Regular City Council Meeting October 18, 2016

0:00:57mhm which microphone was that the microphones was picking up noise call this meeting to order this is the regular uh city council meeting of tuesday october 18th we'll call this meeting door at seven roughly after seven o'clock uh let the record show that all five council

0:02:09members are present item one is pledge of allegiance to the flag or an observation of a moment of silence tonight is being led by jan bridges i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with

0:02:34liberty and justice for all right uh that brings us on to item two council on staff communications um any communications miss the city click pinkus sure um i'd like to let everyone know two ways that the city and the contra costa register of voters is making it easier

0:02:57to vote in el cerrito if you vote for mail you can save money on your postage and drop off your voted ballot here at city hall during normal business hours there's a secure ballot box on the second floor of city hall additionally i'm really so excited to announce that

0:03:14el cerrito city hall will be a regional early voting center this year you can come to city hall to cast your ballot between october 31st and november 5th from 11 a.m to 7 p.m and saturday from 8 a.m to 5 p.m per usual if you prefer to vote at the polls on election day they're open from

0:03:34seven to eight and your polling place is listed on the back of your voter pamphlet and you can also look it up online at coco vote dot u dot u s or you can call me at 215-4305 and i'm pleased to look it up for you the last day to register to vote in this election is october 24th and you can do

0:03:53that online and we also have the forms here at city hall thank you all right anybody else councilmember quinto good evening earlier today i was invited by the board of supervisors for contra costa county and received this plaque and this plaque is a proclamation

0:04:21it's the first time the board of supervisors have celebrated philippine american history month and uh because of the leadership of assembly member rob bonte philippine history philippine american history which is part of american history will be taught at public schools

0:04:42to middle school students so i'm excited about that and as a an elected official there are three of us in contra costa county from the philharm community one being myrna devera the council member from hercules as well as as mrs torlakson so again every month from now on we will

0:05:08celebrate for the month of october uh philippine history month philippine american history month thank you great thank you any other announcements i've got a couple i want to um i want to thank the arts and culture commission for um their it's our it's october's arts month

0:05:28and uh we have had a wonderful uh kickoff festival event on october 1st and the folk festival uh that was on october 8th both were wonderful events and it's great to see our community come out and celebrate the arts like that so i wanted to thank the arts commission

0:05:47for that i wanted to acknowledge the work that our economic development committee did in in restaurant week el cerrito restaurant week i i got my four stickers that i did my best to try and fill up my passport so i just wanted to thank everybody for their participation in restaurant week

0:06:10i thought it was a fantastic event and i look forward to it next year and then i wanted to acknowledge the rotary club's efforts this last weekend they had a wonderful event that benefited the high school and the library foundation it's the sip and saver up at the

0:06:31mira vista golf course golf club and it was very well attended i think it was incredibly successful so i wanted to thank the rotary club for their efforts in supporting the community so that's my announcements at this time so that would conclude item two and bring us on to item three which is oral

0:06:52communications from the public all persons wishing to speak should sign up with the city clerk on your right remarks are limited to three minutes uh per person i may have to reduce the time i don't know how many speakers we have tonight we have approximately 17 requests

0:07:1017 requests to speak um i'm going to recommend that we reduce the time to two minutes please um and comments regarding non-agenda items presentations and consent calendar uh will be the items that we would like to have heard at this time comments relating to items appearing on

0:07:37the public hearing or policy portions of the agenda will be taken up at the time that those agenda items are heard we have a request to pull item 5h which is associated with the police chief so if you're here to speak on that item we will be taking it up after we hear the rest of the consent

0:08:00calendar any other items that anybody would like to pull seeing none we will move on to item three at this time oral communication so if you could read our our practice is to read three names off so that we can try and accelerate the time between speakers so the first three speakers are cardell

0:08:23hindler marlene keller and chris fritz so uh mayor lyman uh council members uh i'm cordell handler richmond when i came in july for the uh the the summit group i i find that it was very inspiring to see these kids come in here uh just to express how they feel about the charter

0:08:45schools so and i and i think that was wonderful so that's one number two is um i sent the city clerk uh and um a link to to show um for these boards and commissions in el cerrito the that way it's a it's a tool that they can learn that um how how they how they can oper um

0:09:02share their meetings so i figured this is a good an asset uh for el cerritos i figured that's number two then number three is um the next show for contra costa civic theater is called you can't take it with you so i'll bring flyers to that uh on the the on the third the third tuesday

0:09:18i'll bring those so so let's see what else and then also um i've also i've always said to myself that that el cerrito city council uh their means is very productive and i and i enjoy every every time i come over here i enjoy it and i said they're a lot better than richmond

0:09:39thank you sir i thought this was your first time here cordon [Laughter] you can't take it with you as a good intro i'm a volunteer for the library my name is marlene keller i live in el cerrito i'm a volunteer for the library the library friends and library foundation

0:09:57and i would say most of us agree that the else rita library is definitely not safe and definitely not modern and not high tech so the question is are we willing to vote yes on measure b now to create a safe modern learning center and community gathering place or do we

0:10:15want to wait years and risk there being no good land available face higher construction costs and financing costs and allow a generation of kids and teens to be very ill served by our delay i don't understand why anyone would want to delay the library we elsa reatons have precip

0:10:35participated in so many extended data gathering efforts needs assessments and numerous surveys so if anyone out there is still undecided about measure b i really hope that they go to the city's website type in the words measure b and read the city's thorough planning

0:10:54documents some of the options for a library could cost as little as 17 million which would be well under 20 a month per household i think we should be ready to provide the opportunity for everyone to enjoy an amazing learning center in our city where kids and teens can hang out after

0:11:16school where families would have a welcoming environment where adults finally would have a quiet zone where we'd have adequate meeting space for our community groups and each of us i think should be ready to vote yes on measure b and thereby participate in the public

0:11:33dialogue that is the city's very thorough planning process to decide on site and the library's sizes and features for a relatively small amount of money we all finally can have a library worthy of this diverse and loving community thank you my name is chris fritz and i'm an el

0:11:56cerrito resident opponents of measure b balk at the cost of a new library but we need to recognize that public libraries are a wonderfully important american invention they are not a naturally occurring event at the time of the american revolution there were no such things as public

0:12:13libraries instead so-called subscription libraries existed in europe in the old world where if you had money you got access they understood as we do today that knowledge is a key to power and opportunity but then it was only available to those who paid enough to

0:12:31get a key to the library literally the revolution rejected this idea of privilege and substituted the idea that everyone not just the wealthy and the well-born had rights ultimately this inclusiveness led to the radical notion first adopted by a small town in new hampshire in 1833

0:12:53that all town residents regardless of income rich or poor had the right freely to share the community's knowledge in books from then until now public libraries have exploded in growth so that they currently outnumber all the starbucks in the country and public libraries

0:13:09continue to serve people from all walks of life they serve as centers for learning hubs for human interaction and as safety nets free access to books information resources and ideas are keys to education enjoyment and our self-government in this light yes on measure b seems a

0:13:30no-brainer in the end paying less than five cents a day for a home assessed at a half a million dollars seems paltry to preserve this vital community resource after all you can't even buy a cup of coffee at starbucks at that price next three names please al miller

0:13:48followed by said manchester jones and georgina edwards good evening mayor lyman council i'm al miller i also live in el cerrito my family and i moved here in 1979 with a little encouragement from the united states navy and of all of the projects that i participated in since then

0:14:14this ongoing quest for a new library in el cerrito has been the one that i've enjoyed the most and i think has been one of the most successful from the time that we were building to action commencing back before the recent great recession that resulted in the needs assessment of

0:14:402006 through the well-attended and well-participated community contact program as we were developing helping you develop a strategic plan that you approved in 2013 to the update of the needs assessment that was reported to you in 2014.

0:15:03each of those went through a series of public meetings or crowded public meetings where people came and participated and helped clearly define that among all of the needs in the community the library had the highest priority and we not only said that but we told you

0:15:24what type of library we were after in addition to that over 2000 paper surveys were submitted to the city from middle schoolers through high schoolers from various senior centers in the community the presentations that were made there by the library foundation and

0:15:44others the pta meetings that we presented to they submitted it and those don't even count the ones that the community submitted online so people have spoken again and again that not only do they want a library but the type of web i'm sorry it just went it just went if you could

0:16:05finish your sentence please so anyway uh i support their comments that mr pamus sent to you electronically earlier today i believe and i think again the comments of the previous speaker that the time is now i don't understand a lot of the differences that are being raised thank

0:16:24you thank you sid manchester jones followed by georgina edwards and bill jones evening city council mayor my name is sid manchester jones i'm a voter in el cerrito you know there's a saying uh the saying is that it's no measure of good health to be well adjusted to a sicker alien

0:16:57society and we're ailing folks uh it's nothing new you in our history of our nation this has gone through this before and you know we've come out you know with the democratic republic institutions still intact and that's a good thing you know not without a lot of struggle

0:17:19you know uh so i you know the measure of the health of the society really is how the least in that society are treated you know you know drug addicts it's rampant all over the country uh people live in intense cities under freeways uh seniors and elderly people like myself

0:17:40that have been displaced by uh you know moneyed interest you know cut throat uh land developers and ruthless landlords and thoros said a long time ago 160 years ago he said you know you're speaking to a nation and to individuals that one has to be really vigilant

0:18:03lest one compromise one's conscience and integrity with expediency and that means basically do the ends really justify the means you can have very noble ends and very despicable means in getting there so where's that at so with that being said i was at the last

0:18:24a month ago when the el dorado uh project was uh decided to go through with you know his voter to go through and i i sit in the back and i watched the suits and ties guys biting their fingernails because they didn't know how the vote was going to go and when the vote was

0:18:44that project was approved you know they gave each other high fives so you know on the way out they're all out there congratulating themselves out in the uh the uh lobby and i said i'm going to see if anyone as i went out would make eye contact with me and nobody did except one man

0:19:07it was very briefly and he looked away and i said well there's a man that has a conscience even though he just compromised it please conclude oh thank you very much edwards followed by bill jones and james richardson good evening council my name is georgina edwards i'm a resident of el cerrito

0:19:35since 2005. i want to first thank you council and staff for your service to our community and also to my neighbors for making an el cerrito safe place for civil and informed civic engagement this evening i hear the firm along with others in this room including some of

0:19:51them in their 90s my support for the project towards a library with a future in this future i see my sixth grade son writing his college essay in a quiet space in the library or perhaps finishing his homework with his pals hey i can i can dream i see my second grade daughter hanging

0:20:12out with her her friends in middle school after school or volunteering in the summer serving even more kids during for the summer reading program as i did when i was that age and i see kids like my daughter's friend in school who struggled this past week to use the tablet that kept timing out

0:20:32and didn't get to complete his assignment to have his buddy say you can just finish it at home and he was so devastated not to have been able to get on the tablet because he doesn't have access at home to the obstructionists that are in the room who pose this measure i ask that

0:20:51should you defeat this measure turn your intellectual capacities join towards joining the foundation helping them magnify the 250 000 they've already raised volunteer at the library help extend some of these programs join the friends become part of the book sale build a

