Regular City Council and Special City Council Meetings March 21, 2017

0:04:31this is the meeting of the el cerrito city council and i'd like to start by thanking everyone for coming and do we need to spend a minute more looking for seats or are they here do you think the seats no does anyone not have a seat that wants one there's a person

0:04:53we need can we is there a possibility of more one more couple more chairs over here and are there more okay thank you i'll see are there are we still in need of seats looks like we're maybe okay thank you all for coming tonight uh we have a very busy agenda and

0:05:32we'll do it as efficiently as we can while at the same time allowing people to speak so i just want to let you know that ahead of time i want to start out by announcing that at our six o'clock meeting which was a special meeting where we interviewed candidates we did make

0:05:54decisions on the two seats that were being considered there was one seat being considered for a design review board and the person selected was patrick riley and on the human relations commission the person selected was jessica laird and all of the candidates were excellent

0:06:15we had many many candidates applying for all of the seats and it made our job extremely difficult in figuring out who was best there were many people who could have done a superb job in all of those cases i think and i want to really thank everyone who applied it

0:06:36really is very much appreciated that people took the time to go through the application process and we had over how did you count cheryl the number of applications i think we had um you know totally 43 many um are attending committee meetings rather than the board and commission process so

0:06:57i think you interviewed probably 37 or so right so um thank you very much for that from the entire council uh and uh with that we will move on to the regular part of the uh seven o'clock meeting uh and we will start out with roll call please council member fidelity president

0:07:20councilmember lyman here councilmember pardew ikemoto president mayor pro-tem quinto and mayor abelson here thank you thank you um the next is the um pledge of allegiance to the flag or observation of a moment of silence and it will be led by council member rochelle pardue okimoto

0:07:45i pledge allegiance to the power 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 thank you next on the agenda we have council and staff communications uh rochelle do you have any

0:08:12uh no not at the same time i do um last week i attended uh a couple of uh important meetings one was in uh in berkeley at berkeley city hall where my colleague rachelle pardo okamoto and myself along with council members and mayors up and down the i-80 corridor

0:08:37met with jesse arrigan the new mayor of berkeley to make sure that we do whatever it's possible to keep alta bates hospital open and many of our residents here in el cerrito and west contra costa if they don't have kaiser most likely many of them will and have gone to alta bates hospital

0:09:01they would like to close out to bates hospital they already planned on closing it and i'm hoping that we can do whatever it takes to keep it open we have no hospital here in west contra costa except for the small kaiser hospital in richmond so it's important that

0:09:21our residents know that we need to keep it open there's a flyer that we have here on why we'd like to keep altibates open and i believe the city clerk left that jail do you have that uh there's copies in the lobby okay there's copies in the lobby so i hope everyone

0:09:43can get a copy of this and please take a look i also attended the east bay regional parks board their economic summit and it was held at uh and i did attend that with my colleague paul fideli and that was to attend at this beautiful building that was rebuilt uh it's the original southern

0:10:07pacific uh workshop where they fixed the trains that would go underneath uh the bay bridge so it was a beautiful a beautiful event where uh many folks attended so i hope residents here in el cerrito can get a chance to take a look at the new building which is at the foot of the

0:10:28right by the toll plaza there i have this booklet i'll leave it with cheryl our city clerk if anyone wants to take a look at it thank you greg no no no announcements yeah just a quick note i see we have a wic tac presentation today about our west contra costa corridor

0:10:50here for transportation and just to let elsa readings know that with bart we're one step closer to getting closer to silicon valley on saturday the warm springs bart station will be opening and i think the mayor and vice mayor and i are going to be attending on

0:11:08friday to cut the ribbon we won't be cutting it but someone else will just uh to know that we're one it's supposed to be a beautiful station it's been long delayed it's uh uh and we have some probably some difficulties with future stations going forward with the issues that are

0:11:23presently before us but just want you to know it's a nice get further down to fremont now okay and i did a number of things and i'll tell you about some of them i on monday i which was yesterday i met the new chancellor of the contra costa college community college system which is

0:11:51all of the community colleges that serve contra costa county uh includes contra costa college the one that's in sao paulo excuse me san pablo but also some other ones his name is fred woods and he's our set fred wood and he's an amazing person very easy to get along with

0:12:13and i think he will serve the college as well he's had a lot of experience starting with being a student at one and so it was a really rewarding experience attending that and i unfortunately found myself representing the city at the memorial service for dr sally

0:12:43williams who was the wife of the pastor of saint peter's cme methodist church who passed away recently and who was very beloved by her community and had done an amazing number of things in her own right including writing numerous books and [Music] so anyway it's a great loss to our

0:13:12community that she passed away and i will move on i guess and um i wanted to mention a couple of things that are happening the um senior center is a an interesting place it used to be that you could go to the senior center and you would find somebody sitting there

0:13:40relaxing reading the newspaper having a cup of coffee maybe some cookies and that sort of thing well i needed to go over to the senior center this last week and i found that the world had changed and when i say that what i mean is when i went in there there was a computer

0:14:00everywhere you could look and everyone was busy on those computers doing some one thing or another and i i suspect without knowing positively but i think it's probably true that it's a lot of that is due to the current director of the senior center janet bilbus and i don't think she's in

0:14:23the room because she'd probably be red right now if she was but i think she's doing a fantastic job janet and her staff and one of the things that they're doing besides bringing computers there is to bring a lot of programming there on different topics and a couple of the

0:14:45topics to mention are one of the talks is why in the world would you need a fiduciary and that will be held on wednesday may the 3rd at 1 15 and it's open to all at the commun the senior center at 6 500 stockton avenue another one is called the senior driver on

0:15:12presentation and question and answer program and there'll be an a person from the dmv giving a presentation on how to maintain your independence in driving for as long as you can and then i believe that there will be also a discussion of ways to get around if you're no longer driving

0:15:34but but the primary thrust of this discussion will be how to keep your drivers license by driving safe safely the techniques that you can learn and the um some of it's even exercises about such things as keeping your neck so that you can turn it because you've got to turn your head

0:15:55to look over your shoulder to see who's behind you that kind you know that kind of a thing so the idea of this program which i've actually seen before is to have people continue driving for as long as possible um in a safe way so that'll be another one and then

0:16:17there'll also be although i don't have a flyer on it a program by lyft the the car mobility company i guess you'd call it and they're going to be doing a program there talking about their senior lift program and uh that'll be uh coming soon and if um i do you know the i can give you the date

0:16:43and then perhaps you can put it where can we put it so that people can know what it is uh we can put it on the community calendar or on the the recreation okay thank you and that's on our website yes okay great which sounds like a particularly interesting uh program so

0:17:05then [Music] i think that is all i'm going to mention for now because people came here i think for another reason and we should get to it um so are there any staff reports okay and are there any oral communications from the public on items that are not on the agenda and

0:17:32if you would like to make a comment then please fill out a speaker slip and give it to cheryl over here and so so you have speaker slips already yes mayor we have three requests to speak okay on items not on the agenda if you want to speak on an item that is on the

0:17:55agenda you should do so at that time but you could go ahead and fill out a speaker's slip now if you wanted if you don't have one already okay so i'll read uh three names the three names and they are cordell hindler followed by david weinstein and ellie matek sorry well

0:18:15close enough so good evening uh mayor abelson a council members audience and people at home i am cordell handler richmond three things i want to talk about in my three minutes so number one is um at next month's meeting i will bring some flyers for a new show from kosher

0:18:31crosstalk civic theory is called the lost year so i'll bring that next month the number two um i have gotten some feedback from some of the managers um from walgreens and mcdonald's and they have been receiving numerous complaints people being who have been hanging

0:18:45around there in front of their businesses um bothering the customers and it makes them feel uncomfortable so every time they have called the police they it just like 30 minutes of waiting you know and i feel that to me that's i mean it's sort of a good thing i mean i mean the police have other

0:19:02things to do but and i do respect that but still but when you have like you know a business in in el cerrito that's gotta be their their second priority and then another and the second part about business is because i have done some online research uh and some of the

0:19:17retail space around here it's like the rent is is like sky high you rent like an office space it'll run you from at least from 3 000 all the way up to like almost 7 000 a month and nobody cannot afford that on a they're not they're on on a fixed income so i figured that there's something that's

0:19:34got to be done with the city so that's number two and then number three is um i agree with vice mayor quinto we need to save alta bates hospital because and i'll give you a short excerpt my niece audrey was born in alta bay so if we if we can we have got to figure out ways

0:19:49how we don't have any more hospitals in in in this county so except kaiser but we lost one of our our hospitals doctors medical center that was a that was a heartbreak to the community and if we lose out to ba if we lose another hospital what's going to happen i mean i

0:20:05mean the ambulance response times is going to be unbelievable so we've got to figure out a way how we can like save out to base because without debates we don't we don't have any other hospital to go to we have to go all the way through either berkeley or lafayette and uber and

0:20:20nobody cannot go that far so i'm hoping that out the base has got to be safe so that's it so now we'll pass my time to dave thank you uh mayor and council uh i'm here to address you on behalf of two different organizations so i'll start with the first one which is el cerrito trail

0:20:43trekkers and i'd like to thank pam austin from the board for coming also um on march 9th a really awful thing one of the worst things that i've seen on an environmental uh type happened at the fairview open space and that's the land just to the north it's the open land

0:20:59just to the north of the hillside natural area bordered by tamil pius in fairview and beneath the arlington work crews went in there and in violation of state federal and i believe local ordinances they cleared a lot of brush they cut down trees they removed major limbs from live oaks and

0:21:20they just destroyed a tremendous amount of riparian and upland habitat along one of the most beautiful creeks in el cerrito it's damage that will take years to uh be repaired it was absolute absolute tragedy it was called to our attention trekkers and five creeks brought it to the attention

0:21:38of the city i believe the city has done what is needed to stop this other federal agencies and regional agencies have been called in trail trackers and i myself am kicking myself for not having thought well gee whiz here's a developer who wants to turn the fairview open space into fairview

0:21:56estates and to build a bunch of houses maybe just maybe this developer might do something wrong like what they just did maybe we should have stepped in ahead of time and told these guys hey listen before you do some work down there you better understand what the

0:22:11laws are and you better understand that you don't destroy precious habitat in el cerrito so trail trekkers came out with a statement to the city council again i believe that the city staff is handling this but i'm going to read it anyhow trail trackers urges the city to ensure that

0:22:27the damage to creeks trees and other habitat at fairview open space on march 9 will not be allowed to happen again it could happen again we also urge the city to seek the maximum penalties from the perpetrator while working with other federal state and regional regulatory agencies

0:22:47furthermore we believe that those responsible should be required to restore the damage that has been done that's what i had to say about that matter which i think is important on an entirely different manner and wearing a different hat in my role as vice president of the el cerrito

0:23:02historical society i've already distributed to the council a rather long and lengthy two-page description of what i'm about to talk about i'm not going to read it or even summarize it because you already have it if any members of the public are interested it's piled up

0:23:18right there at the front what um the el cerrito historical society is asking the council to do as it approaches the upcoming fiscal year is to work on creating a historic preservation ordinance to have a survey of all the historical places in the city that's something that

0:23:39we believe is important not because it's about preserving the past it's about preserving the quality of life in el cerrito in the future as a writer i get paid for writing about mid-century minor neighborhoods i go down to sunnyvale palo alto places like that all the time and what i see

0:24:00is really bad i see a lot of neighborhoods where i'm sorry the red light maybe i'm wrong here and tell me if i am originally i wanted to fill out two forms um could i not no no seriously i missed my joke i believe that these are two different items and i believe i should

0:24:17be able to speak for three minutes on each one sorry and i don't believe he can see the lights because of the laptop that's open i actually can't uh see the lights either because that's in the way thank you okay well thanks bunch sorry about that uh but we do have a letter

0:24:39correct dave but i mean really i really believe that speaking of two different items according to if you had done it that way then that would have been fine but at this point you haven't so um right the um are there any more speakers um not at this time there is one for the

0:25:07presentation yeah okay there was oh there is i don't have another one for her hi ellie matica i'm [address removed] i just wanted to give really quick feedback about lunafest this past weekend at el cerrito high school i was able to attend the event along with some of my friends and it was

0:25:29phenomenal the films were great the turnout was great everything went really really well and smoothly and i think that events like that are great for the city so i wanted to encourage you i wanted to give you that feedback that you know this was awesome and encourage you to continue to

0:25:47host have el cerrito continue to be a host for associations like lunafest as well as some other festivals of similar nature so thanks thank you okay uh with that uh we'll move on to the next agenda item then which is um the pres we have presentations the first one is from the um

0:26:11is on the west contra costa transportation uh high capacity study and it will be presented by john nemeth who is the executive director of wic tech the west contra costa transportation advisory committee hey thank you madam mayor and good evening council members

0:26:29as mayor abelson mentioned i'm john nemeth from wic tech i'm here tonight with our other staff person leah greenblatt who is here behind me in the orange sweater and i'm also here with um rebecca cole strand who's the project manager on the consultant side of things

0:26:44it was sitting just a couple seats down from leah tonight we're going to give you a presentation on the west county high capacity transit study this is something that mayor abelson is quite familiar with sitting on the wic tech board maybe new uh for some of you but we've

0:27:02been working on this for a number of months now we're getting down towards the end and we thought this would be an opportune time to go out to all the councils in west contra costa you're our final one we've been to all the other jurisdictions and also the mack and elsa bronte and gotten some

0:27:17good feedback so we're looking forward to getting some feedback from you tonight rebecca is actually going to give the presentation and it's kind of a broad overview it's about a 20-minute show if you want some more details we encourage you to go to our website and

0:27:31rebecca will give you the address for that where you can get into some more of the technical documents and and some more of the details if you're interested i'll also mention too that for any of the members of the public we we welcome your feedback they can do that by

0:27:44speaking here tonight but also can send us comments can take an online survey we'd be happy to have whatever feedback members of the public would like to give to us so with that i will turn things over to rebecca and if there any questions that you have that are more

0:28:01appropriate for staff that rebecca can't answer we'd be happy to do that thank you john good evening mayor abelson and members of the city council it's a pleasure to be here this evening and thank you for giving us this opportunity to prevent present information on the high capacity

