Regular City Council Meeting November 7, 2017

0:01:00good evening everyone and welcome to the el cerrito city council meeting tonight uh we'll start out with a roll cut with the roll call council member fidelity president councilmember lyman here council member member pardue ecomoto present mayor pro tem quinto and mary abelson here thank you

0:01:25the next item on the agenda is the pledge of allegiance to the flag or an observation of a moment of silence led by uh mayor pro tem gabriel aquinto i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god

0:01:47indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you the next item on the agenda is oral communications from the public do we have any speakers i have one request to speak from john dale arose hello my name is john delarose resident of el cerrito thank you for allowing me

0:02:14to speak i'm here to talk about the issue of police body cameras i participated in the listening session a few weeks back regarding the draft policy and i wanted to start off by thanking the police department and particularly the police chief for being receptive to

0:02:29feedback and listening to the public i understand that the council will be voting on the acquisition of cameras at an upcoming meeting however um at least in that meeting um a couple weeks back they said that there was no plan to bring the policy to you for your review and that's what i

0:02:48wanted to talk to you about tonight i think we've all seen in the news that use of body cameras is a public policy issue that affects privacy and community trust in the police and it's also an issue that has financial consequences for the city both in terms of how much video is recorded and what the

0:03:06costs for that are and also about potential legal costs if something with a policy goes wrong so as elected representatives of the city i believe it's our duty to weigh in on this issue that puts the public policy discussion up for public debate where you our elected representatives can discuss it

0:03:26and it also makes it easier for the community to ask for changes to the policy later on if such changes are required i brought this issue up a few weeks ago and the police department basically said that they thought that they needed flexibility in the policy and that

0:03:39therefore that when it came to you at the upcoming meeting a policy wouldn't be included in that discussion i don't think that's a correct way to go and i don't think it's persuasive to me first because there's room for interpretation of the goals and rules in the policy that

0:03:58provides some flexibility i was trying to think about it and you know cities have a land use plan that sets out general requirements and then they have an implementation plan that gives more specific requirements and interpretations of how to interpret the land use plan and i think that's similar

0:04:14to what's that case here the city council can put together a set of goals a set of rules for how these policies should be taken care of and then the police department is on its own to interpret those rules i think that's a reasonable model to follow here and secondly if any changes that policy

0:04:33are required um city council meetings are every two weeks i think that's not that long but time window to wait for a change to be made in closing i think body cameras are a good resource for the public i'm happy to hear the city will be acquiring them but however given the issues the policy

0:04:52on their use needs to be discussed by you and brought to a public hearing thank you for your time thank you for listening me thank you are there additional speakers i have no other request to speak okay thank you um the next item on the mayor if i may um i do have at least one announcement i

0:05:12don't know did you actually call for uh council and staff communication oh i'm sorry i missed that um why don't we go back to that now so thank you great um i'd like to point out at least toys for tots the fire department is participating in toys for tots this year

0:05:33we're teaming up with the u.s marine corps reserve and for more information please go to www.toysfortots.org so that that's our program for collecting toys for the um for underprivileged children and the second thing i want to talk about is is that this last weekend

0:05:57the i was at the theater for watching the um the shoddy display movie the movie about cinder shotty and and what he did for our city uh including the dorothy and cindershotty his story room upstairs and uh this movie it's got clips from you know 1994 and 2002 about the shoddy display

0:06:21and and about what a uh what an um extraordinary thing that uh sundershotty did for uh for el cerrito to put el cerrito on the map where i think they were quoting something to the order of you know four or five thousand people who came a day to to see his display

0:06:42um so i just wanted to um you know thank the city for allowing the organization to put that movie on and remind us of what a tremendous man sundershotty was and what he really did for the city and how generous he was and i will take this opportunity to also remind people that the display is

0:07:03back even though sundershadi passed away at the age of 102 many years ago in 2003 the display does 2002 he the display does go up every year on on pg e property under the power lines on the slope uh mosher and it'll be up this year from december 10th through december 27th

0:07:30okay paul do you have any i i do i i just a couple things wanted to remind everyone that we have now a centennial tree on ashbury the gateway to our city that was planted on october 22nd the mayor was there to introduce and give a good history of trees and in our city um and it uh

0:07:49it's uh in view of the little hill in albany and that looks like our logo and there's one tree on our logo and i think that should represent our tree we had restaurant week last month which was a success at two new restaurants joined i guess fat apples is not a new

0:08:08restaurant but it's the first time they participated so that was that was good news that we had and finally i just wanted to say kind of a nice story here in these difficult times that we all have every week with the news that we have i was at the free folk festival a couple weeks ago

0:08:25and a neighbor of mine came up to me and told me about something that was going to happen that is worth repeating uh we have a an 86 year old senior who lives in town georgia kai who was having difficulty with his home and cleaning his house and the shrubbery around it

0:08:45and the troop 104 boy scouts here locally in town volunteered to go clean it up and last saturday they did that rain or shine with 30 bags of of greenery um and we have one of the boy scouts here rhoda maynard who was can you stand up and really help this guy george yakai was a cub scout in an

0:09:09internment camp many years ago when he was a little boy and his family were taken away so it's a great cyclical story and it's what we should be doing and it's very very touching and i just want to say that the boy scouts that we can also help clean up baxter creek so

0:09:22thank you very much [Applause] this last weekend we had a stroller brigade in front of alta bates hospital as an effort to draw attention to the pending closure of alta bates hospital in an effort to keep the hospital open it was very well attended and there are

0:09:50there are many um people in el cerrito that were either born at alta bates hospital or had a baby at alta bates hospital or know someone that was born alta bates hospital so i just like to report back on it was a very successful effort and we're going to keep pushing to keep the

0:10:07hospital open so that it continue to serve the city of el cerrito and beyond okay thank you mayor let's see um council member paul fideli and i attended the mayor's conference in lafayette uh where we had uh east bay parks director robert doyle speak and uh he spoke about the benefits

0:10:32that our area received with measure cc that was passed uh some years ago so it was a a good evening for that and then after that on the 7th of october i attended the hydrogen fuel cell opening station at the city of san ramon with at the toyota office at bishop ranch

0:11:01and that was amazing to see and i hope we can look into having more fuel cell infrastructure here in west county as well on the 11th uh the council members and i uh attended the los moles uh opening the grand opening with our it was a good event and so they actually had like three openings

0:11:29so it was so i'm glad that the chamber uh joined us for the third opening on the 26th um janet abelson mary abelson and i attended the league of cities event where we had a panel of three speakers one of them including chief paul keith from el cerrito police department we also had

0:11:56the police chief from san leandro and also from brentwood and it was great to hear what all the different cities are doing and especially proud of our police chief for [Music] letting alameda and contra costa know what we're doing here in el cerrito on sunday the 29th

0:12:28uh mayor abelson and i and as well as uh john joyah attended the junction avenue block party and it's always great to attend that block party on on junction street i just want to thank everyone uh for inviting us and great to see my fellow neighbors in the northern part

0:12:49of el cerrito and on the third uh this last week on monday i attended i'm now on the league of cities espie division executive board i attended an e-board meeting and we're setting up a programming for what we're going to do for 2018 and i'm proud to say that i

0:13:16also attended with my colleague rochelle pardue okimoto the baby brigade i was born in berkeley and many of our residents in kensington and el cerrito were born in alta bates or herrick hospital it's important that we keep alta bates open i'm glad that our supervisor john joya attended to let

0:13:39residents know the importance of keeping an emergency hospital uh in berkeley and it was great to see so many el cerrito residents and residents in west contra costa that attended so this is something very important that we all need to be aware of the possible closure of altabates

0:13:59hospital so both rochelle and myself are members of the task force to see what we can do to keep altivates open and that's along with council members from different cities along the i-80 corridor which includes albany richmond san pablo and and west county supervisor john joya

0:14:23thank you thank you okay um at our last at a recent meeting of the el cerrito city council the city council met in closed session and so i'm just wanting to report out from that we that we did discuss potential locations to continue providing services for seniors

0:14:49we gave direction to staff regarding the sites that were listed on that agenda and just so you don't have to look that up i'll tell you what they are 6500 stockton avenue which is the current location of the senior center and 108 48 san pablo avenue which is the senior

0:15:14housing structure being built right now next door the city will vacate the current location of the senior center by june 30 2018 as required by the school district the city is exploring other sites for the services as we speak and that concludes that reporting out

0:15:48and i have a whole list of things and i'm going to try not to repeat anything where somebody said i did it i'll let that be the reporting out of that let's see so let's see here the um let's see here just oops i realized i'm in the wrong place okay um today i can't remember if this was

0:16:25said or not but today i attended the informational briefing on the housing package produced by the state legislature and i can't remember did one of you say that i know no okay neither one of you did okay uh which was very informative uh so those who went where council member

0:16:47lyman and council member pardue okimoto and myself as well as a number of other kelly what did i say lyman i'm sorry i was i was at work today sorry i did look at you though didn't i no you did yes i'm trying not to be repetitive here um and it was held at the lafayette library

0:17:08and learning center in lafayette so it was an opportunity to look at the lafayette library and it was really interesting we notice that they call it library and learning center so part of it is actually a library like you might think a library would look and part of it is

0:17:28rooms that can be used for multitude of purposes and we were in that section of it but while we were there we did learn a lot about the housing package a lot of the information looked like it would be useful to staff in figuring out what uh opportunities to apply for money

0:17:53from various parts of the state once it all gets set up so i think that that hopefully will enable us to provide some more housing opportunities for people in the city of el cerrito as time goes on and then um i i did do attend the centennial tree planning but i do have to add one thing

0:18:21um because i did ask the question there and i was concerned about what kind of a tree would be pla was being planted and how long it would live and was it going to be well taken care of and i was assured that in fact [Music] the answer to all the questions i cared

0:18:41about was yes that so the tree will be taken care of because it's got a very wide circle around it and in that circle a lot of amenities have been added to the soil so that as the tree grows and becomes a large living creature that in fact the nutrients will be there

0:19:05to sustain it for what might amount to 500 years so this tree that was planted over on ashbury at the very south edge of town will be here probably much longer much much longer than any of us will be here and that's kind of overwhelming to think about if you think about it a little bit

0:19:29and i thought that was really uh special and um let's see here that one already got mentioned and so i attended the fair chance employer summit that was held on october 18th in the community center and gave an opening [Music] remarks uh session and um it was really quite interesting because

0:20:03it talked a lot about the people who have been in prison and the difficulties that they have getting employment and the recidivism which means the return to prison and as i'm sure many of you know [Music] there aren't a lot of opportunities provided for people in prison to further their

0:20:32education and develop good job skills and so this talks a lot about those kind of issues and the importance of in fact employing people who have come out of prison and and helping make it possible for them to be productive members of our uh society so i thought it was a really good

0:20:56session everyone there that i talked to thought the same thing and there is a new publication on another note called way to go contra costa which i know that i think you can get it at the senior center it's called and it's a transportation resource guide for contra costa county

