issuing trans four years ago what we're asking you to do is to authorize

1:18:47that we enter into agreements with our financial advisor and finance team and also issue five million dollars in trans um it's the same number as we did last year at an interest rate of 1.5 percent um i i will say from a staff perspective although there is a cost to

1:19:05doing this the the level of stress and administration that goes down um as a result of having adequate cash flow it allows us to make sure that we um we always pay our employees on time but make sure that we pay all our vendors on time and not withhold and and um sort of a battle which there there

1:19:24were a few years um where we were almost living check to check just in terms of cash not money in the bank so with that um we're once again asking the council as part of the budget process to authorize a trend once again and with that we would be hiring finance

1:19:40advisors bond council and we've already negotiated a sale of the trans which we believe is the most cost effective way to do it um and with with the buyer that we did last year so um with that uh we're happy to take i will try to take any questions our finance advisors not here um but without any

1:20:02questions or comments excellent any questions or comments no seeing none i'll ask one um what's the what's the prognosis for paying off last year's tran oh we're fine we'll pay it off either this week or next week great thank you um any speakers on this item we have one

1:20:20mr handler so mayor lyman um council members all i can say is adam i hope you support this um this this fun um 5 million dollars that seems a bit a lot so hope you approve it thank you sir i'll move uh resolution of the city council of the city of el cerrito approving the borrowing of funds for

1:20:45fiscal year 2016-17 and the issuance and sale of the 2016-17 tax and revenue anticipation notes second motion made by friedman seconded by bridges all those in favor please say aye aye opposed extension seeing none let the record show that it passed unanimously

1:21:06uh that concludes item 7c we'll move on to item 8 council assignment and liaison reports go ahead i did attend a tour of the new a-bag mtc office which is on top of rinkin hill in san francisco so it's about a 15-20 minute brisk walk and the the building is beautiful and

1:21:37it is further away from transportation than the former oakland office but uh it is walkable so that's my report any reports i have no reports we only met last week i know we did but i actually have a report since last week too i'd like to bring up last thursday i

1:21:59represented us in at the marin clean energy walnut creek board member was sworn in so the members that are for some of the seven communities that were joined are starting to be sworn in i can also happily report uh and that we were able to reduce rates for electricity

1:22:25so that you are participating in as a result of these additional communities joining we have been able to secure favorable power contracts at a lower rate than we anticipated and uh i know we just set the rates in in march because their fiscal year is april to march

1:22:44uh but as a result of power purchases in the last three months we are able to project a savings and a rate reduction so you all should be seeing a rate reduction in your in your electrical bills here shortly the rate reduction will actually make the mces competitive mce rates

1:23:06competitive with pg e and potentially even less hopefully you would see about two tenths of one percent less for the average electrical user those five of us up here that are deep green that the reduction won't be comparable to uh to pg e but we will see a rate

1:23:26reduction additionally i want to talk about thursday's meeting with the west county mayor's supervisors association this coming thursday we will be hosting it's our it's we're hosting the last of our run and i want to thank sheryl for all of her hard work uh helping us get the

1:23:46mayor's uh meeting off the ground and it was it proved to be very useful last month as we discussed some of the violence on the streets and i understand from tony thurman that that that there will be additional revenue coming towards the city of hercules and and richmond as a result of

1:24:08some of the um some of the to combat gang violence and address some of the violence on the freeway the however this thursday the county the west county mayors will be taking up the appoint the issue of appointing representative to the west contra costa unified school

1:24:29district citizen oversight committee for parcel taxes in may the board of education approved policy one two two one which established a new committee the citizens oversight committee for partial taxes the committee will have the responsibility to provide oversight of the parcel tax

1:24:47expenditures and to ensure that they are consistent with the ballot measure the west county mayor's association is asked to appoint one of the 11-member committee there have been no resumes or names put forth at this time and i suspect it will be discussed that it would be one of the

1:25:10elected officials from the five cities to [Music] to be appointed to that board and i wanted to at least alert you of that good question certainly so that means instead of each city recommending somebody it'll be one for all the cities correct the sit five cities will appoint

1:25:30one representative to the 11 member board and who are the other 10 oh i didn't it's uh i didn't i don't know if cheryl is that in here yes it is i do have the answer two parents uh two parents with one recommended by the pta and one recommended from a pto organization

1:25:52one student recommended by the youth commission one teacher recommended by the united teachers one business person recommended by one of the west county chambers of commerce one youth program leader recommended by one of the community-based organizations in west county serving youth one

1:26:07classified employee recommended by the classified employee union one representative recommended by the california charter schools association one representative of west county taxpayers association one principal recommended by the west contra costa administrators association

1:26:25and our one member that is represented by the west county mayors association all terms will be two years in duration with members eligible to serve two consecutive two-year terms thank you with that that concludes item eight and item nine is to adjourn the regular city council meeting

1:26:57the next regularly scheduled city council meeting is tuesday july 19 2016 here at city hall you