0:28:21transit study i want to start by just giving a broad overview of the uh who's participated in this study in addition to the member agencies of wic tech which includes all the cities the study sponsors who have contributed financially to the study include bart contra costa transportation authority

0:28:43and mtc study partners included ac transit caltrans capital corridor and westcat and the study team that is shown on the bottom just includes all the members of the consultant team that participated in preparing information what is high capacity transit it's substantially it's transit that provides

0:29:08substantially higher levels of passenger capacity with fewer stops it travels at higher speeds and affords greater reliability for transit users it's the type of service that one might use as their daily commute to work we were looking at high capacity transit to provide transit options for the

0:29:27growing population and job markets in west county to address congestion in west county particularly on the i-80 corridor and also to meet a variety of policy objectives associated with more sustainable communities for west county in the future we had a very comprehensive study

0:29:48process we've been at this for nearly two years now since the initiation of the study and i'm not going to go through all the steps but you'll see here that we're nearing the end we're looking at the final alternatives which we'll present to you this evening and

0:30:06we're also working on funding options and strategies for implementation of the various projects we've also had a very extensive public outreach effort this has been very important from the outset for wic tac the first interaction was a telephone town hall that was held in november of

0:30:292015 and that had an outstanding level of participation it was done in cooperation with the ccta and over 2 000 people participated on that phone call and the the participants or the executive director and the wic tech board chair were able along with ccta executives to field a number of

0:30:56questions from the public in april of last year we had a round of public workshops and we administered an online survey that allowed members of the public to provide feedback on the initial eight alternatives that were presented for public review and this is our second

0:31:18round of public outreach where we've been going around to all the city councils and the elsa bronte mac to gain additional input we also have an online survey for this round of public meetings and at the end of the presentation i'll give a website address where people can

0:31:38go and take that survey to provide their input on the alternatives so why are we what was the um high capacity transit study undertaken in the first place well um growth is occurring in the region and also in west county as you experience on a daily basis i-80 is very

0:32:00congested and is often identified as the most congested section of freeway in the bay area also bart is getting very crowded and particularly at the el cerino del norte station which it also serves as a location for many um for transit interfaces there are a lot

0:32:22of buses that provide access to the bart system at the del norte station in addition to the growth in the region west county is expected to grow by about 29 in population by 2040 and jobs are expected to grow by about 36 percent this is going to translate to increase

0:32:45in the vehicle miles traveled so the purpose of this study was try to address get some of those vehicle miles out of cars and into transit by providing transit options so we looked at multiple options for the corridor when we first started out and we've kind of focused in on a few of

0:33:05these options and the recommendations that we're going to present to you tonight we're not asking you to narrow them down to one or two alternatives to move forward but we're really providing it as a resource for wictac and the local jurisdictions and as a road map for how west county might

0:33:25move forward to create a sound transportation system for for their residents and employees this is a study area it included all of the five counties as well as the unincorporated areas and we identified two primary travel markets as a result of the early work that we undertook of

0:33:45course the i-80 corridor but also the san pablo corridor was identified as a major north-south alternative to i-80 so i want to provide an overview of the five alternatives that we've carried forward express bus alternative we have two bus rapid transit alternatives

0:34:07a commuter rail some commuter rail options and two alternatives for extending bart north from the richmond station the express bus alternative the idea here is to provide additional service not only into san francisco but we've identified the potential for new service

0:34:27directly from west county into northern alameda county it was identified as one of the primary travel demand markets and it has great potential we believe for providing additional transit alternatives for west county we the express bus is something that can be implemented incrementally um

0:34:52we can start by the introduction of new buses along the corridor and then that can be expanded by providing more transit priority improvements including some options for improving access to and from the freeway by providing direct freeway ramps the as i indicated the improvements can be

0:35:14implemented incrementally with the introduction of new bus operations in the short term and then in the longer term to provide improvements to freeway ramps and parking facilities with the improvements that are proposed we did projections for the year 2040 using the contra costa

0:35:34county travel demand model and we are projecting a total of 11 000 a little over 11 000 transit riders using express bus in 2040 with about 3 000 of those being net new riders as a result of the specific improvements that we're talking about here um this is just a summary of the express

0:36:00bus improvements um one of the things that we did were was separate the improvements into short-term medium-term and long-term types of investment strategies and we costed the investments in the same way the idea was that we needed some improvements that could be implemented immediately that

0:36:22would show some benefit to the existing congestion but there were also other things that would require more long-term study and consideration so for the express bus alternative the total improvements would cost 245 million if they were and if all of the improvements were

0:36:43implemented over time however they could be implemented incrementally or some of the improvements could be selected for implementation while others may not be this just shows the proposed service express bus service to alameda county buses would leave from the hercules transit

0:37:06center and stop at the richmond transit center and would provide direct service to alameda county berkeley emeryville and oakland along some of the more heavily traveled corridors and then ultimately into those downtown areas with connections to bart stations just to provide you a little bit more

0:37:34information on what we're talking about in terms of new access ramps for the express bus facilities the um right now buses have the disadvantage of having to move from the outside travel lanes or from the inside travel lanes to the outside travel lanes to exit the freeway

0:37:56at the city of or the richmond parkway however there is an existing ramp that goes directly from the richmond parkway interchange down onto the freeway ramps that allows buses to go directly into the hov lanes the picture on the right is whoops i'm sorry the picture on the right is an

0:38:16example from bellevue washington where they have double lanes from the hov lanes going directly to and from the freeway with bus stops at those ramps and we're proposing that additional ramp ramps could be provided along the i-80 freeway both on the north side of

0:38:37richmond parkway as well as improvements at the hercules transit center the next option i want to talk about is bus rapid transit and um just because we don't have any bus rapid transit projects that have been implemented in the bay area i want to provide a little

0:38:56background as to what bus rapid transit service is right now we have uh and there's kind of a continuum of improvements that could be implemented right now we have a rapid bus the 72r which operates on san pablo avenue uh constitutes rapid bus service and it's branded service that has

0:39:16oftentimes transit signal priority as well as queue jumps to facilitate buses moving past congested points on the surface roadways a full brt in contrast a full brt in contrast would um have dedicated bus lanes this is an example from cleveland ohio now um there because brt is a scale scalable

0:39:44type of improvement um you can also have hybrid type of facilities that have some dedicated bus lanes but adapt to the conditions in local jurisdictions and provide some mixed flow lanes some dedicated bus lanes with also with additional station amenities and other

0:40:05things that facilitate improved transit the first brt service i want to talk about is one that's proposed on san pablo avenue and mcdonald avenue this alternative would serve the heart of the west county transit market it's the san pablo court is one of the east bay's highest ridership lines

0:40:26and it also would serve many of the priority development areas that have been identified by west county and those are areas where that have been identified at a regional level that are intended to uh to focus in dense development so that it's um also integr well integrated with transit

0:40:48services the extension of the the brt project into west county would be consistent with a plan that alameda county and ac transit have already initiated it's called the san pablo multimodal corridor study and that that has just received some additional funding from the wic tech board and from

0:41:13ccta and the wic tech staff plan to participate directly in that study which would allow the improvements for brt to be considered all the way from downtown oakland up into contra costa county and up to the richmond parkway the projections for ridership with these

0:41:34improvements are about 11 500 total daily writers in 2040 with about 3 200 net new riders as a result of the investments on san pablo and mcdonald this again just breaks out the improvements over time and the cost for those improvements specifically i want to mention the

0:41:58locations where exclusive or dedicated bus lanes are proposed so san pat on san pablo avenue they would extend from the el cerrito del norte bart station up to 23rd street on mcdonald avenue from san pablo to on mcdonald avenue from san pablo to 23rd street and then in the future the

0:42:25possibility for a further extension up to richmond parkway the total cost for these improvements would be 243 million the bart brt service on 23rd street is the second brt alternative that we looked at it again would serve the heart of west county transit market but rather

0:42:47than providing connections into alameda county it would be the primary service area would stay in west county it would provide connections from the proposed ford ford point ferry terminal in richmond with the potential for also serving the richmond field station

0:43:06and providing service to both richmond and san pablo the cities of richmond and san pablo like the other brt service this alternative affords flexibility and implementation and the projected ridership for this alternative would be a little over 53 100 riders in 2040.

0:43:29this just breaks down the costs over the short medium and long term with the potential types of improvements that might be implemented the total cost of this project which has a lower number of miles is 179 million dollars and again to just point out where the dedicated lanes might occur bus only

0:43:52lanes were proposed on 23rd street between mcdonald and rheem with the potential for future bus only lanes extending up to hilltop mall now there are sections of 23rd that right now are only two lanes with a large median so there would need to be consideration of whether all of

0:44:12that section could uh operate as um as a dedicated with dedicated lanes there was also a proposal to have bus only lanes on 23rd street oh i'm sorry no that that covers the extent of the bus only lanes on 23rd street commuter rail we looked at two different options for how service might be

0:44:37improved in west county the regional intermodal transit center which is being proposed in hercules would provide a new transit transfer opportunity they're proposing an additional stop on the the capital corridor line which could also provide service to amtrak passengers

0:45:01and we also looked at the potential for a capital corridor fair subsidy and this was something that was introduced by supervisor joya early on in the process the idea would be that right now the capital corridor which is a commuter rail service providing uh commuter uh

0:45:21options and connections north to sacramento yolo and sacramento county if we provided a fair subsidy that for for trips that are occurring just within a more localized area in other words the west county area and connections into alameda county what would be the potential impact on

0:45:46ridership so the wic tax staff undertook a study and and they looked at the potential for 75 percent fair subsidy to see what the increased ridership might be and um that would generate about 186 new riders with a 75 subsidy the cost of a three-year pilot program

0:46:07would be about 5.7 million dollars and um if a new station were be were to be provided in the capitol on the capitol corridor at hercules the projected ridership for that particular station would be 440 new daily riders the cost for the fair subsidy is uh indicated here and i'm going to update

0:46:35the information a little bit when we first prepared this slide the city of hercules had submitted an application for a tiger grant with the federal government so the total cost outstanding cost for implementation of the regional intermodal transit center is about 68

0:46:54million dollars they had submitted a grant to the federal government for an additional 17.4 million which left an outstanding balance of 51 million dollars to be funded they did not receive that tiger grant so the actual shortfall is now at about 68 million dollars

0:47:15and finally i want to talk about the two extensions to bart that we considered right now bart carries about 35 percent of the transit ridership in west county on an average weekday the el cerrito del norte bart station is reaching capacity because there are so many the demand is so great

0:47:34from people that are not only coming by bus but are also looking to park at this station it fundamentally serves or effectively serves as an end of the line station because the richmond station is quite a ways off of the freeway so as you know a lot of passengers are

0:47:53using the el cerrito del bar del norte station as their access to the bart system so one of the reasons that we looked at this extension was that it would provide a service closer to where people actually lived it would allow them to access the bart system to the north and

0:48:11uh and hopefully take some of those trips off of i-80 the this alternative provides the most reliable transit service because it's an exclusive guideway we did a projection of the ridership for 2040 and at that time we project a total of 32 500 riders in west county this is a

0:48:38substantial growth over the current ridership it's about uh it's double the existing ridership about 300 uh yeah 6 300 of those trips would be uh as a result specifically for the proposed bart investment or extension from the richmond station but i do want to make a point here because

0:49:02there is a substantial like a 50 percent growth that's projected by the year 2040 even without any of these improvements and it's questionable whether the existing bart facilities in west county could actually handle that demand so we did costing for the bart extension

0:49:21and let me say a few words about this because the price tag is very large so the bart station or the bart extension is something that doesn't lend itself uh as well as some of the other improvements to uh incremental implementation so um the way some of these bart projects have been

0:49:43advanced in other parts of the bay area is you just advance it phase by phase so you start by developing the project further you may do some initial program level environmental review and engineering which allows you to uh to actually acquire right-of-way if uh if you choose

0:50:04to and then you advance it into program or project level environmental review with the long-term intention of actually doing construction the final design and construction of the bart system this extension looked at both of these extensions extended service from the

0:50:21existing richmond station up to hercules transit center which has a an existing bart parking lot at it so we looked at an alignment that uh stayed that followed the existing rail alignment then cut to the west or east excuse me via rum rail boulevard to a station at contra

0:50:44costa college then we looked at the options there are really three options for stations along this corridor we paired for the model runs we paired a contra costa station with a richmond parkway station just because of the spacing but it's also possible that you could have a stop at hilltop mall or

0:51:06at ap and way not likely that you would do all of these probably two intermediate stations with one terminal station the total cost the total cost for improvements on this alternative is 3.6 billion dollars so it's a very large price tag we also looked at a second

0:51:30alternative alignment because there was some concern expressed over the potential impacts to rum real uh residents of rum rail boulevard by running a bart um system along uh rum rail and so we looked at an alternative that actually uh stayed within the rail right away a little bit

0:51:51longer and then swung north at richmond parkway and went directly into hilltop mall so this alignment had a station at hilltop mall then we looked at another option at apian way and then on to hercules of course this one could also have a station at richmond parkway as well

0:52:14and this alternative was 8.8 miles in length the total cost for this option is 4.2 billion dollars um the reason that these alternatives are so expensive is that the topography in this area and the developed urban environment are very very challenging for trying to introduce

0:52:41a major rail system and it requires that the majority of the line is either in tunnel or on structure rather than at grades so it becomes fairly expensive we estimated the cost of per mile for these two extensions would be in the range of about 450 to 475 million dollars per mile now how does

0:53:08that fit in with the range of bart extension costs for other extensions that have been undertaken in the bay area there's quite a range on the low end some have been done for 20 million dollars that may have been some of the initial investment in the system but the most

0:53:26recent uh proposal to extend to santa clara from the berryessa station through downtown san jose is running about over 700 million a mile so it is within the range of the bart um of costs for bart extension this is just a summary of the alternatives the costs as well as the

0:53:54daily ridership and the net new ridership so you can see um that the bart alternatives generate the highest ridership but there also is fairly significant ridership that's generated by making investments in transit and we believe that that it's not an either or situation that you

0:54:14really need to have a strong trans transit network for west county in the future you need to look at a combination of these improvements to serve the county residents so in addition to we've provided information on costs and on on costs and ridership but we also

0:54:36looked at a number of other performance measures such as speed and reliability improving access and connectivity within the county and also looking at how these proposed improvements fit in with local policies and plans and what the public support was for the options we have

