Regular City Council Meeting August 16, 2016

0:00:45good evening everyone uh i'm gonna call to order the regular city council meeting of tuesday august 16th uh here in city hall um let the records show that all council members are present uh that'll bring us to item one which is pledge of allegiance to the flag or observation of

0:01:04a moment of of the united silence of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god and indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right that brings us to item two which is a council and staff communications i'll start off by announcing that during our

0:01:33closed session of this evening we gave direction to our real property negotiator negotiators and are there any staff communications this evening seeing none are there any other communications from the from go ahead i have one um i was told that a member of our wall of fame uh has passed away

0:01:59and uh that person is lucy williams um wilson excuse me wilson uh who died uh on the 14th which is i think at this point day before yesterday and um so i'm asking that we'd uh do a resolution in her memory and also that we end our meeting that day in her honor and um i understand

0:02:32that tom panis has some information that we could use to put in the resolution and i just talked to him about it and she was a very very pleasant lady that i'm sure many of us have had a chance to know and so it's really with great sadness she was 98 years old and um

0:03:01um anyway that i i just wanted to mention that and her services will be uh thursday and friday the last thursday and friday of august i i can add some additional information for that the funeral services will be held at st peters cme 11 a.m on friday august 26th

0:03:25and uh the past will follow and they're asking for people to assist in hosting the family during the re-past hour and the family will cater that were past and have asked assistance by the church family so it is with sorrow that we recognize the passing of lucy wilson so

0:03:47um and we will be adjourning this meeting in in the honor of uh two women who passed in the la recently including lucy uh pat jones um who pat jones was a former assistant executive director of the association of bay area governors between 1998 and 2013 pat jones yeah

0:04:08um so we we will be convening the meeting in honor of both of those women tonight any other any other items that we would like to discuss at this time no seeing none we will move on to item three item three is oral communications from the public uh anyone who would like to speak you we

0:04:35we ask you to limit your remarks to three minutes we do have a light system uh in front that will be green when you start yellow when you have a minute left in red when we would like you to wrap up it is for items that are not on the agenda or that are on the consent calendar

0:04:55we will be pulling item 5 c which is a resolution opposing sutter health corporation so if you want to hold and speak on that matter please we can we will have you speak when we take that item up after the consent calendar are there any other items that people would like

0:05:15to pull from the consent calendar so we can adjust the oral communications from the public appropriately therefore we will start oral communications from the public so if cheryl if there is a 5c we will go ahead and hold that until after other speakers thank you we have three speakers for

0:05:31general comic cordell hindler followed by sean o'connor and dave weinstein justice mike so mayor lyman uh council members i'm carter handler i'm a board member for park plaza neighborhood association so i can't this is my my second meeting coming here so i got i was just looking on the city's

0:05:52website and i figured young people deserve uh to work in like in uh various city departments because it'll show them what what some of what people what the people do here on on a regular basis um it'll show the young people what what what their jobs are so the young person

0:06:10would work like in the city clerk's office um part-time so i figured this is good for young people you know like give them like you know a little shot of self-esteem so that's one number two is on let me see what else um i will bring some flyers for the uh for the richmond promise uh at the next

0:06:26meeting uh to show you what the um what what the um what they have in mind you know like from for uh for college um apps applications so i'll bring one then the third one is um i'll bring flyers for my fair lady for also next month so that's pretty much it so that's three so

0:06:43let's see let's see what else oh yeah i'm very grateful that um that this is this is this month is very special for um for for for a certain uh wall of fame member who will be uh mentioned uh later on so in the in the agenda so i'm grateful that the that this uh honoree

0:07:01deserve everything so pretty much it thank you sir sean o'connor followed by dave weinstein hello i am sean o'connor i'm an el cerrito resident i'm a member of the el cerrito green teams and i'd like to give quick report on the trash and mentioned to talk about two green team cleanups

0:07:32coming up first firstly i want to mention that that i've didn't i've been assessing the trash around our town and i've assessed different five different look and i've been tracking these five locations creekside park baxter creek gateway park patrol avenue saint pablo avenue and the

0:08:01and the cutting boulevard gateway and the el cerrito del norte bart station and at creek side park i've noticed that it's mostly browsing mostly files cans and little bits of plastic and paper napkins and and at baxter creek it's it's mostly plastic bags and fast

0:08:34plastic bags fast food paper and styrofoam and then at petrol avenue it's mostly cigarette butts cans balls and fast food waste and then at cutting boulevards mostly cigarette butts some mostly cigarette butts and fast food waste and waste from stores grocery stores and yeah and

0:09:01snack packaging too large part of it and then that's so that's that's my trash analysis in the the el cerrito hills area is really clean so i'm pleased with that and then and then that's it for the my trash analysis and the another thing i want to say is that there's a green team cleanup on

0:09:25the 27th of this month from 10 a.m until 12 30 p.m at el cerrito del norte bart station and we will meet at hill street near on hill street near el cerrito del norte bart station bike lockers and then there will be a cleanup on september 2017 there will be another cleanup on

0:09:44september 17th and that will be at creekside park and we'll be meeting at the santa clara south end of santa clara street and in el cerrito at the creek santa clara street at creekside park will be meeting there and clean up creekside park that park from 10 a.m until 12 30 p.m that's all

0:10:07thank you sean hi i'm dave weinstein speaking as the president of elsewhere trail trekkers with two pieces of uh good news one you know we had the hillside festival a while ago and as you know we did raise some money we finally managed to add it all up and it comes

0:10:27with 2 186 dollars not as much as we had hoped but nonetheless i have a check-in i'm going to give it to the city and this money and here's what it's for it's for the purpose of cutting grasses and other invasive vegetation in madeira open space in an environmentally responsible

0:10:45way say hey like that two thousand one hundred and eighty six dollars major donors being amy rogers marlene keller mary barkey and dave weinstein and um there it is we'll we'll keep on raising money to maintain the open space the other piece that i think is very good

0:11:00news we're making real progress with pg e as you know pg e owns all that land adjacent to the hillside area and even up over the arlington heading in the direction of um of what was it wildcat canyon so the uh chuck lewis a former member of the city council and now a lead staff attorney