0:21:10coalition with the within the community and bring a plan that we can all stand behind so we don't waste the decade plus of hard work that has been done by this leadership and the research of staff finally as a supporter of this measure i know that's how i will contribute when

0:21:28this plan passes i will be a part of the group in our community who gives feedback and leverages the hard work of that you have all achieved to date thank you so much thank you next three names uh bill jones former council member jones followed by james richardson and

0:21:47melanie proctor good evening bill jones uh resident of el cerrito it appears that just about everyone agrees that el cerrito needs to rebuild its library we should now concentrate on the process of how to make this happen this election is where the community can

0:22:08start an open process where every step will be deliberated here in the chambers in front of the public the location size material technology energy efficiency and cost will decide be decided through public input the sooner we have the funding to start this process

0:22:28the sooner we will have a modern library everybody wants i would like to remind those that can remember but several years back the state had two grant programs that would fund local public libraries el cerrito could not apply to either of those two programs because we did not have the

0:22:53resources available to start the process to even compete for money that would have paid for our library 10 15 20 years ago i think it would be financially irresponsible to use the city's three million dollars in reserves to secure property and complete designs should we not have

0:23:13additional funding and i think it'd be physically irresponsible to start a project of this size without full funding financially irresponsible to divide the funding over multiple elections which would only delay the project and increase the cri the cost passage of

0:23:36measure b will start a transparent process where fiscal prudence can be exercised at every step of the process vote yes on measure b and then participate in the design and construction of a modern and safe library for el cerrito thank you thank you dr richardson followed by melanie

0:23:58proctor and rochelle pardue okimoto mayor lyman city council members city staff i have tried to resolve what i initially thought to be a simple problem so what i consider to be through proper channels only to discover inaction at every point my name is dr jameson richardson and i

0:24:27live at [address removed] in el cerrito i've had a life-threatening situation occur which i have brought to the attention of various departments in the city only to get in action the situation is that my car has nearly been broadsided four times in the past three to four months because the cars

0:24:48going west on hagen approach harbor street almost across from tapscott fast and and making wide turns onto harper because the cars uh a car is almost always parked in front of the house at 20 2001 it forces cars across the double line and into the oncoming lane and into the

0:25:15into the path of on coming cars which are swinging wide and fast onto harper to me a simple solution is to the problem is to paint the curb red for one car spot at 2001 i have tried to work with a city since mid july and august of of this year 2016.

0:25:42the person i presented the issue to first was mr saeed arminian who i think is the city engineer in the public works department i talked to him two times and and he asked if i had talked with this police department but basically he would not return my calls i called these uh police department the

0:26:06non-emergency number and she said that she would pass the um the issue on doctor which is having them call me back that did not occur dr richardson yes i thank you very much we we have your your comment letter in it and it's um it's very detailed um i am certain that staff

0:26:26will be contacting you uh if not tonight very shortly um in the effort of respecting everyone's time i'd like to move on if that's okay with you okay i hope that the council and the public here recognizes that i've tried to go through departments and and the the process has been fruitless

0:26:53people oftentimes would not call back and there has been no action that i have seen thank you very much no thank you and and this is why we have public comment so you you can bring us this to our attention so thank you evening mr mayor city council my name is melanie proctor i'm a resident of el

0:27:16cerrito not everybody agrees about measure b the city declares on its website that it is committed to an environmentally sustainable future and as an example of this we have an award-winning recycling center that is open seven days a week it's impossible for me to reconcile the

0:27:36city's commitment to environmental sustainability with its current position on measure b rather than renovate an existing building of which we have many decaying on san pablo and following the example of san pablo the city has elected to pursue building from the ground up including purchasing

0:27:53yet more land it also seems apparent that this plan still includes potentially building on the former site of the middle school known as the portola pad notwithstanding the fact that the students of wilson elementary school are slated to move there in 2017 and we

0:28:10would then have elementary school students right next to an active construction site in the past seven years city residents have voted twice to increase sales taxes ostensibly also to fund more library hours and programs but our library services have not increased

0:28:28and we only have 35 hours a week the city is asking us to support a 30 million bond program but we don't know what will be will will be built where and because of these things because 30 million dollars is not a small amount it's exorbitant to me compared to other

0:28:46library costs in the area because we don't value library services in this city enough to fund an open library more than 35 hours a week and because we don't know what will be built where i will vote no on november 8th and i encourage other citizens who are on the

0:29:02fence to rethink measure b thank you thank you hello my name is rochelle pardue okimoto i live at [address removed] in el cerrito i'd like to say hello to the council and all the other members here today and i would like to talk about why i support measure b first off i would like to

0:29:40acknowledge the opposition um on measure b and and thank them um it's it's given me a much more deep understanding of the issue at hand and a wise woman once told me that when you hear both sides you end up with better policy so i think it's really great that there has been

0:30:09questioning of measure b in the hospital we call it a time out you know before you operate and make sure you're not going to operate on the left leg instead of the right you stop and think what you're going to do before you issue a large bond like this so i participated in

0:30:29the early surveys and i i have to say that there was something that kept coming up and that was space space for children space for adults space for children without adults so separate space um and my fear is that if we wait on this bond and we delay it for another four years because we will not

0:30:55have a special election on the library uh that we will not end up with less space and community space a place to meet a place to learn a place to be together i think is of the utmost importance and while opponents of the measure have said yes we can build a library for half the cost

0:31:21it would also be a library with half the space please wrap up so i ask that for for us to pass this measure be now so that we can end up with the optimal jewel of the neighborhood something that we can all come together and meet and learn and have computers for the 21st century

0:31:47thank you thank you the next three speakers are norman leforce followed by robin mitchell and howdy gowdy good evening madam uh mr mayor and members of the council i'm norman laforce i've been a resident of el cerrito since 1983 served on the city council 1991-1999 and i speak enthusiastically

0:32:11on behalf of yes on measure b to get a new library you know we wanted a new library we knew we needed a new library back in 1991 when i was elected to the city council so the need is there absolutely and the time is now to do it and this city i'm proud to say knows how

0:32:28to spend its money wisely and knows how to do the right thing when i was on the city council we voted to rebuild the swimming pool that came in under budget and on time and is now considered the best swimming pool in the east bay people from all over love it and wonder how we were able

0:32:46to create such a great pool that's because we know how to do the right thing our streets are were considered two years ago i think the best in contra costa county again tax money was being spent wisely and properly and was recognized by the contra cost of times as being spent very well

0:33:04this city hall is another example it was built within budget and on time and it's a great facility and it's amusing to hear somebody say they should take the old building and rebuild it that's what albany did with its city hall complex and guess what folks albany

0:33:21spent the same amount of money as we did we got a whole new facility mut go down and take a look at their city hall and you see and you asked me which one is better they spent the same amount of money and they're in the same building so it's time we did the right

0:33:36thing by rebuilding our library at a proper location and getting it done right i know you all and the city staff can do the right thing because we've done it over and over and over again in the city we know how to spend our tax dollars wisely and that's been one of

0:33:53the great things is why i've always wanted and remain a citizen and resident of el cerrito yes on measure b thank you thank you next three speakers please robin mitchell followed by howdy gowdy and paul stern so i'm robin mitchell i live at [address removed] and i object to being limited to

0:34:14two minutes i carefully prepared my statement to be three minutes i'll read it as fast as i can but i want to read the whole thing the friends of dorothy rosenberg memorial park have been volunteering to help improve the donated property on king street for over a year logging many

0:34:28volunteer hours the friends group has outlined an extensive potential work plan for the park that can be incrementally implemented as resources become available we have been hoping to see the house open to at least some use in the near future including the prospect of establishing a living

0:34:42caretaker on site in the existing single family house at the july meeting of the friends of drmp city staff indicated that there had already been some exploration into a process to get a caretaker on site that it would most likely be a city employee position for

0:34:54liability reasons and that there would be more staff time to return to the topic in the fall after there's a september 20th council meeting approving the condo development at el cerrito at el dorado street i was moved by the extreme need to provide better accommodation to those displaced in the

0:35:08housing and secure environment in the bay area because of my work at the rmp it occurred to me that the city currently owned a vacant house and that filling the caretaker position would be an opportunity to provide some low-cost housing to mitigate some of the negative

0:35:20impact at el dorado to be clear i am not advocating for any particular individual to have preference in the caretaker selection as that would violate city hiring practices but it is still important to open the caretaker opportunity in an expedited fashion because this action is entirely

0:35:34within city hands and is an important statement of commit of commitment to improving the impacts caused by the eldorado development the current proposed city budget already has uh ten thousand dollars for drmp in both fy 1617 and 1718 so there is a modest budget to work toward any improvements

0:35:50that need to happen and the rnp volunteers can help also this new position shouldn't require council action within the budget as it could be a part-time position with very little monetary compensation because the live-in accommodations are the primary compensation the work is incidental

0:36:03observation of the park and the employment status is primarily matter of liability coverage the position could also initially be temporary to avoid locking in any long-term commitment until there is more experience with the arrangement and the applicant for the

0:36:15caretaker taker position whether a former oddest resident or not would have to meet the city standards for the position so there is no unusual risk associated with the proposal to open the position and fill it in accordance with appropriate criteria that said while i

0:36:27have had limited interaction with the former artist residents i have been very impressed by their thoughtful comments before council and the obvious sense of care and community they share for their fellow residents it is clear they know and they knew and supported each other

0:36:39better than neighbors in most other areas of el cerrito and i would think that many of them could be excellent caretakers at drmp it is also worth noting that the remaining homeless individuals displaced from audits are on waiting lists for subsidized housing but

0:36:49many of these lists are over a year long so a short-term trial opportunity at drmp is still very helpful thank you thank you good evening i'm howdy gotti live at [address removed] uh first i want to applaud sid for his very eloquent comments that they're very thoughtful

0:37:10at the september 20th council meeting the condo project on el dorado street was approved by four out of five council members despite the displacement of low-income elderly and disabled residents several council members expressed a torn conscience about this decision and while

0:37:25i appreciate the spoken sentiments votes and actions are what really matter this devastating impact to our community does not go away because it is no longer on your agenda and you should not move on and forget it you should work to fix it otherwise we have failed as a community

0:37:39to do right by our own you owe it to el cerrito to exercise your conscience and act on a meaningful improvement to the situation an inclusionary housing ordinance and a just cause eviction ordinance h28 and h16 are both parts of the current housing element and they are scheduled for the

0:37:572016 time frame the mayor made an impassioned call for the inclusionary housing ordinance on the september 20th meeting it is important for the whole council and staff to come together to move this process forward frankly it should be more important priority than the

0:38:13marijuana ordinance which originated after these priorities were established i hope the council will take action to schedule study sessions on both housing ordinance topics at the planning commission and city council as robin mentioned she came to the important

0:38:26realization that the city actually owns a vacant residence and it's a strikingly inappropriate for the city to hold drp house vacant at a time when some former residents have been forced into homelessness living out of their cars while waiting on exceedingly long

0:38:43affordable housing wait lists for this reason the city council should direct staff that is a high priority to bring a caretaker on site at drmp this would be an important action of good faith at the september 20th meeting i was impressed by the degree of community and