0:54:58we generally in the surveys that have been done to date there's support for both a bart extension as well as bus improvements in west county and we're in the middle of our second round of surveys uh as a latest count we had about uh 500 responses and that was about a week ago

0:55:17so we're expecting a pretty good uh turnout for the survey results we're looking for feedback from you and also from members of the public this is our last city council presentation the online survey will be available to take through the end of this week and then we will be finalizing

0:55:40the plan we're preparing a draft plan right now in fact just submitted it to the wic tax staff for their first review today and we will be bringing it the draft before the wic tech board in april and um the final plan will come back to the board in may for adoption

0:56:00thank you for taking the time to listen to the presentation tonight the website for providing for getting more information on the study and also for um taking the survey is west county transit dot we encourage everyone to go online and fill out the survey and with that i'll

0:56:23conclude the presentation and we're happy to answer any questions that you have okay do council members have any questions [Music] okay paul let me start um thank you very much for this um obviously the study was needed i think some of the results aren't as easy to take

0:56:46coming back here and i'll just make a few points on a few of these things obviously the art proposals would serve the most need and provide more riders with the most options but the costs are huge and as you say the tunneling and i guess going through residential areas and

0:57:07aerial structures are part of the reason for that i'm just concerned about you know bart is moving trying to go to livermore and there's concern about that and the ridership and so many projects in line for money that funding right now is paramount so it's a very difficult

0:57:22situation on the capitol corridor the um there's not many new additional commuter riders for the cost it seems to me it doesn't increase very much uh the number of riders for what might be needed but you the consideration is to have that hercules stop for the capital corridor

0:57:42is that correct that's part of the plan yeah the city of hercules has been pursuing that and they have been trying to generate additional support because it is uh it really is a regional and inter-sit inter-city service so it really is a different market than the

0:57:59daily commuter services that bart or the buses provide and and finally on on the brt are you considering both brt plan options or at the same time or one or the other and i was wondering whether or not with el cerrito you've talked to our specific san pablo specific plan people

0:58:20because we have our own plan here and that would certainly change things we have a representation from uh the city of el cerrito on the attack the wic tech tax so they've been participating in this study um we are not going to recommend eliminating any of these options right

0:58:38now that we're really leaving that uh decision to the just to the decision makers the elected officials the staff and feel that um any of these uh improvements could be implemented and would have some positive benefits so it's really uh which ones have a strong

0:58:58champion to move ahead and and okay so we'll leave it to you thank you and just the final point is and i might not be available but when you talk about riders uh taking these options it might be nice to know how many cars are taken off the highways i don't know if that's a

0:59:14a factor that you can't or put on there but you know within state environmental laws we're trying to get cars off of the freeway so this would be helpful for us to see that as well yeah this would result in overall reduction in vmt for the west camp for west county

0:59:29which is which is actually pretty good it's a small percentage about three percent i believe but that in itself is amazing because usually you just get a reduction in per capita vehicle miles traveled but this actually uh would result in a reduction but that's if you put all of these

0:59:46improvements together thank you okay yeah good evening uh thank you for the presentation um i've got a couple questions one is you you use the terminology at some point of west county riders so the rider projection numbers i was confused as to whether they were

1:00:07total riders or west county origin riders residents and and how is it addressed with a growth that's projected in solano and marin so um to in response to the first question the riders uh are the number of boardings in west county and we uh we looked at and isolated the

1:00:29ridership to that those riders that are actually being generated or destined for west within west county so um some of these trips would end outside the county but they have at least one trip end in west county so in using the contra costa county travel demand model it takes into

1:00:50account the projected growth by 2040 for all of the bay area region okay great um and is it typical these ridership numbers that you were giving us of three thousand five thousand six thousand um compared to the population that you showed i think on the third or

1:01:09fourth slide we're adding 75 000 residents and we're really only adding even if you added them all together 20 000 new riders so i'm just curious if that's a typical ratio of resonance to riders yeah i um so number one it's really hard to make a dent in the transit

1:01:33mode share but i think the we looked at the number of writers the the the um ridership numbers i provided were the difference between the no build alternative 2040 in other words uh what would be occurring in 2040 without the project and then with the project there also is another increment of

1:01:54ridership that are potential writers that are the growth in uh ridership that occurs between now and 2040. so the improvements would actually be serving all of those writers as well as those just the the specific number of writers that were identified just with the introduction of this new

1:02:15service so in many instances when you look at total writers it's much greater okay so let me ask the question slightly differently then because you were giving us total riders on some of these of 12 000 20 000 riders total writers again you're projecting our residents to be

1:02:33about 350 325 000 in the year 2040 is that a typical ratio of riders to residents yeah i think i think so right now the mode share is about 12 and i think it would it would slightly go up with these investments okay great thank you um thank you i've actually of course had

1:02:55an opportunities to ask a number of questions but i did recently uh within the past week look at the questionnaire and i found an interesting problem uh from from an el cerrito point of view which was there was a question that asked which of the five alternatives

1:03:16would you prefer and i didn't seem to see stuff that was actually benefiting el cerrito at all much directly uh do you know which question you know of the question i'm talking about there the five one of the of the original alternatives i think was uh kind of dropped

1:03:43well we did look at the one coming out of del norte i think yeah because of cost uh so then which of the other five alternatives without even going through the i just want to know that there's one and i want to know what it is so i think both of the uh bart alternatives would have

1:04:02as well as the san pablo brt project would have a positive impact for the city of el cerrito and what the bard extension would do is really redistribute the trips not only would it introduce new trips on the bart system but with the three new stations but it would also

1:04:21redistribute trips uh at the existing station so it alleviates some of the crowding at the existing el cerrito del norte station that when you get on the train the people are already there it doesn't really it just get lets them on first yes exactly that's what it would do

1:04:42and i happen to be a person who rides bart la a lot and what i've observed is that i get on at the plaza and what have i what i've observed is sometimes it's standing room only at the plaza now so people getting on earlier am i right paul so it's actually won't benefit that

1:05:05won't that particular variation would not benefit people in el cerrito because they'll just be getting on later but and i say that as a writer but i i wanted to know so which one of those things so the okay so that that's what how you would answer that question the the the thing i was

1:05:27wondering about was the um the express buses uh don't ever i i thought i heard previously said not to necessarily tonight that um oakland was a you know when for people who start their uh work people for people who live in west county who go to a work destination

1:05:50elsewhere that's south of here say what one of your study data things showed was not only do they go to san francisco but there's a large number of people who also go to places like oakland and berkeley and so what i was wondering about with the express buses if any of them would serve el

1:06:17cerritos beginning points yes there was uh you're absolutely right we did talk about the introduction of express bus service starting up in hercules and going to berkeley emoryville and oakland i did not mention but one of the options for the express bus is a express bus transit center at i-80 and

1:06:44mcdonald that would provide a interface with the brt so that would provide an opportunity for uh for residents in this vicinity to actually access the express buses and then as an alternative to bart to get into northern alameda county for people who live in el cerrito they

1:07:06mostly are already south of there so for example if you worked in downtown if you worked at the university it doesn't go to the university yes it would go to downtown berkeley which would then provide a connection to the university it would go there it would go the connection would be to

1:07:29downtown or to the somewhere at the university yeah area and there would be something so you could get on could you get on and else actually get on an el cerrito would that include that uh the express bus uh option had a stop like i said a mcdonald and i-80 uh the

1:07:47other option is the uh san pablo brt which uh runs along san pablo boulevard all the way to downtown oakland that would require a transfer at university okay so there isn't a new there isn't really a something within el cerrito other than if there were a brt instead

1:08:09of rapid bus correct or in addition to the rapid bus say i wanted to respond to your question about bart and you know being getting on when a little bit with passengers getting on a little bit earlier than um el cerrito one project that bart is working on separately which complements

1:08:34our study is you know they want to get their new software that will allow the more frequent bart trains which would help reduce congestion on the trains and then they'd also are purchasing new trains which would allow for longer trains or again more frequent trains

1:08:56and as um you may be aware they're they're just starting their discussions i'm familiar with all all those things but they aren't part of the study right so that's this complements that in that work looking for things that that what the what sort of initiated my

1:09:15question was the ask the the question that said pick which alternative you like the best and i couldn't seem to find an el cerrito alternative that was why i was asking the question because i was going on saying if i were somebody who lived in el cerrito which actually i

1:09:34am which which way would i answer this question and i found that there was no way to do that that i could see that was um that would work for trips headed south which is uh what i was looking for i was looking how i would answer it if that were the question that's what i couldn't find an answer

1:09:59for so i was just wondering if i missed something there no i think we we listed all the options that we are evaluating so i i take your point you feel that uh perhaps they don't serve provide as much benefit to the city of el cerrito thank you okay um do we have any uh speaker slips we have

1:10:21one okay why don't we we take that cordell hindler and then we'll get what i think most people in the room came for right so um i'll make mine real quick so i'm like you uh mary abelson i have ride in the barn on a regular basis and it's and it's very very very congested uh especially like you

1:10:40know in the morning time that is just really the worst time uh um to get on board is it it gets crowded on on certain days so i'm i really appreciate the presentation but as you know i ha i use i ride bart and i take the bus on a regular basis so i figured this is

1:10:58an opportunity for people to um whoever uh when they commute to bart it's just like it's just like it's just like you just gotta figure out the timing of the if you wanna if you're gonna go on a train or not so i figured this is an opportunity so i'm thinking that this is

1:11:12a good opportunity um if people don't want i want people to take the bar or bus or or ferry so i think this is a good presentation so i'm i'm on your side mayor abelson thank you um okay so that completes that presentation and we now move to adoption of the consent calendar

1:11:33um is there a motion or i've got a question yeah i've got a question for the city attorney item 5c is that dependent on a decision in item 7c no they're separate okay they're there there is obviously a relationship between them but um one of because the the software um is related to dispatch

1:12:01services but they're separate okay great thank you oh then i will move items 5a through 5d 5a approval of minutes 5b consulting services to restore uh fairmont park 5c computer aided dispatch software 5d 2015 and 2016 general plan annual progress reports second

1:12:22okay um anything further okay motion by uh greg lyman seconded by gabriel quinto and um all in favor please say aye aye any opposition any abstentions emotions carries unanimously so with that we will move on to policy items um and uh we're next going to be handling item 7a which is affirming the

1:12:52city's values and declaring el cerrito a sanctuary city and supporting senate bill 54 the california values act staff report i'm just going to do a quick introduction okay and then karen's going to give the all the nitty gritty thank you my name is georgina edwards i'm a resident here at

1:13:15el cerrito for 12 years i also happen to be in the human relations commission and several council members are are from that commission so i've learned a lot from you over the years as well as from our staff liaison who's here and i'm here as as a as an elsa reading

1:13:32to affirm our values here in our town and to ask um council to wreck um that i recommend that you declare el cerrito sanctuary city and they also support senate bill 54 the california values act and i have a little bit of information to share with you but before

1:13:50i do i want to show you for me this whole process over the last few months since the first residents started talking about the topic of sanctuary city and ensuring a welcoming place for all what's been really amazing and rewarding and healing in some ways to to witness

1:14:11and be a part of is a whole community coming together neighborhood groups uh advocacy groups on one topic and and laboring really hard and researching researching and informing each other about what we wanted to bring to our city so i suspect there's a lot of people here with with

1:14:32me that came here for this topic that have been working alongside the human relations commission as well as with staff and i just thought maybe they could raise your hand so you could get a sense of those folks [Applause] excuse me if we could actually i was going to say this before we got

1:14:54started but you kind of got ahead of staff is that if people could not clap or show displeasure it would be very helpful and make the meeting go faster and i know it's hard not to clap but i think it it also will it'll it'll help and i would appreciate that thank you

1:15:16um i wanted to share um some people here in the room may be here for the first time and i wanted to i'm sure that el cerrito has for decades embraced policies and legislation that promote inclusivity respect and dignity el cerrito residents participated for a long time in counties

1:15:34and efforts at the county level and then in the 80s a resident task force came to the city in fact to council and asked for the creation of a human relations commission which was established in 1989 and in those days as most of us know residents of in that group and then in the hrc were

1:15:55advocating for recognizing and honoring the legacy of dr martin luther king by celebrating the federal holiday that had been signed into law by president reagan in 1983 and in in this past january we actually celebrated um our 28th um celebration of dr martin luther king and

1:16:15the values he inspired for us to reach for so that's a little bit of a context of our human relations commission also separately over the decades in our town since it was founded in 1917 our residents have gone through a lot of different um chapters in our life here

1:16:35in el cerrito and unfortunately sometimes federal action can contribute to sometimes to positive outcomes like in the case of of our mlk honoring mlk but sometimes to negative outcomes in fact in 1942 when president roosevelt signed executive order 9066 it actually

1:16:59resulted in the relocation and incarceration of japanese americans many of them here in el cerrito who are displaced who are contributing to the vital growth of our community many of the leaders business owners in particular well known for the amazing floral shops that they ran including one right

1:17:24next door here to city hall and there's a whole reason why the new development that's going up will honor japanese americans and their contribution to our city so in light of that um it's not surprising that after the presidential election many al-saritans came together for different reasons

1:17:46many in this room formed into indivisible groups and huddles and march groups and the young democrats got even more involved a group called el cerita progressives to figure out what are what are some issues we really want to safeguard and protect and continue to foster in our

1:18:05town and since the human relations commission is tasked by city council to educate initiate and encourage eliminating all forms of prejudice and district discrimination we were fortunate enough to have community members approach approach human relations commission to

1:18:27um to to investigate the issue of um what what does it mean to protect immigrants in our town and we had a a few meetings leading up to our february first meeting and in that meeting we had 70 people come and what i want to state firmly is that there was a lot of work that went into

1:18:53the resolution that you will review a lot of consultation a lot of modeling at work that was being done in other cities but what is just beautiful to witness um that in that february meeting was we had residents that really experienced what it means to be discriminated against

1:19:14what it means to suffer persecution political persecution there's a young woman who for the first time shared that she she was an undocumented um resident um so all of this um hard work to provide this resolution comes from people that are have life experience that has shaped them

1:19:36that teaches them that they must stand up for each other and make sure that our town is safe for everybody and through this process everybody's been respectful thoughtful and compassionate that's the part that i will always remember after february there was a subcommittee

1:19:57and i need to acknowledge commissioner aga and commissioner gleck who worked really hard with with karen pinkos our liaison to draft the initial um resolution and then there were many uh more opportunities for residents to provide feedback and they did so at the march

1:20:14meeting and then additionally directly with to karen so um i just wanted to share a little bit of the the context and um say thank you for considering this resolution and thank you to all my com all my community all my fellow us readings for all the work they have put into this

1:20:31good night thank you you're next karen i'm next usually staff would be first okay thank you georgina and i'm karen pinkus i'm assistant city manager and i'm the staff liaison to the human relations commission it's appropriate that georgina actually kicked this off

1:20:50because this was a direct recommendation to the city council from the human relations commission as you've seen in your staff report that they distinctly passed two motions for your consideration of this resolution and an additional resolution regarding senate bill 54.

