Regular City Council Meeting December 20, 2016

0:04:01um i am going to call to order our regularly regular scheduled city council meeting of tuesday december 20th and let the record show that all five council members are present our first agenda item tonight is pledge allegiance to the flag led by council member jan bridges

0:04:22i 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 tomorrow great tonight our second item is council staff communications council assignment and liaison reports

0:04:45including a metropolitan transportation commission street saver award for best all-round pavement management program 2015.

0:04:54so yvette if i see you standing up why don't you we start with you good evening mayor lyman and council members my name is yvette ortiz i'm the city's public works director i just wanted to make a brief announcement and and basically pleased to announce that the

0:05:15metropolitan transportation commission awarded the city of el cerrito the 2015 best all-around pavement management program award and the award recognizes the city's sustained investment in our roads and also recognizes that the city has the best improved roads of any bay area city

0:05:36over the last several years as staff has re previously communicated the city managed to transform our roads from one of the worst in the bay area to one of the best and the city was able to make these significant strides as a result of the 2008 street improvement measure which is passed by

0:05:58the elsorito voters so i just wanted to show you the plaque and let you know that we'll be hanging it in the city council lobby and so thank you to all the el cerrito voters great um any other additional staff communications i'll bring it back to the dias for any

0:06:25uh council communications i think go ahead i have a comment about the report that was just given i don't know if it was totally clear to people but i believe that means we're the best in the entire bay area and and that's really major and i think that uh it is primarily well

0:06:51it's due to our voters and that's extremely important but it's also due to the staff work that was done to implement the um the vision that the taxpayers supported and it had to do with a specific program that was set up that said okay our voters said they wanted this

0:07:18that means we have to get it done and sooner rather than later and i don't know if you remember but shortly after we passed the measure we started a series of i think it was three was it yvette three years of really concentrated implementation of that program where we

0:07:39paved i believe i can't see where the event went was it 75 of the roads in our town right it was about 70 and as of last year we're close to repaving 95 of our street segments and um and that's because our voters said that that was the most important thing to them if we were to spend money on

0:08:07something extra and um so i think uh you know we have amazing voters in this town uh which are to be commended and we have amazing staff who had who saw that vision and implemented it and i think we want to thank both of those uh at least i do you know if somebody

0:08:28wants to join in please feel free because it really is amazing so thank you great any other communications i've got uh at least one or two rather um i want to make sure that everyone has a martin luther king day parade on their calendar and i believe it is monday january 16th

0:08:57uh monday january 16th and we'll start uh right here ned city hall about 9 00 a.m and march over to the el cerrito high school so don't forget about the martin luther king day parade additionally i want to give a shout out to our crab feed the el cirita recreation department presents a crab

0:09:15feed currently scheduled for saturday january 21st 5 p.m and you can get tickets purchased at the el cerrito community center and proceeds benefit the david hunter memorial scholarship so advanced purchase only and no outside beverages hopefully you can put that on

0:09:36your calendar for 5 p.m saturday january 21st and please purchase a ticket no other seeing no other announcements we'll move on to item for oral communications from the public this is a place on the agenda is reserved for comments and inquiries from the public from the public regarding matters on the

0:10:01agenda and matters which do not otherwise appear on the agenda all persons wishing to speak uh we'll have please sign up with the city clerk remarks are limited to three per minutes per person we have a lighting system that'll help remind you of the to wind down green is go yellow

0:10:17is a minute and red i will start asking you to wind up do we have any uh speakers at this time we have three speakers for a general comment great thank you if you would please read all three names cordell hindler followed by al miller and carl mulligan oh hey justin

0:10:40so mayor lyman uh council members colonel handler richmond this is a very special occasion very special and i say this because i have been coming to this council meeting for two years and and telling you how i feel about the police department i after after coming

0:10:57here for two years i think the police department are wonderful so i'll give you i'll give them credit for that but then secondly i've been coming to these committee meetings for like for a few months and i really know what what the what these com what these committees uh

0:11:10concept is for example crime prevention i love it because we've been because whenever i hear about you know like about burglaries and all that it just dawned on me i said i should come to these community meetings every month so and and i'm glad that the one of the committee members

0:11:26are here um that i've i've been talking to her before the meeting started that said that i really loved coming to their meetings it's very informative to the community and and anyone can come so that's number two in that number three 2016 has been a very challenging year so

0:11:41far but but as we move forward in 2017 things will it will improve like like that so hopefully that some of the committee members would like to work with some of you all uh make sure that uh how we can get a 2017 to go off on on the right foot so then let's see what

0:11:56else then i will bring some flyers for the um for the new show that's coming up in february and for construction civic theater is called well so that's pretty much it thank you next good evening mayor lyman council members and staff before i start my prepared remarks i

0:12:21want to give a shout out to boy scout troop 104 and the firefighters of the kensington station and el cerrito station for their again wholehearted support for the setting up of the sunder shoddy holiday display on moser lane right near sir sea view and to remind everybody that it's open

0:12:44five to ten each night through december 26th and if you want to have more most fun of the holiday season come by the morning of the 27th about nine o'clock and help us put it away for the year so i attended a cal women's basketball game on december 11th the featured event that day other than

0:13:06cal's ninth straight victory which set a i guess tighter record for their uh career and start of the year was a celebration of the we back pat day in honor of the university of tennessee's renowned women's basketball coach pat summitt coach summit is most remembered for her

0:13:27more than one thousand victories as a coach and the fact that a hundred percent of her players graduated from the university of tennessee in her over 20-year tenure there unfortunately she died at the age of 64 from alzheimer's in june of this year during the pregame warm-up photos of her

