Regular City Council Meeting December 19, 2017

0:00:24good evening everyone welcome this is the el cerrito city council meeting and we're happy to have everyone here tonight thank you for coming um we will begin uh with the roll call please council member fidelity here councilmember lyman here councilmember pardue okamoto here vice mayor quinto

0:00:48and mayor abelson here thank you okay with that we'll move on to the pledge of allegiance to the flag or an observation of a moment of silence led by council member paul fideli i pledge allegiance to the flood of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands

0:01:11one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all and now i would like to ask if there are any council or staff communications and tonight i'd like to start with staff communication so i don't forget them thank you your honor i'm karen pinkes assistant city manager i'd like to start

0:01:36by introducing melanie mintz our community development director good evening mayor city council members and the public my name is melanie mintz and i am the community development director i'm just here to make a quick announcement we just received notice from the housing

0:01:55authority of contra costa county that for residents that are interested in applying to live at hana gardens next door the 62 units of affordable housing that are being built the wait list is going to be the pre-application for the wait list is going to be opened january 16th through

0:02:13sunday uh so that's tuesday january 16th at 10 am through sunday january 21st at 5 pm all applications anybody who wants to be on the wait list for that project will need to have submitted a pre-application by that time the applications are only going to be available online

0:02:31would you repeat those dates please it's tuesday january 16th at 10 a.m through sunday january 21st at 5 p.m we have sent out notice um hana gardens for those that have contacted hannah gardens they will be sending out letters to let them know we will send out a press release the first

0:02:50week of the year and i will we will also work with the senior center so that they are available to help residents who might need help to do the online application so in the new year people can go to the senior center also on our webpage at www.l-cerrito.org backslash affordable housing we will

0:03:11also have this information but the pre-application i've looked at it is pretty simple so it's not going to require a lot of work but in order to be the important notice that i wanted us all to get out is that in order to be considered for that project you absolutely have to get in on

0:03:27that wait list during that open period uh we will also have flyers out at city hall i should also say that it's for four different projects one is el cerrito and there are also other three site sites uh one in antioch one in walnut creek and one in concord that will also

0:03:43be open for that same wait list thank you is there anybody in the room who needs that repeat it again we'll have it on our website it's on our way okay okay thank you next i'd like to just introduce marina sanders operations and environmental services manager good evening mary apelson and members of

0:04:08the city council i'm maria sanders and i'm the operations and environmental services manager i'm happy to announce that the city has been re awarded recognition from the u.s epa for being a green power community this epa program recognizes communities throughout the nation for exceeding an

0:04:27epa standard for a minimum level of renewable energy use it's kind of a stretch goal we are we're able to do this because we are an mce clean energy community in which our state in which our standard electricity mix is 25 more renewable than the state standard and then uh because our community has a

0:04:49high percentage of residents and green businesses businesses that have signed up to be deep green which is a 100 renewable energy package and because our city municipal facilities are also deep green and use 100 renewable energy the green power communities program

0:05:08provides a ranking for each community by their percentage exceedance over the epa standard and i'm very proud to announce that else rita ranks number 13th in the nation so it's pretty amazing um uh uh so uh to acknowledge us the epa has combined kindly provided us with um

0:05:32this certificate uh and we have a copy here at the at city hall and then we also did get a big roadway sign which we're trying to figure out where we would put so congratulations el cerrito [Applause] thank you are there any more staff okay are there any uh council

0:05:57communications yes i wanted to report on um my regional assignment to the alta bates task force we regularly meet to discuss the potential closure of alta bates and how that would affect all of our communities all along the i-80 corridor there are many cities that are

0:06:20represented at the table and i just wanted to make mention to a item on the consent calendar 4i which would be money that the city of el cerrito would put forward towards a health impact assessment to not just kind of guess how badly it would affect our community but

0:06:43to actually know have some numbers that we can come back to the community with so that we can make a plan and move forward and really see what kind of services that we need here at alta bates and all along the i-80 corridor so i'm hoping that that item will pass tonight and it's something

0:07:01that we've all been working on very hard and i will keep you updated on the progress thank you good evening i attended the funeral of san francisco mayor ed lee and he passed away and in just a few days the city of san francisco was able to have a set up a beautiful service for him

0:07:24mayor lee was a member of the asian american caucus for the california league of cities and uh many of us that are in this room um attended uh um the service so i um he was uh a a low-key figure but a strong silent type and low-key and he just got the job done so i am very

0:07:50saddened by his uh sudden departure and uh so at the end of our council meeting we will end this in honor of the life of san francisco mayor edly thank you yeah i do and i apologize in advance for my voice and if i turn to cough i apologize also um i do want to report on

0:08:14a couple of things uh my regional representation to the integrated waste management authority recycle more that continues to discuss the reorganization of the gpa and that will be continued in just in january i did attend the human relations commission on december 6th and i wanted

0:08:36to report out that they are they have an upcoming event that hopefully everyone will attend and that is the martin luther king parade and rally and that is on monday january 15th and it will be starting right here they are continuing to discuss the possible action on how to

0:08:54recruit a student commissioner from the high school on the 13th i guess i attended the crime prevention committee and i wanted to let you know that they are continuing their neighborhood watch programs and they also have got some new signs to freshen up the signs that are

0:09:11around the neighborhood finally i wanted to uh actually two other two more things one is that we are still the applications for committees and uh commissions we did we did close the application period yesterday but i'm certain that we will continue to accept them so if there

0:09:32is a committee and commission that you're interested in please do submit there is one committee that we did conclude the application period yesterday and that's the charter committee we did receive applications for all seven well five positions two are filled by uh council members we did um receive

0:09:55applications for all five open positions and the council will be interviewing those applicants in early january um that concludes my comments thank you i attended and i want to thank the parks and rec department for their holiday pancake breakfast it was great again

0:10:14and i just wanted to say that after a pretty serious operation our mayor was sitting there a week after having an operation eating pancakes and sausage so i think that was very telling of her and bacon and bacon too okay um i attended the spa league of uh city's holiday event in emeryville

0:10:36last week and i just wanted to give an another shout out to the fire folks the firemen and women of this state for the efforts they're doing down in los angeles in the santa barbara area i know that with the montclair fire last week i got a lot of input of people in

0:10:53el cerrito that are concerned about this concerned about having enough resources to fight this and enough knowledge from our public to deal with such a situation so next year i'm hoping to really talk about this and make sure we're ready for any such situation thank you

0:11:08thank you okay um now we will move on to the next item on our agenda which is oral communications from the public and this is an opportunity for the public to either talk about an item that is not on the agenda or to talk about an item that is uh on the consent calendar so if you

0:11:33are interested in doing so and haven't already filled out a speaker slip you can get one over here on my um left your right and from karen can you raise your hand there we go so if you need one that's where they you would get them from and otherwise let's just start and see what

0:11:55how many we have okay we have four to five okay um so the first three are cordell hindler followed by howdy gowdy and robin mitchell before we start i'll mention our speaker system which is that we have three lights that are in front of the speaker as uh as the

0:12:14current speaker is is uh facing and um when it's green that means a continue and one minute is yellow yellow and then uh the red means that your time is up and so please wrap up within a sentence or two please okay so good evening uh mayor abelson council member staff i am