1:21:09and i want to thank the commission for all of their hard work they have been um steadfast and judging is correct it's been a really thoughtful compassionate process so what i'm going to do is i'm going to give you a little bit of background on kind of the a bit of the legal and

1:21:25impacts and what uh el cerritos practices are with respect to the resolution and then we're here and the police chief is here and the city attorney is here to be able to answer any uh questions you may have on any of this background so just sort of as an overview and i'll try to be as

1:21:42brief as i can um but um considering that you know there may be a lot of people that are are unfamiliar with how we got to this process so sort of i might ask a question so i don't get uh decided again are there any other uh speakers before um so it'll be you would finish your presentation and

1:22:03then we can go to public questions oh yes okay and are are there any other speakers from staff or or uh that i don't know about no i will i'm actually going to um introduce uh the police chief as well to give some free statements but that will be during my staff presentation so we'll

1:22:25okay we'll do that next and then we'll go to the okay comments and then we'll go to the public which we're looking forward to hearing okay thank you great thanks so overview on sort of sanctuary cities and state and local efforts that are that have come around us which continues

1:22:42to evolve give a bit of a picture of the landscape there is no real true definition of the term sanctuary city there's no real federal or state definition there's no law that actually explicitly provides what that means but it's often used to refer to local agencies that have

1:23:01policies in place that limit assistance for local enforcement of federal immigration laws and including any expenditure of local resources to cooperate with the u.s immigration and customs enforcement agency aka ice the federal government has the exclusive authority to enforce the civil

1:23:20provisions of federal immigration law and i apologize i'm reading a little bit of what these laws actually are called and they say for context the law generally permits that the federal government can permit but not require the assistance of local officials in their immigration efforts

1:23:39there are two pieces of legislation that sort of oversee this that were enacted in 1996 the personal responsibility and work opportunity reconciliation act and the illegal immigration reform and immigrant responsibility act that act has a section a particular note which is

1:23:57referred to throughout as section 1373 which says notwithstanding any other provision of federal state or local law a federal state or local government entity or official may not prohibit or in any way restrict any government entity or official from sending to or

1:24:14receiving from the immigration and nationalization service information regarding citizenship or immigration status lawful or unlawful of any individual so both of those pieces of legislation were designed to facilitate communication between state and local law enforcement agencies however it does

1:24:32not require local cooperation or information sharing with federal immigration authorities however they do both excuse me both prohibit a policy statute or ordinance that directly prohibits voluntary sharing of information once it's acquired so it's kind of the baseline that we're working with

1:24:51on january 25th the president issued executive order third 13768 enhancing public safety in the interior of the united states which states that jurisdictions that willingly refuse to comply with section 1373 aka sanctuary jurisdictions are not eligible to receive federal grants

1:25:10except as deemed necessary for law enforcement purposes by the attorney general or the secretary the executive order attempts to define sanctuary city as jurisdictions that willfully refuse to comply with statute 1373 and the secretary of homeland security does have the independent discretion to

1:25:28designate any jurisdiction um according to the order a city would be subject to enforcement actions if they violate 1373 or if they have policies or practices that prevent or hinder the enforcement of federal law so following the november election in advance of the inauguration um

1:25:47and you know not telling anyone anything that hasn't been in the news 10 major cities including san francisco oakland los angeles new york chicago washington dc reaffirmed their commitment to upholding their status as sanctuary cities and then other cities since in the bay area have

1:26:06or actually before and since um have adopted various resolutions or other policy statements declaring their intentions to remain places of refuge or sanctuary including our neighbors um city of richmond alameda berkeley emeryville martinez san pablo san leandro and

1:26:24albany was yesterday i believe um i don't actually know i was looking to see how that shook out anyone know um anyway it's um it's happening um all over the bay area and indeed all over the state of california um on january 31st the city and county of san francisco filed a lawsuit

1:26:43alleging that the executive order violates the tenth amendment at the state level there are two acts that are of note the trust act which went into effect in 2014 requiring local law enforcement agencies to release people who've been arrested once their bond is posted or once their sentence is

1:27:00up so long as they have no serious convictions and even if ice officials have issued a detainer in 2016 the governor signed into law the truth act and that states that if ice notifies a california jail they plan to deport someone they also have to serve a copy to the

1:27:16person in jail this gives the person the right to know when ice wants to deport him or her so that they can seek counsel in december 2016 senate pro-time kevin de leon introduced senate bill 54 the california values act this would prohibit local law enforcement officials

1:27:34from performing the functions of a federal immigration officer if enacted into law it would create safe zones throughout the state by prohibiting immigration enforcement on public schools hospitals and courthouse premises to ensure that these excuse me eligible immigrants are not

1:27:48deterred from seeking services and engaging with these state agencies it would also require these agencies to review and update confidentiality policies and that is in process as we speak and finally on a local level um our school district the west contra costa

1:28:04unified school district passed a resolution in december 2016 committing to the protection of all traditionally marginalized students including students of arabic descent those of muslim sikh and other faiths latinos african americans asian americans pacific islanders native americans women

1:28:20immigrants persons with disabilities and the lgbtq community and declares that every school site or office in the west contra costa unified school district is a safe place for students and their families as far as el cerrito is concerned our practices as georgina mentioned el

1:28:38cerrito is a very strong tradition of embracing diversity and inclusion respecting civil and human rights of all of our residents regardless of their ethnic or national origin gender identity race religious affiliation sexual orientation age disability or immigration status and again as georgina

1:28:57referred to we've been participating in human relations commissions with the county since the 1970s the our own hrc human relations commission was created in 1989 and the hrc again has the appointed body that has heard this topic and brings their recommendation before you

1:29:16their mission is to encourage the community to eliminate all forms of prejudice and discrimination promote tolerance and understanding foster mutual understanding respect equality goodwill among those in our community and now the proposed resolution before you is has been developed by the human

1:29:34relations commission and city staff and i worked closely with the subcommittee of michaelia and mandy and i thought i saw mckelly here i don't know if mandy's here but they were wonderful to work with and i'm very proud to have been able to help develop this legislation with them

1:29:50it is intended to reflect the mission mission vision and values of the city of el cerrito and it affirms that el cerrito welcomes honors and respects the contributions of all residents regardless of their religious affiliation race national ethnic origin gender identity sexual orientation age

1:30:07disability or immigration status the resolution commits that all city officials and employees of the city of el cerrito including law enforcement officers will continue to serve the public and equally enforce laws without consideration of immigration status the

1:30:23resolution is meant to explain that fostering a relationship of trust respect and open communication between city officials and residents is essential to our mission the resolution also confirms our commitment to protect the rights guaranteed by the federal and state

1:30:38constitutions including the freedom of religion speech assembly privacy and equal protection and finally the proposed resolution explicitly declares el cerrito a sanctuary city it should be noted that the el cerrito police department equally enforces the law and serves the public without

1:30:56consideration of immigration status we the police department does currently practice the provisions outlined in the proposed resolution and this formalizes that policy and at this point i would like to invite police chief paul keith to the microphone so that he can provide

1:31:13some perspective on this thank you karen good evening city council members i'm paul keith your chief of police i wanted to add a couple of thoughts to the discussion on the resolution before you tonight to begin with at the el serious police department we believe that keeping local

1:31:29law enforcement specifically the el srido police department out of immigration enforcement is good for public safety we believe it encourages cooperation from victims and witnesses of crime because it helps them not be afraid that the police will be the agency that initiates immigration

1:31:47actions against them the the more comfortable our victims and witnesses feel with us we believe the better the better opportunity will have to solve crime and address crimes crimes in el cerrito we also believe that keeping local law enforcement out of immigration

1:32:03enforcement reduces the likelihood that immigrants in our community will engage in desperate acts to avoid police officers we want people to feel comfortable when we engage in an enforcement action that involves them regardless of what their background is so it's our practice that no matter what

1:32:19the crime we're investigating we do not inquire about somebody's immigration status and up to the point where we are engaged in an actual arrest for a case and we're legally obligated to do that so if we stop somebody for a stop sign violation we don't ask about where

1:32:37they're from what their status is in our country we merely investigate the crime before us which is running a stop sign which is an infraction the same thing goes for petty crimes theft minor assaults all of those run-of-the-mill arrests we keep immigration questions out of it and we do not engage

1:32:56in immigration actions against the people that we come in contact with so the austrian police department does not inquire about someone's immigration status nor do we take action against people based on immigration status we do routinely take action on behalf of

1:33:10people based on their immigration status we frequently come across community members that have been either the victim of a crime or witness of a crime and need our assistance to obtain visas to allow them to stay in the country to help with our prosecution down the road

1:33:24so we routinely engage in the process of obtaining new visas for people that are victims or witnesses of crimes in our community the el serious police department is here to protect all the members of our community and we believe that this resolution will serve to advertise to

1:33:38everyone what our police department and our community value thank you thank you and i'll be available for questions also thank you so and are there any other staff yes just a few more thoughts um so i want to give particular notice to the cities of san leandro alameda and san pablo they

1:33:59helped provide model language that was critical to our work in developing this resolution and i do want to note that this has been an iterative process with the commission and more importantly the community as we've developed this draft over the past few months

1:34:12i've received dozens of emails and calls in addition to the feedback and input provided at the meetings and i will note that not every single comment was in favor of a sanctuary city um but the people again who i spoke with were were able to be thoughtful and articulate and

1:34:29you know as some of you have heard me say before it's good to hear all sorts of different concerns and sides of any sort of topic so that we can provide and develop better policy so the subcommittee and i took all of this public feedback into consideration and additionally there was um um within

1:34:47the last uh the draft that was put out at the march 1st meeting and the draft that is before you today the language a lot of language has in fact changed from the original draft and that's because we took those suggestions and feedback and a lot of some model language that people provided

1:35:03into consideration particularly on how the policy would be implemented and what we did was then i worked directly with the police chief and directly with the city attorney to to ensure that the language was appropriate from a law enforcement standpoint from the police department

1:35:19standpoint but also with the city attorney to just to to consider it from a legal standpoint so the final proposed language before you tonight is what the staff city attorney and police chief have agreed upon and feel most comfortable with particularly for implementing we believe

1:35:35we've addressed all of the ideas and concerns that were presented by the commission and by the public and that is in addition to it being a policy that is workable and able to be implemented effectively by city staff the legislation is a resolution which staff and the city attorney feels is

1:35:51most appropriate for this type of policy and most importantly with some of the confusion coming from washington these days a resolution can be changed or updated very quickly in response to any additional federal orders on this topic or any other incidents or issues that may arise in

1:36:10the coming weeks or months so i do want to address the potential impacts that we could be facing on this if the executive order is enforced it is true that the city of el cerrito could be at risk of future defending and lost access to current and anticipated federal funding

1:36:24if this proposed resolution is adopted in the agenda bill before you you have tables that outline the federal grant funding that we've received since 2013.

1:36:35we've received 6 million dollars in federal grants six million fifty thousand three hundred nineteen dollars in federal grants we do have pending grant applications that were submitted in 2016 december 2016 for five million three hundred eighty nine thousand three hundred dollars the city

1:36:51does not receive federal funding for ongoing programs services or operations the grants that we receive are primarily for transportation and public safety related projects so obviously this is an evolving issue that will be subject to litigation and challenge so we don't have the ability

1:37:07to predict what the exact fiscal effects would be but it is true that we could be at risk of losing access to millions of dollars in funding that would be used toward various projects or programs implemented by the city and finally legal considerations and the city attorney's guide woodruff could

1:37:26elaborate or jump in if he if he would like but legally some organizations believe that the typical sanctuary city policies including the one before you tonight do not actually violate section 1373 and that the executive order at any rate is unconstitutional the city attorney again can

1:37:46does we've had the conversations we do concur with that assessment because section 1373 prohibits local and state governments from enacting laws or policies that limit communication with homeland security about information regarding the immigration or citizenship

1:38:02status it does not mandate any affirmative action on the part of law enforcement it does not require that the city collect maintain or communicate information about immigration status or it does not require us to detain individuals solely on the basis of their immigration status and the city's

1:38:18proposed resolution does not specifically limit communication with homeland security about a citizenship or immigration status if necessary it doesn't prohibit maintaining information and it also states that the action of city employees are to be implemented in

1:38:32accordance with federal law so to the extent that federal law legitimately requires communication or coordination with the homeland security and also as paul had had outlined we will do so so in a nutshell we believe that the proposed resolution is in fact in compliance with the plain terms of 1373

1:38:50and therefore complies with the executive order of course this area of law is not developed and it's highly political so it's difficult to assess this legal challenge and we know that legal challenges have already been filed but it is unlikely that el cerrito would

1:39:04be considered a test case and we would also have the opportunity to review our policy in response to any decided court cases and prior to any penalty being imposed so to conclude i'd like to thank the members of the human relations commission particularly the subcommittee

1:39:20el cerrito police department particularly police chief and the city attorney sky woodruff and and of course again the many many community members who provided input and feedback and comments this has been a collaboration of all of us to create a solid policy out of an

1:39:37idea and i believe it is an example of what local government is all about to consider to collaborate and to create so with that i'd like to thank everyone one more time and we are all available for any questions okay so so next what i would like to do is cover any questions from the council

1:39:56so this is not an opport this is not a time for comment but rather just having questions answered okay do you have any questions paul um i like what i see here i had a question on on sb 54 and i'm not sure if it can be answered but i was wondering why transit systems

1:40:18weren't included in there along with schools and other is there i didn't see any other specific cities supporting the bill um i believe at this time as of uh the agenda bill being sent to you the city of berkeley has supported the bill okay thank you okay greg yeah

1:40:49it thank you for the presentation and as i understand it we cannot block voluntary communications um otherwise we would be potentially in violation with section 1373 um and i just want to confirm that the reason we believe we are not blocking regulating voluntary communication

1:41:12is because the resolution regulates our behavior with the immigrants the the people that we are addressing whether they're victims or witnesses as the police chief uh discussed and we're not regulating our communications with any federal agencies and that's why we feel this is this

1:41:34complies with uh 1373. an attorney question i'm i'm looking around the room it could be it could be the police of the chief eyes on sky it could be the chief of police that says that come up with it maybe not i mean that's the way i meant globally interpreting the reason why

1:41:51this is this is comfortable for us to move into is because it has it doesn't discuss at all our communications with federal agencies it just discusses how we what resources we put in towards uh regulating the the those that we come upon in the normal course of business

1:42:08so if i could maybe address part of that if our officers aren't asking about immigration status then they don't have any information to report to begin with so there's you're creating a void of information in the realm of someone's immigration status so they number one there's less

1:42:24likelihood that there'd be anything to report to begin with and also it's also regulating um that we won't take action based solely on someone's immigration status and that will only take action against somebody based on probable cause or reasonable suspicion which are our current legal

1:42:39standards so again you're reinforcing my comment which is that this is this only regulates how we behave with our residents and not how we interact with the federal government yes okay i i just wanted to make sure that i understood that's the premise by which we feel that this

1:42:57complies with seven 1373. yeah the attorney can probably yeah i i i think that's an accurate description i i just the only thing i'd say to supplement it is that um 1373 is actually fairly narrow when you read it i mean it has a fairly it's not a a comprehensive law regarding

1:43:16all aspects of local law enforcement and how it might relate to federal immigration actions it has a very specific prohibition and some authorizations to divisions of the federal government about what they may do and so we believe that the proposed resolution directs

1:43:34staff actions in a way that um does not um is not in conflict with the narrow prohibition that's that's enacted in 1373.