0:11:20for pg e uh we've sent him maps showing the trails and he's working out an easement that wouldn't cost the city anything and it would essentially formalize what has been an informal relationship of uh you know human use of this area and as we continue as a city to work

0:11:38with pg e to improve the natural habitat there it just makes sense that we really formalize this the good thing with this means that they won't be able to like keep people away if they ever decide they want to do that it also means that as the national park service gets ready as we get ready

0:11:57to actually install the signs showing all the trails we can show those trails too which we couldn't have done before if they were just private informal trails it also furthers the city's goal of having the urban path to urban greening plants what do you call it blue

0:12:14to green corridor it'll make it a whole lot easier to walk from the bay to the top especially once we put trails on those sections above the arlington where currently there are no real formal trails so anyhow that's the story with trail trekkers okay thank you no other speakers at this point great

0:12:33i'm going to um you use a little mirror prerogative here to announce something that i've neglected to announce under item two tomorrow is the city's birthday and tomorrow we will be 99 years old um and it is the beginning of our 100th our 100th year which will culminate in a large party so

0:13:00we do have a centennial committee that is working on the uh celebration of our 100th year and i wanted to take this opportunity to remind everyone that it it starts tomorrow the 100th year [Applause] with that we'll move on to item four a which is the el cerrito wall of fame

0:13:24ceremony um where we will be adopting a resolution in favor of mr weinstein who just spoke uh dave weinstein has a has a long distinguished record of service in el cerrito mr weinstein helped form friends of the cerrito theater to save the theater helped el cerrito trail trackers

0:13:44rediscover survey map improve and publicize city trails and open spaces has led free public hikes to showcase the city's architectural heritage history and beauty and co-chaired the el cerrito open space committee which raised 100 000 towards the purchase of the

0:14:02madeira open space his passion for el cerrito's history mr weinstein has written histories of stage sanitary district and the el cerrito recycling center now therefore be it resolved by the city council of el cerrito that it hereby inducts dave weinstein into the el cerrito wall of fame

0:14:24in recognition of his contributions towards preserving the history and natural areas of el cerrito educating the community and about educating the community about environmental sustainability and enhancing el cerrito's sense of place so that is the that's the guts of the

0:14:41resolution that's before us this evening and we have a resolution to to provide and for those that are at home we we have the picture that we'll be uh posting on the wall um and so that's we have both of those um we have a emotion can i get a motion and then we

0:15:07can go into whatever certain moves with enthusiasm so we have a motion by friedman seconded by abelson uh in favor of the proclamation or the resolution all those in favor please say aye hi um it passes are there any comments or thoughts at this time i just wanted to

0:15:24thank dave for all he's done dave and i had the honor to go to an event at sweets ballroom remember that because we were recognized by the art deco society of california for the renovation of the cerrito theater it was a really fun evening and i got to witness firsthand the tenacity the

0:15:48passion of love that you have so i also want to give recognition i was going to say that you raised a hundred thousand dollars after i challenged you personally to do that because the tennis players had raised more than that although we were a very large group and i think you raised um it

0:16:08was even more of a feat because you had so many fewer donors that donated than what we had for the tennis club and the tennis court on the arlington and i was ready to say that you raised a hundred thousand dollars but i guess now i'm going to say it was a hundred and

0:16:25two thousand dollars so thank you and i know you'll keep making money for us and we know that that's going for maintenance so just thank you for all you've done and dave and i'm not sure where you are in the audience but where are you aha i want to say that i my first memory of

0:16:53you is back with the recycling task force remember that and and uh it was i think when i first got on the council in uh november 99 that um you were on that task force and i went to a task force meeting um i that that's my you know my first memory of you doing service for our city

0:17:23and looking at the re recycling system as it existed then and making recommendations about improvements but i think my favorite memory of you is one that um there was i don't think anyone else there but you and i and that was at the cerrito theater before it was the cerrito theater and

0:17:46you said you told me you've got to see this place and so we went inside the shell of what was to be the cerrito theater and when it was the old um store uh in the storage area of the old store when it was closing down maybe it was already closed i don't remember

0:18:11and you said look at this place all of the and showed me all of the things from the theater that were still there remember that and i thought that was just absolutely fantastic and showed really great vision and i want to thank you for that and and then i remember we we had the

0:18:32celebration where we had i think 4 000 people come to um look at the uh space this was again before it became the theater and uh celebrate it and we had a spotlight remember that i mean it was just it was utterly fantastic and all i can say is thank you dave so those are my two favorite memories

0:19:03councilmember friedman yeah i just want to say and i said some words last time when we voted that dave you are a relentlessly optimistic and effective community servant whenever there's anything positive happening in el cerrito you're one of the people that i know is usually right in the middle of

0:19:23it and with a vision and also a pragmatic approach to getting things done getting the community behind it getting the political support getting the money you're not just a dreamer you're a tremendous doer and a huge asset to our community and thank you dave it was amazing we had a nice dinner

0:19:45this evening with with mary and glenn attended as well and i just wanted to say thank you for your uh long time service uh to the city that uh we both loved very much and uh i remember you invited me to your home one day and uh and you showed me uh some of the uh

0:20:05articles that you've written that you showed me that amazing record collection you have in that garage that is just yeah it uh it's very fitting to have uh the poet laureate here who've i've known since uh 18 19 years old and she also has an amazing record collection and

0:20:24so again thanks again um you know you know everything about architecture all over the bay area and you're a treasure for our city so uh thanks so much dave thank you for your service to the city and with that i understand we have four speakers um so i'll have those speakers be called forward at

0:20:47this time we have force four speakers including dave at this time jenny hammer followed by dave weinstein cordell hindler and howdy gowdy so jenny hammer hi i'm jenny hammer an el cerrito resident and i'm also a member of the el cerrito trail trekkers organization

0:21:16there are many reasons why dave weinstein is deserving and i thank the council and mayor lyman for for passing or whatever you call it this resolution it's it's sort of the domino effect and i guess that's the best way to describe dave weinstein and and trail trekkers

0:21:45trail checkers would not exist if it weren't for him and his beloved dog patchy because the two of them started looking at and walking the trails of el cerrito and the derelict pathways and from that trail trekkers was established and trail trackers has a very impressive