0:21:19uh with a particular emphasis on seniors but it might also be of interest to people of any age so um if you want your own copy for free i think you can get it there and [Music] the let's see here [Music] i attended i think this one didn't come up [Applause] el cerrito arts day

0:21:58which was held on october 21st and um it was a really interesting day did anyone else on the council in the room it was a great opportunity it was a great opportunity to see uh the fantastic works work that the el cerrito arts and culture commission is uh doing

0:22:24they started out uh way back with an ohlone indian a um an actual real uh a person whose uh ancestors are thought to actually uh have been ohlone indians and um she opened the ceremony uh with a she opened the event with in a ceremony that was a um prayer and it was very touching

0:22:58to say the least and um and then after that performance there were a series of performances that took us through different eras in california history up until the present time or the uh like probably like after world war ii maybe and at which point everybody got up and

0:23:23started dancing uh including me at least i sort of did and um everyone had a fantastic time and i think we really owe a round of appreciation to the arts and culture commission for the great work that they did so shall we i think they're doing a great job um and um

0:23:47see that trying not to repeat here um i i attended the contra costa mayor's conference but i think the one you were talking about was was the month before on uh november the 2nd you and i attended the mayor's conference right i believe and [Music] it was a different one than you reported

0:24:17on i believe the one yeah paul and i attended uh the previous the previous one yeah yeah this is the uh the one that was on the second and um there was a presentation the administrative services director for the town of danville and the manager of arcata and it was on winning the race for talent

0:24:41attracting retaining and growing local government employees it was really an interesting presentation and i would tell you their names except i can't pronounce them so i'll leave it at that but it was really interesting it was about how to go about keeping and retaining employees

0:25:04so it was and it was held at the st mary's college which was i think a very interesting location and um let's see here we had a senior uh resource fair day on um in last month and it was held at the senior center excuse me the the community center and um it was completely full

0:25:37there's absolutely no more room left to grow the event there and the committee on aging and many many different community groups worked very hard to make it a very successful day um with that i will mayor if i may i had i found one more that i would like to make sure that

0:26:01people know about so for those that are here and at home uh the first public meeting for the el cerrito park and recreation facility master plan is set for saturday november 18th from 9 30 to 11 30 a.m at the el cerrito community center and if you want to see the master plan's homepage

0:26:22it's at www cerrito.org forward slash park mp for park master plan so the park and rec commission and the park and rec manager are asking people to participate in commenting on the master plan for our future parks so thank you thank you and are there any staff communications

0:26:55okay thank you so with that we will move on to item number four adoption of the consent calendar i'll move uh item four uh of the four a through four c four a being approval of the october three uh regular and october three special uh city council uh minutes uh

0:27:194b is support prohibition of industrial clear cutting in california forests and 4c is the crime prevention committee appointment a second okay there's a motion by a lyman seconded by quinto all in favor please say aye any objections in the abstentions motion care unanimously

0:27:39with that we will move on to item number five on our agenda which is a special presentation regarding el cerrito's emergency mutual aid assistance in and response to the recent northern california wildfire incidents in it going to be presented by michael pagonian

0:28:03pagone excuse me good evening honorable mayor abelson fellow council members my name is michael pagone i'm the operations chief with the el cerrito fire department and as the mayor indicated here as you know just about a month ago there was the devastating fires in the north bay in

0:28:24the sonoma napa and mendocino counties of which both the el cerrito fire department and police department participated in going to have a short presentation tonight tell you a little bit about a little bit about what we saw up there what the you know what the fires were about the

0:28:41people that were affected and some of the jobs that that we did with it so on sunday october 8th about 9 45 pm a vegetation fire started near tubbs lane on highway 128 in the napa valley this just a little ways north of the city of calistoga it was a red flag that day in

0:29:02the north bay hills as it was here locally due to the predicted high winds and the extremely low humidity with the northeast winds gusting up to 50 miles an hour this fire spread very quickly and it moved started moving up west moving west up the mountain side a few hours later the el cerrito fire

0:29:26department was requested to send a type 3 wild land engine as part of a county-wide strike team to assist with a fast-moving wildland fire while responding the strike team was diverted from napa county their destination of napa county to the city of santa rosa in sonoma county

0:29:46where the strong winds had already pushed the fire up the mayakama's mountains and over the marques springs area into the northern part of santa rosa this is approximately 12 miles from the origin of the fire that it had moved within just a few hours when the strike team

0:30:06arrived they found much more than just a wild land fire as they got into the northern part of santa rosa the fire head extent was extending and burning all the or clear across the six lanes of highway 101.

0:30:20hotels restaurants wineries and schools were burning and a large hospital had flames impinging on it as the medical staff was evacuating patients as fast as they could get the ambulances there complete neighborhoods were burning from the firestorm the winds that were measured by our

0:30:40personnel at almost 80 miles per hour were carrying some of the embers miles ahead of the fire igniting new fires here you see our crews are one of our crews that are attempting to save a house from the onslaught with it that was engine 372.

0:30:58the speed at which this fire progressed caused many to flee in a hurry some in their bare feet just leaving their footprints in the ashes the headlines for the next few days of the local papers up there painted the grim picture of what had occurred and what continued to occur

0:31:17the efforts to control the tubs fire at this incident or to control the tubs fire as this incident was named would be challenged with two more fires the adobe fire and the nuns fire would break out in the sonoma and bennett valley on the southeast side of santa

0:31:33rosa a short time later the pocket fire would also be discovered in northern sonoma county to the east of gazebo and cloverdale and all eight separate firefighters or eight separate fires would be reported in this local area up there before the night was over many of them burning into one another

0:31:55all the fires were grouped into the central lake napa unit complex or as you see on the screen here the lnu co the central l and u complex fire in the end nearly 111 000 acres burned over forty six thousand structures were threatened and more than sixty nine hundred structures were destroyed and of

0:32:20course many more were damaged sadly twenty three persons lost their lives in the central lnu complex fire and hundreds more were injured at one point it was estimated that more than a hundred and twelve thousand people were forced to evacuate their homes these numbers do not take into account

0:32:43two other major fires that were burning at the same time in the north bay the atlas fire in napa and solano counties that burned over 52 000 acres and destroyed almost 600 homes and the redwood complex in mendocino county that consumed nearly 36 000 acres and burned

0:33:01over 500 structures there were again sadly 19 additional fatalities in these two fires bringing the total to 42 people who perished from these three major incidents at the oops at the peak of this battle there were over 7 200 people assigned to the central lnu complex from

0:33:26386 cooperating agencies that came from 14 states and two countries including 33 individuals from the state of victoria in australia the crews worked 24-hour shifts evacuating residents protecting structures laying in hose lines cutting hand lines direct doing direct

0:33:48attack on the fire and whatever else was required of them in their daily assignments in addition to in addition to all of the engines that were there there were also um a hundred hund or over 100 hotshot and cal fire hand crews as well as the u.s forest service and other governmental

0:34:10and private agency hand crews that were helping cut fire breaks into the thick brush to try and contain the blaze these crews worked long hours using only hand tools to complete their assigned tasks there were nearly 80 bulldozers excavators graders and other heavy

0:34:30equipment that were working the perimeters to create fire breaks and fortify hand lines most of this work was done right on the fire's edge as you can see in this picture with only the equipment's ability to move dirt as the personnel's only protection from the air there were nearly 70

0:34:50aircrafts both fixed and rotary wing including the 747 super tanker that carries almost 20 000 gallons of fire retardant that you see in the picture right here making making drops on the making drops on the various fires records were set on these fires for the gallons of

0:35:10retardant dropped in a single day as well as in the end of this fire over 6 million gallons of the retardant had been dropped on the on this complex and that's not taking into account the millions of gallons at the helico water that the helicopters utilized in their firefighting

0:35:31major requires require major fires require a large number of resources including the ambulances utility companies the national guard was utilized the red cross and numerous other logistical resources to support the suppression efforts for it there were 82 law agencies alone that provided support

0:35:53throughout the incident the el cerrito police department sent two officers every day for seven days to assist with traffic and road closures backing up local law enforcement assisting with evacuations of residents and animals transporting donated items to the evacuation centers as well as

0:36:13patrolling the evacuated neighborhoods which was accomplished one day when the department brought up their dual sport motorcycles to gain access to some of the hard hit areas that were not passable in vehicles resources from the el cerrito fire department included engine 372 a

0:36:33specialized four-wheel drive engine wildland engine with four personnel who were committed to this incident for 12 straight days our state oes engine number 300 also responded with a crew of four firefighters and it also was committed for 12 days on the fire lines both of our crews that

0:36:57were went out in these two engines were on the fire lines for well over 36 hours initially or from their initial deployment before enough resources were in place to be able to give them a break battalion chiefs kevin james and david gibson both spent over five days assisting in

0:37:17the overhead positions and as a strike team leader lending their expertise and management and also in kevin's case his knowledge of the local area as he lives up there with it there's no way to truly describe what our personnel faced during the first few days of this

0:37:36event the resources that were initially available were stretched to their limits due to the widespread the magnitude of the fire as you see here driving block after block of burning neighborhoods seeing the resident's dreams going up in flames made us question what the next move would be

0:37:54obviously life safety was our number one priority evacuating the residents as well as making sure that we got out alive you can listen here for a few seconds you will hear the intensity of the wind that was blowing and keep in mind the windows are up on this vehicle the wind is this loud

0:38:16through and this is what that neighborhood looked like the next day after the first few days when the firestorm had passed our crews then spent time evaluating the area cooling off the rubble ensuring that there were no hot spots that could flare up if the winds

0:38:46returned for it well the fire affected many of our families we were fortunate that none of us as far as the el cerrito personnel none of us lost property however many in the santa rosa were not so fortunate including over 200 doctors nurses and other staff from santa rosa's hospitals who did lose

0:39:12their homes while they work to evacuate the patients that i talked about a little while ago numerous firefighters and police officers from san rosa also lost their homes while they were out protecting other people here in the picture you see santa rosa's fire station number five a two-year-old

0:39:29fire station that was in the fountain grove neighborhood which burned while the crews were out again trying to put out the fires and also evacuate other people this station as i said was two years old their newest fire station was considered to be a fireproof station

0:39:50but obviously it was no match for the tubbs fire as devastating as the fires were and amid the countless losses it was encouraging to see that while those affected had a long path ahead of them to travel their spirits while they were tested they were not broken

0:40:08in the hours after the after the fire first hit these areas there was an outpouring of assistance from neighbors both near and far that came together to help out in many different ways in the aftermath of the firestone or the firestorm we came home shocked and saddened

0:40:26um shocked and saddened for the and saddened for those that had lost their homes and their treasures but with a sense of duty that we had done our best to save what we could and do our part to assist those that were not so fortunate with it and again as during the whole time that we were up

0:40:46there the public responded with their appreciation with signs banners and rallies to thank the first responders for all the help that they had done with this i want to close the presentation reminding all of us to never take life for granted to reach out and help those

0:41:05that you can and would like to take a moment of silence here to remember those that did not have a chance to escape and thank you and i don't know if anyone has any questions um about what we did but before we do that just like to say that and i'm sure some of my other council