0:12:39codyll handler richard and i have four things to say and they're gonna be a minute a piece and 30 seconds so the first one is um at the last meeting um you approved an ordinance for the miracle cannabis and um i did had an i had a nice conversation with mary silva the

0:12:55president of the rich and annex association and one of her concerns was on the hours of operations she said 8 a.m is too early but they prefer you know 10 o'clock or 10 30 somewhere around there um that's that would be even better because it's more convenient that's one number

0:13:10two is um we need to have young voices on these committees uh as councilmember lyman has stated we have a certain number of commissions that would be perfect for young people because they are our future and i think because every i go to the crime prevention committee meeting monthly and i and i

0:13:26provide the the committee with some good ideas of neighborhood watch so if we can get some more young people that can participate with this it it'll make things a lot more easier and then number three is um also i do appreciate the i i do love going to the centennial task

0:13:42force committee meeting uh monthly uh and i always provide them with some good ideas so which we'll talk about under presentation so and then number four is um we cannot lose out to base hospital we we lost doctors uh we can't lose this one again because if we lose this one um

0:13:59it's gonna be hard for people to go to all the way to like walnut creek for uh to like for medical needs so i said this is this is unacceptable we cannot we gotta keep alta bates open because my niece was born in alta bates and i am just asking this council that um to

0:14:17approve the alta bates item so everything will be fine five thousand dollars is a small amount but it's at least it's a start so with that i'll give my time to howdy good evening mayor and council members my name is howdy gowdy first i wanted to thank staff and council

0:14:42for following through on affordable housing policy with item 4c to study inclusionary housing and i appreciate that this has been broadened to include both for sale and rental units as the state law now allows second you'll receive emails from me about the investment policy which is

0:15:00item 4e as i now realize you know the city has very limited investment activity but i think it would still be important to add recognition and mitigation of climate-related financial risk to the policy if you pull this item i provided you with specific language that came from a

0:15:18draft state law and working group of financial leaders convened as part of the paris climate process i also encourage you to show your support for sb 560 which is likewise reducing financial or climate-related financial risk in public pensions like calpers lastly on item 4d the purchase of two

0:15:41recycling collection trucks for 551 thousand dollars i encourage you to pull it from the consent calendar and discuss it and suggest receiving an updated report at a future meeting with more options research and analysis the proposed purchase is not consistent with

0:16:01our climate action plan and our environmentally preferred purchase policy it is a bad time to commit to such a large investment in old technology superior plug-in electric hybrid heavy trucks are now available and highly incentivized by the state to meet climate and air quality goals

0:16:20so i really encourage you to be environmental leaders as you heard earlier you know el cerrito has done a great job of showing leadership on environmental topics especially most recently with the renewable electricity um but transportation remains you know a huge

0:16:40fraction of our climate action footprint and i think uh we really need to show that leadership instead of delaying and just not being part of a solution so please consider a better purchase action there thank you robin mitchell followed by al miller so my name is robin mitchell um

0:17:10and i wanted to sort of follow on to what hattie was saying about the item d on the consent calendar and also it plays into the epa award that the city just got on npr all things considered today i heard a report that the california air resources board approved a plan to

0:17:26decarbonize the state's economy and it evolved it revolves mostly around transportation the plan is to cut the greenhouse gas emissions by 40 by 2030 from 1990 levels to save 11 billion dollars in avoided environmental damage so again it's the risk mitigation right

0:17:44so the state has extended or approved programs for incentives to buy zero emission vehicles the plan aims to cut or eliminate diesel trucks which is exactly what you guys are thinking about purchasing um and provides 208 million dollars in incentives for truck and bus fleets to

0:18:00go green by purchasing electric vehicles more than 20 manufacturers offer 60 eligible models of hybrid low emission and zero emission trucks and buses and the incentives are expected to encourage the purchase of electric trucks and powertrains like those that tesla cummins byd and mitsubishi are

0:18:17planning or already selling the incentives will offset the price difference between traditional vehicles and these electric vehicles so and it also calls for doubling the number of charging stations in the state with funds that they got from the fines that volkswagen had to pay

0:18:34for their scam about their emissions so i would encourage the city to investigate these options rather than go ahead and just get the same old diesel trucks that you guys are planning so thanks al miller is followed by trek porter good evening mayor abelson council

0:18:56members and staff i have two items to address you with tonight uh one is consent calendar item 4d although not as significantly as howdy did the other is the sunder shoddy holiday display item 4d i live on ashbury avenue here in el cerrito and i've observed that our

0:19:16current garbage trucks and recycling trucks are performing a service for the city that is not considered when they were procured they're trimming trees as they come by close to the curb and the height of the truck interferes with the low branches and the street side of those trees

0:19:37so i suggest that the height of these trucks be considered in the procurement of them no matter how they're powered or so that you can if necessary change the tree trimming specs on the contract so that the tree trimmers do the trimming not the recycling collectors

0:19:58more important this underside how to belly display is up and performing to standing room only crowds i've noticed on the shifts that i've been up there that it's going over very well this year and i want everyone to know that it will be open through tuesday july

0:20:22december 26th that's the last evening and for those people that might have missed the participation in setting it up you can show up wednesday morning december 27th and take part along with the boy scouts and other members of the community that show up to help on that

0:20:43it's one of the great community building efforts and events here in our city and it's one of the most satisfying and rewarding things i've had the opportunity to take part in so you know if they say be there or be left out thank you are there any other speaker slips yes

0:21:05trek porter and sherry drubner sherry i don't i'm not sure if you want to speak now or later tenzin rengar and that's it hello mayor and uh council members and everyone um it's first time i've done this so bear with me um uh so i'm speaking about the commercial cannabis

0:21:29ordinance i'll start out by saying i'm not a partaker in cannabis and i have no interest or intention to be involved in any business associated with that but a friend of mine had alerted me to um various parts of the security sections within within the ordinance

0:21:52specifically uh within part c um there was one sentence that's included in this that um concerned me that um states uh that the operator shall provide the chief of police remote access of any on-site web-based video surveillance to monitor remotely at any time now this is also in conjunction with the

0:22:15requirement that there are web-based or there are video cameras that are available throughout the business um for me this is i mean it struck me as pretty much purely orwellian i the question i would have is what is the special need presented by this type of business

0:22:34that would um require this jump in you know what we would consider ex reasonable access by government onto uh you know private the business and private individuals the rest of the ordinance sounds completely reasonable to me it's maybe a little bit over the top

0:22:54considering we're bringing a illegal industry into a legal regime and all of the regulations and and oversight that that involves we would one would hope that that would actually reduce a lot of the crime that's associated with that so aside from that you know um what is it

0:23:12that that we're seeing uh with this one uh proposal that that presents the risk that we're trying to address it um for me the the the primary issues are um although like i said i am not myself a user of cannabis um i know that there are a lot of people who do use it for

0:23:32medication for instance and perhaps wouldn't want to have their you know anyone know that that they're sick with cancer their their employer whatever else you don't necessarily you know based on on what's stated in in the actual ordinance there's no restrictions on

0:23:51what is actually going on with that live feed back to the chief of police or any actual definition of what chief of police means is that going to his private cell phone or is that going to the department in general that gets recorded and they can look through it at a later time for any you

