Concurrent City Council and Public Financing Authority Meeting December 6, 2016

0:01:20[Music] good evening i'm going to call to order the concurrent meeting of the city council and the public financing authority for tuesday december 6th and let the record show that all council members are present that brings us to item one which is pledge of allegiance to the

0:01:43flag or observation of a moment of silence led by council member gabriel quinto 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 liberty and justice for all all right and that brings us to item two which is

0:02:16council and staff communications under this we will have an update on the regulation of marijuana related businesses from staff but i'm going to start with any announcements from council first i'll look to my left any announcements i did just return from this afternoon

0:02:37from a conference that i attended in southern california on uh for self-help what are called self-help counties which are counties that have their own sales tax measure for the purpose of transportation and of which contra costa is one major j it's called and uh one of the

0:03:00tours that i went on was of in fact the only tour i went on was of uh different uh transit stations and how they had implemented and it was actually there in existing and we got to tour it which was very interesting three different projects with combining housing

0:03:25over the actual transit station it's called metro there but think of it as bart and they had underground stations and then they had um they used the land above that because there was a large quantity of it to build these housing projects one was a completely affordable housing project

0:03:47and we got to go inside and and hear from both the developer and the metro system person and then we also saw one that was what they called um market rate high-end and they called it for the industry this was in what what is known as hollywood uh and so i think the industry meant um

0:04:20the movie industry and related things and uh so that was billed is really high-end and then they showed us one that was kind of a mixture of affordable housing and regular housing all of these units were apartments um in multi-story um projects over built over housing so it

0:04:46was really interesting to see the different uh implementations the most interesting thing i think i took away from that was that they did not differentiate in building the housing between whether or not it was um high end or low end in terms of affordability and that they um

0:05:10you know and some of the in the project that was mixed um you know it'd be just one project might happen to be one and one happened to be another way and you never really would be able to tell if you were there um which was which uh i kind of personally liked that

0:05:31variation of the project and um so it was a really interesting an experience and i would encourage anybody who ever gets the opportunity to go on those kinds of a tour wherever they have might happen to be to do it because i think it does give you a good perspective another part of this

0:05:51perspective that i thought was interesting was that they are having a very difficult time leasing out the um bottom what i'll call retail space or whatever you want to you know might use it for they that seems to be a uniform problem actually that has yet to be solved

0:06:12uh in a satisfactory way at least according to them so other than that i mostly was in sessions on various transit and trans other transportation um subjects right thank you any announcements go ahead yesterday i had the pleasure of uh attending the swearing-in in sacramento

0:06:38of our new uh state senator uh nancy skinner and uh and it was an amazing thing to watch and i encourage everyone here in el cerrito whenever they're in sacramento they should definitely take the the tour of our state capitol and the highlight of uh seeing nancy skinner

0:07:02down at the senate floors that she did recognize the city of el cerrito and and recognize me as council member representing el cerrito so i just want to congratulate the new folks that have been sworn in thank you i know this will look familiar to at least al miller who's one of our elected

0:07:26stage representatives but we i recently got the endeavor which is from the stage sanitary district with regards to uh helpful hints and there are some very useful helpful reminders in here um with regards to sewer problems call stage first at 510-500 um and and i'm sure mr miller will

0:07:48correct me if it's wrong but the it's answered 24 7 by real person the problem may be in your lateral or it may be in the sewer main if necessary we'll send a crew out to investigate the inspection is free and we try to respond within one hour another thing that they definitely want

0:08:03to highlight that i would like to highlight is regarding wipes unlike toilet tissue disposable flushable wipes don't disintegrate in water they retain their form and accumulate in sewer mains where they can cause a sewer overflow into the street put all wipes in the trash

0:08:22so those are two things that i wanted to highlight from our stage sanitary district additionally i would like to read the following statement el cerrito's greatest strength is our diverse community in fact inclusiveness and respect for diversity is one of the el cerritos core values as

0:08:45identified in our strategic plan this means that we endeavor to treat others with dignity and respect to be sensitive to the needs concerns and opinions of others to incorporate and promote inclusiveness and diversity within everything we do to encourage in an environment where all

0:09:03individuals differences are valued respected and welcomed and to demonstrate compassion to all people recently in our city in neighboring communities and throughout the count country we have been challenged by intolerance bigotry and in some cases criminal activity based on hate

0:09:25community members have expressed fear and anger at these actions and we as a city council share those concerns el cerrito resolves to remain vigilant in our mission to protect tolerance and respect between all people and will continue to seek avenues to further this mission in

0:09:44harmony with members of our community el cerrito condemns the recent hate crimes in our area including the horrific murder of local musician will simms and el sabrane on november 12th el cerrito does not tolerate prejudice bigotry racism hatred or violence and we encourage anyone who

0:10:04has experienced an act of hate to report it to the el cerrito police department immediately where it will be fully investigated the city's human relations commission has been involved in seeking areas to engage the community to promote tolerance and to stop hate

0:10:21and would welcome input on this and other topics that promote understanding and inclusiveness surrounding the ideals of sanctuary city i encourage the community to consider attending the next meeting of the commission which is tomorrow here at city hall at 7 pm

0:10:40or at any of their meetings on the first wednesday of each month i call your attention to the upcoming martin luther king march and rally on january 16th where the entire city will celebrate the dream of martin luther king jr that all of us will not be judged by the color of

0:10:56our skin but on the content of our character finally on the consent calendar this evening the city council will consider a proclamation declaring december 10th human rights day and december human rights month in el cerrito asking all of us to reaffirm our humanity

0:11:16by standing up for human rights in all facets of our life lives and make a public commitment to speak up for tolerance and against prejudice in short we of el cerrito residents and staff commit ourselves to uphold our core value of inclusiveness and respect for diversity

0:11:40by resolving to be welcoming compassionate and inclusive to all people to promote love stop hate to stand up for human rights and to work diligently to ensure that every member of our community feels accepted and safe so thank you for indulging me on that [Applause]

0:12:05with that we'll move on to the second part of our item two which is staff communications thank you mayor good evening city council members all right that's hard to follow up on i'm paul keith your chief of police and i'm here to give you an update on our regulation of marijuana related

0:12:24businesses project so after our city council meetings in the summer staff began a process of evaluating the current regulations in el cerrito regarded regarding marijuana related businesses we did some public outreach by sending mailers out to every resident in the

0:12:40city alerting them that the council is considering uh revising the current ban on marijuana related businesses and seeking input from the public for their opinions on how the city should proceed in that process we also asked residents that were interested to sign up online to follow the topic so

0:12:59that we could more easily keep people informed of things that are going on with marijuana regulation discussions after the outreach we held a public meeting in september and had specific questions we asked our residents about topics including potential dispensary locations

0:13:17if a ban was revised dispensary regulations if dispensaries were authorized and marijuana delivery and how that might look in el cerrito so basically we covered a kind of a wide range of marijuana related topics to get the public's input on if we were to change the regulations

0:13:37involving marijuana what that might look like in el cerrito last week we posted the notes from the meetings that we held online so that the public can review those and we also let the public know that we would be talking about it again tonight so that they could stay informed on the issue

0:13:52at our meeting approximately 70-75 people attended and most participants were supportive of lifting a ban and enacting regulations related to marijuana businesses approximately 20 to 25 participants supported keeping the ban in place or not making any changes to existing

0:14:07regulations a significant number of those present expressed a desire to speak with their city council members and to have their opinions directly presented to the city council uh staff also closely watch the progress of proposition 64.

0:14:21and we went with some of the things we noticed is that it passed with about 60 support in contra costa county and as of my last review it looked like about 70 support in the city of el cerrito some things to note on the current regulation is that the state will start

0:14:37accepting license applications on january 1st 2018 for new marijuana dispensaries and marijuana related businesses so staff has a sample ordinance that we worked with the city attorney's office to develop the city attorney did an analysis of neighboring jurisdictions

0:14:54and prevented presented us with a ordinance that they believe would be a good um starting place to work with as we develop regulations in el cerrito if we decide to change current regulations at city council decides however staff has a number of questions for city council that we would like to

0:15:12get answered as we develop what that ordinance would look like so staff is planning on having everything together that we would need for a council study session in late january to february and we look forward to hearing um hearing back from the mayor and the city

0:15:31manager about the best meeting to agendize that item for the council to consider the issue of marijuana regulation and also give feedback to council on how we would proceed with changes to a marijuana ban if that is what the council would like to do so that is the current state of where

0:15:49we're at with marijuana we're hoping to hear back from the mayor and the city manager on when the best time to schedule a study session would be great thank you um thank you yep this is the staff presentation so i'm not certain that we do a lot of questions sounds like we'll have a presentation in

0:16:10the new year and the next mayor has the privileges of scheduling that thank you thank you any other staff announcements we do have four speaker slips for this item or yeah we'll just we'll take those during uh oral communications from the public if we we will which is our next item item three is

0:16:35oral communications from the public all persons wishing to speak should sign up with the city clerk uh remarks are typically limited to three minutes per person the uh mayor me may reduce the time how many speakers do we have uh i believe we have a seven or eight

0:16:52we will not we'll stay at three minutes uh kindly state your name and and uh resonance for the records comments regarding uh non-agenda items uh the presentation uh staffs report and consent calendar items will be heard for first comments relating to items appearing on

0:17:11the uh policy hearing or policy matters will be taken up at that time and for the record i was informed that item five c will be pulled for discussion uh so if you are would like to hold your comments uh on 5c until we take that item up separately you may um we do have a lighting system to help

0:17:36remind you about the time it is uh in front it there's a green light for three minutes a yellow light for one minute and a red light i will begin to interrupt you to ask you to finalize your comments um and with that if you could read off the first two names sure this is in the