0:22:11record of environmental advocacy and work in the community and that's because of dave weinstein so thank you thank you so mr weinstein followed by cordell hindler well thank you very much i think el carito is a great town and the the people who who run you know the city

0:22:37council and the staff they really make this possible there's a lot of cities where if you have an idea to save a theater well you know good luck right well here it actually happened people you know people listen to you if you have a good idea and if it fits in with you know overall

0:22:52goals bear in mind it was not my idea to make it a theater again i thought that wasn't possible i thought we'd preserve the interior for some other use it was a member of the city staff and said no we're going to make it a theater again you know likewise there were so many

0:23:06people who helped raise that hundred thousand dollars and who worked on the friends of the cerrito theater you know laurie dare and pam challen or gary hill so many people that i i don't want to hug all the all all the credit and so many people in this room who have worked

0:23:19so hard for all this and and my wife who's worked so hard i was i attended my first city council meeting here as a reporter for the west county times where i was an editor for many years one of the rules i enforced when you did an article about somebody who was helping out a city or doing good

0:23:35works and you asked them why they did it and they said i'm giving back to the community i said no you never quote that you never quote that because number one everybody tells you that and so therefore it's meaningless and there's always some other real reason behind it

0:23:49and in in my case it's it's somewhat of a selfish reason you know i really do like el cerrito i've adopted it and it's my town it's where i live and it's my hometown and so when i see something i mean it's selfish i just couldn't have sat back and said you know there's a

0:24:03beautiful art deco theater in this town with gorgeous murals and i'm going to sit back and do nothing and pretty soon those murals are going to be gone and it'll be a mattress store i just couldn't do that not to give back to the community but for my own sake i couldn't

0:24:16walk around on the trails in el cerrito back in the old days when i used to complain that you could walk along the ohlone greenway stepping every step on a piece of trash and i couldn't do that and meanwhile i'm working out there in walnut creek and you go out to the iron horse trail and

0:24:30it's pristine i couldn't sit around and say no that's my town uh-huh you know and i couldn't you know think that there's 15 acres of beautiful open space or eight acres however much it is and think oh man one day there's going to be houses there you know i don't want that it's my town i don't

0:24:44want it and so therefore you have to have you got to really fight doing this kind of stuff you don't always make friends you make enemies too and so you just have to you have to care about it giving back to the community isn't going to cut it you have to care about it uh

0:24:56on your own and again thank you because the city has done just so much to encourage people to get involved thank you oh i thought the applause was for me i'd say so um cartel handler our board member for park plaza neighborhood council dave you have done an immense amount of

0:25:20work for the city i can never do anything like you do i mean you i mean you deal with the trail trackers you on the different on a committee wow you've just done it all so i think so i'm thinking thank you uh mayor lyman and the city council for this uh resolution i think

0:25:34this is a wonderful thing that that you're doing um for mr weinstein after all everything he just said was just was absolutely true so please uh support uh adopt this resolution so and for my plug i was on the wall of fame once for the city of richmond i i got an award too and i got and i got

0:25:53i did all most of the work for the city so i think i should i deserve a round of applause too for for both our trails uh i mean i've done all the community work for the uh for the city um i have i was i was a recipient for my neighborhood association of the year award last year

0:26:10and i got a applause for that so i'm thinking we both i mean me and dad we're both winners in in for city el cerrito and richmond so i hope you hopefully y'all uh you give this resolution and um we'll be happy with it thank you [Applause] good evening mayor lyman council members

0:26:35my name is howdy gowdy um so everyone has covered the many uh virtues and and contributions that dave has bestowed on the city um i just want to echo those i want to appreciate dave for his service to the community and i want to thank you for recognizing him perhaps one thing that wasn't mentioned

0:27:00directly was his participation on the environmental quality committee of which i am also a member and i've been um very happy to work with him there he's one of the most productive members of our committee and he's been with that committee since it began eight years ago

0:27:16so um and what's really most impressive to me about dave's contributions is you know if if you looked at that one thing you would say yeah that was a great you know community volunteer but that's just you know a fraction of what he does you know everything else that's been mentioned um

0:27:36the breadth of what he does for this community is really i think unique and i you know you rarely see it and we're very lucky to have him so thank you dave so dave i listened to everyone's comments and i wanted to highlight one that i think we would be remiss if we didn't

0:27:59emphasize it and uh you were got accolades for your passion but it's your boundless energy that i wanted to highlight because uh i had a hard time keeping up with you when we were going up motorcycle hill and on earth day you outflanked me several times over so

0:28:19i i want to acknowledge that your boundless energy is certainly something that the city has benefited from for all of these years and with that i will ask you to come forward for photographs my church [Applause] those go to both go to dave [Applause] and i appreciate all of you staying for

0:29:24our next item item 4b which is a new thing for us we have a developed a new program chris sterba will be talking about it this evening and it is the el cerrito poet laureate and we will have an introduction of may ma shea win so mr sterba mr mayor city council members

0:29:55hard-working city staff fellow citizens it is my great pleasure and privilege to introduce to the city tonight our first ever port warrior my name is chris sterba i'm the chair of the city's arts and culture commission i just want to say a few words about the program and then introduce ma

0:30:30last october after two years of study and development the arts commission approved the creation of a poet laureate program for el cerrito the program's goals are to promote literature and the arts in the city to inspire and encourage residents in their writing and personal expression

0:30:51to bring attention to poetry in west traditional settings to initiate a dialogue between local poets cultural organizations and community institutions in april of this year city staff issued a call to poet's rfp 12 proposals were received by the june 1st deadline a selection panel comprised

0:31:15of author poet and educator jewish tanenbaum uh businesswoman and community leader extraordinaire patricia durham and myself carefully reviewed and we carefully reviewed and discussed all of the 12 proposals and then invited the top seven finalists to be interviewed it was a very strong

0:31:37pool we really put work into it as judith and patricia can tell you city staff had provided us with guidelines that incorporated the city's art and public places program the commission's arts and culture master plan and the commission's own vision and goals for what the laureate position

0:31:55would be the panel rank the applicants and we unanimously agreed to recommend martian nguyen i just want to say her uh we were very impressed her credentials were impeccable her range of experiences her and her uh contacts with the a variety of communities not just poetry but visual