0:13:49alongside many of her famous quotes were shown in the large overhead scoreboard one in particular stuck in my mind it is what it is but it will be what you make it to be on this night when we're starting a new city council cycle with a swearing-in of three recently elected council members i

0:14:11would like to paraphrase that quote in the forum el cerrito is what it is but it will be what you make it to be besides electing three council members in that recent election roughly 63 percent of the el cerrito voters and i believe many of the voters who for one reason or another voted

0:14:31against measure b want a new modern library to be part of what you make it to be we are depending on you to make that happen thank you thank you and the speaker is carl mullig uh good evening i'm carl mulligan located in el cerrito i came here on may 19 2015 about 19

0:15:01months ago to express my concerns about contra costa county animal services or cccas regarding animal seizures for quarantine and to suggest a public meeting where the public could express our concerns about animal services in a receptive forum that meeting didn't happen

0:15:16from july 2015 until now about 17 months no city representative has been able to furnish me with a valid signed contract with animal services i don't believe there is one but i still see animal control in el cerrito is the city paying for services without a valid signed contract and allowing

0:15:33animal services to continue to conduct their business in the same manner i contended violated the fourth amendment of the u.s constitution regarding unlawful seizures and the fifth and 14th amendments regarding due process of law as well as the article as well as

0:15:46article 1 section 7 of the california constitution regarding due process of law i further contend that numerous other california laws are violated by animal control while harboring quarantined animals including but not limited to 597t regarding exercise 597e regarding sufficient food

0:16:04and water title 17 california code of regulations 2606.8 regarding rabies reporting to the local health officer or lho for each of the past three years in california between 25 000 and 40 000 pets were quarantined after biting scratching or otherwise injuring a human

0:16:21i wanted to know how many quarantine orders were issued by each of the lhos pardon me i inquired at the california department of public health and was told the information was held at a local level so i contacted the 58 individual local health officers in each county to ask

0:16:37them how many quarantine orders they signed that number to date is zero not one local health officer has signed an issue to order to quarantine any dogs or cats in the years 2013 2014 or 2015 this should be a concern for all pet owners in california the general consensus from the late

0:16:55shows is that they've conveyed their authority to issue quarantine orders to various animal control agencies this is a case of the principal the agent and the third party and the principal to be sure has no authority to permit their agents to seize property from a third

0:17:07party in a manner contrary to the constitutions when the director of cccas beth ward comes here perhaps at the next city council meeting to give a presentation regarding animal control services i think the new city council should inquire as to how cccas acts constitutionally when their agents make

0:17:24the determination seize the property and quarantine the animal without informing either the director or the local health officer i suspect it doesn't finally all mental reservations and joking aside the last step of the new city council members is to swear that

0:17:38they'll uphold and defend the constitution from enemies foreign and domestic that's a tall order i hope it's your intention to do so please don't foster a position of decisive indifference towards the protections afforded to the people under the constitutions mr mulligan

0:17:53excuse me mr mulligan if you would be so kind as to email you had a lot of technical information in there if you could please email your remarks to us so we can follow up on it that'd be great if you would leave it with a clerk great thank you any additional comments no mayor all

0:18:07right um that brings us to item five which is the consent calendar items 5a through 5e i do want to point out two items on here five c is agreement with plaza auto services and mobile fleet care for fleet maintenance and repair service and 5d is to authorize to enter into negotiations

0:18:28for provisions a public safety dispatch services agreement and i just want to point those out that those are pretty important items i'll move the consent calendar my last chance to make a motion a second ocean by friedman seconded by bridges all those in favor please say aye

0:18:52let the record show it passes unanimously and that brings us item six recognition of city council members leaving office and uh you know there's us when i set the agenda up i really should have had a a spot in here for the mayor to make remarks about the the last year

0:19:13and and so i will uh start this set this item out by just sort of thanking um a general thank for the council members for your support through this trying year with matters such as a hate crime the difficult development decision at outes trailer park the library measure and the murder

0:19:32of a beloved resident your perspective and civility are greatly appreciated i want to thank uh he's absent but i want to thank city manager scott hannon assistant city manager karen pinkas chief maples chief keith councillor woodruff miss miss ortega ms sanders mr jones and mr rossia for

0:19:53your leadership as we navigated the these difficult issues the staff changes we had this year and doing the important business of the city like an annual budget um protecting our local control over marijuana cultivation refinancing long-term debt completing mundane tasks like refreshing our

0:20:12ordinances and addressing dissolution of the redevelopment agency we also embarked on exciting opportunities like eden housing which will break ground next door soon we select a developer at the mayfair lot for the for the mayfair lot near del norte and we passed the urban greening

0:20:31plan and the active transportation plan while commencing planning of our centennial celebrations and uh to that end we have two centenarians tonight with us that i want to recognize and they are theresa perella and frank storno who are with us tonight to celebrate

0:20:55in teresa's case it is her 100th birthday today and in frank's case his 100th birthday will be new year's day so i want to recognize uh happy birthday [Applause] 100 look at how cuter councilmember quinto has some words as a graduate of fairmont elementary school

0:23:04i'm so happy to see mrs teresa perella here who was my sister's fourth grade teacher and and i know many many generations of my neighbors who lived on lexington and liberty street who attended fairmont school who are watching on watching you on tv right now uh we very much want to

0:23:27wish you a very happy birthday so happy birthday teresa perella i look terrible thank you for those kind words thank you and i'll follow on with mr perella's statements because i want to thank all the employees of the city of el cerrito police fire public safety recreation and