0:17:56order of received janaki sullivan followed by carl mulligan hello um my name is jonaki sullivan i've been an el cerrito resident for the last eight years and an el cerrito homeowner with my family for the last four and a half years thank you for hearing me um mr mayor i was very very pleased to

0:18:20to hear your comments on diversity and inclusivity diversity and inclusivity and our progressive values is one of the things that i have loved about el cerrito since i moved here and it is a very important thing for myself for my family and for our community as a whole

0:18:43as you said in this new era of our federal government our diversity and our progressive values are being threatened this is not simply an existential threat it is a threat to the lives and well-beings of our friends and our neighbors here in el cerrito particularly those who are undocumented

0:19:04i ask the city of el cerrito and you as our representatives to take a stand i ask you to join with our fellow bay area cities like san jose and san francisco and our neighbors in oakland berkeley and richmond in formally declaring el cerrito to be a sanctuary city

0:19:25i ask that you ensure that our public safety resources are used wisely for the protection of our neighbors make sure that our resources are not wasted on an unfunded federal mandate and most importantly to make sure that all else retains know that our city will

0:19:43serve and protect them no matter what threats are made against them by the federal government this is a time for neighbors to stand together this is a time for us to come together as a community and declare that we will stand against hate we will not back down we will not be divided and we

0:20:03will protect our own please make el cerrito a safe place for us all and declare us a sanctuary city thank you [Applause] good evening council my name is carl mulligan uh currently located in el cerrito um first i wanted to express my sincere congratulations to mr paul keith

0:20:34for his uh his um position as as chief of police i think it's a good decision by the city council and i'm very glad you didn't select one of the recently departed mayor uh chiefs of police from the city of oakland so thank you secondly i wanted to say congratulations to the group that

0:20:57came here made a presentation to you earlier in the year with respect to the el cerrito wellness center i want to congratulate congratulate them because they were accepted as the second dispensary in san leandro and as the davis street wellness center so congratulations to them

0:21:14and finally to the new council members who will step up here at the next meeting congratulations to you all and to those who are leaving i wish you all the success in the future thank you the two next speakers are al miller followed by mickey norris good evening mayor lyman council members

0:21:39first mayor i want to thank you not only for your comments about stage i'll make one other comment about the wipes you're still able to buy wipes that say flushable wipes don't believe them we get just as many sewers clogged with flushable whites as toilet paper much

0:21:59many more as a matter of fact the other thing i wanted to mention is that the elsewhere library foundation along with almost 63 percent of the voters in el cerrito were disappointed that measure b failed to pass we want the council and the city staff to know that the library foundation

0:22:21stands by ready to support the future looking plans of the city and we hope that we don't have to wait too long to find out what they are going to be i know we get in a new council and it's the end of the year and it's holidays but we don't want to lose uh the ability to make positive progress

0:22:43looking forward to how do we get a new library in el cerrito i was going to mention something on consent calendar 5b but nothing that i could come up with is anywhere near as elegant as the mayor's speech thank you very much for that i'm sure it reflects the majority opinion of the majority of the

0:23:03people in our city which makes el cerrito such a nice place to live i would like to mention though that within this week the legislature of california had their opening session which traditionally i understand is kind of like a family gathering celebration of this and it's

0:23:24just kind of a almost a show and then they go off when home and welcome back until next year to go back to work but at this opening day they actually did some business and they passed the resolution that was very much along the lines of what you said they're concerned that

0:23:46the values of california which are so significantly different than the values stated by the president-elect during his campaign and since his campaign and reflected by the candidates for uh directors of the various departments are so different that in effect uh they're organizing to protect

0:24:12california and its values from whatever the feds uh plan to do from environmental on down so i sounds like the city's getting lined up to be part of that and support that and i hope that's what we'll see thank you very much thank you next two speakers mickey norris

0:24:37followed by chris conrad hi good evening can you hear me yeah okay um my name's mickey norris i was a renter here in el cerrito for 16 and a half years but when it came to buying a house we had to go over to el sabrante so i'm over there now okay more affordable

0:24:57but i just wanted to commend you i'd like to commend the police chief for his excellent meeting that he did have in september where he took the input of of all the stakeholders and people interested in the topic of marijuana i've been an activist and involved in

0:25:15this issue for 28 years now and i was an active participant in the outreach and education component for prop 64. so i'm really like to congratulate the city of el cerrito and our county of contra costa for passing it overwhelmingly and i think that should give send a signal to

0:25:41to the city council who is now i see very in favor or reaffirming its positions of tolerance and respect for human rights and diversity and take that into consideration as well when you're when you're taking into the consideration of people who want to see prop 64 implemented

0:26:04in a very reasonable way respecting the the the voters and respecting the people who didn't vote it for it as well saying that i'd also like to see a um i'd like to see regulations lifting of the ban obviously i think we should have a medical at least a medical marijuana dispensary and

0:26:28an adult use one i'd like to at least one of each if not more if the city can handle it i'd like to see a cannabis cafes where they allow on-site consumption so that people will have a place outside of their home to go to and use it responsibly rather than on the streets or on the bart paths or

0:26:49wherever else people like to like to use it so we need those on-site consumption permits as well when you take into that that into consideration i'd also like to offer my services as a long-time person involved in this in this issue if you do have a task force or something like that

0:27:11because i have represented the cannabis consumers campaign i've been involved with the prison issue as well so i know about people getting arrested in the social justice components and also with the medical marijuana issue i was we were very involved with the prop 215 campaign

0:27:33as well so my name is mickey norris i can give you my my card if you're if you're interested but i just want to encourage you to to implement prop 64 in a good way and allow these stores to to come to el cerrito thank you thank you chris conrad followed by olivia liu

0:27:57hello council it's great to be here i'm chris conrad like my wife mickey norris uh i'm also a former resident here in val cerrito and one of the things i i would just like to to just say is i i really appreciate what you said about tolerance in the city i've always felt very welcome here

0:28:13a lot of diversity in our town which i still feel connected to because we have a lot of friends who live here and um i don't know how much you're aware of it but a lot of these people smoke marijuana and you know they pay taxes and they do all the normal stuff and

0:28:26when we come to visit our friends down here i think would be really great for this community to go ahead and adopt the spirit of proposition 64 by eliminating the stigma on cannabis use and creating localities where people can pick up a little cannabis and places especially

0:28:40where we could smoke little marijuana outside of people's homes because uh we're at a point now where where people are getting their marijuana nowadays is they know somebody who sells marijuana to them illegally some go to dispensaries some with legitimate medical issues and some without some

0:28:57because they just want to buy that marijuana and so it's time to address the reality of what the community is here um so to that effect i just uh i don't really need to go on too much longer about it i i think that what we've got happening here is that people are buying marijuana

0:29:14from their friends and so forth and a lot of the spirit of prop 64 was to take that underground market and to move it above ground but we also have to recognize the fact that people have been making a living doing this stuff they're helping to pay the rent and their

0:29:25mortgage by selling marijuana to their friends and so you should look at the opportunity to create many opportunities here in this community for people to make money again because we're going to have to replace some of that illicit income and you really want to draw it from the

0:29:38underground to the above ground the best way to do that lift the band i again commend the police chief he was very he was a great facilitator at the meeting he went to and this is not the last time i'm going to talk to you my wife will give you my information thank

0:29:51you for addressing this issue and i look forward to coming down to el cerrito and going to a locality where i can buy and smoke a joint one of these days soon thank you next two next two speakers please olivia liu followed by zechariah liu thank you so much council members and

0:30:10thank you for the re-election and um i just going to talk about legacy your legacy when you pass away what do you look for your legacy i came to the september meeting and there was a exercise to tell us to put the three red dots to where we should put the uh the store at

0:30:32and throughout all the room for all the people who attended not one put it inside their house i would say if this is so good like an ice cream truck wouldn't you want your son to put it inside your bedroom or inside your kitchen or a million dollar once you wanted to put it inside your dining room

0:30:49or in your bedroom no everybody doesn't want it to put it inside their home but they don't mind to put it into somebody else's home for them to go and smoke marijuana so what is a legacy to our children and today i see minors here there are a future and we were talking about

0:31:08educating our next generation and so forth and they're selling marijuana right now inside the schools do we know that it's happening because we adults are telling them it's okay it's not going to come to you but it will come to them just like cigarettes just like

0:31:26alcohol it will come to our children just like what cigarettes have done and now we say cigarettes are no good we cannot inhale them but marijuana yes all right so what is our legacy is my my encouragement to all of you council members because i know the pressure is very hard

0:31:46on you and they're offering millions of dollars i grew up in el cerrito i live in richmond i work in san pablo i understand the pressure and i know the pressure's on you but i just wanted to encourage you as to how the giants will stand is when you're under pressure as to how you respond

0:32:08will determine the legacy thank you thank you zechariah lou followed by emily rose my name is zachariah lou and i currently go to el cerrito high school like my like the person previously said there is marijuana being sold at schools just today i was going to the bathroom and then as

0:32:39i was washing my hands i noticed a small scale on the sink counter you know i didn't think much about it so i go get paper towels then i turn around and i see somebody with marijuana on the scale and another person with money on their hand so it's quite obvious that you know they

0:32:58are exchanges of marijuana in this school and i'm concerned about my safety at school when there's marijuana being passed around like this thank you thank you holly rose followed by and that's it hello my name is emily rose and this is my first city council meeting i'm

0:33:24thrilled to be here and i really appreciate the conversation that is coming up tonight around cannabis use my background is as a holistic health practitioner and i have been helping support cancer patients epilepsy patients and even children who are struggling with life-threatening