1:43:49thank you i agree with that and it also it gives us a direction on how we want our staff to work with the feds or not work with the feds for example the discussion we just talked about is if ice came into town and said hey we're doing a immigration operation we want your officers to come

1:44:07and help us out and be at the scene we can say no and if we follow the resolution we would say no we're not going to be involved in that so it and we're not obligated to be involved in that the federal law doesn't obligate us to be involved in that because federal immigration is solely

1:44:23the responsibility of the federal government or agencies that they have an agreement with so we don't have an agreement with them we're not going to have an agreement with them it would be voluntary for our city to do that the resolution says we won't so i hope that

1:44:37helps clarify a little bit too great thank you very much thanks just have a quick question regarding criminals and people that are wanted already and have a record and uh if they are here in el cerrito and they get arrested and uh they they do have a long long list of

1:44:59uh violations will you be uh speaking to ice regarding criminals and gang members so uh there are some circumstances where agencies have to communicate to ice before they release somebody they're outlined in the california penal code in the case of el cerrito it involves

1:45:21very serious crimes and the crimes are at a high enough level that we don't release people from our custody for those crimes we transfer them to the county jail so there really aren't scenarios where someone is in our custody for a serious offense where we would be obligated by state law or

1:45:38federal law to notify ice of their status in our custody most of the time those interactions happen at the county level thank you and i'll just stay up here just in case i have a question for you as well so we received some feedback from the community um kind of going into more specifics about

1:46:03criminal activity making sure it was like you were mentioning not just a you know blowing through a stop sign um and they did list some um some serious violations but um could you explain uh why certain violations would be listed or not or how that would how that would

1:46:24play out in el cerrito so most of the violations that relate to action by ice from a custodial situation involve crimes like murder mayhem assault with a deadly weapon burglary armed robbery human trafficking i believe is another one of them major drug trafficking

1:46:45so in those cases before someone's released as i said before you there are notification requirements uh involved now from our standpoint are there situations outside of those major incidents where we might collaborate with a federal agency there are areas that we currently right

1:47:02now do collaborate with the federal with our federal agency partners that don't involve one of those major crimes but involve the possibility of a crime occurring for example we work with the department of homeland security on people that are on terrorist watch

1:47:18lists so there's a fusion center in san francisco that helps coalesce data about potential terrorist actors that are present in the bay area and the feds the fbi and the department of homeland security maintain lists of people and have watch lists for them so from the standpoint of el cerrito we

1:47:35have from time to time stop somebody who is under active surveillance as a possible terrorist that's in our country and we've cooperated with the federal government to provide the information that we gain from that stop because i believe there is a mutual benefit to everybody involved that we

1:47:51work together as law enforcement to help identify terrorist actors and help to make sure that they don't commit terrorist acts in our country there are other scenarios where we currently work we have the potential to work with federal agencies in the realm of immigration enforcement we have a member

1:48:11on a task force that at times they work major cases involving drug cartels moving illegal narcotics into the country from mexico primarily and so they have at times worked with federal agencies to collaborate on their investigation to help bring the suspects in those cases into custody so there are

1:48:30cases that are active investigations where we do collaborate with the federal government however it's not ex it's not only based on someone's immigration status immigration status may be a factor but we're investigating bona fide crimes or you know potential terrorist actors

1:48:49do you have any reporting requirements currently under the current state law if you do interact with ice so the truth act requires us to hold a public meeting in the year following any time where we've given ice accessed or responded to a request for information from ice for someone in

1:49:07our custody so if we make an arrest and ice finds out about it and they say we want to come and we want to talk to that person while they're in your custody if we say yes and we allow ice to do that then we're required by the truth act to hold a public meeting with ample notice so

1:49:22that we can explain the reason why we did it and also have the opportunity for the public to give us feedback about the decision that we made okay thank you sure i have a question i guess not too early and i think it's for you police chief paul keith and it is that if somebody has a

1:49:50let's say it's a relative who is um not a so-called legal resident but is but is living here and let's say that's a child that person is there any circumstance under which one might be concerned that that child would be deported for anything related to any activity that's official

1:50:27on the part of the city of el cerrito no okay that's the right answer you okay pleasure i hope i said that all correctly um thank you i think that was it um okay so i think we finished the questions from the council part and i think now we're ready for i think what most people in

1:50:55this room are here for which is to speak but i don't know how yet how many people want to speak to you cheryl mayor abelson we have 16 speakers okay 16 okay so given that there are my personal opinion because i am a strong believer in free speech is that we give all 16 uh three minutes

1:51:20because um that really isn't that many people and um since there's only 16 we'll we should go ahead and do that is that okay with other members of the council okay then let's let's do it okay i'd like to call them out three at a time i thank you uh cordell hindler followed by margaret

1:51:41cunningham and gene brabowski justice mike so good evening again mayor eberson uh council members so i'm here to talk to you about a personal story that i've been through after i got targeted by uh by a police officer that he i was not he he referred to me as um

1:52:01as like a criminal and i feel that to me that's like a that's like a violation of my right so i usually don't mistrust the police but then uh but then somebody told me they said that you have to trust the police because they are there for the public so i say that part i do agree i do agree

1:52:18with that part but still but i feel that i that i have trust in the police because they are part of the community they that they are honoring their uh for for what their for their purpose uh to honor and serve the public so i feel that is um that is that is a that is that is indeed

1:52:35right that uh that our community should trust the police because they are there and then number two i agree with uh one of what the police chief is saying we do i mean because for me as a as a person of um of a nationality i don't judge people i don't judge people of their age

1:52:52disability none of that i feel that uh that el cerrito is is a sanctuary city because we are because we have a lot of people here that that that do care about the city so i'm thinking that that this should be uh that i hope that this council will uh will take the opportunity to

1:53:09adopt a resolution so everyone can live in el cerrito freely and calmly so i'm thinking that this is a wonderful thing that for the city so i'm going to pass my time off to margaret okay and i think i forgot to mention that for this is for all the speakers that if

1:53:27um you should feel free and have people indicate somehow if they are in agreement with what you're saying um you know but either by show of hands or standing whatever but if you could please do so say silently that would be helpful because i think we all want to go home

1:53:45tonight too right but i think anyway so please go ahead and speak my name is margaret kerry cam excuse my sunglasses i've had a hard day and dot everything made it here with me including my other glasses i come to you from oakland from the california sanctuary campaign

1:54:05if you want to know more about us we have a facebook page california sanctuary campaign and we lobby at the state city county level with transit agencies with whoever we can get in front of to pass about to do two things to to pass the sanctuary resolution number one and to support

1:54:28sb 54.

1:54:31and oakland has done that by the way oakland did have a resolution to support it you may not be aware that bart is considering a resolution the one they had before them they decided wasn't strong enough and so they're making it stronger so that's that's in the works that's an

1:54:50example of the kind of work we do um i i want to go a little bit beyond the passage of resolution so and and you know it's important that the police know what to do but what about everybody else what about everybody else in the city what about the citizens what

1:55:08about um the people who are at risk and the city you know undertaking a sanctuary uh resolution should also mean in in our opinion that uh you might want to fund uh lawyers or legal groups to provide free counseling you might want to sponsor workshops the city of oakland has them

1:55:30in their libraries and is having different ones around to to provide information and the city of oakland also got grants got matching grants as did the county of alameda from the san francisco foundation to fund some of this sorry if you know you you this may all be old stuff to all

1:55:54of you and most importantly i think it's important if you haven't looked at the aclu freedom cities nine model rules as a sort of underpinning of how this should work i urge you to do so they're simple they're clear basically you need a warrant for everything okay

1:56:18and they can be accessed for people who are interested at peoplepower.org so thank you for your time um uh mayor abelson um if i look vaguely familiar it's because i worked on one of your campaigns for uh uh seiu then local 790 uh i don't know what 20 years ago

1:56:44so good to see you again thank you and um thank you for staying within the three minute time we appreciate that gene we're sorry are you talking okay gene rabovsky followed by judith tannenbaum and jess laird i think we forgot to mention or i forgot to mention that um

1:57:10green means you've got at least a minute or half a minute left green means three minutes and then it'll turn yellow and the yellow is the cutest sum up and that you have one minute left they have three minutes right yes okay so green starts it off and then when you

1:57:29see a yellow light it'll about half a minute you'll have you hit you have a minute to remind you and when it's red it it lets you know it's time for the next person to speak and it's there's a little um thing right here in front of the podium so if you're at the podium

1:57:46um and you can see it at least i hope you can um i'm an old person and microphones i don't always hear everything clearly so if there's a lot of detail being given about what i'm supposed to do i'm not getting it so i can just give you my couple of minutes and sit down okay i

1:58:05see the little green light as far as the green lights on i have time to talk okay you do and when the yellow light's on too sorry there after the green light comes yellow and you can still speak i can't hear i don't understand what you're saying i'm sorry okay i haven't even started okay so okay just

1:58:28let's just try it let me start and do my three minutes i don't want to give up the three minutes while i'm figuring out what everyone says you'll be able to hear if you want to do that no i don't because these things really do not work for me okay please speak please my name is gene wilbowski i

1:58:44do live in el cerrito and i come here because i want to encourage the city council of el cerrito to declare the city as a sanctuary city and furthermore to also support resolution that will support a b excuse me senate bill 54 which is the state california values law

1:59:06we're i think now at a crossroads in the nation we can either be a place or a nation of all the people for all the people by all the people where we can go down that slippery slope of exclusivity and extreme nationalism i really do hope that the city of uh el cerrito will choose the former that we

1:59:30are a nation of all by and for all the people and support and vote yes on the resolutions that are before you that is to make el cerrito a sanctuary city and also to support senate bill 54 the california values act thank you thank you judith tanenbaum filed followed by jess

1:59:55laird and janaki sullivan hi council so i'm judith tannenbaum and i've lived in el cerrito for 19 years and i strongly support the resolution and i really want deeply to thank all the people hrc the city staff the police chief city attorney and the large number of community members who've

2:00:18worked hard to make this document that speaks strongly and clearly to both intentions and practices it's really a big gift especially in times like this to live in a community with so much mutual respect and willingness to work together also i sent cheryl today um document

2:00:41about um sb 29 a whole other um which is proposed by senator senator lara that's called dignity without detention and it fit enough into this category that cheryl put it in the supplement material thank you very much thank you good evening my name is jess laird i

2:01:06live on blake street here in el cerrito i'm also the west county representative i'm on the executive board of the east bay young democrats we've been very excited about all of the cities and localities in the east bay that have been pursuing these resolutions we've been in strong support of el

2:01:25cerrito becoming a sanctuary city and also of sb 54.

2:01:28i just want to thank everyone who's been working so hard to draft this resolution and karen for taking all of our input about wording um so yeah we're just very excited and very thankful um we think that this will i won't repeat everything that's been said i've been in agreement with all

2:01:44things that have been said so far about this making our city safer and sending a message of inclusivity to our immigrant neighbors so again just thank you and i encourage you to vote to support this resolution thank you jonah k sullivan followed by sherry dropner and carl grock

2:02:04uh hello my name is jonake sullivan i've been an el cerrito resident since 2008 and you know today as with every day i am so proud to be an el cerrito resident and i hope to be even prouder by the time the night is done as many many people here today who have come tonight who have come to

2:02:28previous city council meetings who have come to hrc meetings who have called in comments emailed in comments mailed in comments uh probably you know ambushed you guys in the streets i am in deep support of both the proposal to become a sanctuary city and to support

2:02:51sb 54.

2:02:52el cerrito has always been a welcoming and diverse community and we are in many ways leading the way in contra costa county for what what local government can do and how we can preserve our values and make sure that every single el cerrito resident visitor feels welcome and safe within our city

2:03:18boundaries i so again i fully support sanctuary city policy and um our support of sb54 i also encourage the city council and the hrc to continue to look at ways that we can support our vulnerable populations particularly in the climate that we're dealing with specifically

2:03:43work with the contra costa county racial justice coalition and its many associated groups and other groups that are opposing the county jail expansion and also opposing county level uh ice cooperation um as uh the police chief noted it is mostly at the um the county

2:04:05level that a lot of the cooperation happens um so i would ask the the city council to pass a resolution opposing uh county level cooperation uh with ice and to work with the the various groups um making our county as well as our state a safe place for all thank you very much

2:04:28thank you good evening and i want to thank you all for all the work that you've done here tonight and particularly um i want to thank the hrc and our assistant city manager i feel and the police chief i feel everyone's been really good listeners really caring and

2:04:50really supportive in bringing forward the will of our community and it's it's very clear i've been fortunate i feel like i've made a lot new friends i've met more of my neighbors i know everyone on everett you know it's been it's been a very good experience to be

2:05:06able to participate in this and so glad i live in california and not texas um when i heard karen talk about sort of the wall of work that california is doing you know to really resist this onslaught of hate the onslaught of fear that's been come you know come down from our national level

2:05:28um i'm very so grateful to be in california and to be um here in el cerrito so i'm i'm encouraging you all to support the resolution this evening um the for sanctuary the resolution for sb 54.