0:24:31those that work here in city hall for your tireless dedication to el cerrito thank you for responding to every resident's requests that i received this year as mayor and for doing an outstanding job that actually limited those number of requests that i got so thank you very much our city

0:24:51flourishes and it's easy to be mayor with staff like like we have i want to thank the residents of el cerrito for re-electing me i know i'll get sworn in later you've given me your trust that i will continue to listen to you way matters with an open mind and work hard to reach good policy and

0:25:16so for that i thank all the residents of el cerrito but i especially want to thank friends and active el cerrito residents some of you are here tonight molly georgina al miller and those that are friends rebecca saltzman rita michael nye i see you maria debbie and sandy potter thank you sandy

0:25:40all of you keep us informed and exposed to issues from many perspectives a young resident asked me the other night when i was up shepherding the shoddy exhibit if being mayor was fun not wanting to discourage this future civic leader [Laughter] i said yes it is at times

0:26:05uh some of my personal highlights from this year include signing the proclamation naming dave weinstein to the wall of fame judging the art show attending attending the arts day opening event the bluegrass festival the hillside natural event tri-safety day pokemon day and if you

0:26:24didn't go it was a great fun um loving day the elks law enforcement night and giving welcomes and introductions at the 4th of july and to the fix-it movie coffee with john joyah who's here thank you john um and strawberries with chris strakwitz the owner of down home music we

0:26:47proclamated a day in his honor this year and it was nice having strawberries with him and getting to know him but but jan will tell you my personal favorite was delivering a proclamation to metallica who celebrated their origins here in el cerrito um i would disappoint

0:27:09some of you maybe many of you if i didn't have numbers um so i the hero since we were or reorganized last december 1st we participated in 24 meetings we passed 119 consent items including tonight we conducted 14 public hearings and deliberated 30 policy matters

0:27:38and because of the calendar and that had a leap year in it this year i ended up being mayor for 55 weeks or 385 days but who's counting i have a special thanks for you cheryl city clerk for your organization thoughtfulness and unwavering pursuit of due process those that have served

0:28:07may or know that cheryl gives you all sorts of good colored things to keep us straight and i do appreciate that but this year chair went beyond and she oversaw more services for us with voter drop-off boxes in both elections and early voting in the november election

0:28:28so i want to thank cheryl very much and and i know she snuck in at the last minute she told me i couldn't do this so i'm going to make it simple i want to recognize my wife mary who actually is counting the days uh that i will be stepping down from mayor because it is more work than it

0:29:08than it being a council member and i want to thank her for her reluctant support throughout the year and mary it seemed longer than a year because it was [Applause] ah [Applause] with that we'll proceed with item five which is uh or item five right i get right six item six which is uh

0:30:01recognition of the members that are leaving office which is mark freedom and jan bridges um and i don't know if council members if you have any special words marked for jan or jan for mark or in between would you like to go i would be happy to start sure so why don't i start out with

0:30:18the the user of the kleenex and and that would be jan bridges who's been just utterly amazing and wonderful to work with and i could say a lot of things about you jan all good um but i i think i first have to go back in history to how i met you and at least how i remember meeting you

0:30:45and that was when you served as chair of the parks and rec commission and received a lot of heat i will guess i would call it during the days of the committee of the whole and and i thought you did a great job of standing up to that heat and and trying to do what was best for our

0:31:09city and what i've seen you do ever since then is what is the best for our city in everything you do i think you've weighed every item that you have dealt with very carefully and i've heard that you have you know a lot of questions and you know so it's very obvious that you

0:31:31read your council packets and that you take all of the items on our agenda seriously not just the the the fun items but all of the items and um you've always been at our council meetings when you know with a very few exceptions and it's and you're very pleasant to work with too on top of all

0:31:54of that so it's really been great working with you and i'm gonna really miss you and i hope you have a great life out there being retired and it's something that you deserve because you've done such a great job and thank you more [Applause] i've also enjoyed working with you

0:32:23um it's in um so i mean it's just it's been great you've always had a lot of thoughtful ideas and not just thoughtful ideas but the way you express them is is just always an addition to what we're doing and makes it better all the time and sometimes you kind of push us

0:32:48further than we would like to be pushed but that's a good thing you know and i do i i know i appreciate it and i think everyone here appreciates it and we're gonna miss that um and i i think i see myself calling you still um and it's just been a real uh joy working with you

0:33:14and um through various times we were on a council together that was very different than this council that didn't get along um so we could see the other side we were part of of being i mean we were the council minority at that time and um so it was not always easy for us

0:33:37but yet but we we hung in together and um so i always think of you as being my partner in that period of time for that reason but i have really i'm so glad that you came back during this period of time so that you could participate in a period where the council worked

0:33:57together for uh getting things done and so um it's you know it's just i i have no i don't know if i have anything else to say i think i've said it all in a um in a way and um i i wish you all so uh the best and i hope that you'll be around and i hope you will take my phone calls

0:34:19absolutely because i'm sure they will continue to come and thank you you're welcome mr quinto all right i also echo what uh janet abelson mentioned and i i personally would like to thank both of you uh for mentoring me and in the first couple of years here and and to see how things

0:34:46are done with class and without any fanfare we just took care of a business that we had to take care of and i appreciated so much of uh from learning from you and learning from you jan my memories of jan is the times i've had to take my mom to emergency at kaiser and vallejo and i

0:35:13would text jan and ask hey are you around and uh but i know i i will see you again and uh and i i hope you don't mind if i call you now and then and uh and i very much appreciate your service here in el cerrito thank you well mark i want to thank you for pushing this