0:33:42diseases and have found that through my over a decade of practice that cannabis truly has some amazing healing properties that are very hard to synthesize they're also very hard to replicate through pharmaceutical drugs without having some of the long-standing side effects there's any cancer

0:34:01survivors or family members who've been a part of this they'll understand that oftentimes some of the side effects are some of the greatest challenges that go along with some of those prolonged treatments so i completely respect and understand what some of the speakers

0:34:14have shared about their fears of having cannabis involved with our community of children and i totally agree and for that reason i think it is crucial that we provide an opportunity for safe access and regulation because the truth is cannabis has been around for

0:34:29thousands of years it's not going anywhere people are going to continue to be using it so rather than ignore it and let it go you know underneath the curtain of something illegal that's being passed around in bathrooms and schools we really need to recognize that

0:34:44this is something that is a part of our community and hold our community accountable so that we can have safe places for people to get their medicine in a safe way and as far as the comments about whether or not people would want to have it in their own home i would be

0:34:58happy to have a dispensary in my own home so that i could provide safe and clean medicine free of pesticides free of other you know toxic ingredients that are commonly used in an unregulated market so that we do know that the people who are going to be using this

0:35:13medicine as it's been used for not only you know patients who are struggling with life-threatening diseases but even for more less serious conditions such as insomnia such as chronic pain things that people are struggling with so that they know that they have access in a

0:35:29regulated way just as we do with other herbs and other things in our society so i'm really grateful and thank you so much for letting me share my voice thank you next two speakers next two speakers please we we have one speaker um uh mr gowdy would like to speak on item 5c

0:35:48okay we'll take that up at that time any other speakers would like to speak at this time seeing none we'll move on to item 5 which is our consent calendar 5a is approval of the november 15 minutes 5b is the human rights day and month proclamation from the human rights

0:36:08commission 5 c which we'll take up separately as replacement of the police motorcycle purchase 5d is comprehensive financial policy review which is a resolution approving our comprehensive financial policy 5e is the tree committee reappointment recommendation of ms blear

0:36:30can i have a motion for 5 a b d and e so moved second moved by mr friedman seconded by mr quinto all those in favor please say aye aye let the record show it passed unanimously at this time we'll take up item 5c you just sat down you can stand up or or uh you're

0:36:58whoever would like to present on this item if you would give us a short presentation that'd be great i'd be happy to talk on this item mr mayor once again i'm paul keith the chief of police of el cerrito so this agenda item is authorization to purchase a honda st 1300 police motorcycle

0:37:17we're currently looking at replacing a 2010 harley-davidson police motorcycle that we purchased in december of 2009 so at this point the motorcycle is about seven years old and it has about 21 000 miles on it the predominant amount of those are city miles in town

0:37:34what we found with the harley-davidsons this motorcycle was originally used a state bid for the purchase and we found that some of the maintenance issues have become a challenge for us the maintenance issues on a harley are compounded by more than just maintenance

0:37:52items on the bike if we want to get a harley-davidson maintained then it usually necessitates a ride of a car and a motorcycle out to a harley-davidson dealership for the service to be done and then those employees also have to come back so currently the only the nearest

0:38:08harley-davidson dealership that we use is in walnut creek so each time maintenance comes up on the motorcycle our employees drive out to walnut creek so we're looking to change our motorcycle use for that reason being one of them and also hoping to have a motorcycle that

0:38:23has lower maintenance costs so there's a honda dealership in berkeley that's relatively nearby and we feel like that would increase the operational time of our traffic unit and decrease the amount of time they spend driving back and forth to get various things on

0:38:36the motorcycle repaired we've also talked with a lot of other agencies that currently use the honda and have reviewed the lapd's test results on the honda motorcycle and they found that it was a a good motorcycle for municipal police use and uh our current motorcycle fleet we

0:38:56have three harley-davidson motorcycles and we have three officers to ride motorcycles so on any tuesday wednesday or thursday as long as it's sunny and not too cold and not too rainy we'll have three motorcycles out on the street all at the same time but we really don't have a backup if one

0:39:13of those motorcycles suffers some sort of catastrophic failure that requires intensive repair work so by being able to purchase a honda we can use the the existing harley as a reserve motorcycle and we can also use it as a training motorcycle for when we prepare other officers to go to

0:39:29motorcycle training since a lot of uh training out there uses old harley-davidson's for getting officers trained up and using police bikes and they use old harley-davidson's because there's a lot of them out there so if they drop them on the ground or if they fall down they have a big stable of

0:39:45used harley-davidson's they can just pick another one up and get the writer back out so the uh the number we came up with is a result of a bid process a competitive bid process conducted by the city of santa clara there are a couple of amounts on there that are just based on specific

0:40:02equipment for el cerrito in particular the lighting scheme that we use on our motorcycles we have some additional lighting we put on the back so that it's more visible for motorists when they're approaching a motorcycle from behind so our hope is that the city council

0:40:16will approve this purchase and help us with hopefully reducing maintenance costs and making our maintenance efforts a little bit easier to manage staff wise i know that there was some discussion about the use of electric motorcycles and i'm happy to talk about our analysis

0:40:33of those as well if you'd like to hear it yes great um so we uh we also did uh contemplate the addition of an electric motorcycle um what we found from talking with other agencies is that agencies typically use their electric motorcycles in the same way that we use our honda dual sport

0:40:50motorcycles so we have two smaller motorcycles that get about 70 miles to the gallon that we use for things like troll trails like the iolone greenway and the hillside nature area for situations where we want to quietly approach we have patrol officers that will deploy those around town to respond

0:41:07to calls those motorcycles really aren't suited for any kind of getting on the freeway they're they're a little dicey on the freeway they're just not built for high speeds so we tend to keep them off the freeway and keep them around town and we found from talking to other agencies is that's

0:41:22typically how they use an electric motorcycle we currently have two that fit that category that are probably have a service life till about 2021 so we're not planning on replacing our dual sports coming up but some of the concerns that other officers provided us from other

0:41:38agencies like menlo park walnut creek and pittsburgh were that they had some concerns that the battery life of the motorcycles wouldn't match well with our terrain because we have so many steep hills one officer in particular from warner creek who's a motorcycle cop there that

0:41:52rides a zero said that um he he grew up in el cerrito and he doesn't feel that a trip up moser a few times a day would fit well with the life cycle of the battery he feels that that kind of driving would probably drain the battery pretty quick and we probably wouldn't

0:42:07get the manufacturer's estimated mileage out of a battery charge because we're probably going to be doing a bigger drain on the battery going up and down hills in el cerrito so we are looking at it for more specific uses probably in the future when we come to replace our dual sport motorcycles

0:42:24we feel that that would probably be a good alternative to a gasoline-powered motorcycle for those types of uses on trails and predominantly in town and something to consider is the the price point on a dual sport motorcycle and that's not really what we're talking

0:42:39about today but for our analysis to use an electric motorcycle in lieu of our dual sword motorcycles it's about fifty percent more expensive than a gas motorcycle so our gasoline motorcycles are about six thousand dollars each an electric equivalent would probably be about eight to nine

0:42:55thousand dollars council member bridges any additional questions um no you answered my question about the xero in electric and that's what i had questions about and but i did have a question about the um where did you say the locale was to repair a honda honda is in berkeley

0:43:15already on gilman okay very well thank you councilmember abelson i had a question um it seems to me uh once upon a time and a while back i heard that i think it was about the time that we got motorcycles to begin with um we were told that if we replace a um the um

0:43:46the ones that we had which were the um not the hondas but the harleys that um they would they were free not quite not quite didn't really work out that way could you tell could you address that so i think that the original plan around um outfitting the department with

0:44:07harley-davidsons is that we would do a lease with harley-davidson and then recoup a significant amount of the cost when we returned the harleys from the lease and then they would give us a generous credit to then start a new lease on a new harley and so the idea was that we would come out of

0:44:24pocket for a minimal amount and it did work like that initially but over time the value assessed for the motorcycles was reduced and we found that it was a little more cost effective to purchase okay so we did do that for a time okay so so the reason it was and i remember being told actually it's

0:44:44because there's a high resale value on used police motorcycles so so we weren't getting them for free and we found that we were returning motorcycles sometimes with 6000 miles on them and uh i mean this current motorcycle that we're talking about replacing is 21

0:44:59000 miles on it so we feel like we've gotten a significantly longer amount of life out of it and we think we still have uses for in-house training for it where it's a motorcycle that i mean for the motorcycles you see our officers ride if one of them gets tipped

0:45:12over that we the scratches can't stay if you're a motorcycle cop we need to we repair them back up to looking like a nice new motorcycle for a training motorcycle the cosmetic stuff isn't as important so i mean that that would be one thing we wouldn't worry as much about with it being a

0:45:31training motorcycle but that is sometimes sometimes officers tip over so we have to repair those two okay i was just curious whatever happened to that um arrangement and you answered the question thank you sure any questions yes what is the average lifespan of a police

0:45:48motorcycle it can be five to 10 years it kind of depends on use i mean there are some agencies that do a lot of freeway miles that have 100 000 miles on their motorcycles and keep going we found that with this particular motorcycle we've had some costly repairs

0:46:02that have come up and a lot of it we think is from the wear and tear of the hills around el cerrito and getting up and down the hills and having to get uh you know accelerate after a motorist on a hill sometimes that's a challenge so we're guessing that's where some of our

0:46:17maintenance costs with the harley have come from thanks any questions i have another question yes um i think when i emailed you you had some experience or you had seen the zero motorcycle somewhere at a conference or something that you read or you were at least