0:39:00council support for all-star donuts to not be relocated within el cerrito plaza however i found the juxtaposition of the el dorado condo decision to be highly inconsistent and disturbing why was there more will to stand up to regency's attempt to relocate a business within

0:39:14their shopping center then there was conviction to stand up to the immoral displacement of low-income elderly and disabled else readings in favor of high-priced condos at a time when there's extreme housing insecurity for those that are most vulnerable in our community

0:39:27please take meaningful action to remedy the negative impacts of the el dorado condos and set policy that will avoid these tragic outcomes in the future and i support a library now under measure b thanks thank you next three names please paul stern followed by patrice chamberlain and jan

0:39:48wu my name is paul stern i bought my house in 1981 35 years ago i read from time to time how el cerrito provides exemplary and innovative services and supports our diverse community i'd like to say over these 35 years that i've had good service from the police department

0:40:18but my service from the department that handles building permits has been less than satisfactory and far from exemplary a building permit ought to get done in weeks not months and when i interact with a city employee i should be treated civilly and the word civil servant should also include a

0:40:46priority for service based on my less than satisfactory experience with the city over these some of these 35 years i can't conclude that the city overall provides exemplary service at the same time we have one of the highest sales tax rates in the entire state coupled with

0:41:12one of the highest property tax rates in the county i realize the property tax taxes are not all due to the five of you however i've come specifically to discuss the way that the city spends money to inform us citizens here's an example of a proper and appropriate way to inform citizens i

0:41:33would expect that you not express political opinions in this type of document i am thoroughly embarrassed and ashamed we do not live in north korea we do not live in the soviet union city funds should not be spent to support political propositions on our ballot

0:42:00this is the right way to support measure b contribute your personal funds to an organization that is registered with the fair political practices commission please begin to wrap up thank you thank you mayor lyman and council members for the opportunity to speak

0:42:29tonight and an even bigger thank you for your willingness to explore the possibility of a new library so it's pretty hard for me to limit my my comments to two minutes about why i support a new library because i spend the majority of my days visiting libraries across the state

0:42:50and seeing the potential realized everywhere from bakersfield san diego and l.a san jose all the way up to sacramento and even small towns like fowler and fresno county demonstrate what a library can be when a community makes a conscious effort to make to invest in it

0:43:08and because i've seen that firsthand that libraries are more than just about books i really like to see that here too and while i know that it's not easy for us to dig deeper into our pockets and i know that that a yes on measure b means that that's an investment that i'm willing to make

0:43:28because i would rather invest in a place that effectively helps families with young kids make sure that they have all the services and resources they need so that they are ready to start school i would like to invest in a place where teens and tweens have a place that's

0:43:45more stimulating than hanging out at the plaza in their after school hours and it can keep them moving on the right path towards graduation and a career and i'd rather invest in a place that provides social connection and technology access for our older residents and i'd rather

0:44:02make invest in a place that offers the language and literacy services for our pretty diverse communities so those are really important to me and i think that making sure that we have a literate employable and socially connected community are what make what can make el cerrito be a great place and

0:44:22a place that i want to live and a place that i want my kids to grow up in but there's also something that is also very important to me particularly in light of our current political climate please begin to wrap up sure um and and that is that libraries are democracy in

0:44:37action and they create equity and they make our community inclusive um and they we need a place that can help facilitate these services so it starts with having the actual space and i think that please that was the right time for us to make that investment thank you thank you

0:44:58jan wu followed by paul fideli and denise sangster hello i'm jan woo and you may remember me as the former contra costa library commissioner representing el cerrito and in that capacity this is what i learned elsa reatons want their library to be open more than 35 hours per week

0:45:22we conveyed this need to the city council back in 2013 when participants in the el cerrito community town hall forum agreed that the one thing the library could do better is to be open more hours and again in 2014 when surveyed for the city sponsored library space needs

0:45:43assessment update residents reiterated that more hours was the one was one of the top improvements they wanted that is when respondents were given the opportunity to use their own words in quotes rather than being steered towards facility improvements yet in the intervening three years we

0:46:04have seen no constructive progress towards the extension of el cerrito library hours even though the el cerrito new library committee presented three reasonable options to the city in 2013 to be open on wednesdays or on sundays or on thursday evenings for the record the county library system

0:46:25pays for the base level service of 35 hours per week for each branch additional hours of service must be funded by local city governments cities that budget for better hours of library service include orinda walnut creek concord san ramon and hercules so i wonder if el cerrito cannot keep our

0:46:45current library open for more than 35 hours per week how will it manage to do so for a much larger facility or will we end up with a big shiny edifice that's dark shuttered and closed half the time bottom line where will funding for additional library hours come from we

0:47:03are already taxed to the max raising sales tax and property taxes even higher cannot be the answer without concrete evidence that the city of el cerrito is able to fund additional library hours through its existing revenue streams i will be forced to vote no on measure b

0:47:20i encourage neighbors who agree to rethink measure b thank you so much good evening mayor city council i'm paul fideli i live on harbor drive here in town a couple points i want to make about the library project first for those who find negativity in boogeyman and measure b i want to ask

0:47:46the following question does anyone think that whatever library plan is brought back to the city council and and in that plan i want to say that i'm for a plan that costs less than 30 million dollars that will be close to transit and then we'll have community spaces for

0:48:04the city to rent out does anyone really think that the plan will not have a broad open transparent and detailed public review process here i know that i'm for that and those on the city council are for that and those running for city council are for that we don't have to defeat this measure to

0:48:23assure that kind of scrutiny here in el cerrito it will just result in lost time the second point i want to make is we do a lot of talking about bringing jobs and housing and new businesses to el cerrito investing in this town to make it better a real 21st century library needs to be

0:48:39a part of that same investment plan so we can rightfully attract all those businesses and job creators and housing developers that we talk so much about a library isn't separate from the economic development goals that we care so much about it must be part of it

0:48:55defeating measure b only pushes our economic development goals further down the road and further away from reality thank you very much thank you good evening i'm not here to talk about measure b which is probably a relief for everyone but i am here to talk about something on

0:49:18the consent calendar which is item j i'd like the city council to consider to withdraw the consideration tonight it is controversial neighbors don't agree we've had meetings with the city on and off for the last five years and the last meeting which was in on april 30th 2015 we were promised by

0:49:41yvette ortiz that she would take our feedback come back with a revised plan and speak to neighbors before it was finalized this has not happened and seeing it on the consent calendar tonight is inappropriate neighbors that have said that they want to have a feedback sign in front of

0:49:56their homes have said tonight have told me today number one they've not met with the city or if they did meet with the city they have not agreed to it this project also includes rumble strips which neighbors vehemently opposed at the meeting we asked for alternatives

0:50:11which have not been included in this plan so i would like this poll to give the city time to meet with these neighbors that were there put their name on a list for follow-up in april of 2015 and have the chance to sit down and work on this with the city before you approve something and move

0:50:25forward with something that the neighbors do not want in the arlington area we have been meeting with city officials for as long as 11 years and we're very anxious to have something done to slow down the speed as the police know they've issued over a thousand tickets up there in the last

0:50:41year heavy speed but we need an appropriate plan that works for the neighbors that are immediately affected and what you're going to vote on tonight does not work thank you great thank you the final speaker slip is nick arzio good evening i'm nicholas arzio and i'd

0:51:01like to express again why i'm voting no on measure b people who vote no on measure b aren't necessarily against a library they're just against spending without having any real plan without any concrete plan location matters a lot of people would like to vote for a

0:51:17library but they want to know where it's going to be located before they approve 33 years of additional property taxes that's not unreasonable and that doesn't make them obstructionists another thing that's bothersome to many is that the city seems to be overstepping in certain ways when it

0:51:37comes to distributing information about measure b particularly uh concerning is the use of the consultant lou edwards group the city paid the lou edwards group to design its information program surrounding the library the yes on b committee hired creativity and communications to design their their

0:52:01materials and it it turns out that they're the same company that the creativity and communications is a subsidiary of lou edwards group so why is the same consultant working for both the city and the yes on b committee that's not good practice we can do better than that

0:52:18and i also don't endorse express advocacy for or against any ballot measure from behind the city council dice and i hope that can stop too so let's all remember that we're all neighbors we may disagree on this particular issue but we have good reasons and and location

0:52:35does matter so let's get a location first and then let's ask for 30 million dollars thank you any other speakers i have no other request to speak other than mrs sangster who would like to speak on the police chief mou okay that concludes item three which is oral

0:52:55communications from the public it brings us on to item four which we have three presentations this evening 4a unity and bullitty bullying prevention awareness day proclamation item 4b recreation department update and item 4c crime prevention committee work plan

0:53:14at this time like to come for the unity and bullying prevention presentation [Applause] good evening our mobile mayor and city council members my name is vivian brandt the community services supervisor for the recreation department this evening staff is asking for approval of the

0:53:54unity unity day proclamation the el cerrito recreation department is an agency member of the california park and recreation society and i currently serve on the cps district 3 board of directors the recreation department will be supporting the efforts of cprs district

0:54:113 which encompasses the counties of alameda and contra costa by participating in unity day unity day which will take place tomorrow wednesday october 19th is a day that everyone can come together in our city facilities schools and community and send one large orange

0:54:31message of support hope and unity to show that together we are against bullying and united for kindness acceptance and inclusion according to the national bullying prevention center one of every four school-aged children will be bullied this year upwards of 13 million students

0:54:53we are asking that everyone help support this effort and take a stand against bullying by wearing orange tomorrow all recreation staff will be wearing this shirt which says be good to each other and we have presented you with an orange shirt as well so that you may join with us in wearing

0:55:16them tomorrow tomorrow our child care staff will be reading children's books with an anti-bullying theme to our participants we will also have some group discussions as well as asking our participants and parents to sign the unity day pledge throughout all recreation program

0:55:33facilities this is the first year that we have participated and hope to participate annually increasing the collaboration and partnership with other city departments schools and the community together we can make bullying and please let me know if you have any questions thank you very much

0:55:52all right thank you any questions questions thank you very much and and i'm going to find a way to wear my orange shirt tomorrow all right and it doesn't have to be a shirt you can wear um anything that has orange you know a pin whatever a tie there you go thank you

0:56:13very much thank you item 4b mr jones we have one speaker on this item okay we have a speaker on item 4a mr handler so um mayor lyman and council members i am colonel handler richmond that was a wonderful presentation wonderful so as you know i would like to share with

0:56:35you my personal story about bullying when i was a kid i used to whenever i go to school i feel like that as i i've always it's like it helps me uh see the bigger picture but when but when i got bullied it was very hurtful to me i've always wanted i tried to like you

0:56:52know in my life at an early age i tried to but now that i'm surviving i feel good about myself as an uncle to a seven five and two year old i'm trying to teach them about uh it's okay to go to an adult that tells that if someone's bullying them that means i have the

0:57:11responsibility of taking care of them i make sure that uh that they do not get bullied i make sure that because any child bullies any one of my nieces it would have that would cause it would be it would mean a lot to me that i care about about these kids everywhere every

0:57:28time i pass through the um the recreation center i was like these kids really outdone this up they don't they've always been getting along so i'm thinking that uh that this council should approve this presentation so that's pretty much it go ahead chris thank you and that brings us to item 4b