0:32:20arts and music were excellent and as you will soon learn she'll be i think a terrific ambassador to the arts in the city um uh i just like to say that many people were involved played critical roles in making this all possible susan yarawa is not here uh our liaison on the arts commission uh

0:32:43judith tannenbaum uh worked with me over the last two and a half years to make this possible i'd also like to acknowledge the support of many el cerrito residents i have to say i'm very unco i'm i'm not used to i want to talk to these folks but i got to talk to these folks anyway uh but so

0:33:01many el cerrito residents were critical to making this program happen jack marshall corey mason jenny hammer pat durham lucy sterba as well as uh vice acc vice chair heidi rand who was on the subcommittee and the other acc commissioners uh it wouldn't have been possible without all this work

0:33:24but enough about the program and the process let me tell you now about our new poet laureate mashay nguyen is a writer teacher and editor she has been organizing literary and arts events for over 25 years ma is a full-time instructor at the academy of art university and she

0:33:43teaches poetry at the san francisco writers grotto she is also a poetry editor for rivet the journal of writing that risks ma's poetry has appeared in many journals including cimarron review and fanzine and most recently her works appeared in the anthology cross strokes

0:34:04poetry between los angeles and san francisco her newest chap book score and bone will be published by no medic press next month so it's very exciting great timing mr mayor city council members fellow residents please welcome marsha win thank you thank you chris

0:34:35um hello mayor and distinguished city council members and el cerrito residents and yes um i'm deeply honored and grateful to serve as the first poet laureate of el cerrito i'm excited about helping to promote poetry and the arts in the city and a little more about myself i've been

0:34:58organizing events for many years and i've been an active member of the bay area arts community since the mid 90s and i had a magazine called comet when i first moved to san francisco and i'm working on rivet and one of the ideas i have which i'm really excited about i plan to start a literary

0:35:18and music series which will take place in different locations in el cerrito and i also would like to host an afternoon at the community center where i'll invite local small presses and publishers and have an all ages open mic so and i already have two events um lined

0:35:39up which includes a reading at the scene at the el cerrito theater and this reading is a part of a hundred thousand poets for peace and will take place on september 24th from three to five p.m and i'll also be participating in the october arts kickoff on the first of the

0:35:59month and i will be performing with dan plonzi who's a local musician and i hope you all can join and i look forward to these next two years of meeting local writers creating community and bringing more poetry to the heart of el cerrito and i'd like to end with a quote by poet

0:36:22octavio paz to read a poem is to hear it with our eyes to hear it is to see it with our ears thank you very much for this opportunity thank you and now i'm going to read one poem from score and bone and it's called are you in the room with me now my therapist asked why never cry

0:37:00i asked myself the same closing my eyes a small stye in my vision as hard as i tried not to cry i was shy as a child as i crossed the street with mother i hid behind her lap coat my throat taut and tight i thought i might cry other night i lost my sight i could hear a couple on the crosswalk a

0:37:27man doing a handstand two thieves making plans perhaps a chance to dance in another place i could cross the state line cry at the sight of a shimmering lake my therapist asked what are you thinking how does that make you feel where did that come from and are you in

0:37:50the room with me now in rio there is a majestic cross on a cliff people live in pink paper shacks below i danced and i drank there i thought i might die there i crossed myself although i didn't believe you sweat silver tears you see through pink paper walls you think your body might be crying now

0:38:17thank you thank you we have one speaker on this item okay ready okay ready so cuddle handler richmond i just can't thank you enough mayor lyman and the council um for choosing uh a poet laureate for this program when i was listening to that poem i was like i was just enchanted by the words i was

0:39:00just so enchanted by the word so this is this is a wonderful program uh that the arts and culture has done and i commend them uh gratefully um for this work so hopefully you'll have hopefully you'll hear more lovely poetry in uh months and years to come so thank you so much thank you

0:39:21and we'll take a few minute breaks i'm assuming that there's a few people who want to depart so and yes yes certainly ah with this art group all right as the as the group moves out uh we will begin our meeting again um we we have our consent calendar uh on our consent calendar is an

0:44:19anti-bullying proclamation i might have to i was told i have to use the gavel please move out into the hallway please all right all the time using this all the time i'll be your side all right let's please move on all right thank you sir thank you mr wong i move uh items five a b d

0:45:05e and e that's it and e and and uh i just want to make sure that people know that anti-bullying proclamation is one of those for the week of october 16th to 22nd and constitution week proclamation is for the week of september 17 through 23 uh which we will be our next meeting is

0:45:25september 20th so that will be during that week so i have a motion for uh on the floor for adopting items five a b d and e second uh friedman made the motion bridges seconded the motion all those in favor please say aye aye right the records show that the item passed unanimously

0:45:45and that will bring us to item 5c which is a resolution opposing sutter health corporation's plan to cease acute care hospital operations at alta bates hospital in berkeley let the records show that uh maybe council member chris worthington uh sent an email to us today in support

0:46:07of this um so i want to make sure that people know that that is something that i received um and i understand we have uh at least two speakers on this item uh yes okay uh at the pleasure of the council do we wanna hear from the speakers first yes please the speakers are rochelle pardue

0:46:29okimoto followed by michael hill hello everyone my name is rochelle pardue okimoto i live at [address removed] here in el cerrito and i am a nurse at alta bates hospital i have worked in the newborn intensive care unit for 15 years and i must say we were all horribly disappointed when

0:47:11we heard that sutter health plan to shut down the alta bates campus and move our services to downtown oakland where they basically would build a new tower to house women and infant services where i work along with expanding some of the other services such as the emergency

0:47:36department after researching the issue more ultibates usually in their emergency room serves about 150 patients per day summit also serves about 150 patients per day which would be about 300 patients per day which is extraordinary amount of people to be running through

0:48:01an emergency department so some i'd like to um also say that where we live right now here in el cerrito we are currently underserved when it comes to the number of hospital beds per patient the national average is one thousand um three per every thousand so three beds

0:48:28per every thousand people and before the closure of doctors hospital we were at 1.4 and now we are somewhere under one perc under one per thousand um so the closure of alta bates hospital will only make that worse i'd like to also discuss the possibility of ultibates turning