0:41:31members uh want to say something too but i just want to say how much i truly truly appreciate and i think all of us here in our city truly appreciate the dedication of our firefighters and our police officers who went up there and for those who would have had their turn come

0:41:58and say that it really means a lot to me to be part of a city where we are so well cared for because i know that if it happened here that those from that other area would do the same and i s and i my son as some of you probably know my son is a firefighter and my son-in-law

0:42:25is a cal fire firefighter and he was actually involved uh he he fought in the for sure i know in the napa county fires uh this time around and my son um while he was not at the fire he was at the fire station where he works pretty much the whole time while other people went so even

0:42:51i i'm sure the same thing was true here that our firefighters who didn't go were still here taking good care of us while their families were on at home and so i can't say how much it mean it incred means such an incredibly large amount to me and i think to all of us here

0:43:19that um we have such wonderful people in our fire department and our police department and i'll see if anyone else wants to add anything yes so as we all know i'm a newer council member it's my first year here and i've got to say that one of the best experiences of being a

0:43:46council member here has been getting to know the police and the fire departments here and to really understand the way that both of your fire both of your departments work and getting to know the individuals that work on our teams and while these fires were happening i was

0:44:07thinking about you guys you know i really felt like i had friends up there fighting these fires and my my thoughts were with you and my prayers are with you and i'm so glad that you all returned safely and i admire the work that you did and that everyone else did that worked with

0:44:29you and from the bottom of my heart i appreciate it thank you i will make sure um chief mabels and myself both will bring your bring your thoughts and back to the fire back to the troops yeah on echo what the former council member mayor have said that with great gratitude we thank you

0:44:52um i heard that on that same day we actually had a fire at the end of mosur and that you guys responded to a comparable potential hot spot on the same hot windy day and we were able to extinguish it before uh before it became a comparable uh complication and i and i want to

0:45:12recognize that we have almost three miles of of urban wildland interface here in el cerrito and that this was a fantastic opportunity for us to build experience within our crews to to be able to provide that type of response and support and and have the type of equipment

0:45:32that's necessary to do this response so i want to personally thank you for the reports that you provided us that the city manager afforded to us that we could stay informed as as our teammates here at el cerrito were out there um but i do have an actual question yes um you had you showed a

0:45:50slide of us dousing hot spots and i wanted to find out if there's in your experience if there was any new tools that you would ask for so that we could address this here in el cerrito or take that tool on the road and and work in other communities specifically i'm thinking of a hot spot

0:46:09detector i think that there was a lot of talk about how long it took to to contain or or put the fires out because the hot spots were not easy to detect and and actually at one point there was a discussion about you know identifying these hot spots during during the night

0:46:31using drones and such and i was just curious if there's any new tools or technology that you were exposed to that you might want to put into a future budget black helicopter would be no actually that is the the way that cal fire normally does a lot of the what they call the mapping is infrared

0:46:55mapping that that they do with their helicopters that do two that accomplish two items one they can fly the perimeter so they can basically with the heat detectors they can map out the actual size of the fire but it will also show the um it will also show up hot spots

0:47:13very much like our thermal imagers that we do carry on the engines how we find hot spots inside a structure unfortunately in the weather that was up there as it is many times on these wildland fires when the smoke does not rise and it basically becomes a you know it becomes an inversion layer

0:47:31in there the helicopters are not able to safely fly and the infrared has a trouble seeing through the smoke um you know from an altitude from a safe altitude that they can fly on it so it makes it um you know makes it a little bit rough for it um but as far as us on the ground

0:47:49um you know probably one of the one of the best tools that we have now um is our thermal imagers you know except you know from a wide standpoint of trying to look at um you know like a large area when you're talking thousands of acres i mean that's not a real practical deal the

0:48:06other tool that's out there that again not directly to us but through through the state is they also have the ability to do satellite imagery um of which the one picture that was up there where you saw the hillsides with the with the amount of fire that was burning on all

0:48:22three sides that was a satellite image early on that you know could show what the fire that was that wasn't stock footage that was actually the uh the maya thomas hills and the marques springs area um when the fire was spreading towards santa rosa for it with it so i mean

0:48:40you know that's as far as it's you know equipment that can find the hot spots that's the biggest items that are out there you know which is something probably a little bit you know beyond what we can do with it there are drones that that the infrared cameras can hook up to

0:48:56you know they do get to be a little on the expensive side you know and of course utilization of drones brings on a whole nother subject that you know it's probably for another night to talk about but you know that is another tool that many fire departments are out there using

0:49:11and again an expensive an expensive toy or not a toy but an expensive tool as well as you know it takes a lot of training and licensing for something that large to to utilize again thanks please express our gratitude to the teams that responded we definitely will do that

0:49:28i'll be a bit redundant here but i just want to say that was a great presentation thank you and a great effort that you did and as rochelle said we were very we thought about you all the time i happen to have been born in sonoma and all my extended families there so it

0:49:42really touched my heart my soul really but it made us think about the region we live in we are part of a region it made us think about our city and how we can rely on help too if something should happen here so again while we listened on the news and uh on the radio and on tv you guys were

0:50:03there and we'll never forget that thank you okay um scott did you want to add anything anything okay um i had one more question okay and then i think well do you want to go next and i think we have a public comment okay i just out of curiosity when you were staying there so

0:50:24many days in a row um where were your where were you sleeping or was like or resting when like the three days in a row there was no resting okay i mean you'd catch a little cat nap but i mean they were coming back here to i mean on the days when when i talked about the first 36 or over 36 hours

0:50:43there was no resting there i mean that was 36 hours on the line yeah i mean if if you got a little break somewhere you would take a cat nap in the cab um but in essence they were on the line that long once more resources came into play um you know it started arriving from as

0:50:59i said there was you know 14 states um one thing i failed to mention that just fire engines alone at the at the height of the of the central complex there was over 800 fire engines alone that's not counting everything else just fire engines alone once those resources showed up

0:51:18then our crews were put on 24-hour shifts they would be on the fire line for 24 hours they'd be off the fire line for 24 hours and so that off time was back to fire camp restock the engine fuel fix anything that needed fixing get cleaned up and then either they would if they were either

0:51:37provided hotel rooms or they were sleeping um you know we carry tents and you know um ground covers and stuff you know and they provide places where you camp out thank you thank you thank you um we have one request to speak it's denise sangster thank you and thank you chief for that

0:52:03great presentation it was really fantastic and i had many friends that were saved by el cerrito fire that were in that it was exact neighborhoods that sent me photos of el cerrito that day when they were running out that they showed up if you haven't seen the video

0:52:16that the city of berkeley filmed coming in at 5 a.m i encourage you to look at it it's horrifying and you can hear the audible noises or the audible conversation from the fire department as they were coming in and their rendezvous point with their strike team was on fire when they showed up in

0:52:32santa rosa it's breathtaking to see that i think it raises a couple of really good things that the council needs to work on and help the fire department do here number one is i think we need clearer stronger rules on red flag days especially up in the hills that are

0:52:48zoned as part of the high fire density area is that what it's called high fire high fire severity zone which is in our title papers for any home that was purchased after the last 18 years it actually says the cal fire is over that oversees that area and has control

0:53:07in the last red flag days during this actual fire we had fire we had crews that were up in the boy scout camp using um chainsaws bringing down trees where there's minimal water up there uh we had neighbors that were cutting metal pipe cutting rebar up in the hills

0:53:26and from talking with the fire department they said that they encouraged neighbors not to do this but they don't have the rules to stop it and i would like to see very clearly define rules that says that there's none of this can go on during a red flag day up in the hills in that

0:53:41zoned area i think there may be need to be different rules in the non-zone fire severity area but in the severity area there should not be metal bar being cut next to dead trees or dead trees being brought down in an area where there isn't adequate water so that's one thing the second is the

0:54:01learnings that i've learned from my friends that live up in sonoma and napa is that their reverse 9-1-1 did not work well and we shouldn't expect it to work well here the way it's operating and that's not because of the fire or police department it's just because they're

0:54:14going to have other things to do when a disaster breaks out so we need to have one system not two or three to get people notified right now we have one for the police we have another one that's coming online for the fire department and then the city has its own and i'd like to see one

0:54:33and there needs to be a policy and backup and this is something that the city of santa rosa learned the hard way that they didn't have a lot of backup people trained who could activate their reverse 9-1-1 so policemen were literally driving down streets on a on a loudspeaker

0:54:49broadcasting they had to evacuate and people had minutes to seconds to get out of their properties and some sadly did not get out so i think that this is something that needs to be addressed i've talked to the chief maples about this and i know he's bringing on one through the new

0:55:05con fire but i think we need to have one not three and really push for everyone to join that not just the cities not just the police not just the new one that the fire is bringing on but one and then let people define what they want but this is this is really important that this gets done

0:55:24because if our fire and policemen are out trying to save lives we need someone who can activate it and if people think they're on one system and that yet there's three that's really not a good scenario so i'd like to see the city council address this so that we really have one solution that

0:55:39can really help residents in the time crisis thank you i have no other requests thank you once again i would like to say thank you to our [Music] fire officers and our police officers who responded and i'd also like to to thank you um michael for um doing a fantastic job

0:56:09with this presentation uh thank you for for bringing it to us thank you okay so with that we will move on on our agenda to the next item which is the let's see where are we there it is okay 7a which is the service employees union local 1021 memorandum of under standing

0:56:44good evening mayor and council members i'm kristen cunningham senior human resources analyst and i'm here to seek an adoption of a resolution approving an agreement between the city of el cerrito and the service employees international union local 1021 modifying salaries and creating a new

0:57:02memorandum of understanding the mou with sciu 10-1 expired on june 30 of this year the city's management team negotiated with representatives of seiu 10-1 over the past several months from april of this year to september attentive agreement was accepted by the members of seiu on september 28 2017.

0:57:23much of the negotiation process focused on modifying salaries for the representative classifications the city's management team worked with seiu to ensure that the modifications to salaries were within the authority provided to us from city council and discussions also included adjusting

0:57:39language uh federal law changes language to comply with federal and state law changes um but in the interest of time and efficiency we've agreed to come tonight and present a draft mou modifying the salaries with the further task of finalizing this draft which we

0:57:57are very close to finalizing but a quick summary of the agreement it's a three-year agreement from july 1 of this year to june 30 of 2020.

