Regular City Council and Special City Council Meetings January 16, 2018

0:03:51it's convening the regular council meeting we're going to stand for the pledge of allegiance our observation a moment of silence with council member greg lyman i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands

0:04:16one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Applause] council and staff communication paul would you like to start um melanie's not here yes i i have a couple things i just wanted to say um first of all i had three people three citizens of el cerrito

0:04:52comment to me about how great our recycle center is and i just wanted to publicly concur and to say that i've been there on two tuesdays and dropped off hazardous waste materials and the system has worked well and it's nice to get that out of our garage and other people should do the same

0:05:13thing it's a it's a great place to be and i tell people i could live in that recycle center so um i also i didn't want to be the first to talk about this but we had a great and i think every council member had been to the martin luther king march into the great

0:05:31event in el cerrito high on monday yesterday it was a wonderful event and i i'm very pleased i think it's not a surprise but i'm very pleased i'm going to be assigned to be a the council liaison to the human relations committee which is so responsible for putting that together

0:05:52thank the police the human relations committee el cerrito high and others and i just wanted to say one little point here it was kind of emotional to me because 50 years ago when martin luther king was killed i was a a senior at kennedy high the first graduating class at kennedy high school

0:06:14and that's when we not only had the vietnam war going on but we had um martin luther king killed and robert f kennedy killed and we had riots it was a tough tough year and a lot of people said that our graduating class of 68 we're heading toward a difficult time

0:06:31in our world and i just wanted to say that to the class of 2018 that's happening this year they they and we have an equally difficult challenge ahead with the president that we have the president that was elected and won by a electoral college and i just wanted to end by

0:06:55mentioning martin luther king had said that change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability but comes through continuous struggle and that's what the class of 2018 and the class of 68 will have to continue to do so thank you very much thank you i also attended the uh

0:07:18uh the martin luther king events and i also uh also that i received an award um and i forgot to bring it but it is the most beautiful award and then and uh the name of it it is anybody remember the title the martin luther king dream award the dream award um and i'm very appreciative

0:07:45of that award it really does mean a lot to me um and um [Music] you know it's very special it's all it's about all i could say about it i i feel quite honored to have received it um the other than that i have not not done too many things yet because i mean i've gone to meetings a few

0:08:13meetings but nothing has really much happened yet where it's noteworthy so i'll pass it along okay greg i i thought i had some announcements for tonight but i am not remembering them and can't find them so i have nothing other than the how wonderful the martin luther king parade

0:08:34was um i will have some uh reports during our liaison reports i too attended the parade and it was fantastic as usual i believe it was the 29th is that correct parade and compliments to the human relations commission and to miss pat durham who always does such a

0:09:02great job coordinating the parade it was fantastic once again um and then i just have one announcement i continue to serve uh as a liaison on the keep ultibates open committee that is headed up by mayor jesse edegen from berkeley and we met again this last this last month here in january and

0:09:30our big plans are for saturday february 3rd from 11 a.m to 1 p.m we are going to have a keep ulta bates open community forum and it's going to be held at the ed roberts campus and that's on adeline street in berkeley near the bart station and i will be the emcee for the event so

0:09:57i hope that you can all make it out please mark your calendars and together with community support we can keep the hospital open thank you thank you a couple weeks ago i ran into the head of the writer's coach connection and she mentioned to me that at el cerrito high school we have a need

0:10:20for volunteers to help our students learn to read more and so i'm calling everyone out i'm asking if you have some free time if you can please help our young students at el cerrito high school who need guidance in reading and hopefully we'll get some people lined up for this

0:10:42it's a very rewarding experience i know at home glenn helped some kids at richmond high school we need this in el cerrito high school so that as a gaucho it's it's so important to make sure that our young generation learns to read so and to enjoy it as well so i have a flyer here

0:11:04and i know there should be some out in the lobby and then last tuesday i attended the conte costa board of supervisors meeting and there was a luncheon for the new board president karen mitchov and at the meeting she handed out achievements made for 2017 uh for the

0:11:31board of supervisors so uh i have a list of things that they were able to do uh for last year and i can pass this down and folks are welcome to take a look at it mayor i i do have one item i i just i think it's in our minutes um from january 4th but i did want to make sure that

0:11:53everyone knows that we did do interviews for the charter committee on january 4th as a as a full council and we have appointed a committee for the charter committee just to start so i just wanted to highlight that it is in our minutes from january 4th but i wanted to make sure everyone knew that

0:12:16we had done that great thank you i also have here there's an opening for waitlisted project-based vouchers so the waiting list for affordable housing and it started january 16th and it ends on january 21st at 5 pm and that includes the honda gardens at 10860 san pablo avenue so