0:46:34familiar quite familiar with it how does that compare its life cycle is it is it similar to a regular gasoline um so you know some of the um agencies we talked to they have zero motorcycles that are from 2013 and on and they've seen some fall off on the battery life

0:46:55like you'd expect from an electric car that you know over time the battery's life span goes from you know 10 hours of use down to nine or maybe down to eight so they've experienced some of that i think one of the agencies that had it since 2013 has put about 4 000 miles on

0:47:11it um i think that an electric motorcycle could probably for our purposes have a similar lifespan as one of our dual sports um that there's something that wouldn't probably be used every day but we use for specific purposes like one of the main reasons we use it for is

0:47:26to target things like um robberies of uh on the bart path or in our commercial districts you know things where pedestrians are being targeted in street crime have they only been on the market since about that time did last three four five years i think that the

0:47:42most recent version um came in about 2013 and that's really when they just got a lot better quality i know in 2011 when i first saw a motorcycle i said oh man that's really great it looks really cool and then it was a different company and i came back and a month later one of them just like

0:47:58burned to the ground because of some battery issues so there was still some perfecting going on in about 2010 to 2011. in 2013 xero kind of came to the forefront as having probably the best electric motorcycle product out there that that was the samsung battery

0:48:11[Laughter] i don't know the manufacturer i have one more question go ahead yeah what is the warranty on the motorcycle you want to purchase great question i don't know okay i don't have that officer on my head typically they're 12 months okay thank you can you repeat for the k for the uh

0:48:39microphone it's uh typically 12 months or 12 000 miles but we're speculating i don't have the information in front of me but i can get that for the council if they'd like to have that for the review can you uh speak to the need for this powerful a motor as a i mean what it you

0:48:56are looking for vehicle that is highway rated i know you know occasionally i see you guys down at the oakland coliseum so i know you occasionally have to go some distances but can you really truly speak to when we would uh really need to have this kind of power as opposed to the dual

0:49:13sport i'm going to make one comment i'm going to turn it over to our former motorcycle cop lieutenant hartung we do use it for regional enforcement efforts from time to time so we'll partner with agencies like panel richmond and they'll in turn partner with us for operations uh both in our

0:49:31town and outside of our town that are regional traffic safety efforts and for those operations there is freeway work as well as city street work um i'll say that and then i'll pass it over to lieutenant hartson who can talk more about the specifics of why a larger

0:49:46motorcycle is what we're looking for good evening council lieutenant hartung with the special operations unit so i was asked to take a look at the xero contact some cities that utilize that bike and find out their experience and what context the bikes being currently used

0:50:04one of the things that came to the forefront really quickly was that most of these well not most every city acquired these bikes through grant um a tremendous cost savings because the bikes much like electric vehicles cars are fairly expensive um but their experience has been pretty

0:50:21consistent across the board and one of the things they talked about was the performance capacity of an electric motorcycle versus fossil fuel one of the most predominant things pointed out to me was that because it's electronic there is a cycle that has to occur where it's a diagnostic to

0:50:38determine it's safe to operate the bike and in this case it takes three to five seconds on a zero to determine it's safe to operate the bike for it to actually power up so for an officer that's working traffic enforcement and when you ask about where the power need comes in if they're

0:50:52working uh speed and they're shooting light or radar and they see a violator that's traveling at a fairly high rate of speed let's just say 40 miles an hour in order once they make that determination that they're going to go after that violator they have to turn

0:51:06the motorcycle to the on position it's a three to five second delay at about 40 miles an hour you're talking about a distance of approximately 179 to 293 feet that that vehicle will travel before the officer can even start to go after the vehicle the acceleration component of that is

0:51:25less than what the fossil fuel motorcycle can produce so that means that the officer is having to travel farther faster to acquire and stop that vehicle it creates a risk to the public creates a risk to the motor officer so the need for that power is to quickly

0:51:42catch up to and stop violators that's one of the greatest needs that comes into play the other area that we run into where it's a potential problem from an operational standpoint is the electric motorcycle zero is not configured to mount radio systems on it so a motor officer

0:52:02utilizing a motorcycle much like our dual sports would have to use the collar mic as we currently do so they would be taking a hand off the handlebar to talk and get a hold of dispatch to let them know what they're doing in patrol applications such as the bart path and

0:52:17things like that it's typically not a problem but when you're on the roadway being a motor officer and being a motor instructor one of the things we don't like officers to do is take their hands off the handlebars they're designed so that the radios are there they can toggle mics without

0:52:33removing their hands uh the other side of it is just the the time how much time can we get out of a motorcycle before we have to take it out of service for whatever reason whether it be refueling recharging or repairing and the xero has a limited time capacity one of the agencies that i talked to

0:52:52said that they're not getting more than eight or nine hours but their shifts 10 hours so when they bring the motorcycle back in they have to plug it in and in order to get a full charge it takes two to three hours so just by that alone that's telling me that we're never gonna get

0:53:08from that particular motorcycle a full shift uh without bringing it back in and taking that officer out of that motorcycle usage and having to put them into something else so i asked all of the agencies what is your future plan are you going to acquire more zeros are you going to

0:53:24replace your primary traffic enforcement fleet with these and universally they said no it's not engineered to the point where they're comfortable from a safety standpoint for catching violators and from an operational standpoint it hasn't really been proven to the point where they feel

0:53:42like the investment that they're going to get their proper return on from an agency perspective for traffic enforcement thank you any other questions yes thanks it's clear you did a lot of very thorough research on this wouldn't it make sense since we know that else rito is a little tougher on

0:54:01motorcycles than some other localities due to our hills to purchase an extended warranty when we buy the new motorcycle it would okay i absolutely have no con issue with that that would be great so i take that as an approval thank you tending towards that and then

0:54:19the the other question i i understand the battery problem and i know that batteries are getting better all the time and that you know within a couple of years when we're going to replace those dual sports hopefully there will be batteries that'll last a full shift and then the

0:54:36problem of turning it on to get up to speed can't you just have it on the whole time you're there on pitch hole you can that's one of the options that one of the agency used and what that does is now your your life is on your battery as far as charge life is now diminished even more

0:54:55um and it's a constant wear the thing that will break down on an electric motorcycle is the electrical system because that's the that's where it's drawing its energy from so when that's on that's constant wear that's that's 24 7 so to speak if you leave it on you're it's always wearing on the

0:55:12electrical component of it and that was pointed out by one of the officers said that's what we do we leave it on but that's also the same agency said that we've seen it diminish return on the charge for our battery up to and including it will not recharge fully anymore so

0:55:29they're at a point now where they're looking at do we replace the battery or do we consider buying a new one with a new battery in it what's the best way to deal with that and that that question hasn't been answered and i think that's a big leap of faith to take for a

0:55:44community like us to go out and invest something like that not knowing what that answer might be thank you any other questions public comment um howdy gowdy uh thank you mayor lyman council members my name is howdy gaudi i live at [address removed] um thank you for pulling this from the con

0:56:15calendar it's very informative i appreciate the staff's um reports and and their investigation into the electric motor motorcycle option um i'm shared information with you by email but i wasn't sure how many of you saw it so i just wanted to share with you a side-by-side comparison that i made to

0:56:35help show the relative merits of of the different choices and while you heard some you know supportive information uh regarding the the choice of the honda motorcycle i think it's important to not diminish you know the the potential electric vehicle um you know

0:56:58discussion of battery life this this vehicle has a stated range of 140 miles based on the the mileage you just heard we're not putting hardly you know 40 50 miles a day i mean i think the average if you calculate seven years and 21 000 miles is something like 10 miles a day so

0:57:17um it's um you have to keep it in the context of what your need is yes batteries degrade yes there are these kinds of issues but when you're well conservatively within the capability of the vehicle you really aren't going to run into these problems the other thing to think about is

0:57:35you know we're driving stoneage technology when we drive internal combustion engines i mean this is 100 years old you know clutches and things like that are band-aid solutions that were engineered back when we didn't have better options an electric motor is a far superior way

0:57:53to drive a traction vehicle it accelerates from a stall beautifully smoothly seamlessly no shifting no wear on internal parts i mean when you talk about wearing out of parts there are probably four or five moving parts on that motorcycle electric motorcycle compared to hundreds on an internal

0:58:11combustion engine that are constantly slapping against each other trying to wear themselves out so the other important thing to think about is this electric motorcycle option is less expensive than the quite expensive 29 000 motorcycle being considered and i think you really need to ask

0:58:28whether we need three touring style motorcycles which are really designed for long high-speed driving the discussion of keeping the harley on as a backup fits very well with using an electric motorcycle in this purchase cycle because you can you know use it get used to it and still have the

0:58:49the other motorcycle as a backup for the times that you do go to oakland but i think it's pretty clear that the majority of the driving is around town in in el cerrito and having a lighter weight more maneuverable uh vehicle is frankly less fatiguing more ergonomic

0:59:05less likely to cause you know injury so i think you know there is a mindset that this is what we've always driven and this is what we should have but i think we really need to look in the context of what the need is and look at our purchasing policies which you know the climate action plan the

0:59:23environmentally preferred purchase policy and the purchase policy that we're just supposed to buy what's fiscally um appropriate for the need and so that's your fiduciary responsibility and i hope that you consider that thank you all right thank you any other speakers on this item

0:59:41okay we'll bring it back for a comment uh any additional questions or comments no but i'm ready to make a motion i mean for for me i think i'm pretty concerned i mean i understand what he's saying and i i have a lot of concern about the safety of our officers and having to

0:59:57take one hand off the radio calls and the mounting i think that's a major issue so if you would like i would move to adopt the resolution authorizing the purchase of a 2015 honda motorcycle police motorcycle in the amount not to exceed 29 464 and 88 cents to replace