0:48:56their or attempting to turn what they have left into a freestanding er a freestanding er currently is illegal in california freestanding emergency rooms are illegal because it does a disservice to the patient if you are if you go to an emergency room and there's no supportive services

0:49:20so if you go to what would be proposed as a freestanding er or if you go to what we now have as urgent cares there are many things that you cannot get treated for including heart attack stroke severe bleeding poisoning burns neck injury life-threatening allergic reactions and

0:49:39pregnancy complications so if they were to turn the current alta bates campus into an urgent care those are many of the services we would not have at our disposal disposal anymore please wrap up your comments okay alta bates is our closest full-service acute care hospital

0:50:02it's the only hospital that has a maternity ward between vallejo and oakland we must keep altivates open to ensure the safety of the citizens of el cerrito our lives depend on it thank you thank you michael hill hi my name's michael hill i'm a nurse been nurse for 30 years just

0:50:34live up the street from here i work at summit where they want to consolidate all these services i want to just backtrack a little bit on what she said a standalone er or standalone er is what the sutter is calling it which is illegal would be an urgent care any

0:50:50urgent care you can find on any street corner they give you a band-aid and tell you to move on that's basically what happens what you need is a full-service er and to have that you need a full-service hospital that means you need to when you have that mi you need a

0:51:03cath lab to go to when you have that stroke you need to be able to get the tpa you need to be able to go to interventional services to get that clot taken out of your brain when you have a baby you need an lnd you need an or to go if there's problems with that if

0:51:17you're gi bleeding you need to have a full functioning or and if you're come in with a severe infection you need to be able to go to a full functioning icu nothing that sutter is offering if they close out the base is going to be available to you and you need to have to

0:51:32be at the right place at the right time a full uh an urgent care is not the right place and you certainly will have not the time because time is what's going to save your life okay and so if you have to go up the road a few more miles to go to a summit imagine your traffic when you go down

0:51:52i-80 along the i-80 corridor that's more time that's more ticking away out of your life okay because you've got to be there on a time with sepsis it's an hour with your bleeding out it's even less you know that baby sometimes comes a little faster than you're expecting and

0:52:10you're not going to be able to get that done without a full service hospital so that's very important to have um even when you get to our hospital when the closure of doctors have just closed recently that caused a huge impact on our hospital out to base and summit had extremely

0:52:29long waits to get into the er the weights once you got there and were supposed to get a room sometimes you were in the er for two to three days so this is going to be even more impactful because out of base is such such a larger hospital so it's important that this hospital either be

0:52:47retrofit or be rebuilt but there cannot be a loss of services to the i-80 corridor including el cerrito albany richmond all the way up and so it's extremely important that that hospital remain and that that's why we're asking you to support this resolution to say

0:53:04enough you've need to serve the community sutter and that's what they promised when they combined the two hospitals about the basin summit and that's what we expect them to do not to decrease the services in the area to us further up i-80 uh to the fact that then we don't have

0:53:21those services or we have to go further and further to get those services and that impacts our medical care and impacts our lives of the our loved ones and our community members here okay thank you thank you okay i'll bring it back to the diocese for comments um i'd like to make a

0:53:39couple comments so um you know i think it's pretty obvious to all of us that we're kind of in a unique situation in el cerrito because we have two bart stations so you think about terror attacks train accidents you know how much busier bart is now than it was even you know even a year ago

0:53:57how many people come into our transit centers not to mention bus we're close to the freeway think of very large accidents on the freeway not having an emergency room available um the other things that are always on our mind are earthquakes disasters and fires we wouldn't have any access

0:54:19to emergency care for all of those things you know the last few months i was working in vallejo kaiser um pretty much three four times a week we'd hear a stemi alert a semi alert is when you have an st elevation in your ekg meaning that you had a myocardial infarction

0:54:37many times those people would be dead within 20 minutes if they didn't have a cardiac cath lab we were taking people at kaiser from outside our health plan that were coming from the i-80 corridor already for stemi alerts because we have a cath lab there when you come into the

0:54:56emergency room and you need a cardiac cath immediately when they open up the bay doors to the ambulance they're going and ready to go they're going to cath you immediately you know none of those services are going to be and when available and when you talk about um

0:55:13timing it it is of the essence it really is strokes are of course another another thing to consider so it's rather frightening to me you know we figure that our casualties will be in the tens of thousands um when the big one comes and we are living on the hayward fault

0:55:31and it's sort of unbelievable to me that um you know we lost doctors hospital and to have sutter make this kind of conscious decision is sort of frightening to me i just want to add something to it that my doctor said to me when i went into kaiser oakland because

0:55:52um there weren't any appointments in kaiser richmond for i forget what it was and the doctor said to me that isn't the only problem there's another problem going on if you want to call it that and that is obamacare what that actually has done is said that there will

0:56:12there can be now because of insurance which and it's really a good thing is more patients right and that that part of it is a very good thing uh so that more people have access to health care however there's not an additional supply yet of health care and so we need to be

0:56:36providing more health care not less health care and that was a comment made to me by a doctor in kaiser oakland which had just opened up a brand new hospital and it was already i was told it was just as impacted as say kaiser richmond is and kaiser richmond i can tell you is

0:57:02beyond belief over impacted already if there's such a word so anyway that's my only comment councilmember quinto i have used the emergency room several times in my years living here in el cerrito when not having a hospital here in west county and realizing that

0:57:28you know in in true emergencies you'll possibly they'll do a helicopter drop at our baseball field these are expensive expensive band-aids but it's not fixing the problem problem and i was with the nurses at the county hospital they are overworked over there right now

0:57:49because they are taking all of the patients that would usually go to doctors hospital now they're there the nurses are taking care of west county patients now we i have a friend that only uses public transportation and it takes her hours to see a specialist at the county hospital because they

0:58:13don't have it here in san pablo any longer so i do urge our the company over there in berkeley and uh we will work together with the berkeley council to make sure that our voices are heard that we do need to keep this hospital open thank you i couldn't agree more with my colleagues

0:58:37uh i think i'm in my family like a large percentage of el cerrito residents have used the services both emergency services birthing services aging services cancer services at ulta bates it would be a tremendous loss to our citizens as well as the region so i think it's very relevant that we as el