2:05:43i also want to echo the speaker that was right before me because in doing this work i realized you know the roads lead to our county and to the sheriff's department and that i think it's important that we use whatever leverage you have to try to dissuade the um

2:06:05the county from continuing the contracts with ice and also the expansion of the west county jail i know there's plans for a greater movement of services and not sales and i hope that you'll join that effort and everyone here as well so that we can actually have services and not think

2:06:29about incarceration as the way to solve our problems so thank you thank you carl grock followed by ten lamb and pam ramirez good evening my name is carl grock i'm here to urge you to pass this resolution on one hand i'm very encouraged and even actually quite proud to hear of all the

2:06:57towns around us that have been doing this and the cooperation in this effort to remind you that there is great strength in numbers and that our numbers are growing rapidly particularly in california on the other hand it's discouraging to hear that we have to engage in all this

2:07:13in 2017 because of the madness that has engulfed washington d.c and portions of our federal government we need to stand up and resist please pass this resolution thank you thank you good evening uh mayor abelson city council members and our other elsewhere representatives

2:07:39my name is ted lam i'm a 10 year resident of el sweden me and my family's established roots here because of its welcoming nature and i'm here to represent my family and my neighborhood instead and support the item 7a to declare the city a sanctuary city and support senate bill

2:07:5654.

2:07:57and i really i want to thank the hrc for all their great work thank you thank you pam ramirez is followed by paul hughes and george mcrae my name is pam ramirez i'm here as a representative from the wellstone democratic renewal club in oakland i'm a resident of your neighbor city

2:08:20richmond and i am here representing the california nurses association because we believe the sanctuary city resolutions represent nurses values of compassion and humanity we all know that the fear factor that's going on right now because of the actions in washington

2:08:40are horrible for our communities our immigrants are integral parts of our communities and need to know that we in richmond have sponsored some know your rights forums so that people who don't speak english or don't know what their rights are as far as not signing

2:09:02things not opening doors etc get that education that's really important there was a great program on the radio yesterday or the day before about women who are not undocumented are worried about coming forward if they're the victims of domestic abuse or even families who are undocumented

2:09:24coming forward if they're victims of a crime so we have to get the word out once this resolution is passed i'm thinking very positively i'm in support of the resolution as well as sb54 i think that attorney general visera will stand behind any of us if there are legal

2:09:44issues because he has said that he will stand up and fight for california and all of our residents and i want to thank both the human relations council for the information that you've given and i want to thank the people who mentioned ulta bates because as a nurse i'm very

2:10:07we need ultibates to stay open we also need the new bill sb 562 that is putting forth information or a bill that will be single-payer health care for all californians including undocumented thank you hi i'm paul hughes i'm a resident of el cerrito for about 18 years now

2:10:34and it was this resolution in this issue that got me to see the inside of my hometown city hall for the first time earlier this month after all these years my core motivation is that i have some very dear friends long time friends that would be severely impacted by

2:10:50deportation and they are some of the finest people i've ever known potential citizens and hope hoping to become citizens so it's the threat of breaking up families that motivates me to support this so strongly i also support everything else that the anti-trump movement resistance movement

2:11:10is about now too but the sanctuary city spreads trust it spreads mutual support it spreads mutual respect and a feeling of comradeship amongst everybody living within another swath of the map it spreads it out across more territory and so every patch we can lay down of sanctuary city status

2:11:34or sanctuary county status hopefully soon with contra costa and with california is of great value and that can probably be seen as an economic value too for those who like to look at it that way the west county detention center expansion is one that is a big threat

2:11:52because contra costa being the only county in the bay area that has a contract with ice if that is expanded and they have they have an incentive financially to fill those beds up and to cooperate with ice and keep that cash flow coming in so we've got to stop the west county

2:12:09expansion uh sever the contract with ice or not renew it and keep moving forward i think that's about it please give this your your support thanks for doing the work thank you george mcrae followed by michelle mitchell and cesar zapeda good evening council it's been a while

2:12:30since i've been here it's good to see you hi um uh i'm here representing uh the del norte uh indivisible group which um i have five names uh not just mine david montgomery of el cerrito ron bogan of el cerrito walter schweikert allison miller and heidi rand and we are

2:12:52prepared or i prepared a little note in support of this um while i was sitting here before i read this it's very very quick i'll just read it on behalf of the points that indivisible group we urge you to support the declarations uh uh and make the city uh declare el

2:13:07cerrito a sanctuary city um we support uh the um hrc resolutions both as an ex to express compassion for undocumented neighbors and to stress the value that they bring to the community they're at the heart uh of and the essential to the strength of our local and national communities um

2:13:26i was sitting there and i was just thinking about my past um my family were immigrants from europe and they were just on my father's side they were displaced scottish people during the clearances my family on my mother's side were sicilian immigrants and i can't for any

2:13:44with any certainty at all sit here and say whether or not they lived in the united states as fully documented individuals i know that i was born here and my parents were born here but beyond that it's very difficult to know for me to say with any certainty so i can't

2:14:00smugly say that anyone can look at anyone in this room and say yes i have more of a right to be here than anybody else has a right to be here we all have a right to be here and i think that that's really important to keep that in mind and then it i i am not a religious

2:14:15person by any stretch of the imagination but i do look for guidance where i can find it and one of the places that i look for guidance are the words in red um you might know what i mean the in from the new testament and i find that if we look in our hearts i think that we can we'll know that

2:14:32we're we're doing the right thing that the city is doing the right thing the other thing that occurred to me also in listening to the police chief this evening is that he mentioned stop stop signs and some of you may know that that has been an issue with me and if we can be quite assured

2:14:49that our police department is not looking at people's proper documentation but actually paying attention to the stop sign violations it would certainly make me a whole lot happier thanks an awful lot hello my name is michelle mendieta mitchell and i'm an el cerrito resident

2:15:11and also a member of the west contra costa county women's huddle group and aclu people power i want to thank georgina and the human relations commission as well as the assistant city manager for the work that they've done to bring forth the resolution declaring el cerrito's sanctuary city

2:15:31and supporting state bill 54 both of which i support i want to speak to you about my grandmother this is me abuelita she was the matriarch of my family and my grandfather's death in 1959 threw my family into financial turmoil and my grandmother suddenly a single mother of 11 children

2:15:58made a most difficult decision the united states was her only hope of supporting her family she thus left mexico and was only allowed to bring three of her children she homed eight of her children including my mother who was 12 at the time in an orphanage once she made enough money to prove she

2:16:22could care for her children and she bought a home the family was reunited in los angeles it's a story of grit and blind hope so what could drive a mother to leave her children behind it's only the dream that there can be a better life elsewhere that is what drives people to cross

2:16:43borders to overstay visas to bring their children to the united states when they know there is a risk doing so that is what prompted the mother of arturo fernandez to bring him from mexico when he was three months old arturo grew up in nearby pittsburgh he is from mexico oh sorry he is

2:17:05pursuing a phd at uc berkeley and he's very bravely leading a campaign to urge pittsburgh's city council to adopt a policy of not cooperating with ice officials i urge you all to do the same i ask you to see immigration is more than a black or white issue more than legal or

2:17:26illegal alien or citizen this is a multi-faceted human issue we have the power to protect the vulnerable in our communities thank you thank you cesar zapeda followed by sue goldberg and miguel gravien good evening council members my name is cesar zepeda and i came to the united states when i

2:17:53was eight years old i am an immigrant i am the son of a farm worker who worked hard night after night day after day 20 hours a day or so his stories tell me picking our fruit and making sure that he had a living wage to bring his family over when he was able to

2:18:21i am a resident of richmond and i am now the new chair of the sierra club's environmental justice committee and i am the president of the lambda lgbt democratic club for contra costa county i urge that you support the human relations commission and become a sanctuary city

2:18:39and also support sb 54 the california values act we will help protect and support our communities and our families as the person before me said people don't just cross borders and walls and swim through rivers just because they're trying to make a living they don't come out and take the jobs that

2:19:06nobody wants knowing that you're going to be working with the hot sun for less than minimum wage you can't call in sick you have no benefits the moment you can't work you die and you're trying to make a better life for your family and hopefully get reunited with them

2:19:32sometime there's a lot of talk about the jail i created a change.org petition and i would appreciate it but you guys can support it as well we've been fighting this for the past few years and it keeps coming back this is the third time that the sheriff has put it up for

2:19:50a vote uh so the change.org petition and also if i may there is a cisco meeting for anyone else who wants to help with the discussion getting ice out of contra costa county there's a meeting on monday march 27 at 6 30 at the cisco office in richmond there is also an ice out of contra costa

2:20:13costa meeting wednesday march 29th from 12 to 2 at the walnut creek united methodist church in walnut creek thank you so much for your time please support this thank you hello i think i'm going to have to hold this might be able to reach it somebody could hold it for you and um thank you

2:20:45well can you see the colors of the lights i'll tell you when your uh green is gone i can now last time i was here this screen wasn't here in front of the podium anyway i don't think i came last to talk about minimum wage which i very much am grateful that the council

2:21:09passed that i'm sue goldberg and yes i'm a resident here in el cerrito for many years um i'm a member of the el cerrito democratic club and i don't think they've taken a position on sanctuary but i'm also a member of the wellstone democratic club and you've already heard a speaker about

2:21:33that i re the wellstone club has part of a platform that they would like to see the whole state of california be a sanctuary state and i very much commend the work of the human relations commission here and all the staff and the chief of police for their wonderful work on this issue

2:21:59so i strongly support el cerrito becoming a sanctuary city and supporting sb 54 it is just of utmost importance at this time i myself i'm the daughter and granddaughter of jewish immigrants to this country and so this issue is very dear to me personally as well

2:22:26but it's extremely disheartening to see what's happening in this country and i also support what everyone else has said here about working to not let ice continue its work i've heard that there have been raiding workplaces and even schools am taking children also to be deported

2:22:53so we need to also work against all everything isis doing at this point thank you miguel gerval followed by carrie kangalasi as you said my name is mike alkerfeld and i'm an el cerrito teacher a chicano activist and the son of a mexican-american immigrant who lived in

2:23:20the us on a green card for 33 years she's a citizen now my seventh and ninth grade students are largely students of color and about half of my students are the children of immigrants we have been discussing this resolution in the classroom and my students are counting on a yes vote

2:23:41to adopt the el cerrito sanctuary city resolution thank you hrc assistant manager pinkos attorney woodruff chief keith and the council as well as the various community individuals and organizations who have supported this effort i also like to go on record saying that i do agree with

2:23:58all the people who have spoken about the county issue being you know the next the next step if you will in terms of opposing the jail expansion um and ice cooperation with the sheriff thank you for your time thank you good evening my name is carrie angelosi and

2:24:28i live here in el cerrito lived here for 11 years and like all the previous speakers just want to encourage you to adopt these two resolutions tonight i'll keep my comments brief but just wanted to add my experience as a social worker in the public sector for the past 10

2:24:47years had the opportunity to work with many undocumented immigrants and my experience basically reflects um what the police chief outlined is the reasons for the current practices um that el cerrito police already have i've worked with people who have been reluctant or even unwilling to

2:25:10report crimes or interact with the police out of a fear of immigration becoming involved and on the flip side when i've worked with people who are aware of sanctuary city policies such as one in san francisco i've witnessed people being willing to interact with police and report crimes

2:25:32in ways that i think we would all agree are good both for those individuals and families and for greater good of the community thank you thank you is that it yes it's everybody well thank you thank you everyone for your very uh uh courteous speaking and um this is the

2:25:54first time we've ever done the hands thing personally i really liked it because i could get a real first of all i could get a sense of you know what was happening in the audience and it also meant we could go faster which meant we ultimately gives us an opportunity to

2:26:14have more public comment and so thank you very much for everyone's cooperation in in that so now the next step is for us to go back to the council and see if there at this point any questions additional questions of staff or any or anyone that you want to ask or

2:26:36if you have comment if you want to go straight to comments i'm ready to go to comments if i may okay let's see what if there are any questions first i'm ready for comments comments comments okay we're ready for comments so j i guess you want to start greg i would um i want to

2:26:53first thank uh makaya aga monty glick and and uh georgina edwards and the and all of the human relations commission for the work that you've done um i i have to say i'm very pleased with the extensive outreach and the transparent process that brought us here tonight so that we

2:27:13know uh that we are supported in the action that i think we're gonna take tonight and it's nice to have all of you here and to know that we had a process that uh really was able to draft pull that all together um and mayor if i may i would like to make the motion uh at this time because

2:27:32there is a a new where a further resolved clause that i would like to add at the end so if i may i would like to make the resolution and then we can have dialogue about the additional further result resolved clause that i would like to add and in the in making this motion i'm

2:27:47going to read a couple of clauses that i really do appreciate all the hard work so i do want to highlight these clauses i move a resolution of the city council city council of el cerrito affirming the city of el cerrito's commitment to the values of dignity inclusivity and respect for all

2:28:05individuals regardless of the ethnic or national origin gender identity race religious affiliation sexual orientation age disability or immigration status and declaring el cerrito a sanctuary city whereas the city of el cerrito recognizes that the constitution of the united

2:28:20states and the constitution of the state of california enshrine the fundamentals and inalienable rights of americans including the freedoms of religion speech assembly privacy and the equal protection of all the city's residents regardless of religious affiliation race national or ethnic

2:28:38origin gender identity sexual orientation age disability or immigration status and whereas the city of el cerrito has long embraced and welcomed individuals of diverse religious racial national or ethnic origin gender identity age ability and sexual orientation backgrounds including