0:57:49thank you and good evening honorable mayor and city council members i'm chris jones your recreation director or director of fun as more people seem to be calling me these days i'm really proud to come before you tonight with the recreation department's management

0:58:07staff to talk about our department i think it's really easy in this type of thing to give a lot of really impressive numbers and slides with lots of words on it but tonight we wanted to do things a little different and show you um not only what we do but how we do and how these things impact

0:58:27people's lives um but i do have some impressive numbers for you first um i got a little ahead of myself here okay okay so um the recreation department has an annual budget including capital improvements of about five million dollars when you uh incorporate our revenues of

0:58:553.5 million dollars that comes out to just three percent of the general fund or three dollars for every one hundred dollars spent and and what is that three dollars support year to date the recreation department has generated ninety thousand receipts meaning ninety thousand somethings

0:59:16enrollments drop-ins programs services amongst those receipts 35 000 lap swims 14 000 activity enrollments 5500 of them coming from the swim center 3000 for enrichment classes for all ages it also includes nearly 12 000 lunches served at the senior center and 3 200

0:59:38facility rentals this past summer the department offered over 60 unique day camp options for children ages four and three quarters through 17 years old 1 250 participate participants accounted for nearly 5 000 enrollments over our 11 week summer in the city's two preschools and three

1:00:02child care programs at elementary schools staff is responsible for nearly 300 children per day and finally we were honored again to receive 27 parents press best of contra costa county awards including nine gold medals so as impressive as these numbers sound um like i said i do want you to hear

1:00:25from the supervisors as well as after tonight our management analyst a couple items from now to talk about exactly what we do and how we do it and who we impact first up is bridget cooney hi my name is bridget cooney and i am the aquatic supervisor with the recreation department

1:00:47the recreation department or the department of fun is made up of approximately 70 independent contractors over 135 part-time employees and 23 full-time staff on june 9 2016 over 100 part-time staff and contract employees participated in the first annual pre-summer in-service

1:01:07training for the recreation department this training consisted of presentations from part-time and full-time staff as well as members of the police fire and human resources in addition to the in-service recreation staff regularly participate in trainings as well as professional organizations

1:01:26and conferences throughout the year although the days may begin the same no two days are alike in the recreation department the first custodian arrives as early as 5 am and the last lifeguard leaves at 10 pm working for the recreation department means you never know quite what you're

1:01:44going to expect when you arrive at work a lifeguard might arrive for their shift to find the chemical feeder not working properly a child care teacher may come in to find someone is sick and they don't have enough staff to meet ratio a custodian might arrive to discover a

1:02:00facility needing to be set up that was left in a disheveled mess after a rental one specific example from this past spring was when staff discovered that the pg e transformer across the street had blown and smoke was was heading towards the community center and our

1:02:15preschool programs instead of working on tasks as originally intended staff became emergency response workers talking to the fire department evacuating the pool working with our preschool programs to contact parents and to shelter in place another example from this summer took

1:02:33place one afternoon towards the close of business the lifeguards were called out to assist a child who had been hit by a car the lifeguards provided first aid and directed traffic until the fire department arrived being a part of the recreation department means fulfilling multiple

1:02:48roles every day recreation staff are teachers caregivers nurses mentors bookkeepers facility managers cafeteria workers event planners custodians and much much more to measure the success of our many programs we don't need to look very far three of us in the recreation department

1:03:07that are here tonight grew up participating in city run programs several current staff members throughout the city participate in recreation department programs themselves or their family members i personally learned how to swim at the el cerrito swim center i worked as a

1:03:23lifeguard through high school and in the summers in college and now i am the aquatic supervisor for the city all three of my children grew up in the city-run preschool child care and summer camp programs and this past summer my oldest son worked as a volunteer cit

1:03:37with the sum with the sports camp program my daughter received training as a junior lifeguard in the summer camp program and my youngest learned how to swim across the small pool during swimming lessons there are former recreation department staff who have taken what they have

1:03:51learned here and moved on to become newscasters professional dancers police officers firefighters teachers engineers nurses and more i know that there are many more stories out there that staff and volunteer can share of how the recreation department impacted their lives

1:04:08we as a recreation department remain committed to creating opportunities and memories for both participants and staff that will last a lifetime thank you good evening honorable mayor and city council members i am sarah d benedetto the recreation analyst in this portion of our presentation

1:04:34you'll be provided with a snapshot of who we serve along with visual testimonials of the excellent customer service that our staff provides as i am sure you are aware the recreation department provides a range of services not limited to but including [Music] classes camps

1:04:55facility rentals outdoor play spaces trips for 50 and better paratransit senior lunch program swim programs and special events we have offerings that touch the lives of people ranging from zero maturing in their mother's womb born through the 100s we provide these

1:05:18services not just in else not just to el cerrito residents but to our neighbors in richmond albany berkeley and beyond one illustration of this can be seen in the number of recreation department activity participants year-to-date there are close to 3 000 el cerrito

1:05:40residents and 2 100 non-residents enrolled in our various activities another illustration is that approximately 2 600 el cerrito residents and 1700 non-residents have either an aquatics pass so for lap swim or water aerobics or a tennis pass to get permits on our tennis courts

1:06:07we provide services to our customers at the el cerrito community center the swim center the senior center our clubhouses our parks and online online registration has become an important convenient and free tool for our customers in the technology-based society we live

1:06:26in today it is important for our customers to be able to roll enroll in classes book facilities reserve tennis courts access their child care statements and renew or purchase their passes online the need and wide usage of online enrollment is perhaps best illustrated

1:06:50in our after-school enrichment programs which are haystack and mesa programs at harding and madeira where 65 of the registrations were done online also we understand that scheduling conflicts arise and to increase convenience customers now have the ability to cancel classes online

1:07:10themselves shall they need to as a department we also understand that there are families and individuals who need financial assistance to participate in our programs the david hunter memorial scholarship fund offers scholarships for recreational and child care program participants

1:07:32so far in 2016 we have provided almost nine thousand dollars in scholarship funds to those who may not have been able to participate in our programs otherwise it is our belief that with friendliness knowledge skills and prompt service our staff provides community members with an

1:07:57excellent customer service experience and that these customers continue to come back not only to use our services and programs but recommend them to others as well thank you good evening my name is janet bilbis i'm senior services supervisor i'm here to talk to you about the

1:08:21different recreation buildings that we have we have 10 club houses a community center a senior center swim center 11 parks with play structures seven parks with barbecue areas and at six different locations we have 18 tennis courts that we all maintain and offer programs at the

1:08:42newest facility that we actually have built is a swim center which was back in 2004 with a splash park added in 2009 the best thing about the swim center is that it also receives funding through measure a for capital improvement and this has enabled us to keep that swim

1:09:00center as one of the premier swim swim centers in the area most of the clubhouses were originally built in the 1965 bond issue uh so as you can see they're they're quite dated in their age but the interesting thing is on both at madeira and harding they have double-digit wait list for the

1:09:22after-school child care program so the demand for the programs is extremely high in this area summer camps as chris noted with the wide variety of summer camps were offering we're now working very closely with the school district and anyone else that has space that we are able to try to maneuver in

1:09:43and offer multi-camps it's when it comes camp time it reminds me sort of the war room we all sit down and decide if we move a camp here what does that do to this camp how are we going to get to the child to the next location so it's pretty interesting to see something like that all come together

1:09:59and everyone working as one the senior center was uh built in 1965 the city of el cerrito and the richmond unified school district entered into a joint agreement to develop at that time what was called fairmont park and clubhouse which housed the senior center and then

1:10:17the expansion was added in 1984.

1:10:21what we're finding out in the senior center is that we're so limited in space our classes are limited in how many people can participate in classes we're doing far more of our larger programs now at the community center such as our resource fair volunteer reception and that

1:10:40and of course another very large concern is the parking in that area it has limited uh seniors who use transportation on their own we actually get phone calls at times but somebody says i won't be coming today because i couldn't find parking because the whole area there with the library

1:10:58and the school is very congested and also uh with aging buildings we're finding the repair costs it's everything from heating to plumbing to a simple push door bar that i just found out unfortunately is like three thousand dollars to get something that minor you

1:11:18would think repaired and uh but probably the most important point of this is the size doesn't matter in the location doesn't matter it's the quality of the programmings that are happening and we are a department that is growing rapidly and exceeding what we currently have for

1:11:37space but very much high demand thank you hello once again one of the recreation department's major focuses is on community engagement what is community engagement you might ask community engagement helps shape services builds trust between the residents and the city

1:12:06this outreach also helps connect people with the resources that they need and what we can provide by creating a dialogue between the city and the residents we create an opportunity for critical reflection some of the ways that we promote and support community engagement include

1:12:24community partners and co-sponsored groups special events marketing and outreach and volunteer opportunities throughout the year the department works with over 20 co-sponsored groups and collaborates with over 50 non-profit and community partners together we accomplish many things such

1:12:43as providing after-school enrichment programs sports programs and a large variety of community events we have over 10 special events that occur annually which draws over 16 000 attendees some of the most notable events include the spring egg hunt dynamo golf tournament our upcoming halloween

1:13:04haunted house and carnival and of course the city of el cerrito world one fourth of july festival a few of the key tools that we utilized ensure that our community is aware of all of our programs events and services are via our rec guide rec news twitter and the 50 plus newsletter

1:13:25in total over 144 thousand pieces of marketing are distributed annually to help deliver our events program and services to the community we count on over 200 volunteers annually our awesome volunteers are the key to our success and are dedicated to ensuring that we are able to provide the

1:13:45highest quality that our community has come to expect without them none of this would be possible one last thing before i finish i would like to take the opportunity to invite you all to kick off the centennial year celebration by attending the recreation department's centennial crab feed on

1:14:03january 21st 2017. thank you mayor council members thanks for having my team and i here my name is hannah i represent the youth services part of our department my colleagues have shared with you all kinds of ways that we connect with the community with our resources and with

1:14:25our buildings and i get to share with you the way that we connect with the people and the impact that our programs have had on a couple of participants we have the opportunity to enrich lives as young as a couple of months old 18 months all the way through hundreds

1:14:41as my colleagues spoke about there's all kinds of ways that we do this but i wanted to share a couple of feedback from actual participants here's a letter from a mom she has a two children who are teeter tots these aren't her children but they're that size here's what she wrote

1:14:55today was my daughter's last day in teeter tots and i want to reach out to you to tell you how thankful we are we found such a great program in 2013 when my son was a year and a half i was lamenting to a mom at a park about the lack of programs that accepted kids who

1:15:08weren't potty trained and for only a couple days a week she mentioned mentioned that the city of el cerrito had a program and it was incredible well three years and two kids later i can attest that it was true teacher karen is an amazing director she is warm and friendly and has a story or

1:15:24anecdote to tell you about your child she is so knowledgeable about children and child development i have found myself wanting to discuss issues with her because i trust her opinion we have obviously been very happy with teeter tots and hope this wonderful resource and hidden gem thrives for many