0:35:40council on a number of issues like the moment of silence minimum wage i appreciate your position on the oddest vote and and i hope that uh you will continue to be a heavy conscious on that matter um pushing the marijuana dispensary issue your request to move from planning documents to

0:36:00implementation i'm going to carry that forward hopefully for you and your constant effort to reduce the words we say and the time we spend the dyes so thank you for that uh and jan uh thank you for recruiting me eight years ago it's actually been a honor to serve the

0:36:21city um for those that don't know jan is very empathetic and yeah thank you for your empathy for to our speakers um your your appreciation for the people who stand up and speak it goes without words mostly with tears uh your appreciation for the staff's hard work and thoughtful questions that

0:36:44you um give them and careful reading of matters will be sorely missed as janet said um it's been great to talk through issues with you and i hope you will continue to be a listening resource for me in my next four years so um i appreciate both of you i don't know if

0:37:02either one of you have words you do okay hey all right i try to gather myself um it's been a real joy and i'm so glad i came back because as janet so articulately expressed this is a council that doesn't always agree but we always get along and we always treat everyone

0:37:22with respect to the best of our abilities and it's been a joy to serve with all of you and also my colleagues from previous go around sandy potter and leticia moore i don't see rebecca benicini here but she was great to serve with also so um you know i have a lot of gratitude for

0:37:41having had the opportunity to serve this wonderful city and i really thank my colleagues and the city staff and the citizens most of all who allowed me to have this opportunity to be here and i would be remiss if i didn't thank my wonderful wife carolyn syed and thank

0:38:01you for allowing me to do this and to serve [Applause] and uh lastly i do want to stay involved in the city and there's a few things we started that we haven't finished and i want to be involved in that that's getting a new library which is so important to our community i'd like to

0:38:32move forward some form of renter protection and i am interested in seeing forward our response to the legalization of marijuana and the opportunity it presents for our cities and our city and citizens so uh thank you all it's been a tremendous honor and pleasure

0:38:50and and since i didn't get to say anything about jan and she's leaving i'm so glad that we came back together at the same time it's just been a joy to serve with you and particularly both of us on the ends here just kind of we're always in sync on just about everything and you're

0:39:10just a wonderful person not just for your service on the council but in your life and thank you thank you can i get away with just saying ditto okay um so yeah i'd like to thank our residents i'm gonna get through this um for supporting me for two terms or maybe putting up with me for two

0:39:37terms i don't know sure which but yeah i think greg and everyone else up on the dias here has really commended our staff about how exceptional you really are and how loyal you are to our city um you're very patient with me um i figure over the eight years there's

0:40:00been approximately 200 city council meetings um with numerous emails i figure between the questions i ask in the emails there's probably at least 10 per meeting which is probably i'm not as good with math as greg is but i figured that's about 2 000 different questions that i've asked and

0:40:18i also went through 10 of my trademark pink highlighters in these enormous packets that cheryl gives us every week so you've been very patient with me i try to be as thorough as i can be i want to also recognize our very very many commissioners that are so energetic

0:40:40um and such good committee members on all the different commissions and committees they really advise us well and they give us perspectives that sometimes we're not the best at and i think that's really important and for those of you including cordell who's often coming up to

0:40:55the speaker stand and talking to us even though sometimes you probably don't feel that we're listening we really are listening we might not always decide on things that you're talking about the way you want us to decide and vote but nonetheless i think that that dialogue

0:41:12is really important civic engagement and it should continue my colleagues have been great you know one of the things that was really hard this last four years was that we had the economic problems that with the downturn and for three years we were a little bit stagnant so the first four years of the

0:41:32term my term we had street measure we had the pool renovation we had the cerrito theater and we had this building so it was kind of like the boom time and the first three years of this council were very very different but we developed so much wonderful policy you know

0:41:48that the plastic bag ordinance the minimum wage um all the form-based codes things that um urban greeting the specific pan the smoking ordinance climate action and that's just to name a few we also did something for as our mayor said that was for all of perpetuity and that

0:42:10was we had the madeira open space was one of our main things that happened in um in our four this four-year term and that was really an important thing because that'll be something that'll be everlasting um for all of our citizens um i also want to thank my husband peter

0:42:29who finally agreed after all these years that yes we could eat at six o'clock on city council meetings so that i could not come on an empty stomach and was always very supportive to me because normally he probably wouldn't want to eat dinner that early and to paul and michelle who are coming

0:42:46up here next paul i mean gonna leave you all the kleenexes up here i know you have the sensitive side and that's very very good and michelle i'm glad where you are there you are um i'm glad we have a fellow nurse that's going to be coming up here so that's right on and i think with

0:43:08we're going to be in very good hands for the next centennial that you lead us into [Applause] mark it's my pleasure to give you this token of appreciation and it it's a paperweight with our centennial logo in the middle of it and jan you get your own bouquet and a

0:43:42paperweight as well [Applause] all right i'm gonna go with script number two here um at this point it's item seven which is a brief recess uh it it's recommending 15 minutes but i would like to suggest that we could do that in half that time so if we could get back in about seven or eight minutes

0:44:12that'd be great so it's a brief recess for us to change some name plaques around so thank you um i was remiss in asking the public if they wanted to speak on the last item so as we come back from recess i will be asking the public if they want to speak uh in recognition of council members

0:53:40bridges and friedman i know i have at least two speakers on this matter cordell if you could yep if you would like to speak on this matter that'd be great and boy uh i mean how do you top i mean how do you top this this is like i just gotta almost got emotional when i when my

0:54:03neighbor was mentioned for coming for life for the last two years it was just like amazing and i'm like how do you top how do you account for that so so i just like to congratulate the new council members so as i stated in the open forum section uh 2016 has been a challenging year but as