2:28:59a large immigrant population and whereas the city of el cerrito welcomes honors and respects the contributions of all its residents regardless of their religious affiliation race national or ethnic origin gender identity sexual orientation age disability or immigration status

2:29:21and whereas this was said many times by you in the during your public comments whereas fostering a relationship of trust respect and open communication between city officials and residents is essential to the city's mission of delivering efficient public services in partnership with our

2:29:41community which ensures public safety a prosperous economic environment opportunities for our youth and high quality of life for our residents and whereas this is the final warehouse clause the city of el cerrito deserves desires to demonstrate its commitment to its

2:30:00residents by unequivocally stating that it will safeguard the values enshrined in our federal and state constitutions by providing a safe community to all residents who are fearful by assuring them that we the city will not expend any funds nor use its resources

2:30:20including staff to administer federal immigration laws which are under the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government now therefore the city of el cerrito city council does hereby declare that it is a sanctuary city and i would like to add a further resolved clause

2:30:44and it should read further resolve that the mayor sign a letter transmitting our ordinance to the county and encouraging the county to consider a comparable ordinance [Applause] so i'm a little confused if i might about something so i see in our packet two resolutions correct that i was a one

2:31:20was at 54. so we you were refer were you referring to 54 when you were just just our ordinance declaring us a sanctuary city and authorizing you to send a letter in a bunch of sections no i was just highlighting a few that i wanted i didn't want to read the whole thing i

2:31:34just wanted to highlight a few that i thought were important so in terms of what you want to be in the resolution is it it's everything here plus it's everything here plus adding further resolve that the mayor signed a letter transmitting our ordinance to the county

2:31:50and encouraging the county to consider a comparable ordinance i will second that with the changes [Applause] okay um okay do you have any further comment nope okay how about paul do you have any comments i do have a comment and i think i'm going to take my three minutes so

2:32:10thank you for the indulgence here um i i too want to thank the human relations committee the city staff and the citizens of el cerrito have worked so hard to bring this important item to the city council this effort reflects what's so special about the diversity and caring of our

2:32:27city in in our hundredth year we are asking the city of el cerrito to be a sanctuary city but we're also going beyond citizenship status and reaffirming our respect and inclusiveness for all sectors of our society and categories of humanness in the evolution of this resolution

2:32:45there was some discussion about the possibility of not mentioning the term sanctuary city by name so i'm glad that we in fact are calling it what it is so people will know what we mean that our neighboring sister cities and state leaders will see that we and el cerrito

2:33:01are loudly drawing the line against injustice and absurdity we've grown up hearing and believing that we are a nation of immigrants and all of us here we've heard some tonight have our own personal stories about america's door whether it's open or shut to us for me

2:33:21there is the california congressman that i worked for in washington dc who escaped nazi germany came to america as a little boy with his parents and he spoke often in his thick accent about what america freedom meant to him as a jew and how he grew up to be a congressman

2:33:38there's my grandfather angelo fideli who traveled from venice italy via cuba and texas for his wife who called for his wife raised a family and became the number one window washer in downtown petaluma it wasn't until many years later as george sort of mentioned

2:33:56that our the grandkids realized he was never an american citizen and we loved him just the same and then there's my college roommate don hayashida whose grandparents had to leave their plum orchard near sacramento when they were interned during world war ii my friend's father was sent to tule lake

2:34:16in northern california and his mother was taken to minnesota by a kind family until after the war don told me that his dad was bitter his whole life because of that disgraceful episode so i grew up hearing that we learned our lesson that this shame would never happen again

2:34:32but here we are it should go without saying that our president of two months is problematic and that his actions on a variety of fronts are dangerous and imperil this nation and our people on the night that the new city council was sworn in i said there was one thing

2:34:50we could acknowledge to the newly elected administration and that's that they were right about one thing that we can all agree that there are certain actions that are best taken at the state and the local level rather than the federal level okay so we do proudly move forward here to

2:35:08consider supporting state legislation sb 54 the california values act where our state legislators can prove that they have our backs and and we move locally to make my city a sanctuary city finally we would be remiss if we did not acknowledge our local police force and

2:35:25our chief keith for assisting the actions that we make tonight let me be clear as it says in our city analysis any individual who is arrested for committing a crime will be charged and will be referred to the district attorney's office for prosecution irrespective of his

2:35:42or her immigration status so we continue to allow our local law enforcement to do their job that they were hired to do to keep el cerritos safe i'm very proud to be able to vote for this tonight for this resolution before us and to affirm the goodness and the fairness of our country in ways that

2:36:00will not further disrupt human beings of all definitions thank you very much thank you who wants to go next i will um i'd like to open with thanking the hrc and the staff for working on this i felt like i left the hrc at such an exciting time but i'm glad that i'm sitting here

2:36:26as a as a result of it this issue is is is personal for me as it is for all of us really i consider myself to be a descendant of slaves and my father-in-law was interned as a japanese american and so i don't take freedom for granted i know that it's something that we as a

2:36:57society must continually fight for the targeting of muslims latinos and others is not something that we can participate in we must guard our sisters and brothers freedom as if it were our own after all who's next who else will be considered not american enough to be here

2:37:27i support the sanctuary city status of el cerrito not as a place where criminals can run free make no mistakes if laws are broken they will be prosecuted however rest assured that our residents will not fear the police in a way that they do not feel comfortable approaching

2:37:48them if they themselves are being harmed have no fear that our police will not be randomly tearing families apart this is one of the biggest civil rights issues of our time we must be on the right side of history as many of you know we now celebrate loving day in el cerrito

2:38:17a landmark civil rights case which legalized interracial marriage last fall i was able to see the movie about the family loving which was based on that civil rights case and their journey through it there is one scene in the movie that really touched me because even though i knew their story

2:38:41sometimes pictures are worth a thousand words and as mildred loving lied in her bed in the middle of the night and was grabbed and dragged severely highly pregnant at the time and thrown into a jail cell i couldn't help but to think of who is this happening to right now

2:39:06and how can we stop it i knew at that point that as a city council member that if there was anything i could do to stop something like that from happening that's what i was going to do we cannot let our families be torn apart as paul said haven't we learned our mistakes from the

2:39:33past we're better than that from this day forward i want it to be known to everyone that el cerrito is a sanctuary city and that we stand for the dignity of all people thank you [Applause] it was beautiful thank you one thing i'd i'd like to say as a member of the human relations

2:40:09commission before i became an elected council member i am so proud of the hrc i'm proud of georgina who i found and asked her how about joining me on the human relations commission and and then also to my colleague here michelle i asked her to join the human relations

2:40:33commission and my neighbor who i'm very proud of who lives around the corner from me who is now gabe gadette is now a member of the human relations commission my father who arrived here as a boy at 16 years old back in 1927 was one of the original filipinos who arrived in this country

2:40:58even though it was part of america they had no rights they had no rights to marry they had no rights to own property their rights were to work in the fields and that he did he also fought in world war ii in the battle of new guinea and i didn't know all the things he was able

2:41:23to do until 2009 when he was about to die and i found paperwork on what he did and now it's the 70th anniversary of the death march of badan coming up uh this month and i'd like to honor um my dad's friend who's still alive uh mr regulato who is uh at um assisted living here in el cerrito

2:41:57who was one of these war heroes and i will always remember him visiting my dad at the service before the funeral to my dad who moved us here to el cerrito back in 1964 where we had a diverse neighborhood of japanese of latino of italian portuguese i'm very proud of my el cerrito roots

2:42:29and it shows right here the diversity of the audience how proud i am of the audience to say yes we need to do this so on behalf of all the residents here my mom who's in vallejo right now and her best friend who lives up in moser lane trudy i want to let my mom and and her best friend know

2:42:54that i'm proud to be here in el cerrito and to re represent a city that cares and residents who do care about what's going on and would like to say no we are not going to participate with ice and yes we are going to support sb54 so i thank you so much so i guess now it's my turn to make

2:43:21comments and i think some of this is a moment of sharing so i will also share and i can kind of share it from two viewpoints one is i have a um family member by marriage who is one of the people we're talking about directly right now and i'll have you know that um

2:43:46i'm afraid to say anything more because i don't think things are okay no matter what we do here today because there is a problem going on right now and i have a family i have a family member who is a child the child i was referring to a little while earlier and

2:44:11we've had conversations about his [Music] immigration status which is that he um is a um he is he has no you know he has no legal status in this country he's just a child and he could be separated from his mother over this if uh whatever happened happened so i'm very

2:44:40fearful even though i i see that there are a lot of good people in el cerrito and i think our police department is at the top of that list because i think that the way the police department has particularly our police chief has come out in support of this issue

2:45:01is is just utterly to be commended and i go like that over over what what has happened here i am so proud to be in a city that understands the real issues so well and i want to thank you for that in particular but i also have another side of my family there isn't actually much of my family

2:45:31and the reason there isn't much of my family outside of my five kids is they didn't make it so um the disabled uncle of my husband was killed in a concentration camp he didn't make it out his grandparents were on a boat the last boat out from nazi germany that they were where

2:45:59they would let jews out and they came to the united states and the united states would not let them in do i don't know if you i know no one here remembers directly because we weren't alive then but the um there was a period of time when the united states was friendly towards nazi

2:46:17germany uh roosevelt as i understand it was friendly if you read history i i don't know if anybody here reads it very much but the um we actually were friendly with nazi germany and um so they weren't letting jews in so the ship came over and it was rejected at the port of

2:46:41in at ellis island and so it went around looking for somebody who would take them and so my husband's grandparents were on that ship their child was killed in a concentration camp their cousins went were snuck out of germany as children two brothers and they went went to uh

2:47:08israel where my husband actually visited them and they're now in their 90s for the first time for one of them anyway and um so there is no family because of that um my my husband is an only child and there are no uh you know there just isn't anybody he has two second cousins that's it

2:47:38so families don't exist because of the poison thinking that goes on when people do the sort of thing that we are trying to pass tonight a resolution against we're trying to pass a resolution that acknowledges people as people all people as people and it's not that

2:48:02i'm better than you or you're better than me we're all people on this on this planet and uh we should all work together to make this a better place and i want to thank everyone who came here tonight for being part of that and being a wonderful part of that and thank you for humoring me in this way

2:48:26i really got a good sense though of what the audience was feeling from it from from from looking at it looking out at it it really actually is i think pretty i think it's quite effective so uh thank you very much for being a great audience and now we'll proceed with the meeting

2:48:45unless there's any further comments from this diocese uh well i'd like to make a motion for the other one wait wait before that we have to make we have to vote on the first one i also have an amendment i'd like to make okay why don't we start uh let's see what you will you are there

2:49:03just comment comments without anything else we've got a we've made i made a motion that has been seconded but i hear that there was a change that's being proposed no uh go ahead with your amendment and then i have a sec an additional amendment i'd like to propose there's already been a motion

2:49:20that's been made and seconded okay so we need to hear your amendment if you're gonna make it we need here now oh okay if i'm not asking a question first you said i thought the word amendment when you made the motion but that's that's why i was a little i made a motion that

2:49:33included a new whereas clause okay and what was that clause um it it was uh now uh further resolved that the mayor signed a letter transmitting our ordinance to the county and encouraging the county to consider a comparable ordinance where would it be i assume that your motion means

2:49:58resolution not ordinary resolution yes resolution sorry correct where would it be inserted to further results it would be right before the signature lines so it would be right before the ice the the sheryl's certification so it'd be after section five and before uh cheryl's

2:50:18certification okay do you have the wording of that okay great and then uh thank you so uh this is the time for friendly amendments okay um all right so the additional amendment i would like to make um it go either before or after greg's amendment it doesn't really matter in my

2:50:40opinion the el cerrito police department will report back to the city council at least annually during a public meeting in regard to the implementation of this resolution so that's a that's a therefore clause you know yeah um i was proposing to put it at section six

2:51:12at the end as part of as part of section six yeah that would be fine i would second down if it's a motion there currently is no section six so you would create a section six correct okay that requires annual annual reporting back to us back to us from the public particular period of

2:51:30time or once a year annually i mean i mean for um for 10 years one year 100 years until trump um i think we could make amendments as 10 years i mean i think that the city council could just amend the resolution in the future if it finds today's reporting is no longer

2:51:54required okay i seconded that much yes okay and is that agreeable to the maker of the motion yes yes the motion supports well the second order is mr quinto oh oh i thought i'm sorry yeah okay okay so the the so there is a motion on the table currently just to bring us all

2:52:14up to speed made by council member lyman seconded by council member member quinto with a friendly amendment by council member uh hardy okimoto hokim okimoto uh and seconded by council council member we all got involved except me it's okay i get to vote you get to call

2:52:42the action yeah okay is are there any is there any further discussion don't you want to confirm that all the wording has been captured by the clerk i have moved second but moved by lyman second by quinto and carrie to adopt resolution to that it'll be 2017 14 as

2:53:00amended by councilmember lyman to add an additional enacting clause to state so hard to hear you we have further resolved that the mayor will sign a letter transmitting the resolution to the county board of supervisors requesting that it consider adopting a comparable resolution and is further

2:53:15amended by council member pardue okimoto to add a new section six to the enacting clause which states that el cerrito police department will report back to the city council at least annually on the implementation of this resolution is that correct and then there was a friendly amendment

2:53:32that that was just red yep okay thank you correct okay so anything else call the vote please okay all in favor please say aye aye any objections oh i i think i think we could say it's unanimous yes thank you all and now the second resolution can i move that please

2:54:04resolution uh the city council of el cerrito supporting sb 54 by senator de leon second okay any discussion further no okay all in favor please say aye the opposition here is unanimously thank you [Applause] john why don't we take a five minute recess in case folks don't want to stay for the other

2:54:36part of our agenda we stay here then we can get through it pretty quick okay we're now moving on to item 7b um if you want to have a conversation if you could do us a favor could you could everyone move conversations out to the thank you item 7b is the reauthorization of the

3:02:22public educational and governmental fee on state cable franchise franchisees operating within the city of el cerrito is there a staff report there is i'll be delivering this okay thank you i'm skye woodruff i'm the city attorney as background for this item in 2006 the

3:02:42california legislature adopted the digital infrastructure video and competition act which moved the franchising of cable television and other video services from local governments to the state previously every local jurisdiction had been responsible for that that bill