1:15:40years to come the other example that i have is from a senior resident you'll see her coming up she's on her way on the bus i'll show you when we get there her name is eva hapovich eva turned 97 on thursday she lives in an in-law unit with her one of her daughters here in el cerrito and

1:15:57uses easy ride to attend senior lunch and to go to shopping i had the chance to talk to eva last week she had a career and raised her family in new york and then moved west when they decided they couldn't handle any more east coast winters the senior center in easy ride has given

1:16:13her the independence to go shopping and socialize it at the senior center where she's built a community she doesn't have to rely on her family she can do this all independently she loves coming to lunch there she is there's eva she loves coming to lunch where she says that each

1:16:29person has a unique story everyone is so nice and helpful and the food is great i'm sort of in closing here bridget started our presentation by introducing us as the department of fun and so did chris fun we definitely have fun but we're so much more it's not always about the

1:16:46numbers it's about the impact and for us it's about enriching lives thank you so thank you very much both for listening to us tonight and for your continued support of the recreation department and the services we offer and if you have any questions we're here to answer them

1:17:10oh you leaned forward like you had a question any questions great thank you very much for your presentation thank you and it's great to know that the city staff is having so much fun doing their jobs it shows in your in your presentation so thank you [Laughter]

1:17:34oh do we have a speaker on this item okay well let's see mayor lyman uh council members i am colonel handler richmond i j this presentation it just blew me away i was like wow so much so much activities at the at the community centers i'm like this is amazing and and as you know i pass

1:17:56through there on a regular basis and i'm like and i've seen all these kids having fun and so do the adults so i'm like this is wonderful so i'm like i go i wouldn't mind and i go to the community center every time because i have friends that are who are on swim teams for

1:18:10elsewhere high so i have to go and go inside this center and i'm like this is just amazing so i'm thinking this is a wonderful opportunity so with that said i'm i'm going to be speaking on the at the on the next the last item great thank you and before we move on to

1:18:274c i do want to um 4a we it it doesn't have a it has a proclamation and i would love to get permission to sign this proclamation some of the words in 4a are whereas the city council has declared october 16 to 22 2016 as freedom from bullying week and now therefore the city council of the

1:18:50city of el cerrito hereby proclaims october 19th as unity day in the city of el cerrito and encourages all school students parents and recreation programs religious institutions and community organizations to engage in a variety of awareness and prevention activities

1:19:04designed to make our community safer for all children and adolescents and encourages el cerrito residents to wear orange on unity day to demonstrate the city's commitment to the prevention of bullying so moved second i've got a motion in a second to approve this

1:19:19proclamation all those in favor please say aye aye thank you now we'll move on to item 4c which is a presentation on the el cerrito crime prevention committee good evening mayor council city staff i'm nicholas arzio the chair of the el cerrito crime prevention committee i

1:19:43have a little bit of a cough so i hope i am able to make it through i'll move as quickly as possible so the crime prevention committee is actually now uh nicholas arzio chair uh marty takamoto vice chair um molly hazen linda jolive bruce yao and nathan de clue next slide

1:20:16they're going to get you a remote ah thank you okay so our mission statement resolution 2001-105 abolish the cerritos citizens committee on crime prevention and establish the el cerrito crime prevention committee the committee has four goals one develop and promote crime prevention

1:20:42programs two promote cooperation with local law enforcement three promote awareness of methods to prevent crime four advise the city council regarding crime prevention programs historical background in 1975 the city council established the committee on crime prevention which was changed in

1:21:042001 to its current title the crime prevention committee the cpc is an active committee that develops and promotes crime prevention programs promotes cooperation with local law enforcement and awareness of methods to prevent crime as well as advises city council regarding crime

1:21:19prevention programs so just to give a little bit of information our work plan is actually about a year behind so the last plan that you received from us uh was for the 2014-15 year so what will be presented tonight is a work plan for a fiscal year that's actually already passed it's just

1:21:43to clear up any confusion so we're going to start with prior year accomplishments which actually refers to the 2014-15 year these are the things we did during that fiscal year we had an identity theft seminar and that supported goals one and three that i just read

1:22:03we created a neighborhood watch brochure and it was printed we ordered different promotional items for the crime prevention committee like whistles and postcards we promoted the creation of new neighborhood watch groups and recruiting for the crime prevention committee

1:22:25at events like national night out the july 4th festival and the tri-city safety day now moving forward to the 2015-16 year we developed some surveys and we submitted them to our staff liaison and we're actually trying to figure out how they can best be distributed

1:22:50and and how the data can be collected the surveys were about what residents would like to see in a crime prevention committee and gathering information about neighborhood watches so we also promoted the crime prevention committee at neighborhood watch groups we gave

1:23:11president presentations at the schmidt lane neighborhood watch group uh a few times over the last year um we also promoted neighborhood watch groups and recruited for the crime prevention committee at the national night out event the july 4th festival in the tri-city safety day during the 15-16

1:23:31fiscal year we hosted an event called the police and community cleanup which paired uniformed police officers with youth from the community where they worked side by side cleaning up a creek together to build mutual familiarity and trust and it was well attended

1:23:50we also put together a project which is still under consideration but basically the ohlone greenway has elevated bart tracks and the support columns often are the target of graffiti crime so we had a we proposed a project to paint murals on those part support columns

1:24:11we located we identified a location we also came up with a theme and we got bids from local muralists and outlined the procedure for surface preparation the kinds of paints that would be needed and the anti-graffiti protective coating that would go over the top

1:24:33and basically developed a plan for implementation and 10 years of maintenance for the project it's currently awaiting uh consideration from the city's arts and culture commission which has purview over all public art in el cerrito so that's something that will be

1:24:52continued during the 16-17 fiscal year that we're in now we have a few ongoing pro uh projects probably the biggest event that the cpc does is the national night out which is uh block parties where neighbors beat each other and police and actually other representatives from the

1:25:15city so we serve as ambassadors and help to coordinate that excuse me that event we're going to be continuing with our annual identity theft seminars and we will continue to expand neighborhood watches where we hope to coordinate a neighborhood watch for every neighborhood in el cerrito

1:25:39and that's all so thank you for your time um you didn't mention the open house that you guys had recently can you want to give us a little update on that yeah that's right marilyn lyman and the reason i didn't is because that actually occurred during the current fiscal year

1:25:54but i'd be happy to talk about it we just had our first mixer a couple of weeks ago at the cerrito theater and it was well attended basically it was an opportunity for the public to come out and learn learn about the crime prevention committee and what we do the events like

1:26:12neighborhood watches and national night out so chief keith was there mayor lyman was there i think that there were other el cerrito police officers there and as well as several members of the public we consider it to be a successful event we actually had one prospective member the

1:26:31purpose of that event was also to recruit new crime prevention committee members so we had about five or six people express interest and we also had one member who said that she wants to start her own neighborhood watch near the bay tree lane we were very satisfied with that

1:26:52so if if this presentation wasn't for this current when will we get a presentation that's more current i can uh i can confer with the committee and we can come back and give you our 16-17 work plan as soon as you're ready to receive it would you like to come come back in a

1:27:10month or two to do that yeah why don't we schedule it for january i mean we usually pretty light in january so sounds good thank you that concludes item 4c and let's go on to items of the consent calendar oh oh sorry cordell would you like to speak on item 4c yes

1:27:37okay so uh mayor lyman uh council members i'm cody alejandra richmond i really enjoyed this presentation and um and i have been coming to the crime prevention committee meetings for the last couple of months and um and i've been expressing um some of my ideas that

1:27:52i presented to the committee about you know neighborhood watches so for example i'm part of a neighborhood association uh and we we have our meetings you know like monthly so this is something that this is like been like an an idea that just came to them so i figured so i'm helping

1:28:07them you know with someone bringing some of my ideas to the table so and i'll be happy to work with the committee once again uh to come up with some more ideas you know where where they have the neighborhood watch group you know like other places you know for example they have

1:28:21in some in some neighborhood watches they they usually meet like in schools or in churches or other and you know places like that you know that way they have a a place that was accessible for for everyone to come so i'll be happy to work with the committee again um at some

1:28:36point so that's all i have thank you sir on the consent calendar tonight we have uh 5a which approval of minutes 5b arts and humanities month proclamation 5c proclamation recognizing chris strakwitz and down home music 5d shelter in place education day proclamation 5e proclamation encouraging

1:29:00autonomous vehicle testing as a public safety and economic development initiative 5f amendments to city's job classification plan 5g conflict of interest code update 5h memorand of understanding with the public safety management group police chief this item has been pulled 5i

1:29:20financial support for youth soccer grant for gilman sports fields 5j arlington boulevard and brewster drive intersection safety improvements city project number c3071 federal aid project number hsip two 5239023 move adoption i'd like to pull item j um so item five j has been pulled for

1:29:45discussion so five h and five j have been pulled i move adoption of five items 5 a 3 5 g and 5 l 5 i that's 5 i that's a capital i it's an i it's not a lowercase l let's say so we have a motion on the floor by abelson to approve items 5a through 5g and 5i seconded by friedman all those in favor

1:30:14please say aye aye opposed abstentions let the records show that the item passed unanimously um that brings us on to 5h memorandum of understanding with public safety management group assistant city manager pincus thank you your honor i'm karen pinkis i'm the assistant city manager and on

1:30:37behalf of the city manager i am thrilled to announce that the city has appointed paul keith to the permanent position of police chief he has served with the el cerrito police department for over 15 years he's risen through the ranks of police officer corporal sergeant lieutenant and captain

1:30:52and has served as interim chief since march of this year in these roles chief keith has focused on connecting officers with the community that they serve he's a coach for the writer coach connection through the west contra costa unified school district he is a faculty

1:31:07member at napa valley college criminal justice training center and he's also a resident of el cerrito where he lives with his wife johnny and his two young children the appointment of police chief is under the authority of the city manager however city council approval is

1:31:22required to enter into the memorandum of understanding with the public safety management association police chief which is a recognized bargaining unit the mou outlines the terms and conditions of the position has been negotiated in good faith between the city and the association staff's

1:31:37recommendation is that the council adopts the mou and authorizes city manager to execute it but with that i'm really pleased and happy to announce and introduce el cerrito's new police chief palki [Applause] thank you karen um good evening i'm your chief of police

1:32:06paul keith i wanted to take a couple moments to uh to share some thoughts i had about the position first i'd like to say that i'm proud to serve the community of el cerrito and also the women and men of the el strudel police department so also thank you for coming tonight

1:32:21our mission at the el cerrito police department is that we are committed to service safety and enhancing the public trust and professionalism and leadership this mission guides everything that we do to keep el cerrito safe i look forward to continuing to collaborate with the el cerrito city

1:32:35council our city staff and the community on matters of public safety i also want to take a moment to thank a couple people for their support first my wife jenny keith and my grandfather bob shaner who are here in the audience tonight i also want to thank the community of el

1:32:51cerrito and also the members of the el cerrito police department for their support during my time as the interim chief i want to thank scott hannon and karen pinkos as well as the city council for giving me this opportunity to serve the city of el cerrito at a higher level so

1:33:05thank you thank you [Applause] any uh comments before we take up the matter of 5h jay uh we have at least once public speaker or two actually let's go ahead and get uh i know it's not you cordell it's not always you i know are you sure it's not always yeah no um could you could you call for the