0:54:20like as the mayor has mentioned you know like some of the things that has been dealt with in the this year it's been like it's been uh an experience that i will never forget so hopefully by 2017 things will be a lot better so so congratulations to council members uh

0:54:36fidelity and uh let me let me get the full name correctly purdue okimoto very good and it's like and it's not that easy i have trouble with names uh trouble and and mr miller would you like to come up and speak in recognition of council members friedman and bridges

0:54:53it's a continuation of the previous item and anyone else who would like to speak you know on behalf of of council members friedman and bridges are welcome to come and speak at this time still mayor lyman thank you what i had hoped to be able to address to mark and jan when they were sitting

0:55:12there and there was a follow on one of your comments greg and it seemed to me that over the series of council meetings after council meetings that usually when the council discussion started getting a little vague or started steering all the way they were like the shepherd dogs right

0:55:31hurting you all back into the issue what the discussion was on and focusing it to get on i also wanted to comment that you know when they came on the council the first time they were like paul and rachelle they wanted to serve the community they have an idea of what

0:55:49it's going to be like but until you've served on the council you don't really know what it's going to be like so they have been through that and yet knowing what lies ahead of them especially in the economic hardship times they were in they still decided to come back and give more to the community

0:56:07the last thing i wanted to thank him for is that more and more different places i go usually with the stage connection when they hear the word el cerrito they all come back and ask about the things that have happened in el cerrito streets are most of them right how did you get

0:56:26your streets fixed but that's contributed i think to a reputation that el cerrito has on also a large part due to the staff and their efforts is el cerrito the little city that can and will so good luck in continuing that transition paul and rochelle and thank you too

0:56:47thank you great thank you [Applause] all right at this time we will move on to item eight which is the swearing in and seating of newly elected officials and the administration of the oath of office and the presentation of certificate of election and i'm going to recognize the

0:57:08city clerk at this time thank you mayor it's a great honor to be here today and swear in council members fidelity and pardewa giumoto if you end um and congratulations also to you mayor lyman on your reelection if you'll stand and raise your right hand and repeat after

0:57:26me i please state your name i greg lyman michelle pardo akimoto do you solemnly swear do you solemnly swear that i will support and defend that i will support and defend the constitution of the united states the constitution of the united states and the constitution of

0:57:44the state of california and the constitution of the state of california against all enemies foreign and domestic against all enemies foreign that i will bear true faith and allegiance and i will bear true faith and allegiance to the constitution of the united states to the constitution of

0:58:00the united states and the constitution of the state of california and the constitution california but i take this obligation freely i take this obligation freely without any mental reservation without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion or evasion that i will well and faithfully

0:58:18discharge i will faithfully discharge congratulations again and i just um i'm going to present you with your certificates of election [Applause] all right um that brings us to item 10 which is reorganization of the city council and i have a new script to go from

0:59:15i will call now for the reorganization of the city council and acknowledge family members and friends present remarks of the highlights of the year i did that already and let's see council members thanks and present award to mayor lyman that would be is that you i think i got

0:59:33to start yeah excellent and i purposely did not when i was talking about the prior council members talk about you greg because you're not a prior well you are a prior council member but you're also an ongoing council member and so you're in a special category and

0:59:58i i want to really recognize you for not just what you've done as a council member um although i have to mention one item my favorite we were talking about telecommunications and i i remember i know this evening well and um greg never does anything without doing

1:00:22it thoroughly and so he had a model that he had built of a telephone pole this is this is the example right and he actually had and i said well you know your model is not very good because it was bending over so what does he do he rips out another one that no longer has the defect

1:00:50and that's just like greg because he really that you know he really goes to that last degree of really making it right and making it work and um and i really appreciate that you do all of that uh detailed work for us it really um i say that with every degree of

1:01:13respect and honor and i'm so i mean it really makes it i think it's i think it's because you're an engineer i don't know if that's true or not but i'm sure that's part of the reason but um anyway it really helps pull our council together and and i appreciate it for that and

1:01:30that to me was the perfect example of that uh because it was also funny you know and um i i i think that you've done an excellent job of as being mayor this in this last year because you've done um not only the easy things but you've also dealt with some really difficult

1:01:53issues like some of our planning department issues the the trailer park issue the um the issue over on elm street was another one but the ones that are are you know where you just wish as a council member sometimes that you wonder you know what what it's how difficult it's gonna as you're coming to

1:02:17the council meeting you wonder how difficult it's going to be that night because you know that they're going to be a lot of people speaking and they're not all going to agree and they're not going to be all happy and and as a mayor especially you want to do the best you can for the city

1:02:37and and and also you want to address the issues that the people are presenting and you know that you can't help everybody on all things at all times so i think you've done a really good job of of seeing your way through that chain of things in some really difficult

1:02:57times in terms of public hearings so i want to thank you especially for that and i think that's a way in which i will always remember your service thank you so thank you and um with that i think this is the time right cheryl or is it later no yes this would be this

1:03:17would be the time okay i have the honor of presenting you with a plaque for being mayor this last year and i want to thank you for for your service thank you [Applause] um thank you very much i i did you say my remarks earlier and i do want to thank everyone for your support it's

1:03:44been wonderful and this is my opportunity to ask for comments from the public on this matter so i don't know if there's anybody here who wants to roast me oh there's oh thank you supervisor because i didn't want to get it more than once um i'm john joy i'm i'm proud

1:04:00to represent l street on west county on the board of supervisors and i just wanted to really first start by acknowledging um the service of all of you and especially starting with the two outgoing council members mark and jan i mean i think the city has been so fortunate to have them come