1:00:18a 2010 harley-davidson police motorcycle from the current motorcycle fleet uh that's motions by bridges and second by quinto i'm going to make a comment though before we go um you know the the the simple math is that we're doing about 60 miles a week on the harley-davidson

1:00:39um and so it the use it's all for me it's all about the the use and i would um echo many of the comments here about bat you know battery technology improving potentially the bike being designed so that it can be keyed the mic can be keyed from hands-free but certainly i

1:00:59would really truly love to see us continue to evaluate our fleets that we can continue to have a battery option at some point soon to reduce greenhouse gases it is is consistent with our overall uh city um objectives our our people's objectives um but i i understand the use and i

1:01:21certainly would like us to actually you know think about and maybe collect information about when we use uh the these vehicles so that we can make them we have two other harleys they're going to need to be replaced soon um i would like to make sure that we understand

1:01:37when what use we're putting on them so that we can evaluate the decision at that time with better information about what what fleet needs we need in order to perform our work safely i just have a comment that i thought i would make because i have a lot of expertise i guess i never thought of it

1:01:56that way but i think i have a lot of expertise in using an electric motor um and while i'm sure it's not the same as a motorcycle a wheelchair in fact does use an electric motor and in fact when i got home from my trip today the first thing i had to do was recharge

1:02:24my battery on my chair that i did not take because in the amount of time there had been since i had gone on my trip which was two days ago i it had drained some which is always what happens so there are a lot of issues involving maintenance and i'm not sure that that

1:02:48is impacting your calculations because i know certainly what they tell people with the um with wheelchairs and i'm sure it's probably true of other electric vehicles that when you don't use it it it does drain especially if you don't have it in a certain setting in the case of a

1:03:10wheelchair at least and so i think that uh i mean i really support the use of electric batteries but um the um i also do know that there are limitations and limitation you have to be careful how you use it i have many times come here and had to charge just so i could get home

1:03:35and hadn't gone that far so and i in in my other chair i'm not sure what this one does yet because it's new but my other chair was basically a car battery and i had to use two of them to give you an idea so i don't think i'm talking different technology than a car uses

1:03:59because supposedly it's the same thing um so anyway i just wanted to make that as a as a comment of where this this whole idea that uh when you um that it's all about that trip up the hill it's also about when it's not doing anything at all uh you can you you drain

1:04:20so um any calculation you would make in the future i would hope look at at least any time you're serving other agencies talk talk to them about that particular issue too because personally it's my biggest problem it's not you know it's not did i charge the thing

1:04:41it's you know how long since i charged it did i go up a pill is just awful on a battery electric motor or whatever battery i think is the right issue the um so there are all these kind of connected issues and if you ever want me to tell you about some of them i would

1:05:00be happy to do that thank you great we have a any other comments on this motion do we have a motion i'll call it uh all those in favor uh the motion was made by bridges and segmented by quinto uh in favor of the staff report resolution on hand uh all those in favor

1:05:17please say aye aye opposed abstentions let the record show it passed unanimously thank you mr howdy for coming to speak um that brings us to item 7a which is uh oh i went past it a policy matter um this is a an agreement with james chan for information technology services uh let

1:05:46the record show that we have supplemental communication at the dyas with red line changes uh to the resolution and to the agreement yes okay miss pinkus are you speaking on this matter yes i am thank you your honor i'm karen pinkes assistant city manager information technology manager james

1:06:07chan sadly for us has announced his retirement from the city of el cerrito and his official date of retirement will be december 31st 2016.

1:06:16the recruitment process for a new manager is underway with our expected appointment in december and start date in january 2017 if not sooner the city will need to have information technology management services performed during the interim period as these services are

1:06:31critical to the city's ability to serve residents businesses and customers it is also desired that mr chan is available to assist the new information technology manager for a short-term period of time so that we can provide a seamless transition with our technology needs

1:06:46the action before you this evening is to comply with calpers regulations that require that the city council make findings that for any post-retirement services provided by a retired annuitant some of these requirements include provision of services be of a limited

1:07:00duration that work does not exceed 960 hours in any fiscal year and that if work is provided within 180 days of the retired annuitance retirement date which is december 31st that the contract must be formally reviewed and presented at a city council meeting the resolution before you is an update

1:07:19from the resolution that was in your agenda packet and it includes some minor edits from our legal team this resolution sets out the necessary findings for the city council to allow for james chan to be appointed as a retired annuitant thus making the agreement consistent with calpers

1:07:34regulations and if you have any questions i'd be happy to answer them um i did note a typo on the revised version or on the page that says now therefore be it resolved um as you go down there it says the city's critical need to employee someone should be employ someone employ someone

1:08:00thank you you're welcome any speakers on this matter um would you like to make a motion with that typo correction yes so moved do we need to read the title not for a resolution right um so the motion has been made by mr friedman in a second by miss abelson and all those in favor please say aye

1:08:24aye opposed abstentions let the record show up past unanimously all right that brings us to item 7b uh which is refinancing of 2006 lease revenue bonds for the construction of the building we're in city hall um and it looks like mr rasai messiah messiah is going to speak

1:08:52to us good evening mayor and city council my name is mark rossia and i'm the finance character at the city and i'm here to present two items on the agenda item 7b and 7c pertaining to refunding two of our debt obligations it has been my pleasure to be associated

1:09:11with uh refunding since i've been here in the short stint that i've been here uh we did a round of refunding back in august for the tabs and uh soon after that we've mooted this one the primary goal here is to try and enhance our general fund reserve that has pretty much

1:09:32brought staff into looking into everything that can be done to try and take that towards the policy goal of 15 right now we are trending closer towards the five to six percent as opposed to the 10 and above so that has probably been the reason for that um reading from your

1:09:48excuse me i'm going to try and keep doing this as long as i can and scott has agreed to jump in if i drop out the 2006 bonds funded the construction of the new city hall i'm reading from your staff report open gathered gathering space the city council chambers and the emergency

1:10:06operations center and based on current market rates the city can potentially reduce debt service and potentially save anything between 435 and 730 000 over the next 20 years now just to give you some background on this when we first moved to this back in september of this year

1:10:25interest rates were far lower than they currently are and the financial advisors nha advisors uh proposed or estimated that we could come up with about an approximate 1.5 million dollars in present value savings but as we all know that thing has changed interest rates have moved up in

1:10:46the last six weeks and we're now probably looking at perhaps even half that amount at this stage and i'm speaking in general in terms of both these boundary funding measures the 2006 and the 2008 measure now that being said i would like to take a few seconds here to introduce uh craig

1:11:03hill of nha and as our financial advisor on this matter and josh ansel from jones hall the bond council and these two entities have put in substantial amount of work in producing these copious documents with voluminous attachments as you probably have seen and warts and all and nothing is perfect

1:11:28and these will be polished and put forth once we get to that point but but jones hall has done the legal side of things whereas nha held the financing the calculations the making the staff report work for us and they have a brief presentation for us which i think will add valuable

1:11:49background to this whole conversation that we're about to have on this so um that being said again without reading too much into the staff reporting getting ahead of myself here the 2008 sales tax revenue bonds was issued in june to fund street and sidewalk improvements

1:12:09secured by sales taxes tax revenues um the half cent sales tax measure that we had measure a as we call that and while the savings on that will not flow into the general fund reserve they do flow into the fund balance for that particular fund which is the sales tax

1:12:26revenue fund we call that fund 211. so at the end of the day we have fund balance improvements not just on the general fund side but also on the special revenue fund side as well just just so that you know that um that being said uh the staff report itself outlines

1:12:41information on the estimated savings that we could have and i just want to point out to you that these estimates are based on the november 21st rates of interest that we have at that point that these were put together and things have changed substantially since

1:12:55then as well with your permission i would like to now invite craig hill from nha to step up the lectern and make his presentation that provides valuable background to this conversation great thank you thank you [Applause] good evening um good to see some of you again from this summer craig

1:13:28hill nha advisors were serving as the city's municipal advisor and mark did as he was talking about the items i quickly looked at the agenda packs and realized that the first item we're talking about is exactly 237 pages long the good news is the second item is only 155.

1:13:48so while they're both doing the same thing we're talking about refinancing two obligations uh one just requires a little less paperwork uh what i'd like to do now is just real quickly talk about what we're trying to accomplish tonight uh we will go through and as uh

1:14:07mark just mentioned we've got um two obligations the two the sales tax and the certificate of participation which was the the city hall project uh we'll give a quick update on where we are financially and on the market and we have anna vandegna with steeple nicholas

1:14:26who is serving as the underwriter for these transactions uh and there she can certainly answer any questions that you may have on why the bond market is doing what it's doing or you know why are we where we are right now so real quick as you say again a summary

1:14:41the the sales tax obligation is not a general fund financing it was it is purely by measure a so as as mark mentioned the savings are going to help the city any savings that's recognized through refinancing would be available for additional projects that you're already using

1:15:02the the sales tax revenues for on an ongoing basis so this is just going to allow you to either accelerate projects or maybe take some of the larger projects sooner rather than later on the cop or the city hall financing that one really is a a direct one-to-one benefit

1:15:23to the general fund so anything we can do to as you would think reduce the rent on this facility on city hall will help in the budget process in future years and as as mark mentioned we'll also allow a with a lower expense allow your reserves to build up we have been working with

1:15:45the city now i think for the last four years and one of the primary objectives of finance has been to really try to rebuild the reserves to allow you to manage cash flow on a monthly basis that's been a real primary objective of ours and working with your staff

1:16:04so i'm going to play professor here for a second with this graph um we always get asked more or you know are we at the the lowest rates possible and this graph goes back to 1986. i got in the business in 1988.