0:58:05the wages effective the first full pay period of september of 2017 base salary would be increased for all representative classifications by 3.5 percent first full pay period of both july 2018 and july 2019 uh the wages would go up another 3.5 percent each year and we made adjustments to the

0:58:26probationary period for promotional appointments uh all bargaining unit classifications will be reduced for promotional appointments will be reduced from 12 months to 6 months and new employee orientation we made adjustments incorporated language to comply with california's ab-119 which

0:58:43was effective july 1st of this year and it requires that public employers allow union representatives to meet with employees during new employee orientation we adjusted the physician statement requirements requiring bargaining unit employees to get our absent from work due to illness

0:58:59they now have to submit one after two consecutive days instead of three vacation cash out language we adjusted the language to comply with the irs's constructive receipt requirements when employees choose to cash out vacation leave and out of class assignment pay we

0:59:13adjusted from when employees work in a temporarily in a higher classification they now have to work just a minimum of one full day and that's reduced down from three full days and we'd like to thank seiu for their thoughtfulness in the process and their hard work and getting us to this

0:59:32point and with that that concludes my report i'll open it up to any questions that you guys may have any questions from the council yeah i do um in reading through this i see that the the employees have uh are making a contribution of eight percent to pers uh that's no change so they've been uh

0:59:53putting eight percent in for some time um and i just wanna make sure it's retroactive to the first pay period in september not all the way back to july one correct and so that that i just wanted to double check that one and and then um [Music] i should come if i find my other

1:00:15question i will i will ask for an opportunity if somebody else doesn't cover my question okay i don't have a question but i just want to thank staff and local 1021 for being collaborative it's wonderful to have that happen and to have patience on both sides and i think it's well deserved and i

1:00:33appreciate staff moving this speedy non-conflicting way so thank you very much thank you they do a lot of work to for the city and the city was nice in resolving this thank you thank you okay um and do we have any public comment on this idea yes we have one speaker denise

1:00:54sangster i have a question and then several comments has the fab reviewed this is the so the answer is no is the fab going to review this i i don't know that the answer is no unless did somebody's do you want to no it's not going to be reviewed by the fab the part of the steps

1:01:32absolutely has a different responsibility am i correct well the way we handled negotiations was similar to the way we've always done it directly with the city council so the fab is not going to look at the financial implications of this contract that's what i'm understanding is that

1:01:49correct yes i'm understanding that correctly okay so um i think there's a couple of issues in here that i would like to raise one is that i think the accruals on unused vacation or sick leave whatever however it accrues it should be cashed out at rate of accrual not at the

1:02:07highest rate at the end and that that amount should be made public every year so we know what the potential liability is for the city taxpayers every every year the second is there needs to be better transparency into the actual cost of this contract um it's unclear really what this is

1:02:26going to cost the taxpayers i mean eight percent sounds very modest i admit that sounds very very modest to me maybe it's too little but the cost of the pension long term could be significant depending on how long what the actual cost of the pensions continue to be and so i think there

1:02:44needs to be better transparency for example when councilman lyman was the mayor when he announced the city manager's contract the only thing you said was it's average and looking into the details of what average meant the pension and other liabilities are just enormous

1:03:05and that should have been better disclosed and i think this is an opportunity to better disclose what these costs are and i think that as a taxpayer we need to do that and to be more transparent and not have to ask for documents but it should just be transparent thank you

1:03:26any other comments no excuse me thank you um okay bringing it back to the council um i have no additional questions this time okay anyone else gives her a motion i move to approve it the resolution of the city council of the city of el cerrito approving an agreement between the city

1:03:56of el cerrito and the service employees international union seiu local 10-2-1 modifying salaries and creating a new memorandum of understanding i'll second that okay all in favor i'm sorry the motion was made by uh pardo akimoto uh seconded by quinto all in favor please say aye aye any

1:04:19objection in the abstention motion carries unanimously thank you thank you very much for your report appreciate it [Applause] um the next item on the agenda is the charter city discussion and possible direction for a staff report yes thank you uh mayors mayor and members of the

1:04:50council uh the city attorney and i are here today to help shape a discussion and possibly receive direction on a process that would consider whether the city of el cerrito should become a charter city as you might remember this came up during the council strategic

1:05:09planning sessions as well as recently the discussion of affordable housing um in el cerrito you have a resolution before you that you would ultimately we'd ultimately be asking you to adopt if you decided to go to go forward i i would just add sort of even since we

1:05:29put this together when we talk about a charter city a lot of this discussion is going to be about the ability to raise revenues and one of the things that struck us was also around the napa and sonoma fires and we've talked about the city's reserves and how they've kind

1:05:48of gone up and down and fluctuated with the economy but it struck us as when we're looking at our revenues as another reason why we need to look at new ways to not only reinvest in the city but also to put more money aside should events like that unfortunately happen here

1:06:10hopefully they won't but as we've discussed you know the city regularly has issues with cash flow despite the amount of money we ultimately wind up with in our reserves so to me that's another significant reason when we're looking at revenue in addition to all of the things that we've

1:06:27discussed over the past year that we would like to do from from operations to buildings to police to fire um there's just only so much revenue to go around and as a charter city we there is a lot more flexibility there's potentially a lot more flexibility so what we wanted to do today

1:06:47was to discuss the difference between a general lost city and a charter city and the issues around sound a little bit arcane and bureaucratic but there that's essentially how the california constitution is written and what the main differences are are around home rule

1:07:07municipal affairs and statewide concerns and the city attorney will walk you through that but in considering whether or not to be a charter the flexibility comes from ultimately the california constitution which treats the two separately it doesn't necessarily mean you change the

1:07:23municipal code or change any of the things the way we do business but it does when you look at certain land use issues election issues and things um the constitution grants different authority uh to the two different types of governments so we'll touch on the benefits and

1:07:39detriments of becoming a charter discuss the real property transfer tax which is for those of you who've been around for a while know that we had until 2003 and because we were generalized city we ultimately decided to repeal it and then questions and discussion and

1:07:57hopefully direction one way or the other so with that i would turn it over to sky to take you to through sort of the the framework for how a charter might or might not work thank you um so just thought we'd start out by talking a little bit about um what the nature of

1:08:17the authority is and the differences between general law and charter cities um as scott mentioned general law and charter cities have different sources of legal authority and those generally define the scope of their powers general lost cities are empowered to act

1:08:34pursuant to state statutes and the california constitution that includes their police power to regulate for the public health safety and general welfare charter cities have the same authority as general law cities but additionally the constitution authorizes them to act

1:08:50independently regarding municipal affairs which is a term you're going to hear a lot and we'll talk a little bit about what that means the ordinances of a charter city have the effect of state law with regard to municipal affairs and don't have to be consistent with state statutes they do

1:09:05still though have to be consistent with the california and u.s constitutions and with federal law so the concept of home rule which you also hear a lot about when talking about charter cities is that charter cities have the authority to make local law regarding

1:09:23municipal affairs and those laws have the same effect as state law the implication of that i often say to people is that the issue at the heart of this decision is about whether the local government should make decisions about municipal affairs or if state law should control

1:09:42which then leads to the question what is a municipal affair state law does not define it it doesn't provide a list it's a question that's decided on a case-by-case basis by the courts the legislature doesn't have the power to eliminate municipal affairs but the provisions of the constitution

1:10:01that are approved by voters can apply to charter cities so because it's an issue that's decided on a case-by-case basis we thought we would go through some of the issues that have been identified as municipal affairs some ca in some cases resulting in a great deal of authority for charter

1:10:20cities to act and in some cases providing only a limited amount of authority for charter cities to act uh the first one we thought we'd talk about is elections the courts have actually said that elections are broadly a municipal affair and charter cities as a result

1:10:36may adopt their own rules for most aspects of local elections and some of those things that that charter cities have regulated are candidate qualifications how vacancies in office are filled different forms of voting such as the use of ranked choice voting and who's

1:10:55eligible to vote charter cities still have to comply with those aspects aspects of elections law established by the constitution so they do still have to allow for initiative and referendum but they have some authority to regulate those processes and then when making changes to

1:11:13elections in particular charter cities still have to think about the practicalities of it a lot of charter cities still rely upon county elections offices to run their elections and so they actually need to think about uh whether or not changes are going to actually um

1:11:29be ones that the county elections office can effectively and efficiently administer another area that the courts have said charter cities have um control over as a result of municipal affair although this one is much more limited is related to municipal finance

1:11:49crucially and this is something that we'll end up talking about a fair amount is that charter cities have the ability to adopt some taxes that general law cities don't such as the real property transfer tax they can also expand the types and serve of services and facilities that can be

1:12:06financed with assessments and taxes so for example community facilities districts which are sometimes called mello-roos districts are financing tools that are available to general law cities pursuant to state law charter cities can use and have created very similar means of

1:12:26doing financing but the state law restricts what what those tax revenues can be spent on and charter cities can actually use this a very similar type of vehicle to finance a broader range of facilities and services charter cities though are still subject to the voter approval requirements that

1:12:45have been enacted by propositions 13 to 18 and 26 so that all still applies land use is a very complicated area of home rule and municipal affairs there's the state courts have identified some um instances in which uh charter cities have some control over land use and planning that that general

1:13:12law cities um don't and those include things like um the zoning ordinance and the specific plans don't have to be consistent with the general plan at the time of adoption additionally charter cities have some freedom to establish their own rules for the adoption of planning documents like

1:13:32the general plan and specific plans but a number of areas related to land use and planning are actually considered to be statewide affairs and charter cities are subject to the same rules as general law cities and that includes sequa still applies state housing and open space laws apply

1:13:50and the zoning hearing procedures and the permit streamlining act also all apply we've provided you with some background information that that provides a more comprehensive list but it's actually a even though um land use is considered um a municipal affair for some things there's actually

1:14:06a significant amount of state law that still controls what charter cities can do um another area that we wanted to talk about as a municipal affair is public contracting and prevailing wages and this is in part because this is one that has come up a lot in charter city discussions

1:14:25in recent years charter cities have a great deal of flexibility regarding how they contract for public works projects they can use the design build process for projects that don't qualify under state law they can also exempt themselves from the public bidding process for public works

1:14:42projects and can exempt themselves from the payment of prevailing wages on those types of projects with one big exception which is that prevailing wages will always apply to projects that that receive state and federal funding um we're going to talk some a little bit

1:14:58more about the the public works contracting and prevailing wage issue when we get down to our recommendations employment and compensation are a additional area that the courts have said to a significant degree or matters of our municipal affairs so charter cities

1:15:18as a result have a fair amount of control over these areas they that extends to um the appointment um qualifications and compensation for city employees um charter cities also have um the authority to set local rules for the compensation of their elected officials

1:15:36just to provide you with some examples uh having so those are some examples of um what what what the courts have said are municipal affairs and sort of what they what those actually mean in practical terms um now we're going to talk a little bit and i'm going to turn it back

1:15:50over to the city manager to talk about um sort of starting with what sort of the the length and nature of charters themselves as a document so ultimately the length of a charter will depend on what the city council ultimately wants to do it can be essentially similar to a municipal code

1:16:14or it can be a page or two basically saying that a city is changing you know changing what it's doing largely to change where the state constitution applies and that'll ultimately be up to you tonight and we'll get into more of the recommendation of the sort of details length breadth of

1:16:37what a charter might look like or or it might not look like typically as we would see at the municipal code would be maintained as is and we'll get back to that we've already talked about more flexibility in terms of revenues and and we when we're trying to be very

1:16:54upfront about the real property transfer taxes something that the city used to do and at that point when the city was collecting it that was going directly to capital and since that time the city has really struggled to reinvest in capital programs and reinvest in our facilities

1:17:14and the real property transfer tax um could do that and and it can also do um basically what the city determines uh and the city council determines annually that we'd like it to do um the other advantages as sky has alluded to is there's potentially more flexibility in elections