0:24:07know supposed crime that uh could be connected that that person was on site um so lastly um i do worry that also really runs possibly into like fourth amendment issues uh you know requiring a business to that is operating otherwise legally to surveil its customers in that way

0:24:30if anyone were to be you know uh invert adversely affected by that it could end up in court and cost the city you know money and fighting to uh defend its actions you could wrap up please i'm sorry uh yes i'm done thank you thank you sherry dropner followed by tenzin

0:24:54rengar hi good evening um i was wanted to echo support for what both howdy gowdy and robin mitchell had stated in terms of the the financial policy you know i i spend a lot of time removing my money from a bank several years ago and it actually cost me money to do it and it

0:25:18took an awful lot of time to do it but basically it's because i was really interested in trying to be more socially responsible about where my money was and sometimes it's a mystery and i understand that the city doesn't have major investments but i know you're part of

0:25:37calpers is that correct and so i would think that at least in terms of senate bill 560 where there's a move to really have calibers calpers be more socially responsible with their investments and really look at the risks involved in the investments with fossil fuels

0:26:00and and see that that's really the wrong direction and look for alternatives that that would be something that the city could support but also include that language in the local financial policy i think the fires that are happening right now and just the general environmental issues that we're

0:26:22facing most of us believe that this is evidence-based and understand that the fossil fuel industry is um part of the problem and so by investing in it or you know even implicitly or um i guess i want to say it's we may not be actively thinking we're supporting it but by virtue of how we

0:26:46um where we keep our money um we are still supporting it so it takes a little bit of work and a little bit of intention i think to make those changes even i just thought about the trucks that you were thinking about purchasing and i thought yeah it's so easy to do um what

0:27:03we always do and and not think about some of the bigger impacts so i would just recommend that you support this kind of financial policy thank you good evening um and council members my name is uh tanzan rangdall and i'm the uh i actually live in el cerrito i'm the i'm part of tibetan association

0:27:31of northern california based in richmond and i'm the president uh we have tibetans around uh we have over 3000 tibetans under the organization so we have a very vibrant community even though it's small we had the opportunity to take part in martin luther king parade and

0:27:49we look forward to actually participate in that uh this year as well as we had the opportunity to participate in the lcd2 centennial parade this year um i would like to actually formally invite the mayor and the council members to our tibetan new year celebration that's

0:28:07going to happen in our february 17th saturday at jfk high school we would we would really appreciate if you guys could attend this uh celebration it's it means a lot to us thank you okay are there any more speakers no mayor okay thank you with that um we'll move on to the next item on the

0:28:33agenda which is the adoption of the consent calendars which is items number 4a through 4i mayor if i may i'd like to pull items 4a 4b or e and and i take it 4g we will be recognizing all of the centennial task force in the presentation is that correct did you repeat those letters a is an a

0:28:59is an atom b isn't baker e is an edward okay thank you so so i can make a motion to move the consent calendar consisting of 4c the inclusionary zoning program consultant award 4d lease purchase of two-sided loading recycling trucks for f designating primary and alternate

0:29:24board members to the municipal pooling authority of northern california 4g recognition of the el cerrito centennial celebration task force 4-h environmental quality committee appointment and 4i support the city of berkeley and the alta bates regional task force in the preparation

0:29:40of health impact assessment of the proposed closure of alta bates hospital a second okay there's a motion and a second um in favor of uh supporting items number four c for d for f for g for h and for i the motion was by council member lyman seconded by council member

0:30:10pardue okimoto did i get all that right thank you all in favor please say aye any opposition any abstention motion carries unanimously so with that we'll go back to discussion on item 4a certainly it'll be quick on item 4a as i reviewed the minutes i did find that

0:30:31there was one item that needed to be corrected under item 8 which is the city council local and regional liaison assignments the executive director stan hakes is referred to as the executive director and the minutes referred to him as the regional director so it's a minor change

0:30:50so i'm willing to move that item uh with that editorial with that with that correction i'll second that okay there's a motion by uh lyman seconded by quito on item 4a with the minor correction of not calling the executive director the regional director but rather the

0:31:15executive director all in favor please say aye aye aye any opposition any abstentions motion carries unanimously on item 4a so now we're on to item 4b yes not only do i want to have my vote recorded properly on item 4b i do want to give i i do want to make sure

0:31:37that the community benefits do recognize that we will be increasing our cost of enforcement on deliveries and potentially increasing patrols around these new facilities so i definitely would like to make sure that any applicants that are out there are aware of the increased operating

0:31:58costs that the police force will have associated with these new facilities so that's just a commentary and with that would look for somebody else to make a motion i move that we adopt the commercial cannabis ordinance all right can i second that okay any further discussion

0:32:26okay the motion is uh to approve the item uh the motion was was made by pardo okimoto and seconded by fideli all in favor please say in aye opposition no uh that's by lyman and there are therefore no um abstentions and motion carries four to one okay with that we'll move on to item

0:32:59uh 4e yes um i did receive quite a bit of correspondences probably all of us did and i did would like to make a rec a recommendation from the council to have the financial advisory board in their next review cycle of the investment policy consider adding under the objective

0:33:22something to the effect that their investment policy should align with the city city strategic plan the city's strategic plan is very clear that we are supportive of environmental sustainability and so my motion is to accept the investment policy and direct the financial advisory board

0:33:44on their next review of the investment policy to incorporate the appropriate environmental sustainable portions of the strategic plan i'll second that okay any further discussion i i just wanted to say i totally agree with this i would have pulled this head the council member not done so um i

0:34:04think it's worthy of discussing having more public input into what we invest in even if we don't have a lot of real investment opportunities and i'm hoping that the fab will come back with language and and options for us the city council to discuss i know council member pardue okimoto and i were

0:34:29not here last year when this was discussed and this is something that's really important especially with our climate action plan and our strategic plan and ironically we're getting the green power community award we need to be saying what we mean and investing in

0:34:44what we believe in so thank you and um so i think we're ready to vote the um i had a comment also i'm sorry that's right um i just wanted to thank the community members that brought this forward um i i also am very interested in exploring this some more i felt that we didn't

0:35:04have very much time prior to this meeting to make the changes that were requested but i'm definitely interested in putting it forward to our financial advisory board and i think that we can definitely come up with a solution together so once again thank you hey thank you um

0:35:22so there was a motion made by fidelity a lyman lyman excuse me with the with it's the approve the investment policy for this year and direct the fab to incorporate environmental sustainability and the strategic plan in future investment policies are we ready to vote did you get that

0:35:45you got that yes thank you okay thank you all in favor please say aye aye the opposition any abstentions motion cares unanimously okay with that we have completed the adoption of the consent calendar and we're ready to move on to item number 5a which is a presentation

0:36:06and it's a recognition of the centennial planning task force and presentation of the centennial passport prizes so one second here move up in my agenda here so tight okay um this is a very uh it takes me a little bit of effort here because there's a lot to talk about

0:36:54there was an immense amount of work done on this item this year and probably many people in this room were responsible for at least a piece of this item the centennial committee i think out did anything that the city council thought that they might consider doing

0:37:18they they were just absolutely uh utterly incredible in terms of the amount of work they did and um they are represented by uh and i'm not quite sure who's here but if you could do me a favor and stand up when i call out your name if you are here joanne stuck by it chair