1:16:21so i personally have really just only seen things improve for the last 28 years ironically we've had a couple blips obviously recessions the dopp bomb in 99 things like that but as you can see really on the end we've seen quite an acceleration in where rates are moving

1:16:43just since nov early november and while those of us in the municipal finance industry in public finance expected that we would eventually start to see rates rise nobody anticipated that it would be this kind of ricochet around the election we we expected that 2017 rates were going to be going up uh

1:17:05all the federal reserve indications were that things were going to move 25 basis points over the course of the next year we expected the fed to take action and and incrementally uh drive rates up but what we've seen really in the last uh four to five weeks has been

1:17:22unprecedented so unfortunately my four kids broke my crystal ball a long time ago i i don't know if this is an overreaction and whether we're going to get into early 17 and things are going to settle down uh we do had we did have some good news today that in the bond market uh things

1:17:43actually improved or stabilized meaning the rates actually went down so there was some benefit overall just to give you an idea just today's single action saved each of those transactions about fifty thousand dollars so you're you know had we done something today or

1:18:00locked the interest rates today we'd be a hundred thousand dollars better than we were yesterday uh in cash flow savings so um i i do you know full disclosure we do want to talk about what does this really mean to the city on the sales tax measure when we first started having conversations with

1:18:18staff in the summer and mind you we were in the middle of the settlement with redevelopment or the successor agency and trying to work through the refinancing on that that we were really as an outside consultant working for the city we were pushing staff pretty hard

1:18:33to get a lot of information around those so these two particular transactions while they had come up we respectfully kind of pushed them into the background while we were waiting to get the higher uh objectives done when we first looked at this just as an example on the sales tax

1:18:53financing the the savings were just inside of two million dollars with where the market was in the summer as we got really working on documentation preparing to go to the rating agencies really putting the whole package together in october and this is again right before the election uh we were

1:19:14down at 1-3 so things had started to kind of move but they weren't uh that was logical that the sensitivity on analysis on that is not that much what we saw right after the election and that's where you really see the graph kind of jump up is a deterioration from a million two to

1:19:32eight hundred thousand dollars right so that's a pretty substantial 40 drop in the savings and then we've seen it now uh slow down negatively but you know we are estimating right now that we're around 650 000 this does not include what happened today so that number would you know just again

1:19:53to show you volatility that number would be closer to 700 000 today compared to where even it was yesterday at 6 42. so no prediction on where we're going but i just i really want everybody to understand the sensitivity to uh when when the stock market goes up and you see your retirement accounts

1:20:12going up that's good news from an equity side it usually means it's bad news on the debt side so as a as an issuer the city you almost kind of want to have the stock market crash in order to feel better that you're going to be financing lower now uh last item on the on the city hall

1:20:30financing again similar numbers we were about a million five when we were first looking at this uh right before the election it was about a million one after the election it dropped just below seven hundred thousand and were a little over 520 000 again with today's action that number is

1:20:49probably closer to 550.

1:20:51so again these are real dollars that we're talking about that are one-to-one uh benefits to the general fund or to the sales tax fund so what is before you tonight or two actions the first one on the city hall refinancing is a there's a resolution there's unfortunately a slew of documents we

1:21:18have joss and josh ansel here to answer any questions on any of the legal documents if you have any we can certainly talk to any financial questions that you may have and the second item before you is on the sales tax which does include also an action as the authority and

1:21:37there's a resolution in the packet that is related to the authority action so with that i'll stop answering any questions anybody has or of the financing team they're certainly available to answer questions as well thank you uh council member freeman yeah most of my experience in debt financing

1:21:58besides here at this city is as a homeowner and i know that it's always an equation when you should refinance or not based on how much lower the interest rate what your amortization is etc etc so how does it work with these types of instruments in terms of the calculation

1:22:20of when it makes sense to refinance and when it doesn't and is the savings uh that you have calculated a fully loaded savings that takes into account your fees the other council's fees etc etc right those are those are some great questions and there's there's really

1:22:37three uh data points that we look at first thing is when you refinance your house unfortunately you typically roll over another 30-year most people they don't say well i have 23 years left on it can i get a 23-year mortgage in this case the city does have the ability to not

1:22:54extend the term so we're everything we're talking about here is not mortgaging the future mortgaging our kids this is going to be what's remaining that that final maturity is the same as what you uh you had before the second thing is yes all of the costs are ruled into the transaction so what

1:23:13we're talking about when we're showing numbers are the net net to the city's budget or to its uh general fund and then um i think the the way we really look at these things you know on on a mortgage you really can i mean i hear these commercials on the tv or radio all the

1:23:33time where even if you refinance last year you should refinance again right and no costs and it's you're still going to have a lower payment with bonds the investors that buy bonds will give you actually a lower rate if you do not refinance for a fixed period of

1:23:50time so we're here before you tonight really 10 years out from when you first issued the debt and you would have an obligation to make payments on these bonds for a minimum of 10 years before you could refinance them we can get into some synthetic stuff but we won't talk about that so it's really

1:24:11you you have to ask yourself whereas on a mortgage hey if things actually get better next year maybe i'll just refinance here you are making a decision that is uh committing the city for a period of basically eight to ten years to live with the rates that you get

1:24:30thank you a couple follow-ups that that's a very good explanation so essentially this is about the earliest we could have brought this to the council anyways so even though we've been tracking it for six months or so and seeing the worsening of this situation there wasn't

1:24:49a lot we could do about it we could have made it work in june uh honestly if we had been able to pull the resources together and and we'll take blame on that so will that be coming out of your fees the uh yeah the six hundred thousand dollars absolutely all right good did

1:25:07you get that on the record please okay and then how does the rate lock work in this sort of financing so the so the process has already included obviously drafting all the documents and we've gone through the rating agencies uh so we have ratings now that are uh

1:25:23currently put on these two obligations what we would do is there's a preliminary official statement as part of the package that you have before you those get released to the underwriter stephen nicholas who would then begin to start marketing those bonds right now

1:25:37we're thinking right after the holidays or early january and there will be a date specific that they will say we are now going to go to market to price the bonds and it's at that point in time where they will propose to the city we have all these investors lined up these

1:25:53are the rates that we can sell these bonds for do you accept these rates or not and the city will contractually lock the rates down on that day it'll take us two or three weeks to close or actually fund after that but there is one date specific that you you lock the interest rates and if the

1:26:12market moves after that it's um you know it's not uh it doesn't hurt the city and that was we we just finished a transaction in hayward that we got it priced and the next three days were miserable and actually got worse so we felt pretty good about uh you know it was a it's the

1:26:32same graph right we were still a lot worse and we it would have been great if we'd have done it in june that tick down in rates we won't necessarily be able to take advantage of because it's going to be several weeks you're throwing a dart on a specific date and

1:26:49you can not accept those rates if you want to gamble that you think they're going to move one way or the other but my crystal baller doesn't work so you can let me know if you know thank you i'll be gone from the council and then my powers are predicting the future will be better

1:27:07there you go uh council member bridges if the cop goes to um private placement which i guess we really don't know if it's going to go to a public offering or to a bank right well so right now um the market analysis that's been going on for about the last three weeks

1:27:29the the capital markets or the public offering is much better the banks have really retracted right now on the private placement so we're not seeing that as a viable okay so forget that right well i had a question about that but if we're not going in that direction and

1:27:44i'm sorry how do you account for the little blip in the last four weeks uh you know i mean i i think the volatility of the president-elect or you know it's interesting nobody expected it it's almost a complete paradigm shift to what you would have expected had a republican

1:28:07got into the office right we we wouldn't expect that it would be spend and drive the economy up it's usually much more of a conservative right government becomes more conservative and less is getting done so i don't think i think the reaction in the market this is my personal

1:28:24commentary is it's just a function of everybody's completely in shock from what they thought was going to be four more years status quo the markets would have just said well this is no different than what we've had in 2016. so i think the big question we're getting

1:28:41asked by a lot of council members is what's 17 going to look like is are things going to settle down are we just in this really uncertain period of time you know after we get into january just does the calm you know come into play and and we just don't know and that was my next question despite

1:29:03the problem with your crystal ball and that was um would we be able to move on this before the inauguration and would that matter and i mean none of us know but yeah so historically and again maybe we're just completely out of our norm now going to market in early january after

1:29:25the holidays has always been very productive to public agencies okay berkeley we've done work almost every year where we've tried to be in the market the first week in january so it would be before anything becomes final right before the speeches so right now that's what we're anticipating

1:29:42we're in pretty good shape that should the council approve moving forward on these two financings we will be releasing the documents right before the holidays so that when we come back aft around the second we can actually be setting interest rates while everybody else is still

1:29:58coming back from tahoe okay that's good that's all i have that's pretty much um yes i wondered if you could put that um uh graph up again that shows the rate yeah here we go uh historical yeah okay so the the one that you're reacting to most that's most recent is at the very far

1:30:22right of 2016 correct okay but if you and you said well this has never happened before however if i look at uh i think it's 2012 i see that same vertical line right uh there's i look at 2010 i see that same vertical line and those are all election years and i don't know if it's the same time

1:30:55of year i can't see that chart well you know i don't really i'm not able to see closely enough right anything about within that year right but do you have a comment on that yeah i mean you're absolutely right there you know we we have certainly over 28 years we've had a number of uh you

1:31:15know substantially rising interest rate environments my comment was the amount of movement that we've seen in the last four to five weeks we have not seen in recent history in in a short period of time now the those you know i would argue that in 2012 you know that that's