1:17:34and more local control as you for those of you who are on the council you may remember when we first considered this i believe in 2011 the issue of local control was really the driver of why we were considering it um now i think that's still important i still think there are

1:17:51bills passed including this year that the league of california cities even said you know took opposed positions that passed because typically while they may be well intentioned they take control more and more control away from local governments and it is still a significant reason to be a

1:18:08charter disadvantages to becoming a charter and and these are general rules not necessarily things that would happen here but there could there's a transition when you're studying it um because of the nature of municipal affairs and lack of defining terms there's potentially legal challenges

1:18:30based on the city on future city decisions and there are limited case law on how to define that if you were to change the charter it would require another vote of the people it could be divisive depending on how many and what type of changes you wanted to make to how we currently do business

1:18:51and over time municipal affairs could still erode as state legislation changes and chips away charter cities as we all know and have discussed back when we lost our redevelopment agency and and iraf and going back to any number of things charter cities have not been spared

1:19:13state takeaways and uh hopefully we're we're through with that for the foreseeable future as some background in california there are 121 charter cities 361 general lost cities including uh some of our neighbors on the 880 corridor most of the cities to the south

1:19:35our charter cities as well as you know san leandro san rafael so it's sort of an 80 corridor um look is what we're taking and and part of the reason we're looking that way is i think our real estate market um and my significant number of years now watching and looking at real estate and looking

1:19:52at real estate sales in australia we tend to um a lot of the same people issue interested in buying property buying homes in el cerrito or also looking in albany berkeley kensington and and south not to say they're not looking in other places in west county but the the way the at least what i've

1:20:15heard from realtors i've known and worked with over the time over the time i've been here it largely looks uh towards albany and berkeley specifically on the real property transfer tax we've collected information on what what that number is in other cities as you can see per thousand dollars of sale

1:20:37price i've already said that el cerrito had it until 2003 and at that point it was seven dollars per thousand in 2003 that was a generated about one point uh two million dollars in revenue to the city which was which we lost and if we had just if we had kept it at that

1:21:01rate it would be averaging about 1.7 million dollars a year now and if we were to set the rate at the 12 which is current roughly the average or the median of the neighboring charter cities it would be about 2.7 million dollars in revenue and that because it's a general tax

1:21:22it could be used for operations reserves or capital or debt service and based on some study and we will continue to collect more information if the council goes forward as as we know in el cerrito as well as the cities that i've mentioned that have charters the home prices have

1:21:48gone crazy and there's been no evidence that having a transfer taxes affecting home sales and as home prices have gone as high as i have the the impact of the transfer tax seems to have been even less concern in the grand scheme of how much money people are spending on homes

1:22:18if we if the council were to direct us to go forward tonight um we would work the staff would work with the subcommittee of the council or members of the council and over november and between november and february develop recommendations um have public and stakeholder meetings

1:22:43would come back to the council in april the council would have to add we would and i'll go through the some of the time loops of why it would have to be by april uh the council would typically place a measure on the ballot if that was what they wanted to do in july

1:23:01and um ultimately it would be brought to the voters in november i would i would also want to point out that while you may be giving direction the council will still have multiple opportunities to reevaluate whether to place a measure on the ballot or not but if we don't do the homework upfront

1:23:21you obviously wouldn't get to that get to that point in terms of how it would work the process for doing this and and some of the reasons we're recommending what we're recommending has to do with the timeline that the draft any draft charter would need to be done by april

1:23:41there would need to be two public meetings by the council the hearings would need to be at least 30 days apart there's 21 days of notice and you can't put the charter on the ballot until at least 21 days after the second public hearing so there's a whole bunch of public and public review

1:23:59opportunities um prior to the council place and the measure on the ballot so it is time consuming which is why we are suggesting some of the structure that we're suggesting in terms of financial impact based on our prior experiences we would typically do some level of survey research

1:24:20uh public information and then ultimately the cost of putting something on the ballot that would be we're estimating 90 to 110 000 spread over two fiscal years at this point we're not asking for any appropriation um related to this even if the council directs us to go forward at this time

1:24:44we don't think we need any additional money in terms of the charter review committee it's necessary and required by law if if you went down this path it can be appointed by the city council and it can consist of it can be a separate commission or it could be a council

1:25:06commission that would include both members of the public and the city council either is fine and it can in terms of developing it it could be done by a group outside of the council process or it can be done by the city council through an appointed committee and consisting of both

1:25:30the public or not so charters can come can be counsel generated or resident generated so items for we're asking the council to consider is the timing the length um and the length it's not really how many pages do you think it is um it sounds more like my 12 year old

1:25:50um but more depending on the the rules you put around the committee will dictate how how long the charter would be um the type of committee the makeup of the committee and we also feel that there should be positive inclusions um related to contracting and wages and

1:26:14labor and that we should be up front that we're looking at uh that you want the committee to look at a real property transfer tax in terms of at least the staff's recommendation and in addition to skye and i we have discussed this with all the senior staff too and gotten in their their input

1:26:32if we were to go forward because of the timing we think we should do it immediately the charter should essentially maintain the current municipal code again we're not bringing this to you either because it was brought out by council members or for any comments or concerns or criticisms

1:26:53we've gotten how currently things are working in terms of the form of government so i guess we're going under the it doesn't seem like it's broken so we're not suggesting we need to fix anything at this point the type of charter committee as we've alluded to would be

1:27:12two council members and five members of the public the council members we're suggesting are council members lyman and fideli and the other members we should hold seats forward are a member of the financial advisory board somebody from the real estate community and someone

1:27:32representing labor or unions and that the other two could still be part of those other groups ultimately those appointees would come back and be approved by the city council the um i'm sorry i lost my spot in terms of a proactive statement that in the new charter and in the ballot

1:28:00question we want to be very upfront about this is not that we that we believe a proactive statement on um wages prevailing wages public contracting and the reason we say that is in um it hasn't been done very recently but in the past in more conservative cities

1:28:18the reason given for uh considering going to charters has to do with getting out of paying prevailing wages or getting out of the public contracts code we are we would advocate strongly that um you proactively say that we are that's not what we're doing and when you

1:28:36look at the resolution that's drafted it's very specific as to what the charter committee would look at and what they wouldn't look at and then the the committee would be directed to look at the charter at the uh real property transfer tax and the ballot question and

1:28:53how um um the appropriate amounts and that it would be included um very upfront i mean i think other cities have split it into multiple decisions and we think we should just be if if a goal in this is to potentially raise more revenue than we should say that up front

1:29:15so like i had already alluded in terms of next steps you could defer any action and we could essentially pass or direct us to go forward immediately or maybe there's some other option we haven't thought of so if the council decides to go forward we ask that you

1:29:33consider the resolution that you have in your package that lays out the framework for ultimately for the committee so with that uh both the city attorney and i are happy to take any questions or listen to any comments comments questions let me start with questions

1:29:58ready yes um i have a few varying questions here you mentioned about can you just give a little description as to el cerrito's history and he mentioning it was repealed before and why it was repealed he used to have so confused about that yeah we were just trying to keep it brief but um

1:30:23until uh i don't wanna let me start that differently um there was a period in which it was unclear uh whether or not general law cities had the authority to levy a real property transfer tax [Music] by 2002 probably it had become clear that it would be it was unlikely to be defensible for a

1:30:48general law city to do so and so the city initiated the process of repealing um the one that had been on the books for i don't i don't even know how long but for quite a long period of time and so ultimately the city council repealed that and um has not collected it since that time um

1:31:05as discussed in the staff report um there is a a similar but different tax called the documentary transfer tax which is a dollar ten per thousand of sales price that is split between the county and the city um so that remains in effect but that is all the general

1:31:25law cities can enact under current law but why did it repeal it i don't care why else we are based on developments in case law it became clear that um general lost cities were likely going to lose cases if they were challenged if their real property transfer taxes

1:31:43were challenged looking ahead to potential legal issues yes exactly um so i keep hearing about how long a charter should be and and the length of a charter i mean how many times does a city usually review and investigate and deal with this kind of change how many years are we talking about a

1:32:05charter being in existence is that one of the questions we have before us once you become a charter city you would presumably always be a charter city indefinitely you wouldn't typically he wouldn't go back but you've kind of narrowed some of the approach here as to

1:32:21what we should be looking at how can we as a city go back and look at other issues involved with being a charter city can we easily come back and deal with election issues or how we are configured or those types of issues that you've opened under under a charter you

1:32:37would come you can always come back and change it but it requires a vote of the people to do so so we take another vote right to do that to to even once the decision has been made as to what we might want to do correct um so you're asking us narrowly to deal with

1:32:55some revenue raising but you're not precluding us from talking about how government happens here is that correct it's a general emphasis that you want us to move in this direction the the way that we have drafted the council resolution is that you would not be amending the municipal code that the

1:33:15question to the and that's based on feedback we've gotten to date there has we've never had any discussions about doing and making changes to them to the municipal code um so the way it's been drafted is that there would be no changes to the municipal code that the issues before

1:33:32the committee would be does it make sense to become a charter city based on state constitution and if so are there going to be additional revenue measures specifically the real property transfer tax but there are others as the city attorney mentioned and how much but

1:33:49the way it's drafted is no they would not be looking at anything beyond that and and the committee that's being set up would not be allowed to that would be the council's direction okay because i kind of have an issue with that um uh getting to the top i mean because part

1:34:09of what you list out here is what a charter is a charter city is a variety of things and if the public knows we're talking about these things and if there are some things that need tweaking or changing i would hate to not be able to change those things and you're saying we

1:34:24can't do that well again you could do it now and it's in my time here it's never come up and we could do it again do a narrow movement press committee um on the tax issue um you talk about no impact really um and that there could be a split between the transfer can you explain how that

1:34:46split which means um it would be shared that's that is not um that's between the buyer and the seller typically i mean that's normal by the buyer is that correct it's i i believe i don't know if you know but i believe that it's negotiable during the price i think right now in a

1:35:04buyer's market i mean in a seller's market they probably could negotiate not paying anything yeah i believe in the i believe in our background research we found that um there's there's uh there's basically a split amongst charter cities that have a real property

1:35:20transfer tax with some saying the seller buys some saying the some saying the seller pays some saying the buyer pays and some saying that it's split but ultimately um that's just a question of who writes the check um but but but that can be worked out at the back end

1:35:34between the buyer and seller and usually is and there was a discussion you had in the memo about a rebate can you just describe what you're talking about why that might be important in looking at other transfer taxes since it's a transaction that point of sale it's an opportunity often

1:35:58where you're doing um your construction you're doing conditions related to typically you do inspections and so you may discover that a property needs seismic upgrade or could really benefit from energy upgrades so we have seen and i i don't want i don't remember recall how often but we

1:36:27have seen i think berkeley has it actually um where you can allow some portion of the text to be credited back towards doing some type of improvements that further sort of the mission of the city whether that's you know public safety sustainability those types of things