3:03:00moved it from cities and counties to the state and this was at the same time that traditional cable companies were beginning to see competition from other video service providers um one of the things that that the the law sometimes referred to as divka did was allow

3:03:17cities to continue to collect a franchise fee and a fee to fund public educational and government access channels which is sometimes called a peg fee in 2008 the city council added provisions to the municipal code related to state franchise video services and included in that the

3:03:34imposition of both a franchise fee and a peg fee the the franchises that are issued by the state have a limited time period um at t does have a franchise issued by the state that will expire um in march on march 31st um and one of the um minor provisions of divica but that the reason that causes

3:03:55the need for this item tonight is that it requires that when a state franchise expires a city must quote unquote reauthorize its ordinance imposing the peg fee so in order to ensure that the city continues to receive the revenue from at t to fund public educational and

3:04:13government access channels we're proposing two ordinances the first is an urgency ordinance that would only reauthorize the peg fee without making any changes to the municipal code the ordinance contains findings supporting the action on an urgency basis as an urgency ordinance it only requires

3:04:32introduction and adoption and will go into effect immediately this is just because of the time frame in which we became aware of this issue and the next council meeting it was necessary to bring this as an urgency item the emergency ordinance must be approved by four-fifths of the of the city

3:04:49council the second ordinance is a regular ordinance um it would also reorder re-authorize the peg fee but it would additionally add a provision to the municipal code that would automatically re-authorize the peg fee in the future if a franchisee fails to provide the

3:05:05city with notice of the expiration of its franchise many cities have adopted such a provision although affirmatively reauthorizing the fee would be advisable in the future as as these state franchises expire the proposed provision would act as insurance in the event that there was

3:05:24some kind of oversight so for the urgency ordinance staff recommends introducing the ordinance by title and then adopting it and for the other or for the other ordinance we recommend waving the first reading beyond the title and then introducing the ordinance to ensure that the cities continues to

3:05:44receive this peg fee revenue i mean i'm available for any questions that the city council might have on this item uh paul um yeah just two quick questions so when you said become became aware if we had acted earlier on this it wouldn't have had to be an urgency

3:05:59that's correct um it's um neither a t nor the state franchising authority provided notice to el srito or any other local jurisdiction this information is just sort of trickling out to everybody about it by the time we became aware of it it was too late to get it on to an

3:06:16agenda as a regular item because if you'll recall ordinances require 30 days to go into effect and so we wanted to make sure that that the ordinance would go into effect immediately and before march 31st you know when comcast um i don't know but it does not come

3:06:33when we get the franchise that we know when this runs out uh we do but nobody we receive since the franchise is issued by the state um ultimately when the when when new entrants enter into the uh market um we ultimately receive some notification of it but nobody has been tracking it

3:06:52for seven years um okay so uh we can we can endeavor to do better in the future but um but ultimately um it's really just a matter of um form of the that the ordinance too the comcast one won't have to be an urgency one it'll know and we will hope to be able to ensure that that is not

3:07:10necessary in the future yes any other yeah uh this is a continuation of existing fee to do things like our televise our city council meetings exactly that's okay okay is there a motion i have one procedural question actually yeah i have a procedural question before

3:07:33the motion's made okay go ahead because he was going to make the motion oh okay you on the urgency ordinance i thought i heard you say that we had to read it yes in its entirety correct just the title just the title okay i just because what you what you said made it sound like we

3:07:48had to read the whole thing introduce it by title and then adopt it got it i'd like to move that if you wouldn't mind reading the entire title just for this just for the sake of completeness of the act actually from the resolution it's yeah there you go an ordinance of the city of el cerrito

3:08:06reauthorizing the public educational and government peg fee on state cable franchises operating within the city and amending section 14.12.170 of the el cerrito municipal code so can we take the second one first of a motion we don't have a second yet because i'm

3:08:27not seconding it unless like you know we can take yes you can either second one first either order is okay great i'll i will second it then okay there are okay so we're ready to vote okay all in favor please say aye aye i believe that was unanimous any objections extensions no it was

3:08:49unanimous all right i will move an urgency ordinance of the city of el cerrito reauthorizing the public education and government peg fee on state cable franchises operating within the city all second okay any discussion all in favor aye aye aye that was unanimous

3:09:14uh motion passes okay now we move on to item uh seven c which is to adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager or his designee to enter into agreements with the office of the sheriff of contra costa county and the contra costa county fire protection district for the provision of

3:09:36public safety dispatch services from july 1 2017 through june 30 2022 for police dispatch and june 1st 2017 to december 31st 2019 for fire dispatch is there a report from staff there is there's a staff report uh ms mayor uh so once again i'm paul keith your chief of police and i'm joined by

3:10:04lance maples the fire chief uh to discuss this agenda item so to write some background for the action requested the yellowstone police department and the yellowstone fire department have contracted with the city of richmond for dispatch services since the late 1990s

3:10:19during that time we've had a great cooperative relationship where they provide dispatch services for us and we have some decision-making ability in the agreement that we have with the city of richmond in july on in july of 2016 the city of richmond called the meeting and informed

3:10:35us that they were not planning to renew our existing communications agreement and instead we're playing a different model for providing dispatch services one where we would be purely customers to the service they were providing they also informed us that there would

3:10:49be price increases involved and they'd be changing the payment scheme so following that meeting we began looking at alternate providers for dispatch services we looked at the city of albany the city of panel as well as contra costa sheriff and talked with other partners

3:11:02in the e-brics system which is the radio system that covers contra costa and alameda county for other possibilities ultimately we decided that the sheriff's department would be the best provider we felt for the el cerrito police department and fire department to pursue

3:11:18because they provided service to a wide variety and a wide variety of agencies in the county they had a robust communication center and they also integrate well with the contra costa county fire protection district con fire dispatch which says dispatch for the majority of fire departments in

3:11:34the county um when we came to council richmond uh also presented us with a new price structure so that we had an idea of how much money we would be paying if we uh went with richmond for to continue to go with richmond for dispatch services and so uh the number that richmond gave

3:11:52us for combined police and fire dispatch was uh one point uh sorry one million two hundred eighty five thousand two hundred eleven dollars annually um which would have doubled the current cost we were paying to richmond in december the city council authorized us

3:12:09to enter negotiations with the office of the sheriff in county of contra costa and contra costa county fire protection district we did that and we through our negotiation process we came up with a agreement that both parties felt was acceptable to present to city council

3:12:27in the agreement the combined total cost for police and fire dispatch will be 562 844 dollars in fiscal year 2017-2018 which is about 81 000 less than we had originally budgeted for dispatch services with the city of richmond next year one of the big changes in dispatch is uh

3:12:49the the uh addition of the el strudel fire department so currently the strudel fire department through an existing agreement does not pay for dispatch services with the city of richmond city of richmond expressed an interest in doing that differently and added an amount that was significantly

3:13:07more than we had anticipated to pay for uh fire dispatch so um in our negotiations with the office of the sheriff looking at all of the things combined the quality of service sheriff offers the breadth of experience of their dispatchers the close connection to county oes in the

3:13:25case of a major west county or county-wide emergency the seamless integration with consolidated fire dispatch for any 9-1-1 calls that have a medical or fire component and as well as the really competitive price that the sheriff offered us the fire chief and i recommend approving

3:13:44an agreement with the office of the sheriff and the contra costa county fire protection district for public safety dispatching okay i'm available for questions and if fire chief mabel's has anything to add i'd like to make sure that he gets an opportunity to do that now

3:14:00okay okay any questions go ahead yeah um so chief uh so the sheriff's office is giving us a savings overall right from what we had previously as far as what we had in the budget for the same services yes um are we i mean it this is 9-1-1 service right yes that's pretty important to all of us

3:14:28here um or do they have to add personnel to deal with the volume that we're creating for them or no their plan is to incorporate us into an existing channel for west contra costa county so instead of necessarily having to add personnel they're changing the way their

3:14:47channel structure works so that the sheriff's plan is that the city of el cerrito will be combined on a channel with sheriff's deputies that are working in the areas of east richmond heights el sobrante rodeo crockett north richmond and unincorporated west county areas

3:15:06and when might you think that we would have a good feeling as to the quality of the service now it seems great it's happening now well i can listen to their channel now and uh and can hear that they're dispatchers or quality dispatchers they seem knowledgeable about the geographic locations and the

3:15:25codes that police departments use so um from my observations they seem like a quality dispatching center we'd know and we'd be notified if there was an issue or a problem as far as changing our services actually i've also talked with the chiefs of san ramon pittsburgh

3:15:41and oakley as well although san ramon is leaving the sheriff's department for service they had very good reviews of their time with sheriff's dispatch pittsburgh basically raves about the service that the sheriff provides them they say that their dispatchers are top notch and oakley had

3:15:57the same review i tried not to go to places that are you know share of contract cities like orinda and lafayette i wanted you know actual real answers since those are all sheriff's deputies uh all those chiefs so i went to the places where the chiefs were not sheriff's deputies and they said it's

3:16:13great so thank you i believe that thank you um yeah two questions one i noticed that only moraga orinda and oakley are using both police and fire and unincorporated contra costa is there a reason why the jurisdictions switched so much between the sheriff's and the fire protection

3:16:33district i i you know what i'm going to bring up the fire chief for that good morning our evening feels like morning i'm your fire chief lance maples the contra costa county fire protection district provides the fire protection dispatching for brentwood oakley moraga orenda panel

3:16:55rodeo hercules and all of the area where they provide their fire department the con fire dispatch that's grown over the years continues to grow con fires dispatch center is a fire ems dispatch center so they have amr ambulances dispatched out of there it's one of the big

3:17:14uh areas where we'll gain performance because it has as it is now we're dispatched through richmond when richmond needs to call for an ambulance they have to call confirm our resources now will come all out of the same dispatch center yeah the the like a community of lafayette is only

3:17:31using it for uh sheriff you know uh pittsburgh is only using for sheriff lafayette is using it for fire also maybe it's fire only then maybe i'm reading them backwards um okay then i'm just curious why some jurisdictions are music like us would be using for both sheriff and fire

3:17:52and other jurisdictions have chosen only to either use fire or only use those those other jurisdictions have kept an in-house law enforcement dispatch center okay and then um and chief maples you will be the one to answer this one um it i i noticed that we're only going

3:18:10through december of 2019 for the fire and it's my understanding that that's to get us on to their fiscal year and when other contracts will be negotiated reasons to get us on their budgeting cycle and they have the other contract agencies that i mentioned that they want all the agencies on the same

3:18:29contract cycle so we'll negotiate a new contract in 19.

3:18:34excellent and we'll be able to use our the other jurisdictions to leverage better pricing right that's what my hope is okay thank you okay uh i don't see any other questions um do you have any speaker cards yes i have one request to speak okay cordell hindler i'm gonna keep my comments real short uh

3:19:00because i know it's getting approached uh 10 30. so um i do hope that this council will adopt this resolution for the for the services uh that that are provided for our community so that's pretty much it thank you okay uh bring it back to the council any final comments

3:19:20okay so is there a motion on the table sure i'll move a resolution of the city council of the city of el cerrito authorizing the city manager to enter into agreements with the office of the sheriff of contra costa county and the contra costa fire protection district

3:19:37for the provision of public safety dispatch services for the period of july 1 2017 to june 30 2022 for police dispatch and for the period of july 1 2017 to december 31 2019 for fire dispatch i'll second okay there's a motion by uh greg lyman seconded by gabe quinto all in favor please say aye

3:20:09aye and the opposition and the abstention motion carries unanimously with that well there's another item this is an attachment to is i know that okay okay does anybody have any uh city council local and region liaison assignments i do pardon i do good so i was at the

3:21:01um jpa or the gilman fields association and um one of the big questions that they are that we are going to vote on soon is uh how to replace the artificial turf at the gilman fields and i wanted to make sure and note that this saturday march 25th there will be a public meeting

3:21:36to talk about the various proposed types of artificial turf and it will be located at san pablo park community center and it is at 10 a.m so if anyone from the public would like to come in and comment on which type of field to to replace the current one that would be your opportunity as well

3:22:08as our our next meeting which is not scheduled yet i believe is open to the public um and that's it okay thank you have a quick um uh tomorrow i will be driving up ben as well as my uh colleague paul fideli and we will both be attending the abag mtc workshop in

3:22:32sacramento okay thank you i'll report that next time okay i do i on uh the first the second when thursday uh march 9th i attended the west county integrated waste management authority meeting where the comments on the joint powers agreement were discussed at length

3:22:58and the most notable thing to bring back to this group is that richmond's comments were not we we discussed them and i have to say that probably did not give staff enough clear direction that would resolve richmond's comments and concerns that they expressed in

3:23:21december and their representatives stated that if their comments and concerns were not going to be addressed that they were going to seek to withdraw from the authority so we are we that hasn't occurred yet we're not to that specific stage but we are in the process of working

3:23:44through um the the comments uh i um made comment that uh essentially if the cost for el cerrito continued to rise that it was probably not commensurate with the services that we're getting as you all know we have our own very capable staff that provides us with all of those

3:24:12many of the services that the authority provides us negotiating contracts the only thing the authority provides us right now is they do our regional reporting on ab-939 they help us manage the hazardous household waste program and any regional ordinances like the plastic bag band

3:24:34as well as integra interfacing with the west contra costa unified school district those are really the only services we get from the authority at this time and it is a tremendous drain on our staff resources to participate in the group so at some point we'll we will have to

3:24:54evaluate if the value of the services we're getting is commensurate with the cost uh and time that we're putting into it um that time is not today uh and if we get to that point i will certainly be able to put it on the agenda items that we have for full discussion of it

3:25:11thank you yes on arbor day the city arborist along with some tree committee members showed up at the hillsides of cerrito park and along with some prospects here students we planted about eight trees pacific oaks it was a nice experience and we did watering and mulch and planting and it

3:25:37was a it was a very nice day also the tree committee met shortly thereafter and there was similar concern expressed about the trails and the open space and the cuttings that the possible developers had done very concerned about that they had pictures of it and it's a

3:25:52big wide thoroughfare that they did so it's of concern and i'm not sure yet what the city might be doing in response but it's something we should follow up on i think okay thank you uh with that uh this meeting is adjourned on time uh until the meeting on tuesday april the

3:26:164th at 7 pm in these council chambers thank you all for coming you