0:12:43this will be a waiting list and it will be done by lottery so please let folks know our seniors and people with disabilities that there are openings but it has to go through a lottery so we'll pass this there if folks would like to take a look at that so i did attend the martin luther king

0:13:14parade and program and i had the pleasure to also introduce uh the maker of the movie uh life of william grimes the runaway slave and uh this movie will be available so i'm hoping people can look out for it and take a look at the movie when it's out our keynote speaker yesterday was

0:13:42reverend dr daryl j wesley and it was a uh a great evening and a great day um and uh we had a almost a full house there so it was great to see uh so many people joining us on san pablo avenue and moser lane and to see more people walk with us and they ended up being

0:14:06many many folks that joined us so thank you to everyone who joined us on the parade and then today we attended the el streeter chamber of commerce their first installation and i want to congratulate the new board members we had a guest speaker that spoke on uh taxes and

0:14:34the changes that are made in the state of california so i wanted to let everyone know that it was a full house there at today's luncheon and fiona mill uh who is a board of equalization a member of the state of california joined us and uh i know al miller was there and uh

0:14:56janet abelson and myself and rochelle pardue okimoto attended so it was uh i'm hoping to attend uh next month while i will be the guest speaker also i wanted to thank uh achatai restaurant who was so nice and donated uh thai hors d'oeuvres at last at our last meeting and also to pearl

0:15:28parmalee who donated uh food as well it's the first time we had filipino hors d'oeuvres and anti-orders here in el salvador city hall so i'm grateful to them and grateful to the people that showed up at our last council meeting so we had a closed session earlier

0:15:55at six o'clock and then at 6 30 6 o'clock we did interview two people for boards and commissions 6 30 we had a closed session regarding negotiations that are going on right now and the negotiators just gave us an update so oral communications to the public yes we do have one staff communication your

0:16:27honor okay good evening i'm melanie your community development director and i just i'm going to quickly introduce aisa ashori who is our new affordable housing analyst um i know that many of you at the affordable housing strategy were very enthusiastic that we were going to be

0:16:49moving forward with um many of the items and i'd like to give her the strategy as her work plan so she's getting going uh quickly on all of these she started the second week of january she also has an announcement tonight i know that the mayor just mentioned the

0:17:02honor gardens application but she also has an announcement about that process so i'm going to pass it over to isa for a moment to introduce herself good evening council members and mayor my name is isa shuri i'm very ecstatic to be here tonight to join this team and to bring my

0:17:18knowledge to el cerrito i quickly wanted to let you all know um to piggyback on your announcement we will be conducting a application workshop um at the senior center this thursday the 18th and this friday the 19th from 1 to 3 p.m myself along with the staff members at the open house will

0:17:38be happy to help anyone who's interested in applying so please come and see us and take advantage of this wonderful new project thank you thank you so much and welcome okay oral communications from the public all persons wishing to speak should sign up with the city clerk remarks are

0:17:57typically limited to three minutes kindly state your name and city of residence for the record and you'll see some lights over there and a green light means that you can now speak and when it turns yellow you will need to finish up your your speaking and then a red light means

0:18:21you need to stop so go ahead yes we have three speakers for this for this item al miller followed by cordell hindler and james sanders good evening mayor kento council members and staff i too wanted to add my thank you to for the wonderful event that we had yesterday and be sure that all of

0:18:45the sponsors got mentioned city of el cerrito the human relations committee in addition to that the west county unified school district the el cerrito branch of the naacp and saint peter's church the parade was interesting to me for several reasons one it's always a fun

0:19:09event but as we march down san pablo avenue and cars get stopped at this intersection or that intersection throughout the paid parade route i think it's a nice way that those of us marching are sending them a message of what the day is and why we were there i enjoy the event held in the

0:19:31center for performing arts at ocerrido high school because it brings people from probably have never been there and before uh and from outside of the community that come and march in our parade an opportunity to see what an incredibly wonderful sight the school district has provided to our in

0:19:51our new local high school the only thing that concerned me about the parade is i think that we're losing marchers somewhere in previous years the parade has been longer i was right up in the front with the naacp uh contingent which was pretty close to the band that was

0:20:15playing right behind the council contingent but when you try to limit or to form the marching unit and four abreast to extend its length i think that we as a community need to do more not just the sponsors not just the city but as a community need to talk to our

0:20:38friends and to the people in the organizations that we're part of to come out and join that event that event and our fourth of july holiday uh celebration i think are two really important events for the city and i'd hate to see the parade die as some of us get older and older and