1:33:34public speakers denise sangster please thank you i couldn't be happier about the appointment of chief keith i think he has done a marvelous job in the city he has built trust and relationships across the community with kids all the way to seniors and congratulations to

1:34:00chief keith all right uh any comments i sent an email to the chief earlier today i'm thrilled thank you i'm glad you successfully served the interim so well and got the position so thank you and congratulations i want to echo everyone's comments and thoughts that

1:34:24you are a perfect pick for our city at this time and i'm pleased at the decision so thank you i'd like to i just say i'm i'm also very pleased and excited and i can't tell you how thrilling it is to me to go down the street and see you there walking with your kids off duty

1:34:51and i think it's so fitting that our police chief is is one of us and so i'm looking forward to a long tenure and a very successful one for both you and for us as a community thank you i think it's wonderful that you rose through the ranks and that here you are

1:35:15so well known in our community so well known by your colleagues on the police force and not just known but appreciated and valued and congratulations chief i want to congratulate you uh i spent time uh in the different neighborhoods with you uh this past year and i congratulate you

1:35:37you are uh you are so well-liked in all the neighborhoods of el cerrino from the hills down to west el cerrito and you attended so many things with me this past year and i just wanted to say thank you and i wish you all the best great i'm looking for a resolution of

1:35:58the city council of the city of el cerrito to adopt a memorandum of understanding with the public safety management association police chief i'm going okay i'm move adoption of a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute a minimum memorandum of understanding between the

1:36:18city of el cerrito and the public safety management group otherwise known as the police chief second moved by elson second by freeman all those in favor please say aye aye opposition abstentions let the record show it pass unanimously all right thank you um that brings us to

1:36:37item five j 5j is the arlington boulevard and brewster drive intersection safety improvement city project miss ortiz would do you have a brief presentation on this thank you for staying good evening mayor council members should i let the room clear great thank you good evening again my

1:37:22name is yvette ortiz the city's public works director uh just give you a brief background on the project the goal of the arlington boulevard and booster drive safety improvements project is to improve pedestrian safety and calm vehicle traffic speeds in the area of the

1:37:37booster curve and arlington park the project replaces some of the interim improvements that were installed in 2012 and replaces them with standard sidewalk curb extensions curb ramps bus stop improvements speed feedback signs and other modifications to signs striping and

1:37:56drainage it is largely funded by a federal highway safety improvement program grant which the city applied for in 2012.

1:38:06city staff hosted two community meetings regarding the project the first in july of 2012 and the second in april of 2015.

1:38:14during the first community meeting residents expressed concerns about not just that intersection of arlington and brewster near the curve but also with speeds in the overall area specifically specifically in front of arlington park as a result we added speed feedback

1:38:32signs to the project and included it in the grant application at the april 2015 meeting we received additional community input about various elements of the project including the speed feedback signs while not everyone was in in favor of the speed feedback signs we worked with

1:38:52residents um to identify locations that were acceptable to those neighbors immediately to the speed back speed feedback sign locations as well as supplementing the speed feedback signs with rumble strips to to supplement the visual with a physical cue we the rumble strips we were proposing

1:39:16are modified so they're not as loud as what you might anticipate a rumble strip is they're just made out of thermal plastic striping and are bike friendly we also discussed other potential improvements of our traffic calming such as speed table speed humps also flashing beacons

1:39:38and at that time we informed the the community that the city was working on a detailed concept as part of the active transportation plan and that that effort would provide opportunities for future improvements and that we would involve the community at that time

1:39:55and that we could always build on the improvements that we were proposing at that time at the at the at that time we also communicated to the residents the timeline for the project it was an april 2015 meeting we were looking at finalizing the the design within

1:40:13by that summer so two to three months sending it to caltrans for approval because they are federal funds caltrans needs to approve the project before we proceed with construction by the end of 2015 and then advertising the project in early 2016 and our goal was to start construction in the spring

1:40:32of 2016.

1:40:34unfortunately though when we did bid that project in 2016 the bids came in um way too high so um we asked council to reject the bids and give council um city staff the authority to value engineer the project and re-bid it so this is where we are now as your public works director i do

1:40:53recommend that you that you award the construction contract as detailed in your agenda bill i think the package of improvements um provides a worthy step forward to improving pedestrian safety and calming speeds in the project area i'm available to answer any questions

1:41:15so i have a couple questions so this is involving the the corner of brewster and basically arlington so there's a bus stop there on both sides of the street you'll be doing a bus bulb out which is i i assume they'll be is that part of what the the bus what is going to be the

1:41:38value engineering did include elimination of that bus bull ball all we're doing in that area is installing there is no sidewalk there now so it's a bench in the dirt area with curb and gutters so we're going to be installing a standard sidewalk with curb ramps at

1:41:57that intersection we are bulbing out the other area the other corner which is the nor the southwest corner and um that will include it it'll replace the interim improvements that were like concrete stops and and the handrail with your standard sidewalk curb and gutter

1:42:17curb ramps and it'll slightly realign the the crosswalk in that area we'll also be addressing some drainage problems in that area and the the rectangular rapid flashing beacon that's going to be put up is not unlike what's already on the arlington there's several of them

1:42:37[Music] around madeira perhaps and maybe a little further down maybe i'm not sure maybe by poor i'm not sure but there are at least two more down there um we do have rectangular flashing beacons um at arlington and madera which is the school and but there aren't the flashing

1:42:58beacons are not a part of this project as recommended for award it was an alternative bid item that was way above the project budget and um because we're not suggesting we're not suggesting alternative a it's alternative alternative b which is the speed feedback signs which were part of

1:43:18the original grant application so it's going to be the sidewalk the curb extensions and a bus stop improvement that you just related um it says a speed feedback sign which is uh the solar paneled right we also have additional um right there this they have solar panels

1:43:39and um it's a sign with the speed limit says 25 and then it you're going this and it flashes it has a radar ended up there we have a couple on arlington right and um and then other minor modifications to signs pavement markings and the drainage okay um it doesn't specified or call out the

1:43:58rumble strips but you just stated that the rumble strips will be there and where are they located at the um there's two signs one in the southbound direction it's near thor's bay so right as you approach uh the park down by the park right and so the goal was to reduce

1:44:15speeds of cars as they were entering the park because that had come up as an area of concern and then um the other one in the northbound direction is near villanueva and again it's about a block away we didn't want to focus them too near the curves because we wanted actually people

1:44:32to slow down before they got to the curb and the curve already has a lot of signs and enhanced pavement markings and it could be a lot of information overload in that area and so when you're on arlington and you're going southbound i mean that's with that straight away there by thor's bay is

1:44:51where a lot of the speeding happens because that's kind of downhill and it's also straighter i mean not too many people speed through brewster because it's it's pretty curved there and it's well marked now and i think we did a a decent um fix on that and it'll be improved

1:45:06right so i guess um the concern is that this is already uh something like uh we have a forty thousand dollar short fill shortfall on this and we have a bid that we previously didn't that we rejected back in april so i i don't know what else what other traffic calming measures there are

1:45:25besides rumble strips that are alternates so i don't know are there any right so as part of the active transportation plan um the the detailed concept that was developed there included some curveball belts um so extending the curb with standard sidewalk carbon gutter and

1:45:45that narrows the roadway and does provide a traffic calming effect there are also suggestions for additional flashy beacons at key crosswalks and then and the other measure was installation of a sidewalk where there is none now so more of a pedestrian safety along

1:46:07along the avenue other measures that we have tried in busier streets that carry both transit and emergency vehicles are speed tables and we're looking at trying out speed cushions but the speed tables um are not part of the grant so it's something that we could look into in the future as part of

1:46:31other grant applications um and the speed cushions again a similar situation but that's at a more much more trial stage than the speed tables at race crosswalks and one last question about the rumble strips do we have those anywhere else in the city no we have never installed them

1:46:47partly because of the con concerned about noise and but the old old rumble strips were more like what you see in some other cities which are like the white pot dots but these are rumble strips of thermoplastic material we haven't installed in the city but other cities

1:47:02have at least one other city has and we're learning from their experience and the initial reaction to that rumble strip was that it was too noisy but then that city modified the rumble strip and that's the modified strip that were included in our plans okay i wasn't

1:47:20familiar familiar with seeing him anywhere in the city and i drive around a lot and i'm walking precincts right now so yeah um i just wanted to ask about that so um i i don't have any other questions about this um does anyone else have questions because i'll build up on those the the

1:47:36rumble strips the you said the thermal plastic so they're heated into the pavement similar to uh um some of the paint stripes that we might see out there so so is it a series of of narrow paint stripes essentially that are close together that that create a vibration

1:47:54right and it's just a little thicker than your your standard um your standard pavement marking okay and then um with regards to the speed feedback we've got a couple of those already in place along the arlington and uh that's a technically feasible mechanism for trying to reduce speeds at this

1:48:15location correct okay and then um finally with regards to fiscal prudence if we were to take the speed um feedback sign out of you know alternative b out does that save the city money no because ultimately with the grantor would likely take that funding away but this was a competitive grant

1:48:40that was that was based on measures of effectiveness you have to propose the measure and then there's a specific benefit that you get from that measure that caltrans has established so if we take the speed feedback sign component out of the grant caltrans would likely say you know you

1:48:58can't have that funding for that measure um and and the funding i think for for that component is about forty thousand dollars so that would be taken away and so we'd still have to supplement um the project with uh additional funding so so so that we would always have to

1:49:16pull an additional 40 000 out of our transit funds okay any other questions is there a speaker on this miss sangster would you like to get another minute since we only had two minutes prior so thank you um first we were promised by a vet that she would come back and talk to us as i already

1:49:37said neighbors were opposed to these speed sign feedbacks we wanted to have delighted at the crosswalk where there's been a fatality the family of gene smith who was run over by a bicycle in that crosswalk the only thing they asked of the city and they made that request directly to jerry

1:49:53bradshaw and to the chief as well as sending a letter to the city they asked that there be put bumps in that area just to slow traffic that was their only request to the city they didn't sue the city they just requested that and the neighbors in that area jan they have no idea that this is

1:50:10going on so the people that where these properties are located that they're putting these speed feedback signs they don't want them there they didn't know about them i talked to the neighbors tonight and they were shocked to learn this and we don't want these rumble strips

1:50:25there was some conversation about that there were conversation about a number of things but yvette really pushed us hard and i and i give her credit for this when we when we said that we didn't want the speed feedback she said you know are you sure because we'll lose

1:50:40the money and the neighbors unanimously said there we'd be we'd be happier not to have them than to have them then one neighbor did raise the sand and said well wait a minute i have small children maybe in front of my house but she looked at that property it did not work

1:50:53and they moved it down to the other side of the driveway which belongs to a different neighbor and they do not want it there they've never heard of it they've never been consulted about it and they don't want it so i think my only request to her was delay this for two weeks get together with

1:51:10neighbors come back with something that you said you would do back in april 2015 meet with neighbors that are affected by this potential noise by this by the signage and talk with us one more time unless there is some imperative reason that this cannot be delayed for