1:31:37two to four percent that's 200 percent or 200 basis points that's a big jump but that occurred over the course of a year and we are you know we we're talking about moving i don't know what 50 75 basis points how far we moved so over 100 since we had brexit so if i

1:31:58could um if you were and produced a chart that took up a huge amount of space that showed uh each year in more detail i would be able to better see that yeah i think if we actually gave you the data points and you know what how how quickly of a change it would be that would actually be a

1:32:16really useful uh but i'll take your word for it i don't i don't actually need you to do that can i just comment on that one reason why it's so dramatic is because the rates were so low good point um it seems like we're taking questions on both topics at this both agenda items at

1:32:40this time so i i just want to make sure that i'll do my best to try and get us to the right documents in the um in item 7b attachment number six which is the escrow deposit and trust agreement there is the treasurer of the el cerrito public financing authority is supposed

1:33:02to take action um can you help me understand who the treasurer of the public financing authority is and what if we have to take an action to authorize the treasurer to sign this document i'm going to let the attorney josh hansel answer that question great thank

1:33:22you um would you mind telling me uh again you're in the escrow deposit and trust agreement escrow deposit and trust agreement uh which is attachment six to our agenda item for those that are following at home page five uh page five has a signature block for the city of el

1:33:38cerrito the chief financial officer which is mark it also has a signature block for the el cerrito public financing authority uh treasurer and then on page six it's the underwriter the mufg union bank actually i guess they're the prior test trustee and escrow agent

1:33:56so those are the three signature signatories to this this agreement and i just wanted to make sure that we take the proper action tonight to authorize our treasure the treasure of the authority to sign right okay well um and you should have a resolution that um

1:34:14that which i didn't draft but that uh my colleague drafted and it should authorize the um the treasurer to sign that document wonderful um mr woodruff do you do you know where that resolution is or can we can we make that motion without a resolution in front of

1:34:34us i agree with you that there should be a resolution what i'm afraid of is that it's not physically before us this evening okay thanks and you know mr woodruff looks like you're about to tell inform us that we could make a resolution without a printed resolution is that cool i'm actually

1:35:07just i'm going to actually um let the bond council address the issue of whether of of whether or not there is supposed to be one for this trend for this because they're responsible for preparation of the documents um but um so it's just so while i understand that there is such a resolution for the

1:35:26other financing i'm not i don't know whether or not one is actually required for this okay great but if one was required we could make the motion without a printed resolution is that correct um i'd actually need to i don't know the answer to that okay all right great thank you sir please pursued

1:35:43so in the um in the in the the prior doc the documents for the uh the transaction that's being refunded here um there would be a catch-all in a catch-all language in that resolution that would say that all officers that the that the officers of the city are authorized to take such actions as um as

1:36:12are necessary to implement the purposes of this tren of this uh resolution and so um uh the um uh the authority to sign would come from that uh from that document so that you're now citing a 2005 or 2006 resolution that basically gave authorization to the treasurer to

1:36:34execute this document that's exactly right okay and and um that you can see that same language here in section seven of the uh of the resolution official actions and and this again this is just the catch-all language section seven of the this is of the authority resolution

1:37:03on page four sorry okay oh section okay sorry of the city city resolution is that correct that's correct so this is the same type of of uh language that we've been having all of our resolutions and this is just catch all language it says any and all mayor city manager finance director city

1:37:46clerk and any and all other officers of the city are hereby authorized and directed et cetera et cetera uh uh to to um to do any and all things and take and take any and all actions okay the document i'm looking at that's section eight so hopefully we're looking at

1:38:03compatible documents this is for the revenue uh for the sales tax no sorry sales tax is 7c i was looking at 7b so so we're looking at different documents but i did find the section you're referencing it's section 8 in in item 7b so and and so the [Applause] kind

1:38:40yeah section eight that's correct great so what uh what essentially you're you're saying is that we i wasn't on council in 2006 but in 2006 an action was taken that had similar language language in it and therefore the treasurer can take action on this uh agreement the escrow deposit and

1:39:04trust agreement based on that 2006 resolution that we have don't have in front of us that's exactly right okay let's see also in this i guess it would be for the bond counts craig there's an 8.25 million dollar cap that's identified in the preliminary official statement

1:39:34but i did not find a comparable cap in item 7c maybe i just i didn't find it in the 153 pages of item 7c is there is there a comparable cap in item 7c to the 8 and a quarter in the beginning yeah this is uh and again we're talking about this uh cop which is no actually now at this time i'm sorry i

1:40:03switched gears on you um in for the cop in the pos for those that at home uh in this in the uh certificates of participation um which is item 7b in the preliminary official statement on page six there is an 8.25 8.25 million cap but i did not find a comparable cap in

1:40:32item 7c for the sales uh tax bond revenue it and it may be that it's there and i just didn't see it but i and you're so you're you're talking about both the preliminary official statements uh what do you see the 8.25 and then the other one you don't see the number my

1:40:50question is is there a cap is there is there a number at which we would not execute the deal so if if the if the curve continues to go the direction that it's currently pointed is there a number at which we would stop the offering and and not refinance that's a great question so the

1:41:11resolution aside from all these other documents that josh's firm put together the resolution is specifically locking down the terms that you are agreeing to move forward with financing there is a do not not to exceed amount for both transactions so we cannot issue more bonds than

1:41:32than what is stated in the resolutions there is also a minimum savings threshold so we will not go to market or accept the interest rates that are offered by steeple nicholas if they do not achieve a minimum percentage or a savings threshold so that's what you're as part of i'm going

1:41:55to play lawyer for a second as as part of the approval of the resolutions you are empowering staff to move forward subject to certain constraints and the constraints are you're not getting issue any more than we need so these are this is the maximum amount and you will get

1:42:10us at least this amount of savings in both cases they're separate so those are the two primary parameters that are getting approved as part of the resolution the other documents are all um either placeholders in the preliminary official statement or our um estimates that will be refined as we

1:42:30actually get real interest rates so so that's all music to my ears but i can't make my eyes see the text that says what you just said okay so so i was just um that there is a minimum savings i'm not even seeing those words um and maybe and i'm specifically looking in the

1:42:51resolution of the city of el cerrito with regards to the sales tax revenue refunding item 7c attachment 1.

1:42:58and and i do see in section 3 on page 3 a discussion of the negotiated sale of refunding bond bonds is this text that's here does this say what you just verbally gave us it does talk about one percent of the par amount thereof but i don't see the minimum savings

1:43:19discussion in in here so our not to exceed is identified in section one of the resolution at 11 million at 11 million although below our theoretical target refinancing is less than 10 million correct okay all right okay and you're correct under section three we have

1:44:07the maximum amount of the fee that we're going to be charged by the underwriter that's the one percent and the the continuation of that sentence is the amount of the underage discount for the refunding bonds shall not be more than one percent of the par and the net present value of any savings

1:44:24realized by the city from this refinancing for the 2008 installment payment from the 2008 bonds shall be at least five percent of the outstanding principle so that's the that's the formula okay that that it wasn't it wasn't using the words you used which is why i wanted to make sure i apologize

1:44:43we could have put a hard number in there it's okay just as a percentage okay and and i i do know that those those similar limits are in item seven b um so i did see them there i just didn't see them in in the resolution in 7c um okay and then um one of the things that that i asked

1:45:08earlier today that was answered is the benefits that we're actually paying this off in a shorter period of time so i wanted to give you an opportunity to potentially speak to um speak to that sure uh the fact that we're paying these off in essentially 19 years not 20 years as a result of some of the

1:45:27good things that we're doing so if you could speak to that so the original two financings uh not only included raising money for the project fund to build this building and to also do uh street improvements and then pay the transaction costs but they also funded reserve funds so they

1:45:44call it a debt service reserve fund it's a legally it's like a trust account that gets put in and it's usually equal to one year's payment and it and it's held in trust the entire time and is applied as a credit towards the last payment so effectively if you had a 30-year

1:45:59financing you're only going to make 29 years and the 30th year is going to be paid for with this cash now fast forward to today where we're talking about refinancing those obligations and we actually the market now has accepted that we don't necessarily have to cash

1:46:16fund reserve funds so we're going to take that money and apply it into the transaction um to actually buy down some of the bonds which is a good thing but to be intellectually honest we don't want to keep the term the same because you would have otherwise had that last payment

1:46:34paid with these this reserve so what we're doing is we're shortening the final maturity one year so that the real net effect to the city is what we would have only paid 29 years anyway the 30th year would have been paid by the cash that we had on hand now since

1:46:51we won't have that cash on hand we still want to end on year 29.