1:36:49so you could say if your tax was five thousand dollars some portion of that five thousand could be moved in escrow to be used or for upgrades so that would be less revenue the city gets correct in with the goal of just making the sale happen and that that we are getting some

1:37:11money back well i think the goal of i don't know i don't believe that the sale would or would not happen but because of this or because 20 percent of it is going i think it's more to benefit some public good that we want more homes seismically upgraded more solar more

1:37:31energy efficient windows whatever those things are so it's an opportunity to allow the buyer and seller to take a credit back or whatever those things are and and and finally i was going to ask on on the committee that's being established besides the fab how would the process

1:37:47happen and who would approve those people that would be on that committee the process as we've envisioned it at the moment the process we would sit down the city attorney and i and the two councilmembers would sit down and kind of come up with a process and then ultimately bring

1:38:02who those recommendations are back to the city council to appreciate approval by the council or if you determined you want the council to interview them or that we haven't predetermined what the best way to do that is other than suggesting that it should be council driven

1:38:21thank you sure thank you yeah so i have read this and understand that uh you know the fourth sub bullet under the second bullet the ulcery missile code shall not be altered by the proposed charter and in that in your presentation you said that's you know if it ain't broke

1:38:40don't fix it um and what i wanted to find out is with regards to certain things that the code is silent on um and in this particular case like a vacancy tax or vacancy fee for vacant businesses along san pablo avenue um if if the code is silent on something that is allowable by a charter is that

1:39:02within the purview of the committee i would well i probably defer to the attorney but i i believe you can if if it's something that a general lost city can do you can do that now i if if it's something that the general law said he can't do and i can't speak directly to a vacancy

1:39:23tax i mean i've heard of them i don't know i've we haven't seen them actually used very often correct but but if you were to do something that um the way this is written um it doesn't specifically say real property transfer text so if the committee is looking and

1:39:39and the research finds there are other things that should be considered related to revenue generation i think that's covered so the municipal code and i actually quickly looked the municipal covers many of the topics you covered tonight including land use elections including

1:39:54council wages so those things would not not change but one of the presentation items you had was the land use consistency issue about you know charter laws don't necessarily charter laws cities don't necessarily have to have land use consistent with the general

1:40:13plan that doesn't seem like a topic that would be in the municipal code per se and so i was just wondering if that um that consistency or or the requirement for consistency it i don't think i don't i didn't search the municipal code for it but i don't believe it's there i just wanted to find

1:40:30out if that that issue is you know something that would be still available to us even if we did if we just became a charter law city and didn't say anything about it that seems like an issue that's created automatically as a result of being that ability to not be consistent between the

1:40:49two plans is something that sounds like it just is generated as soon as we become a chartered law i believe that i believe that's an accurate summary i don't believe that the municipal code currently includes a statement along those lines i'd have to check myself the

1:41:03general plan may the general plan may well um but yes i mean since that is an existing category of municipal affair if el cerrito became a charter city it is um it would have the power to for example adopt a specific plan and not have it be and not immediately make

1:41:23changes to the general plan um to to to ensure that they were immediately consistent um we wouldn't necessarily have to amend the municipal code or have that included in the charter to be something that that the city could do under those circumstances great thank you

1:41:44so agenda item seven b attachment two where it has the comparisons between the general lost city and the charter city i just want to make sure if i understand this right do all of these charter city columns automatically have automatically happen or it's only if we write it into the

1:42:03charter these are things that either can be written into the charter or that depending on how the charter is written could be enacted by ordinance later but they're not things that happen immediately none of these are things that well i just i shouldn't say none of them

1:42:20since i just said that sort of the specific plan general plan consistency is just an area of municipal affair and you don't necessarily have to have enabling legislation to make that happen but things just to take the first one on here or maybe sorry the second one on

1:42:33here which is providing for a strong mayor and city manager form of government that's not something that happens automatically it's something that would actually have to be either spelled out in the charter or something that would have to be specifically stated to be done by

1:42:48ordinance okay thank you my question is regarding uh public contracts and looking at general lost city and then looking at the charter city what is contracts for professional services such as private architectural land landscape architectural engineering environmental

1:43:18land surveying so bidding for these public contracts would have to we would have to change all that then and and and change it ordinance uh the different ordinances then um when you changed it back in 2003 um what was the process when you had to change all of that

1:43:45was that difficult to no we didn't we didn't change any of that we all we did in 2003 was stopped collecting the transfer tax and we were a general lost city and continued to be a generalized city so we were bound to comply with the public contracts code what were what we raised is there have

1:44:04been cities who for the items you've just mentioned who have become charter cities with a goal of opting out so they don't have to bid a certain way they don't have to follow essentially follow the california code we follow it because it you know it's very detailed in how you bid projects

1:44:23how you award projects um we're required to pay prevailing wages those sorts of things and in other communities those are not you know they have made decisions and maybe that's not what they want to do what we're suggesting is essentially the way the resolution has been none of

1:44:40that will change we want to be clear that that's not at least we believe that's as as i've mentioned um that's never come up as something we want to do as a city is find a way to bid projects differently or not follow you know the california code or not pay prevailing wage or do something

1:45:00different and i think you know again based on the timeline um you know i think we want to be proactive about it um so anyone watching understands that that's not a you know that's not some some goal that might come out of this and that the committee wouldn't go and

1:45:19look at you know bring back a recommendation saying let's opt out so we cannot pay the prevailing wage or not negotiate a certain way or so um okay unless the council directs us otherwise it wouldn't require any change okay um and then for the november vote if that happens um so

1:45:42that's a two-thirds vote then no that's a 50 plus one it's a 50 plus one okay very good thank you okay um the um concern i have is that when this issue was brought up it was brought up as a way to increase revenue and now i'm hearing it talking about sort of that everybody sort of picks

1:46:04what they want in it or it could get to that stage and only it's not everybody picking its uh either two p people on the subcommittee or the charter committee i'm not quite sure it could maybe be one or the other i suppose but and and that concerns me because that means we don't know what we're

1:46:23getting for one thing and maybe um i would be okay with um what what was presented in you know such as the ability to erase additional revenue but maybe the things that would be brought up later would not be and it's not clear to me that um it just seems to me like it's going down

1:46:51a kind of a slippery slope and [Music] so am i thinking correctly about how that works and i'd like to ask staff not a person well i mean again it's up to the city council i mean we as i said we drafted it this way based on feedback we've gotten over the time over many years

1:47:17through strategic planning through budget through goal setting and the two issues around that continually come up is more flexibility in terms of raising revenue and potentially more local control you could go in all different directions but i i'm just saying from in from our

1:47:37position we have that has never come up either in discussion or as direction as something the city should be taking on in the goal setting and we did goal setting last spring that we should be looking at the form of government or we should be looking at our elections or we

1:47:51should be looking at it i mean i'm just saying you could do it but that i mean it's entirely up to you we just wrote it um very narrowly based on essentially the two items that have come up regularly and also frankly um the more recent charters that have been approved have often been a page or two

1:48:13they're not they're doing it largely for the same reason we we are we're recommending i'd just add that if the council adopted the resolution that we prepared um tonight the the committee would have a have a narrow mandate about what to go forward and include in

1:48:31a draft charter that came back to the council i suspect that during the course of the conversation and the meetings that the committee would have that a number of other issues might be raised um and you know it would be possible to sort of send those along to the council

1:48:45and say well here's the charter that you asked us to prepare additionally we heard from the public about this set of issues we think they're ones that merit some consideration in the future and you know they could be taken up again during a later process but our thinking again as

1:48:59the city manager said was there have been a couple of things that have come up about why the city might consider pursuing a charter our proposal was to um create a process for the drafting of one that addressed that narrow set of issues the process it is possible to

1:49:15amend the charter in the future to address other issues and those could be taken up but during during a second round of of um proposed amendments in in at a later time you know some some years in the future okay okay i'm not sure if it's answering my question or not answering my question

1:49:34but the concern i have is that we start out thinking we're doing one thing and all of a sudden we're doing something else and that's a concern to me that makes me concerned about doing this well again it it's how you pass the resolution tonight okay i mean if you pass it the way it's written

1:49:57it it as skye just said it narrowly defines what the charter committee would focus on okay so for example going to the issue that was just brought up about um prevailing wage for example then if if it was pursued the way it's uh presented to us already tonight in the staff report

1:50:21then prev how would prevailing wage be covered the resolution specifically says that it shall require the city to follow the california law regarding the payment of prevailing wages for public works projects and collective bargaining with represented employee groups so basically

1:50:41what i would anticipate the process looking like is if you adopted this resolution as written the committee would come back with a draft charter for you to consider that would include a statement that says el cerrito follows state law regarding the payment to prevailing wages and the other items

1:50:58that you mentioned already in your staff report exactly and then it would be straightforward and limited to that and the election that would go on in november of next year about this item would be about these items correct okay and not about something that somebody came up

1:51:15with along the way uh and okay thank you so are there more um questions from do you have one i i do in that in that line um we've precluded prevailing wages and collective bargaining from being considered correct yes changing them changing them but we haven't precluded the form of government

1:51:45from it's just a general suggestion that we do that well that would require changing the municipal code and this says you will not change the municipal code so in in the process of our public process which we're having what one or two events we haven't determined how many meetings

1:52:04yet there's multiple council meetings in addition to the public meetings so the public the way it's drafted now would not be allowed as kind of janet maybe was talking about about recrafting how elections no it would not allow that so that would mean that what we think

1:52:21we're getting here is what we're getting it's not going to turn out to be you know something totally different that had not been reviewed and in particular had not been in able to be reviewed in a time for um to have a full process um and just to be again to reiterate i mean that's entirely up to

1:52:49you i mean you you can we can look at anything i'm wanting to know how to vote on things i mean i i think i sort of get some of that but i'm what the concern that i have is if we leave it open then we don't know what we're going to end up with and um and yet we have an election looming on

1:53:12it and um the results may be undesirable is what i'm actually thinking it might lead to since there wouldn't have been time to do things and maybe for example i people here up on the diocese would not have voted to even proceed with anything had we known that was what was going to happen or

1:53:39something like that so i guess that would be the concern that i would have in not even having the council as a whole engaged didn't the council say other issues might come up in a public process and it would come back to the council and we could either not include

1:54:03those right it could so we do have another change what i'm suggesting is that what i want to do is limit it to the reason i i'm i'm not the most enthusiastic about this process at all i've gone to many meetings of the administrative services committee of the league of california cities and

1:54:22um i'm not totally enthusiastic about this process at all and to hear that it might just go any old way makes me even less enthusiastic if i knew that there were parameters on it such as the ability to do the things that we think that our residents want to do to

1:54:48provide appropriate city services you know such as having adequate public safety buildings for example things like that then i'm highly supportive of this actually but when we talk about some other issue maybe i might not be and that's what my concern is about on this and when we sort of say

1:55:19we don't even know what we're going to be talking about and and yet we're going to um just whatever happens happens that that i have a lot of concern about but anyway are there any further um items from the council before we see if there's i have another question okay go