1:51:25two weeks i think it's the only reasonable thing to do just delay it for two weeks we'll organize the meeting of the local neighbors they can come in and hear it but people that are having rumble strips put in front of their house have no idea and i don't think they're going to be

1:51:39happy about it and i think it's disingenuous to vote this through and then to come back and say hey now let's talk about it just just delay it for two weeks talk to neighbors and i think you'll probably win more over your way than not so that's my only request just delay

1:51:55talk to neighbors and see where there is alignment and where there is not thank you i've got a question for the city attorney our action tonight is authorizes the city manager to enter into the agreement but it does not require him to enter into the agreement is that correct

1:52:18that's correct but if you're going to delay i recommend that you postpone taking it taking any action on the item including awarding the bid since um the the in the event that the since if you're going to delay and direct the public works director to discuss the project

1:52:36with neighbors if the if aspects of the project are going to be changed you should postpone awarding the contract the bids were received on september 22nd this is for a vet um my i'm a little rusty on my procurement law but there is a time for which bids need to be

1:52:57accepted one way or the other i can't remember is that 90 days or 100 it's 120 with federal money 120 with federal money sounds right but i think our contract provisions and i'd have to go back and look at this is maybe 30 days which we're already slightly beyond um

1:53:16so okay that answers your question yeah it does that there is potentially some hiccup with the with the uh bid price if we delay that that's the question i'm asking and it's not clear one way or the other i know that there is a with federal money there is some timeline not more than 120

1:53:37maybe it's within 120 i can't remember what it is that's it but i'd have to go back and look at this specific um program um those requirements can vary okay miss bridges well this is sort of a dilemma i mean it's i i don't want to i don't want to not approve this because of the bid i

1:53:57think that's really important and i'm hearing what's being said i don't know about the rumble strips i don't know if there's another place to put them so they're less affecting i mean if you we're going to move them between brewster and thor's bay there's just the park is on one side and

1:54:13there's what four or five houses on the other one of which is almost never occupied can they be moved to a different way so there's less effect or what alternative could you place out there so that we can pass this i don't want this federal money and i i don't want to interfere

1:54:31with that i think that's a problem so in terms of the rumble strips i was talking to denise earlier today we could commit to checking in with the neighbors on whether that live immediately adjacent to the rumble strips or just all the neighbors in within that block that are near the

1:54:47rumble strips and if it is causing undue hardship nuisance that we could commit to removing those um rumble strips within a certain time that they think is reasonable i'd like to move approval of the item and direct ms ortiz to meet with the neighbors and give you the authority to

1:55:14make minor modifications as needed and appropriate second can i clarify the action because one of the things you could do with that motion is you could authorize a larger uh contingency to allow for that to occur the contingency is 21 000 which is that's smaller than normal isn't it

1:55:40um it's about 10 percent and we've gone as high as 20 at times it's gone as high as 20 sometimes right so i know it sounds like you've uh skimped on your contingency partially due to the fact that you were asking for supplemental appropriations correct yeah um i would

1:55:59ask that you consider if you're going to make that motion that you would consider allowing if you're going to allow staff that opportunity to make modifications that there might be a need for additional contingency and an increase to say 50 000 or yeah i would i would increase the contingency

1:56:20by at least 10 000 and ask for 50 000 uh in changing appropriations and i'm looking to the city attorney yes he turned his lights on yeah you also need to amend the um the additional appropriation by the equivalent amount correct that right they both would have to go up both the

1:56:37contract value as well as the as the appropriation all right i'll i'll accept that as amendment so so in if i'm going to read the resolution uh i have a resolution before me i'll read it and see if this is what the motion you made resolution of the city council the city of el

1:56:55cerrito approving plans for the arlington boulevard and brewster drive intersection safety improvement project city project number c3071 federal aid project number hsip 5239023 accepting the two submitted bids authorizing the city manager to execute a contract in the amount of

1:57:15two thousand two hundred and fifteen thousand two hundred and sixty eight point five zero with fbd vanguard construction inc and to approve change orders in an amount not to exceed 31 000 for the construction of the project and amending the fiscal year 2016-2017 adopted budget

1:57:35and annual program of maintenance and improvement pursuant to measure a street improvement program to appropriate an additional 50 000 in the measure a street improvement fund for the arlington boulevard and brewster drive intersection safety improvement project city project number 3071

1:57:53and instruct city staff to meet with the residents and authorize the city staff to make minor project improvements accordingly does that state your motion properly it's all moved and it was already seconded by mr quinto so a second it's still seconding um sure so i would i would like to understand

1:58:28what it means to meet with residents i would like i would like some understanding about this because if this is just about rubber stamping it you're going to have very unhappy people but we there are things in this project we do not want if you if mark i would think that meeting with

1:58:44residents means to try and drive consensus with neighbors with that with is that what you mean by that with all due respect the the um the project is to make this the area safer and that is that is the goal right i've been hit by a car in that intersection i know what it's like that is the goal and

1:59:02it's city staff is the experts and their consultants are the experts in in in safety so some of these things need to go where they have to go for technical reasons site distances sight lines tangent they have to be on tangents they have to be the right distance away from

1:59:18the area you're trying to protect so for that reason not talking about that well that's the the the motion on the floor has been made it's been seconded and we trust our staff to know what it means to go and talk to the residents and listen to them within the guidelines of safety

1:59:36this is a safety project so we we have to make that an area more safe it's it's incumbent on us to do that and therefore we have to make a decision that's best for the city and the and the full uh all the residents so thank you for your comments we've been in answer to your question i think

1:59:59whenever possible we need to seek consensus with those who are most impacted by decisions that are made by city staff and the city council so yes that would be my hope that there could be a consensus reached uh through the process that ms ortiz will undertake thank you very much you're welcome

2:00:19all those in uh we've had a motion on the floor it's been made and seconded by mr quinto all those in favor please say aye aye opposed abstentions let the record say it passed unanimously thank you thank you very much uh this brings us to a public hearing to which we have a script

2:00:40this is item 6 local modification of the 2016 california building standards code including green building codes building code fire code and related construction codes conduct a public hearing and upon conclusion uh adopt a resolution which makes findings justifying these changes

2:00:59um so is that an adequate enough introduction okay um with that i will call forward uh mark saltz and mike bond uh good evening honorable mayor and city council members i am mark soltis your building official and i have here with me tonight uh fire battalion chief michael bond

2:01:25and our development services manager margaret cavanaugh lynch uh we're here to present a resolution and ordinance for the adoption of the state of california title 24 codes as mentioned in the agenda bill before you tonight the state of california adopts new codes commonly

2:01:44referred to as the california code of regulations title 24 every three years uh local city and county jurisdictions uh then have six months to either adopt these codes with their local amendments or to automatically accept these codes by default this year's in the past the state

2:02:10adopted the 2016 title 24 codes on july 1st 2016. we therefore have before you our proposed local amendments to title 24 codes for your approval so that these may take effect on january 1st 2017 as prescribed by law the amendments are in keeping with our past modifications to the codes and

2:02:33generally only differ by renumbering the code references to coincide with the new renumbered state code sections and by moving the subsection referring to existing buildings into its own section as it was done at the state level and their adopted code some changes to note

2:02:56a minor change in the building code will require that a new certificate of occupancy be issued whenever there's a change in use in a building or tenant space also in the fire code when a sprinkler system is installed then it must be interconnected with the structure smoke detection and

2:03:17fire alarm system with an audible interior and exterior alarm please also note that a numbering error occurred in municipal municipal code section 16.02.120 and that the cbc code section referred to there should read 1905.1.8.1 and i will have the city clerk cheryl

2:03:42morris make the correction before the second reading we are here this evening to answer any questions that you may have regarding this proposed code adoption i i don't really have any questions it looks like basically we've already did most of this in november and except for like you said

2:04:05the certificate of occupancy is sort of the the major change here and i i guess um a lot of the conditions that you know are listed in here are specific to our topography our climate our um propensity to perhaps have landslides and [Music] areas that are possibly subject to liquefication and

2:04:34earthquakes and i guess you only have to look at the millennium building in san francisco to appreciate why we have building codes and um and and some of the things that are listed in here so i don't have any other questions or comments about it otherwise i just have one uh i thank you for going

2:04:54through with the fine-tooth comb and and picking out the typos that i know three years ago um i found a few um more than a few actually but it's nice to know that somebody else is going through with with an adequate fine toothed comb to look for those cross cross reference errors so thank

2:05:15you for that you're welcome any anything that you want i mean i know you just touched on it but is there anything that you want to drive home this is your opportunity to speak to the people at home that are watching or might replay this back any highlights that you want to make

2:05:30sure that people understand why we have building codes and any particular safety features that you want to emphasize that that that you know why we have building codes to prevent fires and allow people to get out and and the the co detectors and all those good things

2:05:49well uh the main purpose of the building codes is to ensure that uh those people living in in their homes uh doing business in in buildings that they work in and stores that they shop in etc that they're in a safe environment that the the the plumbing is sanitary

2:06:09the mechanical systems are functioning properly and they're sanitary uh that the buildings aren't gonna fall in around them hopefully in a seismic event or at least allow them to enough time to exit the building before the structure could be a danger and also to limit the risk

2:06:29fire and the possibility of fire that's part of what the building code and the fire code itself too is is all about it's all about public safety so we would like the public to understand that the reason that we go through a permit process and require permits is not just

2:06:52to collect money but to ensure that they are safe and sound where they live and work so like um councilmember bridges said i've been going around town visiting specific addresses in in this fall and i notice on in here that there is a provision for numbers identifying buildings

2:07:19and that for residential buildings they must be a minimum of four inches in height with a half inch stroke width and for commercial building six inches in height with a one inch basically wide number pattern i found many many buildings in el cerrito homes in elsewhere with no

2:07:39distinguishing numbers or their numbers are actually very difficult to find um and maybe this is for for uh michael bond it can you explain why it's important for people to identify their house numbers so that when they make a phone call to get first aid that the the first aid can

2:07:59get there faster if they have good house numbers right okay well i could address that i suppose the main purpose is for emergency vehicles whether it's the ambulance police fire to readily and rapidly identify the building that is needing help or assistance so you have to understand that these

2:08:24vehicles are traveling down the street often dark at night and if the address isn't prominent or lit or whatever the case may be they have to spend additional time uh hunting for the the place they're going to and sometimes those minutes are valuable yeah so is there a mechanism by which we

2:08:48should be encouraging homeowners not a punitive way but encouraging homeowners to add numbers because i will say it feels like one out of every 10 homes is poorly marked if not more if not a higher frequency i suppose we could proactively uh address that in a in a like an

2:09:07informational bulletin or in one of our uh quarterly or newsroom news releases yeah for the city but uh we're we should be and i'll have to check and make sure my inspectors are doing so um enforcing the provision whenever there's a building permit issued certainly i'm not necessarily

2:09:29an electrical or plumbing or mechanical permit but a building permit for additions or improvements to to the property there there should be addresses that are either backlit or front lit yeah one of the ones i went to recently all somebody had done is taken a paper

2:09:44stencil of the number and and painted it right on the siding of the house which is as good as anything so these don't have to be expensive fixes and maybe the city can provide paper stencils for for homeowners to use to to do their own application something that that