0:59:02cerrito city council weigh in on this and support our colleagues in berkeley and elsewhere so i appreciate those who brought this forward and has my full support consolidation of services does not really help a community increased travel times and distances is bad for the community and individuals

0:59:25closing the campus will increase our cost el cerritos costs of delivering services and reduce the protections that our community has as a result of our first responders spending more time out of our community it's going to increase our cost because we're going to have to be prepared to

0:59:47provide greater services here post earthquake post accident post bombing occurrence so for for all of those reasons the reasons that we need to protect el cerrito residents and el cerrito resources and provide best services we can for our community i urge summit health to reconsider their

1:00:07business model and retrofit or rebuild the acute care hospital in berkeley we have a resolution before us so moved second moved by friedman seconded by abelson all those in favor please say aye aye let the record show it passed unanimously thank you for those who came

1:00:27tonight um that will bring us to item uh six which is a correction to the master fee schedule for fiscal year 2016 2017 and is is this a public hearing yes okay so you didn't provide me the purple slip tonight sorry mayor it's okay i think i've done it enough times i can

1:00:54remember um let's see we will conduct a public hearing and upon conclusion adopt a resolution approving the corrections so at this point we ask uh we open the hearing with staff presentation welcome welcome thank you good evening mayor lyman and council members my name is

1:01:11mark russia i'm the finance director for the city and the my first appearance before you i met a number of you before this and um i'm here to present to you the masterpiece schedule and the corrections to the feed schedule essentially i might mention that coming upon the

1:01:27heels of a wall of fame presentation and the induction of a poet laureate it's a tough act to follow so i'll keep this deal short the master fee schedule was presented to you way back in on may 17th it's approximately three months ago and uh staff has reviewed that schedule

1:01:49since then and has come up with three primary areas for corrections one there were typographical laborers that needed to be fixed two there were errors in transposition base numbers had not been brought forward into the current fiscal year and three the errors associated with

1:02:07inflation adjustments that needed to be made to certain numbers those have all been made and the staff report that's before you presents to you the corrections that we seek action on and i'll be i'll pause here to take any questions that you might have but these

1:02:22are primarily the areas that we have collections for i'm looking at council's questions for staff no okay we will move to um public comment on this item and i public karen uh i opened it already do i need to open it again oh did you open it yeah i opened it i opened it with with his with his

1:02:43presentation all right okay then you do not need to open it again okay great it's okay uh we have one speaker thank you for your presentation if we have additional questions we will bring you back thank you justice mike so cuddle handler richmond when i was looking at the the

1:03:04presentation uh before um this item was called i said okay this scene this is a better uh version than the one that was back in may of 17th i believe so i urge the council if you um support this um resolution and that's it um that's it great thank you any other speakers

1:03:28no can i have a motion to close let's close the public also move second i have a motion to close the public uh hearing portion of our agenda of this item um although some moved by bridges second by friedman all those in favor please say aye aye great any additional questions or

1:03:44comments no seeing none i'll entertain a motion uh from attachment one resolution of the city council the city of el cerrito adopting revisions to the master fee schedule for fiscal year 2016-17 and amending resolution number 2016-40 so moved got a motion second seconded by abelson

1:04:08all those in favor please say aye aye let the record show it passed unanimously uh is that is that good for public hearing is there anything else i have to do it's all good okay uh agenda number seven uh item seventy is a memorandum of understanding for a feasibility study of a transit oriented

1:04:29development project at the el cerrito plaza bart station and i'm looking at the city manager thank you mayor members of the council you have a resolution before you excuse me that would authorize me to enter into a memorandum of understanding with with bart and we would

1:04:48the mou uh would focus on the feasibility of first and foremost getting a trans urine development project consistent with our policies most notably this sample avenue specific plan but also look at the site potentially for a library if if it worked well with the overall project um

1:05:08but mostly want to stress the transit-oriented development nature of the project as some of you may recall right before the real estate crash there was a proposal to do a transgender army development at the plaza but when the economy when the economy essentially fell apart

1:05:27so did the project now that the san pablo avenue specific plan is in place we're getting a lot of positive feedback from developers and as we all know the market is strong additionally bart has recently approved some new policies around tod and their stations and so it seems like a

1:05:47real opportune time that our policies of both agencies are aligning particularly as we've been discussing in recent meetings both agencies have it seems like a renewed emphasis on new affordable housing and this is potentially an opportunity of the economics work to do

1:06:05considerably more affordable housing in the city what the feasibility study would do is to essentially try to put together a framework that would hopefully lead to a solicitation similar to the one that staff has been doing on the mayfair site on the north end of town

1:06:25we we think the timing is great and i do want to reemphasize that it would be our hope um depending on the feasibility the project would go forward with or without the library and as you know we are looking at multiple sites uh for the new library and just in talking to among staff and

1:06:44then talking to someone bart staff and even bart directors there was sort of an enthusiasm about potentially making the stations more of an interactive place as opposed to what they have been historically so the mou would not only direct us to do the work but would also

1:07:01raise sort of the priority level for both agencies to make this something that would really rise to the top of the pile so to speak as you recall recently um we were looking at sites we have both an architect and project management firm already under contract so they would be available to assist our

1:07:24staff if we need it bart um i believe generally feels like they have the staff to work on this so el cerrito would be sort of the fiscal agent i already have the money included in the budget and the approval from the council so no no appropriation is needed at this time

1:07:40but we wanted to bring it to you um essentially to get your blessing that this is something that you think is worthwhile and we should be doing again with or without um the library so our hope is to get this done relatively quickly and return um in the beginning of 2017

1:08:02with the results of this study but also ultimately come back to the council with a revised recommendation for the ultimate site for the library so with that if you have any questions i'd be happy to take them all right i'm looking for questions from the dyess this product so i have a

1:08:16couple questions so the first question i have um their tod policy is um has a goal of a 20 percent affordable housing and then district rise 30 so potentially it could be 25 or 30 could be more than the 20 right um i don't have any issue with um obviously what we've already voted on as

1:08:39far as what parking um what our density and parking allotments are but what i do have questions about is their item under c2 they have a strive for no or limited parking replacement at the urban parking stations well i don't know if we're considered an urban parking