1:46:56so hopefully i didn't lose anybody on that but it's uh you know again we wanted to make sure that from a real true cash flow perspective that the the city benefited and didn't end up with an extra year payment that it otherwise would have never made in the first place

1:47:13right thank you um and [Music] here's the other one that i wanted to highlight oh is the it may not be what you guys answer specifically our annual cash flow cycle is dependent on the payment of varia to us at various times property taxes and sales taxes from the

1:48:01entities that collect those taxes can you speak to what the you know what is the payout that we're doing on an annual basis and the cash flow and this might actually be a a question for for mark because i certainly wanted to make sure that we are taking advantage of when we get paid

1:48:23if it's if possible given the fact that you want to sell these bonds in january that's great and we may not be able to adjust our payment schedule but i want to at least have uh mark speak to the fact that you know we did look at this and talk about this in some

1:48:40fashion so and maybe just before he he speaks we regardless of when we actually close on the transaction we can establish the the payment dates so they're typically semi-annual so every six months that first payment period could be two months it could be eight months

1:49:01depending on when we want to be able to so we do control that um as to you know we always want to make our payments in june and december or january and and uh and july so uh in drafting the documents that is controlled and that conversation did occur with staff but i'll let mark speak

1:49:20to the actual cash flow of the general fund so speaking in relation to the general fund payments on the 2006 lease revenue bonds we currently make lease level number one payments on the 1st of december and also on the 1st of june so on the 1st of december a bulk of that the principal and the

1:49:43interest gets paid out and on the 1st of june just the interest gets paid out so we went back and looked at this and examined this and we found that for the payment that's due on the 1st of december the money needs to be in the bank by the 15th of november that's part

1:49:56of the covenant on this that two weeks in advance of that property taxes come in in the middle of december right so there is always a crunch period between the 15th of november and the 15th of december and we've experienced it during this particular phase of this whole thing

1:50:12and to in response to that concern i might add that with even with despite the crunch we've been able to make that payment we have been able to make that if that was a concern of mine initially and i would anticipate that going forward from here we would probably come back to council with a

1:50:35higher trend that than we have in the past in 2012 the trend was four million dollars and in 2016 the trend is uh 5 million dollars and i think it needs to move up to about 6 million to help us smooth our way through that november 15 through december 15 cycle the june period the june payment is not

1:50:55of much concern because that has been only interest so far interest only right so again just to summarize this thing the principal piece is 250 000 it hits the books on the f it leaves the books on the 15th of november gets paid out on the 1st of december and we managed to squeeze by that with a

1:51:135 million dollar trend and if you can make that a 6 million dollar trend starting with the next cycle on this thing that should not be of much concern from one point of view the other thing that i was thinking about was in terms of property taxes we have seen growth in

1:51:25property taxes and with that kind of money coming in twice a year i would expect some of that to be mitigated as well so refunding reduces your installments the magnitude of your principal plus interest comes down because you're getting a lower rate of interest so

1:51:43consequently if you preserve the same cycle as december 1 and june 1 with a lower payment amount that reduces the pressure on cash flow by itself that's just one thing that i want to point out to you the other thing i want to point out to you was in terms of the

1:51:57sales tax payments cash cycle and the sales tax uh council actually had us provide them with quarterly sales tax receipts going back for the last three years and they took a look at that just to see what the pattern was and how much the amounts were and they were confident

1:52:13that we could continue to make those payments with the existing cycle so that concern was also taken care of but in in in response to your point yes we could move those payments around a couple of months as um chris pointed out here craig pointed out here but we continue to preserve the

1:52:29same cyclical uh payment stream that we've had in the past any other questions no any speakers on this item down there let the record show that we've actually successfully held the question and answer period and public comment period for item 7b and item 7c so i'll bring back

1:52:50to the dios at this point to make motions as uh outlined in 7b and then 7c with no additional presentation or questions in between the actions i'm getting a nod from the council i just want to make sure that that procedurally is fine yes that's fine and i just want to make sure that related to

1:53:11one of your questions that there is that the council understands that there's one resolution for seven b two resolutions for seven c um for seven c one is a city council resolution and one is a resolution of the public financing authority correct yeah so this time i would be willing to

1:53:27[Music] he's got his finger up so do i make him read it no mark does i'm glad to read it all right 7b if you would please yeah i move the resolution of the city of the council of the city of el cerrito authorizing the execution sale and delivery of refunding certificates of

1:53:42participation authorizing and directing execution of related lease financing documents approving a purchase contract and an official statement and authorizing official actions second motion by friedman second by bridges all those in favor please say aye aye opposed abstentions let the record show

1:54:01that um item 7b passed that brings us to item 7c as pointed out we do have two resolutions one as that that of the city council and one is the authority um i am open to take a resolution at this time by the city of el cerrito mr quinto a resolution of the city council of the

1:54:23city of el cerrito authorizing the issuance and sale of sales tax revenue refunding bonds to refinance and outstanding installment payment application and approving related agreements and actions second motion by quinto and seconded by friedman all those in favor please say

1:54:40aye aye abstentions opposition seeing none let the record show passed unanimously at this time i'd like to entertain a motion of the el cerrito public financing authority board i'll move the resolution of the el cerrito public financing authority board of directors approving the issuance and

1:55:01sale of sales tax revenue refunding bonds to redeem outstanding bonds and approving related agreements and actions second uh motion by free by jan bridges uh seconded by council member abelson uh all those in favor please say aye aye abstentions or opposition seeing none let the record

1:55:23show it passed unanimously i want to thank everyone for coming tonight and uh answering our questions and being so helpful thank you thank you that concludes item seven that brings us to item eight which is council assignment and liaison reports miss bridges on november 16th i went to the jpa

1:55:45meeting which is the jpa for the bates sports field down by the gilman track the grant that we are participating in as a jpa was submitted the estimated cost of the carpet without any bids in has not gone out to bid was expected to be in the vicinity of 1.2 million

1:56:09dollars the city of berkeley is going to be very heavily involved with the public outreach because there's been a lot of concern expressed by parents of children who primarily parents of children who use the turf as to what it's going to be consisting of that one two million dollars is probably

1:56:34based on something similar to what they have now which is sort of encapsulated rubber but they're also going to be looking at something called green play which is a coconut and cork organic mix and although there's been some experience with a local school in el cerrito that has cork

1:56:54on their artificial turf that has now become moldy apparently this um has been very durable those of you who are familiar with usf has their benedi field diamond for baseball at usf is made out of that and surprisingly enough also stanford that's the area around

1:57:15their uh track at stanford and surprisingly enough at the white house around the pool they have this screenplay so um there has been a lot of experience with it but they do think that it's going to be a lot more expensive maybe up to 1.5 million so there'll be a public outreach um

1:57:33there'll be more um they've hired consultants a group called carducci and associates the city of berkeley has done that and mayor bates was his last meeting of course and the new mayor was there jesse was there and um [Music] they surprisingly found out that part of

1:57:52east bay regional park down there is actually zoned for active recreation so they may be able to put some more fields in at some point in time so that was sort of a revelation that just came up as you know we kicked in an extra twenty thousand dollars um for a grant match we

1:58:10approved that here at council emeryville is um was reported out i think by mayor lyman um only participated at ten thousand dollars so the additional ten thousand dollars that emeryville could have woulda shoulda actually came from the gilman fund reserve so they took a little money out

1:58:30um there's also a lot of concern by other cities um not necessarily expressed by me but certainly by the the outgoing mayor that emeryville may have fewer residents and fewer players but talking to some of the soccer people in el cerrito we do have a lot of emeryville kids on our teams that

1:58:48play here in elsewhere and are coached by some of our el cerrito coaches so they want to look at rosters and they want to look at the residency of where these kids are coming from and of note i believe emoryville high school actually redid their field not too long

1:59:03ago and like within the last well since the jpa was in effect and i believe that all of their sports were played at the gilman fields while that was happening so even though their council thinks that they don't really use a field they certainly have some history they certainly have

1:59:20more sales tax per capita than any other yeah we're sitting there like you have three major shopping centers and on the planet yeah yeah per capita yeah per capita so and they may end up moving the two restrooms they're still working on the restroom situation there um so

1:59:36that they're not being vandalized so uh actively as they currently are by the people who are living underneath the gilman underpass at the freeway so i don't know who the next jpa representative will be when you um reorder but um i have documents if someone wants to

1:59:54inherit and inherit them and and thank you for your service to that jpa it's very entertaining when you're with the mayor of berkeley yes uh any other reports okay i have a few on uh november 17th i represented you guys at the west contra costa integrated waste management authority

2:00:13we have received and i'm looking at our city manager and council we did receive i think was yesterday a draft of the proposed agreement so i don't know if you if you need me to afford it to you i'm assuming okay so there is a um for council's benefit for city council's benefit

2:00:35we have been in the last 18 months negotiating a new joint powers agreement to be executed by the cities and the county and it's been based on input that we've uh the the member agencies have given over time and we are getting to the point where we've got final language to look at i

2:00:56think i mentioned back in august that the discussion about eminent domain was was brought up at one point um so we we have part of the language about withdrawal is in there you know how you would uh what would happen if an agency withdrew so there's a number of different clauses

2:01:15that we've been discussing over the last 18 months and this is this draft it brings them all together the intent would be to bring it i think in the february time frame for us to essentially agree to it or ratify it in some fashion so i just wanted to give you that update

2:01:34also on the 17th the similar to our one of our november meetings we did set rates uh for 2017 for uh for waste hauling um i also represented uh let's see there was another meeting i needed to talk about uh december 1st was the um contra costa county mayor's meeting and uh there was no speaker

2:02:06there were different office elections um and uh mark ross was elected to be our airboard representative and newell arnich was re-elected to be the ccta representative i believe it is um and also on the first i represented you at the mce technical committee mce recently

2:02:34has restructured the authority of their structures such that the technical committee now is where contracts are executed so not everything goes to the full board uh so as uh i'm one of seven people that are serving on the technical committee so i'm aware of some of the transactions

2:02:55that we're entering into and i can say that we've successfully are now getting a fair amount we we executed two contracts to get wind power the nice thing about wind power is that unlike solar it can occur at night uh as a matter of fact the the projects that we're pulling from take advantage of

2:03:14thermal differences at night and so a good chunk of their production is at night and so it works well with our solar package so that we can provide a power that more resembles the demand that we have so that so i can inform you about that the work that we're doing at mce

2:03:41and that concludes my reports from as your council liaison to other agencies item nine adjourn our regular city council meeting the next regularly regularly scheduled city council meeting is tuesday december 20th at 7 p.m right here in city council chambers thank you

2:04:10[Applause] you