0:37:46she here hi joanne and donna houser vice chair right there okay uh richard brooks okay so should we have everyone come up come on down oh please do uh joan carpenter you're here she's not here okay uh ruth kasdan lisa martin nagel patricia shaw and brucial i believe is not here am i

0:38:24right yeah these are the people who made everything listed on this brown or beige piece of paper that i have here they did everything that was listed at one time i believe on both sides of this paper this particular one just has one side but they did an incredible amount of work uh starting

0:38:49with figuring out what in the world they we wanted them to do i think am i right there figuring out what and then um talking to the community about it and getting buy-in from the computing community and then keeping the cost to an utter minimum thank you joanne

0:39:14and making it all happen in an utterly amazing way and i would like to start out personally by just giving them a round of applause they did they did everything on that list and they did it in an amazing way and um they got a huge number of people from our community involved in this process

0:39:49in one way or another if not many ways and so i think it's just utterly fantastic and it consisted of a series of events that went on throughout the year there was something every single month i believe and thank you to all of you who are out there who are or who are listening

0:40:13or who are not listening who made everything happen because it was really very special um but it was led really by the centennial task force and they have they've started working on this not this year but last year doing all of the things that i just mentioned and um let's see so we would also like

0:40:40to thank uh scott hauser um same last name as donna hauser for some interesting reason and he designed the centennial logo which you may have seen on a few things i have it for example on this jacket it had the the 2007 look at it here uh the 1917 2017 with the 17 only done once which i

0:41:13think really made it stand out and that was created by um scott hauser is that correct okay and vicky nolan who did the design and carry through of the passport and that was the document that people took around from event to event and got it signed up with a stamp and then they could be

0:41:38eligible to participate in receiving a prize tonight and we are also very very uh thankful to our city staff who put in a huge amount of effort beyond the call of duty um working with the task force to make all of these events happen and we'd especially like to thank

0:42:04suzanne iarla margaret livingston who i believe is here right margaret bridget pooney is she here there she is back there and chris jones is chris here no okay and so let's give them another round of applause yes in our in the chair of the centennial task force joanne stick by it would like

0:42:45to say a few words you know joanne you know that she usually does not want to say a lot of words so the task force up here we're missing a couple members we met every month for since july of 2016.

0:43:03and the culmination of the whole thing was that we had at least a hundred events that happened during our centennial year and we came under budget um one of the highlights for i think all of us was the people that tom panis brought into town and this was these are the descendants

0:43:31of victor castro and he and joanne rabello brought in and connected with descendants of viktor castro and and the the outcome was that there were 52 descendants of victor castro who came into this town most of them had never met one another they came from all over the country

0:43:55and they wrote in that parade and they met dan and brennan's because brennan was victor castro's second wife's maiden name so it was a family you know thing but you know we have all received great beautiful emails from them and now she's writing for the elsa bronte historical

0:44:12society more about victor castro the founder of our town but um you know i sent out an email today to about 70 people and i thank all those people for being a point person they every organization had a point person and so when we were organizing these events we

0:44:31had one person to go to in there who could help organize their event one of those hundred events and it just worked out very very smoothly but we do thank the city council the staff members and um are we gonna do the passport now yes yes yes we are you want to do the passport yes okay as

0:44:51soon as you finish talking i'm done okay [Laughter] okay and now we come to a very special time since the mic is right here why don't i i'll announce it from here and then you hand it out do you want to do it that way okay and then we'll do a group photo so if everyone else could stay

0:45:13up here that's already up here that right that would be super okay um and uh the way you uh are eligible for the prize is if you went around to a bunch of our events that were listed on this uh folder and um the and here's one of the centennial passports and you would open it up and

0:45:38there's a spot for each of the possible items and you get it stamped and uh as you went around so then um there is a grand prize winner and i understand that he is here and his name and it and his name first of all is chris so chris would you like to come on up

0:46:10but and what he's winning is a hornblower dinner cruise on the bay i will when they stop doing it's a hornblower dinner cruise on the bay for how many people two people wow all right i guess i'll just say that it had i i love history myself and i've been a resident of elsewhere since 95 and

0:46:41just enjoyed everything about el cerrito and uh but this year was super special i wish i could have gone to many more events that i went to and but um i just uh it brought me into the community a lot closer but you know you can go to the events you can go to those same

0:47:11organizations again i bet they will all let you come [Laughter] so that's the really nice thing about this way this was organized is it was our own organizations you know our nonprofits and whatever that um set up these events and so they'll they will be continuing

0:47:35to do that it won't say centennial on it in the future but these events will still be going on such for example as the historical society am i right there yep i get an odd yes so these are things you can still do now let's move on to see who else won and uh these were so these people were selected

0:48:01in the random drawing but if you're here would you please come up and claim your prize from karen when uh your name is called the first person is janet mcmurray hold on maybe you should [Laughter] i think we can let that happen my brother's in town [Applause] the next person is on

0:48:42dawn okay we'll see that it gets there uh richard brooks we know is here he was on the centennial community and a little birdie told me that the next person isn't here she will be going on a hornblower cruise with her husband and her name is paula horn [Laughter]

0:49:14[Applause] then there's one more what oh you want to say something richard thank you very much okay thank you and then the next person the last uh winner is chris stern baum sir bob but uh he's not here tonight as i understand it so can congratulations again if you would stay up here please

0:49:52and then once i finish talking we want to do a group photo if we can but um once again we would like to thank the task force officially uh for their hard work dedication commitment to our uh centennial year and great you did a fantastic job of thinking up ideas

0:50:16and implementing them making it happen it was terrific and the city of el cerrito is a better place because of all the volunteers like all of you and all of the volunteers that you found and so thank you and congratulations on a great year and really it's more than a great year it's

0:50:37a great two years so thank you again wow oh good job okay great okay all right perfect everybody say cheese or excellent [Applause] carol i am the speaker mayor abelson we do have one speaker okay cordell handler i just see that so uh so uh good evening again mayor abelson

0:52:42council uh i'm cordo handler richmond this committee has really outdone themselves i have been to one every event that i have seen and they have really out done this all so they did can we get another round of applause for them and i have experience you know with gala

0:53:01so i have attended a number of galas in my lifetime believe me and i have come every month i go to their committee meetings and i and i provide this committee with ideas and i said that i've went to to fly fashion show benefits galas you name it i have been there so we got to get more because i

0:53:19mean i will try to come to one of their events uh in the next hundred years um if if we're still alive if but the reason you have a centennial task force is because they are they got every they have done every event that they have done within that that short time

0:53:37frame and you'll be happy to know mayor everson they kept everything under budget so so at least so at least the the investment policy was terrific on the centennial part so i think this committee has really outdone themselves and i say and i enjoy going to their meetings uh to provide

0:53:54them with some ideas of fresh ideas so so thank you task force are you really outdone yourself so that's it thank you okay so the um the next item on our agenda is item number seven and it's actually 7a which is an urgency ordinance to repeal and replace chapter

0:54:196.80 of the el cerrito municipal code to adopt local regulations of commercial cannabis uses as an interim measure until ordinance number 2017 to 207 becomes effective and is there a staff report on this item yes mayor i'm going to be delivering the staff report tonight i'm skye woodruff

0:54:43the city attorney as you're aware earlier tonight the city council adopted ordinance number 2017-07 established a permitting process for up to two cannabis retail businesses including associated deliveries that ordinance won't become effective for 30 days which is standard under

0:55:02state law as the council has also been apprised during the process of considering that ordinance the state is planning to begin issuing licenses for commercial cannabis businesses as early as january 1st of 2018.