1:09:00station or not um but there's 791 potential spaces um on sites a b and c combined although i got actually 731 so i'm not sure where the other 60 were but um i i'm a little confused on is is parking is the surface parking 100 i mean i guess we really don't know that yet

1:09:26going to be displaced i think part of the feasibility is how many replacement spots will be replaced if you go back a number of years bart it was very important to replace 100 percent now there's a lot more flexibility a lot of it will depend on the city will depend on the economics the economics of

1:09:49putting parking you know everything will ultimately be a trade-off if you want more affordable units right if you want the library if you uh if you want you know bigger units smaller units so things that we typically discuss i think we don't know in advance what the ultimate parking replacement

1:10:06will be or the parking ratio for the housing but that's something we would be looking at and coming and ultimately coming back i think the key point is that bart's tod policy is now much more flexible as it was relates to um uh replacement parking yeah so my major concern with that is i mean

1:10:25if you walk around or drive around the plaza i mean people are barking all the way past lincoln all the way down richmond away from the four-hour zones i mean to push 790 cars out of parking and into our neighborhoods i think is something that i would have a lot of concern about even

1:10:44though i think we have a policy to you know bring your bike whatever but there are people that you know it's not really possible and there aren't bus routes that take them to the plaza so it's just something i would have a lot of concern about sure um i have some questions about

1:11:02bart i'm not familiar with the current policy at bart to know what it actually is but there are a lot of new ideas about how to do parking and parking alternatives and and so forth to relieve the pressure of all of those cars that you just were talking about and um

1:11:26[Music] the um you know working also with uh the bus company to which could provide ultimately in long term more parking if there were more riders which could be created if there were more residents in the area which certainly the project going in at the plaza itself will create some of how

1:11:54many units are there there 120 100 remember 128. okay and then this would be how many units we don't know we don't know okay well okay but so it would be some number of units so the um the volume that would be increased would have some uh positive impacts on the ability to provide

1:12:18alternative um parking solutions and alternative solutions so i'm wondering where are we looking at those alternative systems as part of this i think that's something we would definitely have be looking at also okay because there are a lot of things out there these days

1:12:39and one of them of course is the idea of having instead of [Music] as much parking to provide parking passes for example that go along with the units over time in some way and that is a pretty exciting idea and this is an area that actually feeds in nicely by bart to

1:13:09uc berkeley and i know that when i worked at uc berkeley i took i took it and it worked just fine and so anyway i think that would be a number another question though that i have has to do with the affordable housing so affordable housing i'm very supportive of

1:13:33but i i know that it costs there is a cost sure associated with it so how would we cover that cost that's what we would have to look at in the feasibility analysis whether you know what the what the value of the apart everything like i said everything would be a trade-off um obviously it cost

1:13:52there is a financial impact of doing a higher level of affordability there's a cost impact of replacing for every spot you put back so that's something that we're all going to have to look at and then ultimately the council um and then the bart board will have to

1:14:07weigh the trade-offs of of each but at this point we you know we don't know we haven't we haven't even looked at some clues about possibilities for providing how we would cover that cost no i mean not it not i mean you'd cover it just depending on the economics of the project i mean more

1:14:25it would it would be two things it would either be finding the economics within the project or potentially affordable housing folks looking for outside funding to backfill um so i think those are probably the most common but that's something we'd have to you know we would obviously have to look

1:14:42at okay any anyway the overall ideas of doing these projects sounds pretty exciting to me and um i i think it's been a long time coming and certainly uh that's because of the recession um and the recession is over and i'm very excited about this and look forward to seeing it happen

1:15:06councilman friedman yeah i think there's only one or two other people in the room who remember 18 years ago or so when the prince of wales came al i know was there janet was there maybe somebody else and this is just the sort of concept that was supported by almost everybody

1:15:26who participated and we've had several efforts to make this happen and i really applaud staff for not letting go of that dream and trying to make it a reality and i think about 12 years ago we had two women developers come to us that wanted to put a library on fairmont as part of

1:15:46a development project so yes all good ideas are not lost and they build a foundation for eventual success and i am uh happy to support this all right um i've got comments but uh actually i've got i do have a question for staff or maybe the question will reveal um

1:16:08some direction as well i'm assuming that if the library was to go into this project and that is part of the scope of work is to look at parking i mean to look at the library that there would be some parking system or parking enforcement that would allow for people to come by and park and

1:16:25go to the library or park and drop off books and stuff like that yes presumably you would have to have that okay and then um i did see that you know we're um in for about twenty five thousand dollars is that is that what i recall a staff report not necessarily for

1:16:41that's just sort of a limit um i don't think it's gonna be nearly that much um it's just we already have the contracts in place so um i it was sort of an upper end which is essentially my spending limit but i i think between staff and some consultant support i don't think it's going to get

1:16:58near that and then finally in the actual mou the mou covers a limited area and so i wanted to potentially propose a modification to make sure that we're discussing all of bart's property uh currently and i'm looking for it in the mou but it talks about um willow

1:17:25right now it says to central and i would love to propose that that be uh swapped out to willow so that we make sure that we cover the whole site and i i don't was that in our i can't remember if that was in our resolution that's why i wanted to no i don't i don't think so

1:17:40i think it was in that draft miss only in the mou okay um that concludes my my questions at this time um i will i know that there is at least one speaker if not three we're up to five now five speakers so if you could read their names yes cordell hindler followed by paul fideli

1:18:00george gager al miller and nick arzio uh cordell handler a board member for park plaza neighborhood association when i saw when i looked at this item i said i have done some outreaching to some of the surrounding uh neighborhoods and they had some of the and they like they

1:18:19like some of the ideas that was mentioned uh a library uh in uh barth on a bar station uh that way it's like it's convenient for them because i ride the bart on a on a regular basis uh and i like the idea of you know like a little library you know where you can check out a book you know

1:18:36and then you don't have to return it so i'm thinking this sounds like a wonderful opportunity so so you got my neighborhood association support you got uh parkview laurel park richmond heights and other surrounding areas that uh that are that um that like the ideas so

1:18:52so hopefully that this council will approve uh the resolution and hopefully there will be some more developments coming in soon so next thank you good evening mayor and city council i'm paul fideli and i live on arbor drive in el cerrito and first i want to applaud