2:10:02really gets this because i i'm shocked at the number of homes that have no number and the only way you can figure out that it's the house you want to go to is by looking at the houses on either side so that's true paper stencils and some contrasting paint is certainly

2:10:21better than nothing our i think i believe our municipal code requires one in the course of a permit that the the number also either have a uh a backlight or it has a light shining upon it so it's illuminated in the evening time yup no i understand that mr friedman yeah i i

2:10:41i think that it would be great if we had examples like photos in the city newsletter of what's a good type of uh signage and what's a bad one so people can get an idea of what's more optimal maybe than what they're currently explaining we can do that right um any any public testimony on this item

2:11:04i have no request to speak mayor we think we close the public hearing great have a motion to close second seconded by the by the least on my left um the all those in favor closing the public hearing please say aye aye opposed abstentions the uh public hearing is now closed

2:11:24we have several actions yep go ahead resolution making findings to support local modifications to the standards contained in the 2016 california building standards code enacted as part of the ordinance and directing notice and setting of the november 1st 2016 public hearing at 7 pm to consider

2:11:44adopting the ordinance a second all those in favor please say aye aye abstentions let the record show it passes unanimously uh okay um and number two we need to approve the ordinance we have to read the whole thing we we have to approve the ordinance of public hearing and adoption the

2:12:08ordinance schedule for november first and so i'm looking for a council member to uh move to introduce i it i apologize but it does need to be introduced it's too long for me somebody else i move to introduce my title and waive any further reading an ordinance of the

2:12:27city of el cerrito amending title 16 of the el cerrito municipal code to adopt with modifications to address unique uh local conditions the 2016 edition of the california green buildings code the 2016 edition of the california building code based on the 2015 international building

2:12:46code volumes one and two including several appendages there too the 2016 california fire code based on the 2015 international fire code including all appendages there too the 2016 edition edition of the california administrative code the 2016 edition of the california

2:13:07residential code based on the 2015 international residential code with some dependencies 2016 2016 edition of the california existing building code based on the 2015 international existing building code including some appendages the 2016 california plumbing code based

2:13:27on the 2015 uniform plumbing code the 2016 california mechanical code based on the 2015 uniform mechanical code and the 2016 california electrical code based on the 2014 national electrical code second a move by quinto seconded by uh bridges all those in favor please say

2:13:50aye aye opposed abstentions seeing a non-net let record show it passed unanimously and it includes the correction yes the correction in section 120 to refer to the correct uh code 905 i don't i want to say it's 905b i didn't write it down so i can't correct myself sorry

2:14:16but yes it includes the correction okay that's good we don't need it mark nope you'll it's i would almost classify that as clerical and you'll get it to the clerk please um that brings us to item seven item seven is policy matters mr duffy thank you for coming in a few minutes ago

2:14:41hopefully hopefully this worked out well and isn't too late for you this is a policy matter presentation of possible action in support of california state proposition 55 tax extensions and fund education and healthcare earlier this evening i was contacted by staff for tony thurman and he is unable

2:14:59to make it tonight as a result of other urgent matters i don't know the full nature of them but he is unavailable but matt duffy the new superintendent for west contra classical unified school district is here so i don't know if you have a full presentation or you just want to outline

2:15:20the uh the issues and ask us to take action sure good evening to mayor council i've had the pleasure of meeting a few of you but not everybody yet so yes you get me this evening so i don't have a full presentation but i did certainly want to come and say hello to the team and to say hello to

2:15:48community members who may be watching as well and introduce myself i am the new superintendent of our district and really proud to be here and off to a great start over these past three months or so and certainly we are deeply counting on the passage of prop 55 which extends

2:16:07prop 30 taxes for us it means around 110 million dollars so that will also sort of show you the depth of the cuts that everybody faced you know in in the dark times over the previous years so um we would basically grind to a halt without this it's about a quarter of our

2:16:30budget so as as most folks might know it is a renewal so it's not a new tax but we are very much hopeful that the council will support it this evening it's really one of the the the backbones of our funding and uh we do need it so thank you i think it just to clarify that's 110 million

2:16:55dollars every year right yes oh yes any questions at any speakers cordell thank you mr duffy photo handler richmond i just enjoyed i just wanted to say that that was one of the best presentations i've ever heard um we want this money to go for our students because we care about this the

2:17:23communities and this money that's going to go into the school district i'm very grateful for that so that's it now you can be enthusiastic mr freedman i'm less enthused now no i'm just as enthusiastic i move uh motion in support of proposition 55.

2:17:40i'll second that and that's the tax extension to fund education and health care um so we have a motion on the floor uh all those that's been made by friedman seconded by quinto all those in favor please say aye aye opposed abstentions let the record show that it passed unanimously thank you mr

2:17:57duffy thank you for the record thank you all right um that brings us to item eight which is council assignments at liaison reports and i see a large stack on my left so i know i know miss abelson is going to be at work here make it brief would you like to start us

2:18:19off certainly um i attended the league of california cities as the city's representative and a number of things happened besides there being a conference where what which one could attend and learn and i did and one of the things we did was to change the board of the league of california cities

2:18:47chris mckenzie the executive director of the league of california city is retiring at the end of this month and the search is underway for a replacement the um i i thought i would uh let's see so i guess the next thing i'll mention here is that um the east bay division of the league

2:19:16california cities met and elected new officers so i uh you may remember am the immediate past president of the league of california cities east bay division and now i am now no longer in that position so i am uh merely your representative the um um with that i'd like to also go through

2:19:44and mention a few things that i attended by way of conference sessions um the first one i attended that i thought was particularly interesting um is represented by this lady here oh yeah i'd say leander and now it's san leandro and um this figure i believe if you look

2:20:09down it takes up this whole piece of paper from top to bottom but if you look at the light post it takes up about what goes to where my finger is so this is a very large structure and it is lit in different colors at different times and um it's um called transformation

2:20:37and um so it just shows what kind of art you could create for a community and transformation represents something to the city of san leandro in terms of what they were undergoing and um what i think we would perhaps have by way of equivalent is what we call not in our

2:21:03town is our current equivalent to that sort of thing so if you can imagine that there might be some sort of a piece of artwork that represents not in our town uh and think of it that the vision for it might be as large as this so that was kind of an exciting thing to

2:21:24me i actually spoke to the artist at the conference so that was pretty exciting other really interesting things that i attended sessions on one was on homelessness there were in fact there are a number of sessions on homelessness that's a very um pertinent topic of the moment for the

2:21:50cities of california and um the um let's see here change pages here and um the um another one was on um [Music] preparing for an active shooter event and saving lives was another one just to give you a flavor of the kind of conference sessions we have meeting affordable housing challenges

2:22:25with fewer resources i obviously couldn't have attended all of these because there are many of them at the same time uh here was an interesting title i didn't attend it particularly but the um sitting is the new smoking how to get employees moving so i thought that was rather

2:22:48uh to the point and um the um so those those were just some of the the sessions that were had but i think really the most important thing that i learned about at the conference was from other just by talking to people from other jurisdictions and what was going on in

2:23:12their city and how to connect with them later if we ever had a a reason to so i i did a lot of that and i i highly recommend it we also passed a resolution and that resolution was says resolution committing the league of california cities to supporting vision zero towards zero deaths

2:23:41and other programs or initiatives to make safety a top priority for transportation projects and policy formation while encouraging cities to pursue similar initiatives so [Music] this has to do with um transportation um and um sounds like item 5j yeah so anyway so that was passed by the

2:24:10league um not quite unanimously but you know close enough and um the i though those are pretty much the things i'd like to emphasize for this report although i could go on but i won't great uh council member bridges councilmember quinto uh i also attended the the league of cities conference in

2:24:33in long beach and uh i was installed to be a director at large for the asia pacific islander caucus which is statewide i look forward in representing northern california along with mayor edly and san francisco coming up one will be on the 29th of october where we will have an api

2:24:58fall reception with our statewide api legislative leaders in sacramento along with the caucus i look forward in serving the next year and uh it was uh very informative i got to see some of my uh colleagues uh here in contra costa and up and down the state uh and uh

2:25:22it was uh definitely a lot of information and i looked forward and uh um also i was able to introduce the head of the legal league of cities to uh the head of uh the folks that are dealing with hydrogen power so they would like to come here to el cerrito and we have either our mayor's

2:25:44conference or our east bay division and here in el cerrito and they'll be more than happy to show hydrogen power and what that entails and they'll be moving more of the hydrogen stations up here and we'll have more infrastructure on that in the next three years

2:26:05councilmember friedman yeah it's interesting you mentioned hydrogen vehicles because i was actually pretty disappointed in the head of the league of cities when the mayor's conference was here and he decried electric cars and gasoline standards because it led to

2:26:22less revenue for cities and i thought that was among the more self-serving for city interest per se as a close to the planet's interest or the environment's interest so i for one am not sad that he is retiring and hopefully the next head will be a little more aware of environmental issues

2:26:42i attended to moderate a panel on the minimum wage that our very own suzanne erla arranged with three other cities and it was a really good presentation and she did a really good job organizing but she's in new orleans now doing relief work so she's a great uh community servant not just our community

2:27:04but other communities that need her expertise i've got four items to report i'll make them brief um on september 29th the mce annual retreat a day-long session to talk about what mce is focusing on and the takeaway message although we got several technical briefings and and

2:27:28introduction to staff that are growing is the uh overwhelming support by the board to proceed with inviting the um more communities in contra costa uh so we we mce grew by seven communities in the last year and and that their those seven communities i think their uh

2:27:52power uh purchases started on october one um so they and what we decided as a board is to continue offering expansion to other contra costa uh communities um we i attended on your behalf the gilman jpa this became an agenda item in our consent calendar so that is the the report out from that

2:28:17item on october 12th i went to the internal operations for the recycle more for the weight what regional waste and we got a briefing on what the annual budget is going to be it looks like it's going to go up by about one and a half percent so rates will go up by a small amount this year

2:28:37at least at the recycle more and disposal side um and that that was the other communities or that includes mostly the other communities so it's not completely clear to me i think that also is about our our rate increase and finally on october 13th uh i went to the contra costa mayor's conference um

2:28:57and critic uh architect critic john king spoke and he spoke about the regional regional nature of the bay area has really become a regional area i thanked him for his article on the uc berkeley study of of el cerrito and he did give a special shout out to el cerrito as as one of those areas that

2:29:24um is not quite urban and not quite rural um and has a fairly unique feature and he was very talking about transit convenience and that that might actually be a challenge for us in getting businesses here so he actually did speak to some of the challenges we're

2:29:48having is we convert from a bedroom community to potentially a more urban central where you know we're a destination as much as just a con a transit convenient community for working elsewhere so he he did acknowledge that el cerritos actually has a fairly unique challenge um in in the bay area

2:30:11also at the contra costa mayor's conference we passed our angel budget and it's good news for the for us there is no change in our dues so that concludes my reports as your regional representation representative that concludes item number eight uh brings us to item nine which is

2:30:32adjourned the regular city council meeting to the next regularly scheduled council meeting on tuesday november 1st right here at 7 pm we're adjourned you