0:55:18the city's municipal code presently prohibit prohibits all medical marijuana dispensaries deliveries and cultivation um as thank you as the staff and i were reviewing um the current state of the law the law as it will be when ordinance 201707 goes into effect and the gap between january 1 and when

0:55:43that ordinance goes into effect we um became concerned that there might be some confusion on the part of the state and potential applicants about what regulations would actually be in effect between january 1 and january 18.

0:55:58in light of that we prepared the uh urgency ordinance that's in front of you tonight uh which would put into effect immediately exactly the same regulations that the council adopted earlier in the evening it would remain in effect until the regular ordinance becomes effective

0:56:15it would thereby in our view reduce the risk of confusion about what the city's regulations would be during that gap period both the regular and the urgency ordinances require applicants to have a state license and as i mentioned the state won't begin issuing those licenses before january 1.

0:56:32so the urgency ordinance won't allow any potential applicant to apply for or obtain a permit from the city until january next year once the state begins issuing those licenses we therefore think that we that between the urgency ordinance and the regular ordinance everything should be

0:56:49relatively smooth and clear for everybody that's involved the ordinance that's before you contains a set of findings that support the adoption of an urgency ordinance as required by state law and approval of the ordinance requires a four-fifth vote four-fifths vote of the council for

0:57:06approval i wanted to keep the staff report short there's not a lot to add substantively since the council has had many meetings to consider the substance of the ordinance but i am available for any questions that the council has why don't we start out with questions or

0:57:19any questions from the council [Music] it's a i'm going to reiterate what you said just so that we have clarity it's the ambiguity between our existing law that was in effect in december of 2015 which only regulated medical marijuana and the fact that the applicants

0:57:38for delivery for example um we could be doing recreational marijuana and therefore we have a we're silent on on potentially silent on a portion of our law and so to to make it painfully clear to both the state and any applicants we would be putting this law into place

0:57:58so that for that gap period january 1st to january 19th or 20th there would be clear guidance to the state and to any applicants that's absolutely correct okay questions no questions okay there aren't any questions um then uh do we have any speaker slips of one okay

0:58:27nice so uh good evening uh mayor eberson council um all i can say is um when i was reviewing this um the ordinance uh before the meeting i was like i looked at it i'll say okay i i really like how the language is you know is uh is dir is changed so i said this sounds like a

0:58:45good ordinance to me so hopefully this you will uh approve it and with the language change so that's it okay mayor if you're ready i'm i'm ready to move up this matter and and those that think this is a little crazy because i voted no on the prior matter it is because

0:59:04i'm a local control person and this is maintaining our control over what's going on in our city so with with that i will move an urgency ordinance of the the city council of the city of el cerrito repealing and replacing chapter 6.80 commercial cannabis to the el cerrito

0:59:22municipal code i'll second that okay any discussion okay so there's a motion by lyman seconded by quinto um all in favor please say aye aye any opposition any abstentions motion carries unanimously so with that we are going to move on to item 7b and i believe do i turn this over now

0:59:51or do i talk um we we can start by calling for reorganization of the city council i call for reorganization of the el cerrito city council and i'm going to start out by um acknowledging um people that are here um my family has been shall we say hit hard by the southern california fires

1:00:28due to two firefighters in the family and um so it what it amounts to is that there really actually aren't any members of my family here um but the uh i do have see a lot of friends here and um i uh would just uh thank you for coming and um uh with with that i will go on and um

1:00:58say a few words because i think it's worthy of say saying that this was a very special year for our city a hundred years old only happens once in a lifetime of a city and we did a number of amazing things in this year and i went through and looked at our agendas just to get the items

1:01:20actually off the agenda and not that i want this to be an extensive list of every item that we had on our agenda i promise it isn't but i think it just represents if you look at it uh the items the kinds of items that we did this year and i think that this entire council

1:01:40should take responsibility for that and be very proud of it i'm personally very proud of being a member of this council this year as we took these actions and i have to say that one of my favorite ones as it turns out is opposing the west county jail expansion because it represented to me

1:02:04that it's more important to do what you think is right than anything else and so um i um what happened as a result of that we had a price to pay but by opposing that what we were saying is that we didn't like the fact that they would have used 200 beds for housing ice detainees

1:02:28and um so this was a statement in in support of those people and um what happened to us as a result of that is that we were unable to do a contract with the county for dispatch services um for police which is um in a way an absurdity but it represented um you know where where we were firmly

1:02:59taking a position in favor of what we thought was right not what we thought was expedient um and so i think that was the thing i'm more proud of have having done as a council and uh in all of those votes that i'm talking about we're unanimous i believe so this entire council is to be thanked

1:03:22in my opinion for doing this um but some of the other things that we did and by the way here are some statistics in case you like that and cheryl was so nice to give them to me we did six ordinances 19 regular and special meetings and um we appointed 19 people uh

1:03:47from a panel of over 40 who applied to be on boards and commissions which perhaps is the highest number ever and we had 80 resolutions as of the beginning of this day um so um anyway that's a we we were quite busy uh i guess you could say and i think we got a lot of

1:04:10good things done and i'm happy to happy for that the some examples which is one of them we i think we finished tonight the commercial cannabis ordinance we made improvements to del norte which has been a long time coming in my opinion we made improvements to the pool locker

1:04:36room the um we did some place making and and other stuff in around the bart station or we will be we we got it funded as the main thing that we've done so far we uh saw the senior housing go up up up up i think it's all the way as high as high as it's going up it needs

1:05:00to get finished but it will be soon and i think everyone is very excited about it but then what it turned out happened is that because we lost our very inexpensive lease on the senior center at fairmont school we had to find in very short order a place to put our

1:05:26senior projects and we did and part of that will be housed at this new senior center which is right next door to city hall which will make it very convenient for seniors to participate in the life that goes on inside this building which is especially vibrant at night for residents

1:05:52and then the other projects will be on the just north of if you go across the street here across manila beyond the police department beyond the little church that's there be into the vacant lot there will be portables put up where we will be housing uh the rest of the senior facilities so

1:06:14i think we we're going from having four thousand square feet to having five thousand square feet and so i think we took a very bad situation for us and turned it into a very uh pleasant situation for us so i think our seniors will be the beneficiaries of that so i think that

1:06:34was that happened relatively late in the year and i think it's it's fantastic but then we also did sort of what might to some appear like really mundane stuff like fire abatement uh fire hazard abatement i don't know if the yes i see the fire chief back in the back this is something we do

1:06:57year in uh ev every year we do this and it it just sort of does one of the things we do and it prevents fires so instead of fighting fires our fire department is busy preventing fires and i think everyone in this room would be happy to know that we are preventing rather than putting out fires

1:07:21especially if you are familiar with and i'm sure we all are the fires that have gone on in both northern and southern california in the last several years and but we went further than that this year this year we made a big effort to support those in other parts of the

1:07:44state in with our fire services and so we had firefighters and police officers at northern california fires i think at one point we had was it 12 or 12 employees gone and to the northern california fires and i'm not really sure the number 10 so far on the southern california