1:19:14you for your last resolution i had two daughters and two emergency episodes that off debates and they were very important in my life so thank you for what you just did and thank you also for moving the opportunity for a new library in el cerrito i happen to work at bart but i'm here

1:19:31speaking tonight as a private citizen growing up here locally my mom used to take me as a little kid to the richmond public library because it was bigger it was better and at the time it was easier to get to on transit those visits were important to me and a formative part of my life and it's as

1:19:49you all know it's time to provide our el cerrito families with the same opportunities um the co so i support this uh feasibility study tonight the concept and possibility of a safe new library at the el cerrito plaza bart station is exciting for a lot of reasons

1:20:07the development in my mind at the plaza can help create a new growing sense of an urban center for el cerrito there's incredible tod transit opportunities for additional affordable housing and retail tod opportunities there's better transit access to the library i like the other site i think

1:20:30this site and the possibility at the plaza provides great transit opportunities and hopefully with the library having new and improved uh spaces for community events there were opportunities for bart to also have some reverse traffic to el cerrito from berkeley and oakland coming to our city

1:20:46for events that may be at this library which would be very exciting so again i hope i can be of help in any way over the next year to make this happen so that we in el cerrito like other cities in contra costa lafayette walnut creek can have a library and resource center that we can

1:21:02be proud of thank you very much thank you george gager followed by al miller and nick garzio greetings council members my name is george gager i've been a resident here in el cerrito for about 10 years i urge you to vote yes on transit-oriented development back in the 90s

1:21:33at about the time tod was was coming into favor i had the luxury of spending two years in grad school studying transit oriented development in the context of high density urban redevelopment and what i learned was spectacular since then i've traveled the country evaluating

1:21:58urban revitalization projects and um seeing transit oriented development at its best questions that you've asked are valid about traffic about housing but these are questions that have been answered in dozens of communities around the united states and it just so happens

1:22:24that the creator of transit oriented development is a an area resident it is it is it's a great concept and and i i would urge you if you have any concerns to to look at projects like the jazz at walter circle in east st louis east st louis isn't as tough a shape as

1:22:55almost as detroit but this one project on a transit line a transit stop has been a beacon and and if i can help in any way let me know great thank you sir good evening mayor lyman council members and staff i find myself in a large group of people living here in el cerrito that

1:23:22thought for some years that the consolidation of providing city services in a common site like our community center the portal old portal of site that had been talked about early would be a great thing we could have a modernized community center uh maybe move the administrative services

1:23:45of the recreation out of the community center and up to their own little building on the portal site and then to be surrounded by a new library and senior center synergistic with the theater you know it'd be great but now it seems that that dream too has been put up into the cloud and that

1:24:07cloud is maybe six ten years away so that's too long a time to wait for the need of a new library in my opinion so the possibility that might come out of this feasibility study of providing a library at the bart site with all the benefits that paul vidali mentioned in his

1:24:28comments so i don't have to go into those again uh makes me encoura want to encourage you to uh support the proposal and vote yes to get that study underway and hopefully something might really come out of it so thank you thank you the speaker nick garzio good evening i'm nicholas arzio an el

1:24:59cerrito resident and i'd like to be very clear i support a safe modern library in el cerrito and i support transit oriented development i think that this is a a good site for a library i kind of wish that talks could have began a few years ago but circumstances aren't always ideal and

1:25:23the fact that you can have this uh mou now and get started is better than nothing it's interesting to see that it will the discussion will will end in january and that we've got a 30 million dollar ballot measure in november so i i certainly hope that at the conclusion of this uh feasibility

1:25:47study that is determined that this will be a feasible site and that construction can begin as soon as possible because it seems like it might take a very long time for that to occur so best of luck thank you any other speakers no great thank you all uh bring it back to dyess for uh

1:26:12comments or an emotion ready to make a motion uh let me get my comments in then oh all right um i i i think it's uh there's 25 000 and and using some of bart's staff time is a reasonable investment to explore the possibilities at bart at the bart station um i want to

1:26:31you know there was talk about whether the library is in this project or not i want to reread something from the from the agenda package this site is one of a number of sites that could be considered for their new library staff will return to city council with a revised recommendation

1:26:46for a preferred site after completion of this and other feasibility studies and when the outcome of the november ballot measure is known so you know we we are moving forward in our planning in a in a considered way this site was presented as a transit oriented development

1:27:03project four year fourth maybe even five years ago i was on council so this is not a new uh discussion with bart it's just revisiting it now that the economy has changed and projects that can include affordable housing are possible i recently read an article that says

1:27:22that transit orient development is the best way to support affordable housing so this is exactly the type of project that we need to close our housing problems that we have in the bay area and the the analysis of having a library in this project is you know it's good fortune for us that

1:27:41that we have this opportunity to take that con that part of the analysis but certainly we should be moving this project forward uh with or without a library as the city manager said um so with that um if there's no other comments i'll open up for a motion miss bridges right i moved to adopt a

1:28:00resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into a memorandum of understanding and substantially the attached form attachment to i suppose i'm supposed to add in here under roman numeral ii the addition of willow street um is substantial i think covers it okay

1:28:18yeah um i'm looking at the the city attorney's evaluating that okay thank you with the san francisco bay area rapid transit district known as bart to advance and cooperatively pursue the feasibility of a transit oriented development and a potential new library facility

1:28:36at the el cerrito plaza bart station a second move by bridges seconded by quinto all those in favor please say aye aye opposed extensions let the record show up past unanimously um that brings us to item eight which is uh council assignments and liaison reports

1:28:57i know i'm supposed to have one from the mayor's conference that i was at but i will report on it next time any other reports with that we will adjourn this meeting in the memory of two women um one is an el cerrito wall of fame member lucy wilson who passed away at the age

1:29:18of 98 on sunday august 14.

1:29:23and the other is miss pat jones patricia jones patricia m jones was the former assistant executive director at the association of bay area governments between july 1998 and may of 2003 and she served our community and she was actually at the el cerrito plaza when she

1:29:52suffered her attack so she was a local resident as well so if we could just give a moment of silence before we finally adjourn that be i would appreciate that please thank you we are adjourned to the next regularly scheduled city council meeting which is tuesday september 20th 2016 at

1:30:167 p.m right here at the el cerrito chambers you