1:55:35ahead um i'm looking at the the real property transfer tax this page and you know um and you did mention you know are the influence of the other cities south that are more towards charter city i see richmond at seven yeah uh they're our closest city and contra costa what do you know what uh the other

1:56:07cities are uh closer to us in west county they're not charter cities they're not charter cities what's the what's the closest charter city in west county uh besides richmond there isn't okay i want to make that sure thank you the question um so the charter committee will prepare a

1:56:27draft charter for the city of el cerrito to be submitted to the city council for consideration and potential proposal for the city's voters so at that time we would be able to amend the charter if we wanted to the council yeah yes i mean ultimately the the state law sets up a process where

1:56:52the the city council can on its own motion submit a proposed charter to the voters we're proposing this committee process in order to allow for public comment and also to create a working group to actually develop a draft charter once it comes back to the council the council

1:57:08could revise it before it placed it on the ballot but this was a process to prepare a draft for the council to consider what we're proposing tonight of course is to provide a resolution that would provide direction to that committee about what the council's expectations are

1:57:24so that it's not a completely open-ended process i see thank you okay i think we're ready now to hear from the public if there are public comments we have two speakers mayor michael fisher followed by denise sangster hello mayor and members of the council um as i think most of you know prior to my

1:57:51current employment which i consider as sort of a el cerrito government groupie i did serve 37 years in state and local government satan county government work so i'm speaking here at least with a little bit of knowledge of of some of these issues and i am very supportive of the concept

1:58:18of a city charter to me the simple division is do we want to be part of the one-size-fits-all requirements for a general lost city or do we want to basically grow up and say what are our responsibilities what do we think is the right thing to do and put that in the charter obviously

1:58:47there are limits on what we can do with that but the concern and mayor yu i think expressed it well about the issue well what if these things come back and they're up to you know their things we don't want well initially the charter has to be put on and i assume i will be corrected if i'm

1:59:12speaking the charter has to be put on the ballot by the city council and so that means that if you don't like what's in the charter then it shouldn't go in and i think we need to compare that with what happens as a as a general law count as city in which case the legislature can do

1:59:38and has done as we've known over the years a number of things that change what the city can and cannot do and it's a general law city you know those are just we're stuck with those so i would very strongly urge that we [Music] consider taking the next steps of bringing the city into being a charter

2:00:07city thank you um i would agree with what my neighbor michael fisher just said you want to state your name please denise sangster i would agree with what my neighbor michael fisher just said is that i think there's some really great reasons to be a charter city but this is really let's

2:00:30be honest this is really about getting more tax money and revenue from taxpayers which we're in the second highest paid tax city in the state so if you want to take this measure i would say that everything should be on the table let's let's be fair about it there may

2:00:47be some really great things that need to be changed and i understand you would have the ultimate authority to say no you don't want to put that in on the ballot but if you want more money from residents which i know this is what this is about from looking at the real

2:00:59property transfer tax and other issues that i've heard have been bantered about let's just put everything on the table and see if there's some good things that can be on this but i agree with councilman quinto i think that you have to absolutely protect wages and personnel rights that shouldn't that

2:01:19should not be allowed to be undone as many other charter cities have done and even those the only two or three charter cities that have gone into bankruptcy have all been about wages and pensions so hopefully that would be protected um as part of this process a question to

2:01:36the city attorney there's conflicting notes on the web about proposition 13 and charter cities it's my understanding that that remains intact i believe that's what you said but can you layer new things around it to capture additional revenue so such as taxing classes of people that may

2:01:57be investors and not live in the property that they own in the city through a charter city thank you okay thank you okay so now it's back to the council discussion yeah i'd be delighted to discuss it um to that last point that the speaker ms angster brought up um

2:02:23i certainly was testing the um the limits of municipal affairs and with my question about uh the uh vacancy tax and although the response tonight when it certainly wasn't as elaborate as the one i got this afternoon uh the prop 13 prop 218 two-thirds votes on certain things

2:02:47majority votes on uh other types of taxes still all prevail those are not within the realm of municipal affairs and and so there are some things that as a local community we we can't change unfortunately we can't change prop 13 or prop 218 but i like miss angster's ideas that

2:03:09there might be ways for us to skirt around the edges of those to potentially achieve the same goal those that have been following me know that revenue has been something that i certainly was a strong proponent for back during our strategic planning in in april and may

2:03:30and in the agenda bill it talks about you know this revenue going to bolster our reserves housing affordable housing projects our public safety building our senior center our library and even our purrs liability um so these are all things that that frankly keep me

2:03:49awake at night uh worrying about how we have the ability to fund these necessary services for our our city so i i certainly um as a as a somebody who loves the city i'm a strong proponent for this this opportunity so that we can uh get the revenue that potentially go forward to

2:04:12those things the no changing of the you know looking at the resolution and i certainly did carefully the the else coach shall not be altered by the proposed charter that is the the um sideboards or uh boundary condition that that would the committee would be under i

2:04:36did hear both um the city manager and the city attorney say that there are we could during our committee process take input on a lot of other things that potentially might be considered um and i think i wrote it down one of the suggestions was that you know we could come back with a quote unquote

2:04:57two charters here's the charter you charged us to prepare which is um inside these four bullets um that uh you know we reserve the rights for local rules we uh maintain prevailing wage and uh we are authorized to look for all available tools for generating revenue

2:05:18and we leave the municipal code the way it is the missile code covers things like elections um land use council wages uh it even i looked it up to make sure it did it even covers how we procure contracts so the the municipal code governs a lot of things we do in the

2:05:37city if not all um there are as we pointed out there may be things that are not in the municipal code that we certainly would want to to look at so for that reason i'm a strong supporter because as councilman ravelson has has said it this is an opportunity for us to

2:05:55move forward with a with a clear purpose of revenue however as council member fidelity has said and the city attorney went on to say and here's a second charter or here are issues that were raised during the public process that could be proposed for future change so that would allow us

2:06:16to as a council as council member pardue okamoto just asked about for us to ask to be exposed to the issues that came forward during our public transparent process and consider them um whether we consider them for a november election of 2018 or we ask them to be put in a future

2:06:35election that's something that we can certainly discuss i know there was a timeline on here but i i believe it would be april if i remember the the timeline so we we are um for that reason i would like to move this forward with the the resolution as proposed by

2:06:55staff that has very narrow sideboards on what the principal purpose is but as through that transparent process certainly you know there would be an opportunity for people to vocalize what they think is broken and if if the majority of the council feels that that's

2:07:14um that is true then we can certainly in april discuss that i'm not sure what you're saying i i i'm just was making my comments if you would like i could make a motion but i was figuring that other people wanted to make comments first well no i'm so i'm just saying i don't know you sort of

2:07:36said it both ways that's why i'm a little confused the the resolution as written calls for a charter as charged we would have to prepare a charter as charged but through the public process where we have multiple meetings we have a committee of seven um there could be

2:07:55other ideas that are brought forward in april for you know that this council would be aware of the other issues that were brought forward and not that we would be suggesting that they'd be adopted but at least the process would be fairly reported that these are the issues that were

2:08:13brought forward during the process okay but that wouldn't mean that we would necessarily be obligated to um include them or anything right correct there would the charter the charter that that the committee would bring forward would be pursuant to this resolution

2:08:32okay other comments do you have any i do okay um i think you know drafting a new charter is a big deal and the background material we talked about kind of compares it to adopting a constitution for a city so this is an important thing and i fully agree with the direction and

2:08:57the narrow revenue focus that we should be taking because i too would like to support the library and these other functions that we have and i agree with precluding the prevailing wages and the collective bargaining issues i think that's fair and just i have real concerns about the public

2:09:15process and allowing our citizens to talk about what they think might need to be tweeted or changed whether we have to move and have an obligation to do that is is something else so i would be proud to be on this subcommittee to work on this to draft language for the revenue

2:09:37at the same time that there's an idea or two from our public that might come up that's important for us to consider and i'm taking it similar to what councilmember lyman is saying but i think we should be more open and not close the door to those options and what the

2:09:54public might be saying than closing that door it doesn't mean we have to act on those ideas i happen to think our city government and the form it's in works well i don't see any need to change that to change the nature of the mayorship but i have concerns about shutting the

2:10:10door on some public process issues when we're about to adopt what might be our constitution over the next generation so i may not vote for this so i'm very interested in us becoming a charter city um i'm going to take a point of privilege here and since it was brought up um

2:10:45in the discussion to talk a little bit about uh council member compensation it's um never seems like a good time to bring it up so this is my opportunity i'd just like to point out that here in the city of el cerrito it says here in a general lost city that the salary stealing will be set by the

2:11:05city population and salary increases set by the state law etc and if you look up what the recommendation is we here in el cerrito have about half the pay of what is recommended and i it would be really awkward i think to double our pay right i mean that would certainly make the newspapers

2:11:30but i just wanted to say as as a person that partially ran for office because i felt like i wasn't being represented because i don't feel like there's enough minorities i don't feel like there's enough women i don't feel like there's enough working people that sit here at the diocese

2:11:50i just wanted to point out particularly for working people and for young people that the salary could be an issue or a barrier to serving and that i don't want our city to be a city where you have to be either retired or independently wealthy in order to serve so i just wanted to say that since i had

2:12:14my opportunity as far as the rest of what we've been discussing here for the potential of a charter city i understand that one of the reasons reasons why the el cerrito city council has kept our wages low is that we would much rather see those dollars spent in the city we have a very

2:12:40tight budget i know that we do have a high sales tax but we we i think we do a lot here in the city with the budget that we have we don't have really big a lot of big businesses here in the city and one of the things that came to my surprise that i learned when i was a commissioner

2:13:03is you know how much of san pablo avenue the revenue is actually richmond because even though we have the street of san pablo and el cerrito the cash registers on about a third of the avenue are actually in the city of richmond so all of those tax revenues go towards the

2:13:23city of richmond so like i said we really have limited funding and even when you look at our property taxes you know those taxes are not all going to the city of el cerrito a lot of that goes to the county so in understanding our budget and understanding the limitations that

2:13:42we have i'm very interested in potentially finding new sources of revenue for the city so that we can do all the great things that we've been talking about in terms of you know building our reserves like if we do have a fire like the one that just happened you know

2:14:00if we did lose a third or half of our property here you know how would the city continue to function i think that's an important thing to think about especially since that just happened we don't want to be kind of you know living paycheck to paycheck so to speak

2:14:16and we want to have a very robust reserves so i'm i'm very interested in and moving forward with the charter i think that we definitely need a public input and i also think that we need to be careful when it comes to prevailing wage and making sure that we don't

2:14:46you know trample on our working sisters and brothers in order to in order to make some some additional revenue but in terms of possibly having a transfer tax with all of the um increased you know housing prices that we're seeing right now i think that if we could also

2:15:06possibly i'm really interested in if part of that money could not only go to reserves but possibly to affordable housing somehow helping us provide additional affordable housing for a future residents i think this would be a good way of possibly doing that and with that i'll can conclude my

2:15:27comments thanks i appreciate what all my council members and my colleagues said and i echo definitely what uh council member lymon said and also um my calling to my left rochelle um knowing the importance of uh the future of um this charter which i agree with paul fideli this this