1:08:10fires um and um we um we do by the way get reimbursed for that and it's excellent training but still they're away from here and and other firefighters have to fill in and that's why i won't see my family not not with el cerrito but another station that's why i will not see my family

1:08:34personally for the holidays this year because um so it's it's also something you know it it's something that uh the families uh have to also you know take the brunt of you might say and i i say that as a member of one of those firefighting families in the state

1:08:56are actually two of them i suppose um and then um the um another thing that we did this year we discussed the next steps on the development of a new library which is is looking to the future and how are we going to make it happen now the way that we were trying to make

1:09:21it happen didn't work so what are we going to do now so with police dispatch we did solve that problem and we are getting police dispatch services from richmond currently we supported the paris climate agreement and joined the mayor's national climate action agenda

1:09:50and on let's see here we supported sb 562 which is the current version of health care for all and i know there are some people in the room who are are interested in that one yes and um rita you didn't raise your hand there thank you for being here by the way and uh we um

1:10:21did our accessory dwelling unit regulation um and this is the one if i understand this the name of it right is the one where we allow uh second units on um single family in the single family area as a way of increasing the supply of housing which we all know is so desperately needed in

1:10:47our uh society at the moment so this is the you can like double it if you could theoretically get one on every one um you can't of course but you know it's an excellent way of increasing the supply in addition to the work we're uh doing on san pablo avenue and um

1:11:08we also did um other things like um creating a i can't read my rhyming very well here but um we worked on a master plan for parks and rec um and so as you can kind of see begin to see that we've done not just one kind of thing but some work in a number of different areas

1:11:30and i appreciate that we also put on our usual activities of earth day and the 4th of july in addition to the unusual activity of the centennial celebration and um anyway i just um thought it would be fun to kind of go through some of that kind of walking up memory lane you could say

1:11:57and um and uh just say i think it's been a really good year it's been a hard year but it's been a very good year and i want to thank all the staff first of all who have been so very instrumental in making it happen and i want to thank my federal council members

1:12:16for working so well as a team and i hope that next year's mayor will find it the same and as we i hope that we continue to work together as well uh next year as uh or the year that's about to begin as we have this year and so i think that is my little speech [Applause]

1:12:48i know councilmember quinto has uh so a plaque for you but i wanted to um start the thank yous at least from my side uh thank you for this last year of service it's been a pleasure working with you certainly during this year we had this you know for those that came to many of

1:13:06our controversial uh sessions we we did have a new way of expressing um applause and so i just want to thank you very much for your guidance in this last year janet i want to thank you too you uh for all your service you were a friend of mine before i served on the council

1:13:25and it's been a our friendship has grown i think and your work on transportation and seniors of which we are both involved is well known throughout the east bay and the bay area i think you're a symbol of el cerrito everybody everywhere i go ask how is janet she's everywhere she's

1:13:45rolling along and i think you're a symbol of el cerrito because el cerrito is going to keep rolling along and you're going to be here when that happens thank you very much [Applause] it's been a pleasure to serve with you while you've been mayor um i believe the first time that i met

1:14:06you you were you were mayor back then and i happened to be seated next to her fortunately on a plane to los angeles and she was able to tell me all about what it was like to be mayor of el cerrito and here we are four years later and i'm sitting so close to you and

1:14:22having you mentor me every day and i really appreciate it it's really great to serve with another woman on the council and i've appreciated all that you do in the community and i look forward to continuing to serve with you thank you very much mary abelson i know you have many of these in your

1:14:44home i i've seen them all and so this is a quite deserving especially for a difficult year that we have and i wanted to present uh this plaque uh for your great service this past year it was an honor to be your mayor pro tem and to substitute uh for you while while you

1:15:03were doing other things so many things in the region up and down the state of california and uh from the bottom of my heart i want to say thank you and thank you for uh serving uh el cerrito for so many years um how many of these do you have now will this be your fifth one

1:15:19uh-huh yeah so that's uh fifth plaque as mayor so congratulations [Applause] i have some flowers that i've been coughing a bit because thank you so with that shall we declare the offices of mayor and mayor pro tem vacant [Music] i'm i nominate gabe quinto i did say that right right for which

1:16:10office there oh i'm sorry mayor [Laughter] is there a call for any further nominations if no further nominations i move that we close nominations i second that all right and all those in favor of selecting mayor pro tem quinto as mayor indicate by saying aye like the vote is unanimous and

1:16:35congratulations mayor quinton [Applause] call from nominations for office of mayor potem i would like to nominate rochelle pardue okimoto for mayor pro tama belcerito call for further nominations if no further nominations i move the nominations be closed do we have a second second that motion

1:17:24okay all in favor of closing nominations indicate by saying i opposed motion carries nominations are closed all in favor of selecting council member pardu okimoto as the mayor pro tem indicate by saying aye aye opposed motion carries council member pardue okimoto has been selected as mayor

1:17:50protem [Applause] please remain seated and come to order a special session honorable judge benjamin t reyes presiding hi good evening check yes good evening madam mayor members of the council and uh to the staff assistant city manager karen pinkos uh city clerk sheryl morris and to my

1:18:35partner of 15 years my former partner sky woodruff the city attorney and good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is benjamin reyes i am one of the 45 judges of the contra costa superior court i'm also one of the newest judges of the superior court i was appointed by governor jerry brown in

1:18:54may of 2016 and i took the bench recently in july of 2016. i see my former colleague in the newest district attorney here the honorable diana bechten and uh prior to being appointed to the bench i was an equity partner at the law firm of myers nave ryback silver and

1:19:13wilson and through my partnership at meyers navy i had the extreme privilege and pleasure of serving as a city attorney for the city of pinol i see some of my clients here former clients i also had the opportunity and the privilege of serving as the general counsel for the west contra costa

1:19:34county transportation advisory commission and the chair here is jan abelson and i also have the extreme privilege of serving as the district council for the siege sanitary district and i see al miller here from the district board of directors but tonight i have the pleasure of squaring in then

1:19:52the new mayor pro tem and uh mayor gabe pinto so without further ado why don't we bring up uh the mayor pro tem uh ms ray uh rochelle pardue okimoto to take the oath of office and i think we're going to do that right over here i think we wanted to get you uh in in

1:20:16the camera's eye here so uh why don't you raise your right hand and uh take the oath and i'm gonna give you the microphone okay so we can hear you rather than me so i state your name i rochelle pardue okimoto do you solemnly swear do solemnly swear that i will support

1:20:39and defend that i will support and defend the constitution of the united states the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of california and the constitution of the state of california against all enemies born and domestic against all enemies foreign and domestic

1:20:59that i will bear true faith and allegiance that i will bear true faith and allegiance to the constitution of the united states to the constitution of the united states california and to the constitution of the state of california that i take this obligation freely that i take this

1:21:17obligation freely without any mental reservation without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion or purpose of evasion and that i will well and faithfully discharge and that i will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which i'm about to enter the duties

1:21:36upon which i am about to enter and during such time as i hold the office and during such time as i hold the office of mayor pro tem of the city of el cerrito of mayor pro tem of the city of el cerrito congratulations [Applause] thank you thank you mr mayor would you like to come down and