1:04:14back um and to and to all of you i mean and to the new council members um councilmember fideli and and and of course we have having a nurse on as well rochelle is great so nurse for nurse replacement is good um but really elsewhere has a culture of good leadership i think that's really

1:04:33what's so important is that all of you work well together you you are all very thoughtful and no one gets things done alone in politics as you all know and i really look i always appreciate the relationship i have with the city of el cerrito the county's relationship with

1:04:48el cerrito i know we're going to work on developing a library we're going to make that happen many years ago el cerrito in the county worked with regard to ems and and paramedic services as janet remembers and i'm glad you all don't follow this informal eight-year term limit rule

1:05:07because you know the fact that you've been able to be here longer than eight years and i say that to mark and jan who returned you brought your wisdom back right you brought your thoughtfulness back and the residents of el cerrito have benefited from that and so this is

1:05:21really meant to acknowledge all of you greg great working look forward to continue working with you and of course to the new council members as well and uh gabe and janet we don't forget your uh work as well so it's it's a great team so i look forward to continuing to

1:05:34work with all of you great thank you any other speakers cordell thank you john for everything what i was going to say so it is it is wonderful to have some new leadership coming into the city and besides we want to work i want to help you out you know like trying to get more

1:05:55people to come to these meetings because i know um it's very hard for like you know a tuesday night that's very easy for me because i usually be at the city of richmond uh council meeting but i say i come over here first but then because like as janet uh mentioned um some of

1:06:10the issues that um that has been um been accumulated this past year like the um well when we had that when you had the charter school group came in here that evening oh it was like it was this is the first time that it's ever happened uh staying like you know past like the

1:06:25the late night hour it was just very very trying and then then the like what john just said about the new library that was another uh issue that was um that had to go into the wee hours of the night so i'm like this is not richmond city council so i say to we want we want to like keep the

1:06:43momentum going you know like get more people to come to these meetings so hopefully that somewhere around 2017 we can get more people to to come in like you know and be on committees and that type of thing so like when we when we had when we had the alta bates group

1:06:57came here one of the other evenings i was disappointed how we how how they were trying to get how that hospital has been getting shut as a matter of fact as from an experience my niece was born at alta bates hospital my niece and she's only two and i was like i

1:07:12remember because i remember when every time i go to outer base i always think about my niece uh audrey so it's luckily to have a nurse here that that can get help us out so that's it yes please miss potter good evening it's really great to be back in city hall and to see so many of my friends

1:07:38and staff and the folks that i've served with on the council and it's especially reassuring to see the stability and the good governance here in our community i wanted to thank you mayor lyman for your excellent leadership in this year as mayor and congratulate you on your re-election and

1:07:56just in general to thank everybody for their public service here um i served with jan bridges and jan i want to thank you for your service to el cerrito and for your friendship and the good times that we had and i also wanted to acknowledge mark friedman he was

1:08:16he's been a committed leader in our community and for the whole of democracy in this country and i greatly admire him he was very influential in helping me to find my own skills and leadership and especially tonight coming back to city hall where i haven't been for

1:08:39a little bit of time i wanted to acknowledge mark's pivotal role in creating this building itself he and our city manager scott hannon were at a critical time had the vision to create this building and i see that it's such a success i'm so proud of el cerrito i'm proud of the city hall and

1:09:01of this council the old and the new and of our community so i just wanted to thank everyone for their service and to congratulate congratulate the newly elected folks and especially paul um for your friendship and your leadership so i wish you all the best and um

1:09:18congratulations any other any other speakers before i bring it back to the diocese i molly hasten submitted a slip great thank you good evening honorable mayor and council members and staff i want to add my congratulations to our new city council members mayor elect greg

1:09:46lyman re-elect greg lyman paul fideli and rachelle padua comodo the combination of new voices and seasoned ones such as council member gabe quinto and council member john abelson is a great beginning for our community and our city as a whole i'm looking forward to the new

1:10:08leadership in this beautiful city and i want to thank the departing council members for their service and also look forward to becoming more involved in city council meetings thank you so much thank you any other speakers before i bring it back to dias i will bring it back to the diocese and

1:10:30ask the incoming council members if they would like to share any words so i will um your husband's i can see him now so i was going to have mark uh paul go first but since your husband's entering the room i'll have the rochelle go first right hello everybody i would like to thank the residents of

1:10:53el cerrito that voted for me i'm honored to serve you and for those that did not vote for me i hope to earn your respect i would like to thank my husband i'm glad he's in the room for his amazing support throughout the last several years because this has been a several year journey

1:11:14to get to this point i'd like to thank my children kai and kiyoshi for being understanding because mommy always goes out to her meetings and now there will be even more meetings thanks to my family and my extended families for all of their support i have my my mother and my grandmother here in the

1:11:41audience and i really appreciate them coming up from fresno to be with me tonight i also wanted to extend thanks to my mother-in-law who wanted to be here but could not tonight she's been very supportive as well i know the list is long but i'm going to keep going

1:12:03i really want to thank all of my friends and volunteers who cooked for me licked envelopes knocked on doors helped take care of my children and it i just like to point out that in order for a young woman with children that's married to end up in a place like this

1:12:27she really has to have support from her family she really has to have that village around her and so i'm so thankful i'm not here alone i'm here because of the support of my friends and my family and once again my wonderful husband i also went through a training program

1:12:48that helped me get here so i'd like to say a thanks to the emerge program and my emerge sisters that helped me to believe that big dreams are possible and to just go for it i look forward to the next four years as many of you know i turned 40 today i feel very optimistic about the future