2:15:56is uh going to be our charter for a long long time if we have this done and i want to make sure that we have this done right which does include a lot of public input and so i am grateful to hear our speakers that spoke about their views on this i also know that

2:16:19yeah the city we are taxed and taxed at a high level so i want to be mindful of that as well so i look forward in looking at uh and and making sure that our our city and our residents are aware of uh what is going to transpire this next year and i look forward to being a part

2:16:46of this i'm going to make sure that we do this the right way with full transparency and i look forward in supporting this resolution okay um so the um first of all i wanna i'm a little i just state that i'm a little confused about the comment about council salaries

2:17:09because we have the ability it's my understanding i'm not and i'm asking i'm just verifying with staff to change our salaries as a general law study so i'm not sure why that comment was connected to this topic oh i was just saying we never really talked about it before so i was going to

2:17:28take that opportunity to make my comment about our salaries even though it had nothing to do with the topic well just because it came up as a topic in general not that not not the general law versus the charter i was just saying that how even even under the general law

2:17:46which we're currently under were at about half of making a comment under the under the general law okay yes because that it sort of sounded like you were to me like you were talking like going from a um general law city to a charter city would mean we would then

2:18:04start raising our salaries no that was not my intention okay um because we could do it either way right um yeah yeah so so as councilmember uh pardo okamoto mentions um there is a there is a process under state law to for general law cities to adjust city council member compensation um right so

2:18:29right now the city council could increase its own compensation which would be effective after the next council election charter cities do have a great deal more flexibility they're not subject to that same formula for the computation of or for the calculation of

2:18:46of what the maximum allowable salary is and a number of charter cities do provide a greater level of compensation for council members but it is not something that occurs automatically as since as we propose no changes in the municipal code as part of this process

2:19:04you know assuming that's what the council moved forward with then we would not expect to come back with a charter that proposal that included council member changes to council member compensation i understood council member pardo oklahoma to be suggesting that increasing the compensation might

2:19:20increase the level of diversity um among candidates for the council in the future but that's ultimately that that would ultimately be a policy decision for the council to make which we could make now right yes within the within the parameters of state law which which you would have and

2:19:41we haven't made we haven't i don't remember ever the council as i remember it maybe i don't remember completely all the way back but the um i don't remember the council increasing salary even though we could no i believe um i believe it has been a very long time since the city council made any

2:19:59changes to its compensation like maybe more than 10 years i'll just say for sure yeah the um so it's it's a matter of um and i know at one point we even discussed it because there was some real concern because of what went on in the city of bell and i actually don't remember if bell

2:20:20was a general law city or a charter city they're a charter city at this point there's an attachment that lists all charter cities and bellas fellows notably on there is notably on there um so it was a they paid themselves um a huge amount of money and um took the residents of their city for a

2:20:43giant ride but that [Music] is just about perhaps a reason to have limits on salaries but um anyway the that that's another discussion but i actually was involved in that discussion when it uh when the bell situation came up so there was somebody from bell on our

2:21:12committee uh and and it was pretty term it was pretty traumatic i would say um anyway the um so we've all made comments um i don't know if i made another round of comments maybe i didn't um so um uh if we um make a motion limiting our the resolution as was suggested

2:21:42by staff um then i'm uh happy to go to vote yes um if it gets changed in some way i can't say that i would vote yes i don't know yet without knowing what it would be but i am concerned about um things changing along the way to the to the election so to speak and um

2:22:07[Music] would not like to see that happen here over and i and things could always be changed later where they would rise or fall under their own desirability to the voter so having said that are you wanting to make a motion greg i'd be delighted to i move a resolution

2:22:29of the city council of the city of el cerrito creating the el cerrito charter committee to prepare a recommended charter for the city with committee members uh lyman and fideli as as to as the council representation on the committee i'll second that um and are you saying anything about

2:22:54it's in the resolution what you're asking for is actually okay did you say adopt the resolution yes adopt the resolution and and it's it the the four bullets constraining the the scope is in there i wasn't sure that you had said if that's the resolution yep okay great and

2:23:09so the second is okay so the motion is made by lyman seconded by quinto okay okay ready to vote all in favor please say aye in the opposition in the abstentions abstain okay motion carries with one abstention from uh from fideli thank you okay with that we'll move on to the next

2:23:36item on our agenda which is the repeal of local campaign literature disclosure ordinance to achieve consistency with state law thank you mayor i'm cheryl morris your city clerk and i want to thank the city council for considering the item this evening staff is requesting that the city council

2:23:56repeal the local campaign literature disclosure ordinance to achieve consistency with state law which is codified as el cerrito municipal code chapter 2.32 the local campaign literature disclosure ordinance was enacted by the city council in 1992 with the intent of

2:24:14ensuring that there is disclosure the identity of persons primarily responsible for the dissemination of campaign literature thereby aiding the electorate and evaluating information contained in the literature the fair political practices commission regulations state laws and mandated

2:24:30political campaign disclosures and disclaimers essentially achieve the same purpose attachment two to the staff report highlights the many regulations applicable to the many types of committees involved in political campaigns candidates who by their own initiative distribute

2:24:48campaign literature candidate control committees ballot measure committees general purpose committees major donor committees independent expenditure committees both for ballot measures and candidates and slate mailer committees all have different rules that pertain to each

2:25:03committee state mass mailing and political advertising disclaimer laws have been amended several times since their initial adoption in fact staff learned while the agenda packet was going to print of new amendments which will go into effect january 1st 2018 as a result of the

2:25:20chaptering of ab249 the california disclosure act the fpc the fppc posted a comparison chart of the changes on wednesday or thursday last week and the chart was included in your packets and posted on the city's website since local campaign literature disclosure regulations have to

2:25:38incorporate the minimum requirements outlined in the various complex governing state regulations staff recommends eliminating the local campaign literature disclosure requirements as stated in the municipal code chapter 2.32 to achieve consistency with state law and enforcement

2:25:55requirements this will also assist candidates and committee officers including treasurers in understanding and complying with applicable laws and will promote fair campaign practices in our future municipal elections in staff's view the state's disclosure requirements are sufficient to provide

2:26:14el cerrito voters with necessary information about who is funding mass mailings and other election communications the local regulations codified in ecmc chapter 2.32 create create a lot of confusion and additional work for the candidates and committees while providing minimal additional

2:26:31information that is useful to el cerrito voters as a result there are few benefits to offset the significant burdens that the local regulations impose on candidates and committees as well as on staff attempting to assist the candidates and committees with compliance

2:26:47recommendation and the proposed action align with several objectives outlined in the city's strategic plan if you approve of staff's recommendation to achieve consistency with state mass mailing and political advertising laws by repealing ecmc chapter 2.32 please

2:27:04remember to read the title of the ordinance into your motion thank you okay um are there any questions from council do you have a question no i have a comment i just want to say this this is what i'm just doing questions right now sorry okay invite you there questions questions no questions okay

2:27:31are there any public uh speakers i don't have any no speaker slips anyone want to speak okay back to the council for comments comments i was going to say right on cheryl thank you for your effort on this thank you cheryl you're welcome i just want to make it easier for people to comply

2:27:54indeed i appreciate that cheryl thank you having two sets of rules as complicated and i think simplifying it and cutting red tape is what everybody wants uh government to do thank you thank you you will eliminate it we will eliminate a nightmare uh in following your suggestion thank

2:28:15you you're welcome okay um now is it are we ready for a motion i've been waiting several years for this motion a move in ordinance of the city of el cerrito repealing el cerrito municipal code chapter 2.32 campaign literature disclosure for local candidacies and measures

2:28:39second okay uh motion by alignment seconded by pardo okimoto all in favor please say aye aye nice and loud i hear it thank you all opposed none any abstentions none motion carries uh enthusiastically um positive thank you cheryl i know it took a lot of work to to write this up

2:29:04but i'm sure it was a work of of joy thank you i think it will it was so confusing having it the the the way it uh has been people couldn't figure out what to do and that that's the worst way of all for people who are just trying to do the right thing yeah and i after i

2:29:26realized i'm going to be going into my 13th election cycle and i realized really people want to do the right thing and when you when the regulations are muddy and there isn't a model of clarity you know it it's so easy to make an inadvertent mistake because people candidates and committees

2:29:43they really do want to do the right thing so thank you thank you okay so now we move on to uh council local and uh regional liaison assignments not for me not for me um yes i have one so for the gilman fields jpa the two big updates i'd like to say from the last meeting

2:30:10is that there was a bond that the city of berkeley was trying to get to help redo the bathroom or i should say do a bathroom um on the fields and they were unable to get that so that's a sad thing because they really could have used a new bathroom there and so that is

2:30:32on hold for now the second thing is we're still trying to figure out how we're going to be splitting up the fees that each city each part of the jpa is going to pay they're looking at the enrollment of the the various um soccer players from various cities to try to try to

2:30:54make it a little more equitable in terms of who pays what um and so we're going to be hearing um more steady numbers on that at our next meeting so that we can figure out what each city will end up paying that's all um i just have um one report that i didn't actually

2:31:17already include in the other stuff that i that either i or somebody else talked about um and that has to do with the iolani greenway and there's been a project to do there's been a an attempt to do a project to improve the aulani greenway by the two bart stations

2:31:42and so that for those of you who actually have ever tried to ride anything over it it's the wave and and pretty difficult actually if you if you have any speed going at all i can attest to that uh anyway uh so uh ev yvette ortiz our um city engineer is that her title got it

2:32:09right okay um has attempted on numerous occasions to go out to bid for this and it the bids have been really too high and so she's value engineered it down and made it a smaller project and then we put it out to bid again and then same thing happens this time was the magic charm i just talked to her

2:32:30today and um she's been successful at getting actually what and one of the old uh bidders uh who came just basically came back with us a lower price and as she explained it to me and so that means that we will be getting our project that we've been trying so desperately to

2:32:52get and i've been waiting for this project since i can remember and we'll they'll also be doing a number of other things besides fixing the um the irregular surface of the greenway itself they'll be doing things like removing the ivy which will remove the rats and um making other uh

2:33:21improvements in the area i think creating a plaza somewhat in that area is one of them at one at least one of the stations if not both so i think that when those improvements get completed i don't know scott if you know when that would be scheduled it's probably too soon to tell

2:33:40i don't know yeah i mean they may not even have it yet but um anyway i i i just think it's really exciting because it's really you know it's what people see when they came out of the bart station and it's like it's awful right now and we i you know i know that we've been

2:33:59trying and she's been trying really hard and the economy and everybody's building and have using of all the people who do construction so they're raising price you know it's caused the prices to go up anyway she finally persevered and uh we're going to have a nice project now

2:34:22and i think we are all looking forward to the ribbon cutting third time's the time yes third time's the charm i think i think it's the third time too i'm not mistaken so anyway that's my uh happy uh announcement about that one and i guess no one else had anything

2:34:40so the only thing is to say that our next meeting will be held on november 21st 7 p.m in this council chambers and thank you all for coming all right thank you you