1:22:10have your oath administered good evening good evening please raise your right hand i state your full name i gabriel quinto do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that i will support and defend that i will support and defend the constitution of the united states the constitution of

1:22:39the united states and the constitution of the state of california and the constitution of the state of california against all enemies foreign and domestic that i will bear true faith and allegiance that i will bear true faith and allegiance to the constitution of the united states to the

1:22:58constitution of the united states and to the constitution of the state of california and to the constitution constitution of the state of california that i will take this obligation freely without any mental reservation without any mental reservation or purpose of

1:23:16evasion or purpose of evasion and that i will well and faithfully and that i will well and faithfully discharge the duties discharge the duties upon which i am about to enter upon i am upon i am which i am about to enter and during such time and during such time as i hold the office as i hold the

1:23:39office of the mayor of the city of el cerrito of the mayor of the city of el cerrito congratulations mr mayor [Applause] and mr bail of course adjourned thank you rochelle speaks first first of all i'd like to thank everybody that came out here tonight to support us

1:24:54in our transition it's been a real honor to serve this last year as a council member and it's even a greater honor to serve as the mayor pro tem particularly serving alongside our new mayor gabriel quinto it is it's really i think i feel particularly honored as we

1:25:20see our first asian pacific islander mayor in the city correct first filipino america first filipino-american okay first filipino-american um it's it's and then as an african-american i think as serving together it really shows how we're reflecting the diversity of

1:25:41the city and the diversity of the state and so i feel particularly honored for that this last year as janet has said i think she i think she took about half of my speech because she went over all of the great things that we've done this year but i will just reiterate

1:26:00you know one of the first things that i did as a new council member was i i introduced the letter in opposition to the jail expansion and it was as any time you do something for the first time it was a little nerve-wracking and then for it to make such a big splash

1:26:22was even more nerve-wracking at the time but for us to all sit here and and look at that time and reflect on it as a positive thing i i feel better than ever that we really did the right thing and that standing up for the right thing is is what we're here to do

1:26:40i'm also very proud of the fact that one of the first things we did as a council was to make el cerrito a sanctuary city because um you know what what people are going through right now um people that are not here with us today people that are locked up and don't have their freedom right now

1:27:01it's it's a true shame and we can't forget about those folks because when you're on the outside you have to be someone that's fighting for those people on the inside and i know that that's what i'm going to do i know that that's what our mayor is going to do and

1:27:16i know that that's what the rest of these city council members are going to do we're going to do our best to stick up for the little guy there's been so many things that we've done this year that have been fantastic and one of the things that i've been particularly proud of was

1:27:38putting money forward for our community emergency response team as we've seen with with the fires that have happened in both northern and southern california you never know when an emergency is going to strike and i think that it's very important for us to to be prepared as we can for those types

1:28:01of emergencies earthquakes etc as my background is in nursing that's something that i'm particularly care about is health and safety of our community and so i'm very proud of the fact that we have such fantastic firefighters and and police service here in the city

1:28:21as well as the rest of our city staff i feel like we're really always doing the best that we can to serve the community and to make the community safe i know that we have done a great deal of work on on housing i know that that's one of the big issues pressing the entire bay area and really the whole

1:28:46state and i'm proud of the work that we've done and i know that we have more work to do but i think we're definitely moving in the right direction we have amazing transit oriented development that's coming down the line and i know the council is very supportive of that

1:29:03i know that the mayor will be very supportive of that and we we continue to work towards our goals and making sure that we can house people especially like i said the most vulnerable i think that living in el cerrito the longer i live here i've been here almost

1:29:21a decade now in the city of el cerrito and every year it gets better every year i enjoy the city more and more having our centennial year has really been a fantastic year a fantastic time together and there you know a hundred events that you could go to in the city of el cerrito that's

1:29:41really amazing for a little town like this and i know that as an as the year comes along in 2018 there will be plenty more events to go to and i invite you to come out to all of them and get to know your neighbors and i just really look forward to the next year this last year's been

1:29:59fantastic and i know that working alongside mayor quinto i will be it'll be another great year so i just want to thank the council thank the former mayor thank our new mayor thank our city staff and all of all of the people here that support us particularly my husband who

1:30:21is here with my two children tonight and and there there are others that i know did a lot of extra special help to help me get to the city council in the first place molly hazen who's in the back there i'd like to shout out to her as well as hilary crosby who's done a

1:30:45lot to help me get here so i just wanted to thank you especially okay and with that all conclude thank you thank you would you like to say a few words sir certainly but i think you want to go first the mayor wasn't going to come nope i just have two short congratulatory messages and

1:31:08and the the first to rochelle i mean you've been a campaign friend and ally during the last year during the campaign and during this year as city council members and i've seen your courage and your compassion and so i'm very happy that you're going to continue to

1:31:24work strongly in support of el cerrito in our west county region and i look forward to you as uh the pro tem here and what let me just say whatever may be on your business card in the future i know you will be working for the city of el cerrito okay thank you very much

1:31:41um and and and gabe mayor quinto um you and i were raised here in el cerrito in richmond area and from the north side of town we both went to saint john's church so we know the history of el cerrito and as rochelle said it keeps getting better and you know where you're going and the

1:32:01things that you want and i appreciate those goals that you're going to be speaking to in a few minutes but i also think what's probably most important and most exciting about gabe is the networks the connections and the contacts that he has throughout the bay area the state and

1:32:16the nation and especially in the asian the environmental and the lgbtq communities those benefit el cerrito and he brings that to our community and i'm looking really looking forward to working with you thank you very much thank you council member fidelity said it well

1:32:38i've really enjoyed working with both of you over the last year and a half with you rochelle during our campaign and and once you were elected and gabe since you were elected almost two years ago it's been um great to see this new fresh energy that has been brought to the council and i

1:32:55look forward to the leadership that you guys are going to present us over the next year year and a half or two years rather potentially up to two years and so i'm very excited about that and and can't give you anything more than my honest pledge to support both of you

1:33:10um as you take on the leadership of our city and help to help you make our city even better than it is now so thank you i won't repeat anything i said earlier but what i would like to add is that i think we're in a really good place right now and i'm really very excited about uh

1:33:40the idea of working with the two of you to make all of those things happen that are just sort of now in their infancy and i think that you'll do a great job of making that happen and i'm looking forward to being here so thank you thank you [Applause] i am humbled and i'm so honored to be your

1:34:07mayor for el cerrito for 2018.