1:13:18i know that there will be challenges ahead but i have confidence in our city and i have confidence in our state i know together we can build strong communities that we desire communities where compassion and caring are at the center of all that we do communities that are healthy and

1:13:38inclusive together we can make el cerrito the best place to live to learn to grow we are all surrounded by beauty here in the bay area and i believe a great part of that beauty is each other thanks again for the opportunity to serve today is the first day of a new

1:14:02challenge and i am ready for it thank you [Applause] council member that's tough to follow um a couple things first as jan bridges mentions i think the kleenex box should permanently come over here for the next four years there may be some tears and that may delay the speech

1:14:32a little bit thank you um and also i just for your patience because this turned out to be i i hope to be you know to be a brief speaker in my four years this is a little longer than i had hoped but i'm going to go with this i want to thank you all very much i have so many people to thank for this

1:14:51great honor my wife michelle my daughter uh katie and christina michelle and christina are here where's that kleenex here it is um my friends far near my neighbors the elected officials and others who endorse me my two great comrades on this journey greg and michelle

1:15:09a response of city staff and council and the voters of el cerrita walking the neighborhoods of el cerrito this last year made me further realize how lucky we are to live here our views of course lead out to the bay in the pacific ocean and then go up and down our hillsides

1:15:27over to mount tamapious and south to berkeley and oakland i found the citizens that i met whether they were long-term residents or the new arrivals from chicago vermont berkeley or san francisco are really pleased to be here but they're expecting positive changes in el cerrito too

1:15:45and i believe we are a city at a point of change growing up in the richmond el cerrito area i knew in el cerrito then it was very pleasant but fairly nondescript with the major car congested avenue running running through it positive changes have resulted in a city

1:16:01with gateways restored creeks our city's name in neon over the theater two great transit hubs and even a poet laureate the changes ahead can also be positive for el cerrito as long as the city grows smart and remains transparent going forward as we remain frugal

1:16:21with our city budget and our resources i believe our community will need to number one prioritize the great quality of life that we already have and that means the fire department the police the creeks that have been restored the open space the trails and the recreational

1:16:35facilities that make el cerrito so wonderful we will need to focus our growth around our bart stations to allow more people to live near transit and to be able to walk and bike to their destinations el cerrito is ideally situated to do this and as we work to achieve our state and

1:16:51local housing and environmental goals we can do that we can achieve those things and finally we must continue our pursuit of a new library in el cerrito so that we can truly be the city that we all envision this to be a new library is an investment that i will be proud to work towards

1:17:09needless to say many of us including myself are deeply concerned about here i go deeply concerned about the result of the recent presidential election and what i believe will be real threats to the environment and civil rights in this nation not to mention some international

1:17:28crisis that may happen so now is not the time to stay quiet we must speak out and work at the local and state levels we must do what we think best and remind those who are now shaping our government in washington that they're right that they are right when they say that the federal

1:17:46government does not and should not have all the answers for our citizens did anyone hear governor brown's speech last week he's energized and so should we be our focus now should be here and now let's get to work on these things as a new city council member i won't

1:18:02know all the answers and people may not like the votes i may take and do i have a lot to learn but whatever our differing views and attitudes we should be courteous take care to listen to one another chip in and help around town when there's a need and recognize that we're all part of

1:18:20this community this wonderful mid-century modern community called el cerrito that will turn 100 tomorrow not tomorrow next year um and if you allow me one just a little small personal story and i think rochelle can relate to this because we talked about it once

1:18:35um attending mara vista grammar school here in the sixth grade many years ago i was on the student council and decided to run for class president my teacher mrs prager said that that was just fine as long as i practiced my speech before the class and sought any help i

1:18:51might need well it seems i never did seek that help or practice i flubbed the speech at noon in the multi-purpose room and came in dead last in the election so even though i would eventually work for good elected public servants in washington and sacramento i would never

1:19:08personally go before voters again until last month and now decades later the voters of el cerrito have allowed me to be that public person that public me and to better serve my community i'm very proud of that and finally as i ask my girls every day i promise to be the best that i can be

1:19:30as a city council person i'm so honored [Applause] well i i it's my i'm coming to my last act as mayor and and i will say that i want to thank everyone for uh reelecting me and i will continue to commit myself to our city the environmental quality that our city embraces the

1:20:08the power reduction the power savings the public safety through police fire public works and code enforcement so i'm committed to continuing my position on all of those things trying to get us improvements in our permitting and code enforcement area as well as trying to

1:20:34get us some of the things that we need to be a better city better transit oriented development better transit solutions and more housing which is what we need a lot of um with that i will return it to the clerk to declare the offices vacant yes we're declaring the offices of mayor

1:21:01and mayor pretend vacant and i'm calling for nominations for the office of mayor i nominate council member abelson for the office of mayor and are there call for any further nominations if no further nominations i move that nominations be closed second all in favor of closing nominations

1:21:23indicate by saying i or opposed no aye all those in favor of selecting mayor pro tem abelson as mayor indicate by saying aye aye any opposed no motion carries mayor pro tem abelson has been selected mayor of the city of el cerrito for the upcoming year congratulations

1:21:47[Applause] this is heavy thank you should i say something or do you call for nominations of the mayor protest i i call for your nominations for the office of mayor pro tem of the city of el cerrito i'd be delighted to nominate councilmember quinto for the office of mayor pro tem

1:22:16any other nominations are there any other thank you very much are there any other nominations seeing no further nominations i move the nominations be closed okay all in favor of uh closing nominations say aye aye any objections cinches that motion carries uh [Applause]

1:22:44okay all in favor of the council member gabe quinto as any opposed any abstentions vote congratulations [Applause] okay so this is my opportunity to make a few remarks and i'll try to make them really brief about my vision for the next year and i do have a vision for the next year

1:23:21and i'm very excited about the team that will be leading that vision and so i want to say that it's the guys versus the girls but actually actually i can see beyond that and what i see is that in the past few years this city has done a lot of work and i'm really

1:23:44sorry that uh uh our esteemed city manager was unable to be here tonight but a lot of it is his his doing we have had a lot of study sessions and come up with a lot of policy and i think it's very good policy myself so you could say well why don't you just leave it alone and and just go on

1:24:09but it needs to be everybody's vision and so now that we have this wonderful council and we need to make that vision a common vision and so what we need to do i think is to go through the the various major planning documents like our goals you know things that at

1:24:31that level and and and say well okay here do we agree that this is still what it is and i think the other thing that we should do which i think we are already doing is we're going to go to the new council members and mayor's training session is that true we're all signed up okay great

1:24:52and so that we'll learn all of the actual details of how to run a city from the point of view of a city council so with those two things in place i think we'll be able to do a much better job of running our city we'll know what a form-based code is for example how many here in this room will confess

1:25:18they don't totally know what a form-based code is raise your hand and most people don't really know what a form-based code is and uh so this will bring us a little bit closer to some level of understanding of what it is and a common understanding of what we don't

1:25:38know for that matter it's okay not to know everything but what i really want to do is start out the year by putting us on a common level where where we're all working together i think it'll make us work together as a better team i am very much into transparency

1:25:59and i believe in freedom of speech it's actually how i met my husband howard abelson who's sitting in the audience um it was during the years of the free speech movement and in fact that was actually it was the year the free speech movement began uh at berkeley we were

1:26:20manning a table together uh that was uh banned from campus by uh the administration so we were one of we were in those uh people who had to take our stuff and you know leave and go park on the sidewalk outside and have our table there and that was how i met my husband so i uh when i say i believe

1:26:44in free speech you better believe i i believe in free speech and so if i let somebody speak a little bit longer that maybe isn't a very popular person in terms of their opinion that now you know why it's because i've had the experience of having my freedom of speech

1:27:08denied and i know what it feels like and i know that it's wrong and so i will do my very best and call me if you think i'm not on it but to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to speak i think it's really important and so that will hopefully permeate everything that i do and that we do as a

1:27:32council i think that probably our entire council thinks that me way maybe they weren't all sitting there like i was in 1964 but um the um i think that the thoughts are still there and so so i think that we're going to be a a really good council together and i i'd like to think it's not just the

1:27:56girls versus the guys that this was you know that we're a team and um thank you all for uh selecting me as mayor [Applause] that's it i'm forgetting that i'm running the meeting here i also haven't seen this before okay i'm just wondering if our new mayor pro tem would like to make

1:28:29some remarks or is that not on the agenda sure sure thank you mayor i am excited to be here with mayor janet abelson and with my colleagues here on the council and i'm so proud to have both of you here rochelle and paul finelli and i look forward in working with all of

1:28:54you the we have some things we need to work on for next year and uh and i know we will get many of it done so uh i look forward to it especially with uh when it comes to tod and housing we're going to get it done so i look forward in uh 2017.

1:29:15and i think this is actually the time to introduce family and friends present so i'll start out by first introducing again my husband howard abelson who himself is a former mayor and also my oldest daughter rachel abelson rex valeriga and her daughter haley who is my

1:29:34youngest granddaughter grandchild and they're down visiting for the holidays and um i also i've noticed that there are a number of optimists of el cerrito in the audience and i want to thank you all for being here there's a number of people from the league of women voters here

1:29:57uh including their president right there behind my husband rita xavier and [Applause] is that you joan i can't see your face but i saw it yeah so there you are okay um and um everyone else i and there are so many hard-working people in this town than in so many organizations

1:30:21and i know that i've missed a number i also uh want to call out because i've seen them that rebecca saltzman is here from bart she's our director and i think i saw a number of staff people here and i'm sure that uh paul being uh looking at rod lee did he leave i saw

1:30:45him he was here he was here yeah rebecca saltzman's the new bart board president oh the president i didn't even know that congratulations as the president of bart now and um and have we missed other bart people that anyway that's that's great and uh with that i'll just ask if anyone else

1:31:06wants to enter you know say anything or introduce anyone i would like to introduce my partner 20 years 20 years this past december 9th uh glenn nethercuck and if it wasn't for glenn i wouldn't be here so thank you been introduced [Music] michelle fideli can you stand up with

1:31:34christina just one more time my daughter very good friend steve purser who i went to kennedy high with can you stand up steve he's a very my kitchen cabinet [Applause] all right and i will introduce once again my husband takashi okimoto that's kiyoshi okimoto holding his hands

1:32:01up hi okimoto sitting next to them falling down the line is my mother sharon pardue [Applause] my grandmother margie tinker i have many friends in the audience if you've known me for more than five years please stand up thank you all right and to all anyone that i may have missed

1:32:36and i see lots of people that have helped me with my campaign and so on i appreciate you as well thank you and um here it says ask if any other council members wish to make interductions or remarks are there any more remarks that anyone would like to make okay and um

1:33:01then the very last thing is to announce to everyone here that if you'd like to stay we have a beautiful cake out in the foyer and we hope that you will help us consume that cake and and have a you know have a good time thank you all for coming and um and and we are now

1:33:28adjourned to the next meeting on january the 17th of next year at 7 pm in this room thank you all for coming [Applause] [Music]