1:34:10as some of you know i grew up here my parents are first-generation filipinos my dad was part of the first wave of immigrants who came here to california in the late 1920s with his brother he worked in the agricultural fields up and down the state of california he also fought in world war ii in the us

1:34:32army second filipino battalion and fought in the battle of new guinea all the way to the philippines my mom i want to introduce you to my mom a sea dress he's on the second row there mom stand up [Applause] so it was my mom and my dad who moved us from north valley road in west

1:35:05berkeley to lexington avenue just a block away from fairmont school and i had my education there at fairmont and so know that on our street on lexington avenue we had immigrants immigrants from all over the world our our neighbor was german we had an african-american

1:35:27neighbor across the street we had a filipino neighbor who i ran into thanksgiving day and plans to run for office in orange county i also ran we also had italian finnish portuguese irish chinese and japanese and eastern european jews el cerrito continues to be the melting

1:35:48pot for so many immigrants please know that as mayor i will continue to support our new immigrants so they can realize their aspirations for the american dream hate discrimination and deportation without due process have no place in my city of el cerrito i am proud

1:36:11that our city continues to be a city of immigrants our city is now unaffordable for many we've always been a city of teachers we've had no more nobel prize winners live in this city past and present we are a city of the working class and middle class i will make sure

1:36:38that we continue to build affordable housing for our teachers young families students people with disabilities and our seniors our transit oriented development project next to the del norte bart station and along san pablo avenue will enable us to continue to be a small city for everyone

1:37:06with my colleagues i'll make sure that our plans to build affordable housing will continue i am proud to say that we are the few they're one of the few cities in contra costa county that is building housing for all economic development is one of the things that i'll be concentrating on

1:37:35i know that our city is not the first choice for some folks to open a small business small businesses are the heart and soul of small cities so know that we will need to proport our cities so that folks will learn and will love to open a small business in el cerrito

1:37:57i will put emphasis on economic development and for the city to be more business friendly a couple years ago i asked a small business owner in hercules to open another restaurant uh at a former cairo's on potrero and san pablo that has been boarded up the last few years

1:38:19he said yes and now we have one of the most successful restaurants in el cerrito los moles our new generation of residents want the same amenities that they enjoyed when they were living in san francisco berkeley and oakland we are committed to increasing the variety and quality of our local

1:38:41businesses i will work with our chamber of commerce to make sure that we have the tools to do so we have many folks that continue to have their businesses long for a very long time now here in el cerrito and i look forward in meeting them and hopefully they can help our new

1:39:00businesses open i'm proud to be re-elected to the 40 000 member strong sierra club bay chapter and chair of the west county group with our environmental quality committee i look forward to continue to ensure that our city stays being the green city of contra costa

1:39:23county with the help of my el cerrito high school classmate john joy you're here somewhere hi john we will work to make sure as well as staff to add more ev infrastructure as well as adding a hydrogen fuel cell station in the area with the help of staff our tree committee volunteers and

1:39:47council member paul fideli i look forward to having el sarita become the city of trees i attended the urban forest conference early in the summertime this year with staff member steven pray experts that spoke at the conference in san raval warned that in global warming is

1:40:08real and at the end of this century in el cerrito the average temperature in july will be 82 degrees instead of 74 degrees we need to plant trees now and i want to make sure that it happens so um many of our trees are built and were planted in the 20 early 20th century and

1:40:30the 20s the 30s through the 50s and 60s many of them are past its prime and in the last stages of its life so i hope residents will help us in planting trees for future residents and to help deter climate change in el cerrito i will also want to make sure that seat

1:40:50our senior center will be out of fairmont at the end of the and at the new location next to our public safety building by june 30th of next year we will have a temporary building up and running by then we have fallen behind in building new buildings we need a new

1:41:08library public safety building now senior center i look forward to working with everyone on making sure we catch up and we build our outdated buildings i look forward to working with everyone to make sure once again we prepare for a 21st century library we have seen natural disasters

1:41:34in many parts of california just north of us and in southern california it's time to make sure that we are prepared and staff to make sure that residents know what to do during an emergency like fires and the big earthquake cert training and emergency preparedness

1:41:53training is a must and we need to do that for all of our residents with the leadership of councilman lyman and fideli a special committee will be made of leaders community leaders to move forward in changing our city from a general city to a charter city this will most likely make it to the

1:42:13november ballot in 2018 i am supporting this process and supporting the committee so that all residents will learn more about what is going to happen and let the voters decide in november we have one of the largest lgbt communities in contra costa county and as your first lgbt mayor

1:42:38in the 100 year history i am honored to to represent you we have many friends here right now like uh my former board members at the east bay stonewalls and stand up over there we have a port commissioner michael cabrino and our president bundle and goodall and we also have

1:43:01contra costa pride we have a brand new office in el cerrito our first lgbt community center and i congratulate the contra costa rainbow group for opening that office and thank council member pleasant hill council member ken carlson the chair of the board in helping that

1:43:22get done so stand up our contra costa rainbow group my values of kindness empathy compassion and the respect that i learned early on here in my uh living here in el salvador el cerrito and west contra costa has helped me to survive by helping and supporting others and the

1:43:52communities that i belong to we're a city of diversity and inclusiveness neighbor helping neighbor we have the most professional police and fire who have risked their lives outside of our city by protecting people and property in california during the recent fires and right now in southern

1:44:13california so i congratulate thank you for your service public safety are police and fire [Applause] we're a small city but we have so many residents that do amazing things my closing quote for this evening is is a motto that i that i've always kept for years and uh

1:44:41it's the test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have so little that's a fdr so i want to say thank you for being here right we have a group of uh amazing people that drove all the way from san

1:45:02francisco and daly city and can you stand up i want to introduce the first uh filipina in the as mayor in daly city and that's mayor jocelyn manalo [Applause] we have the past mayor from this past year and we have mayor sylvester stand up please and he knows fluent tagalog

1:45:42so so also i i just would like to introduce it's a it's an honor to have our new district attorney can you please stand up please [Applause] and i also want to introduce three-time mayor of the city of hercules and that is my my dear friend merna devera i also would like to introduce the the

1:46:16new mayor of the city of hercules my colleague christine kelly and our longtime historical society president and now school board member trustee of the west county unified school district on panas we have some united nations association p people here we have uh uh

1:46:47kensington resident keiko hi kaiko kaiko nelson well known artists from all over the world and she is in the process of doing art installations in many of the major cities around the world to promote peace and we have ken russell cuello and he is part of the united nations

1:47:08association of the bay area and we have a brand new resident and who is uh running in san francisco as uh for ccf school board and uh that's a community college board and uh he's a he's a veteran and and he's a very good friend of mine and and i plan on helping him uh

1:47:37and once you wave to everyone and i'm grateful to all of you for for coming out here and and from this long drive uh we have a couple of other people here and uh the first filipino uh american lgbt council member for the city of hercules roland esquivious we also have the new president of the

1:48:09tibetan american association here in west county and located in richmond annex please stand up [Applause] i also want to uh introduce maria alegria who's the chair of our political party here in contra costa saying she's the former head of the california league of cities

1:48:38and the former mayor of panel we have so many people here here activists for a small city and region i'm just so very proud of everyone so i look forward in having some cake and refreshments with you outside in the lobby there and so also we have food from the filipino

1:48:57community from pearl parmalee thank you for doing that for us and then we're honored to uh that you're that you'll have your food here for us thank you and we also have uh someone from our uh a thai restaurant uh on uh trying to remember the name of the restaurant but it is on uh moser lane

1:49:16and san pablo next to uh the japanese restaurant and the name is achatai uh last if not least i want to make sure that i say hi and we have someone here that's running for 8015 assembly and judy pell who is also a member of the berkeley school board and also i want to

1:49:48recognize one of my dear friends and one of my mentors the first person of color to ever be mayor here in el cerrito and that's mayor leticia moore [Applause] we have some amazing people here and i'm just so proud of all of you thank you for coming up here and i just want to let you know that our

1:50:15next council meeting will be on january 16th 2018. i want to end this council meeting in honoring the mayor of san francisco and that is mayor ed lee thank you [Applause] yeah wear a turn [Applause] you