0:20:59are not able to march anymore but anyway a special shout out to the el cerrito police department their mobility and ability to block off the streets and provide the marchers safety was another great job done thank you thank you seconds so good evening i'm mayor council uh

0:21:26staff i am cordell handler richmond i have four things i'm gonna to say so number one is i'm i want to congratulate you on on the reorganization at last month's meeting which i didn't get a chance to speak on so it was very moving uh to see um how this council went through all the

0:21:43changes that went through in 2017 but now as we move forward to 2018 we got some new opportunities coming so we want to keep our alta base open so please we try to do everything we can to keep our hospital open because we are we already lost um one hospital we can't lose that again

0:22:01that's one number two is um i have an idea as you've if you remember at the last month's meeting i just i said we need some young people on these committees the reason why is because they can bring a whole lot of knowledge to the table so and i did attend the human relations commission

0:22:17last week and i addressed it to them i said having some young people on this on the committees would be very beneficial because we don't get that many young people on these commissions that's that's really a concern so that's number two and then number three is um i have an idea

0:22:32because if you remember back in august uh when you had a presentation on the on the housing um strategy i was doing my research on craigslist and i saw some of the houses in richmond some of the houses are like about about three thousand dollars a month and i said

0:22:48nobody cannot afford a three thousand dollar a month house you they can't afford that shoot albany possibly but that's one thing and then the last thing i had in mind was um i did want to thank the centennial task force committee for doing a terrific job with all the events that they had um

0:23:05in in a short amount of time it's like it is incredible and they stayed under budget i was like that wasn't that was impressive i was really impressed because i have attended some of their meetings in in the past and and i've always provided them with some of the ideas so

0:23:21i'm very thankful that the centennial task force has really outdone us a terrific job so and the last thing is um we need the reason we need to keep out the base open is because we have we have some nurses who are who are concerned about about losing uh this hospital and

0:23:36i say it's important it is a landmark so our community so i'm gonna pass my time to the next person a final speaker this time is james sanders good evening can you hear me yes okay fine uh my name is james sanders i'm a resident of [address removed] carlson streets and

0:24:02interesting street because on one side we are entirely richmond on the other side we are partially richmond and partially el cerrito and my wife and i moved from the split side to the full richmond side to enjoy a larger house because we had two girls and to enjoy a

0:24:20view um i recently learned from next door el cerrito that there's a project proposed for 11965 san pablo avenue which is a former taco bell and right now it's fenced off and there's some improvements going on around that structure and so i'm here to ask you to reconsider

0:24:41that project as it's proposed your site plan for san pablo avenue or actually the street the plan for the entire street i believe the limit for the size or the height of buildings is six stories this particular building is proposing eight stories or 85 feet at the back of my

0:24:58house if my cell phone's to be believed the elevation is um 130 feet when you add 60 feet to 85 feet which is the size of the project you get 145 feet so i'm about 14 15 feet short of being able to see out and that scene out is the view of san francisco so i've basically lost my view

0:25:20if you build a eight-story building more than that i really want to talk to you about the nature of that project and where it's located it's on the city line there is no residential use around that building it's all commercial it's it's a little corner of el cerrito

0:25:38and um i'm a retired peace officer i was the director of crime prevention for city of berkeley for a number of years and then i went off and became a deputy assessor for a while so i understand property values and then i taught school even at el cerrito high school and now

0:25:52i've retired from all of that and i'd like to enjoy my view on my retirement um what are we doing time wise 30 seconds what yeah 30 seconds 30 seconds i want you to think about what's going to happen to the value of all the properties all the people that have purchased on barrett avenue going up the

0:26:10hill every single one of them has has paid for the house with the view which is about to disappear if you build the building as it is the second thing is the building if you build the building as proposed i i suggest to you respectfully it's going to become a problem for the police

0:26:30because you've got a subterranean parking structure that cannot be observed it's got a footprint for 37 spaces it's 146 units you can have stacked parking it's subterranean can't be observed so that's going to draw the criminal elements and then because of the height of it

0:26:49there won't be a lot of view of the surrounding grounds you have the bart's tracks on one side and you have the greenway on the other and i'll stop there thank you very much thank you okay okay um adoption of the consent calendar move adoption of the consent calendar oh

0:27:13let me i'm sorry go ahead uh a approval amendments b proclamation celebrating the el cerrito lions club 90th anniversary see on-call geotechnical engineering and material testing services d transportation development act articles 3 grant application approval e also right

0:27:37and e successor agency recognized obligation payment schedule so now i'll move adoption into the consent calendar second i wanted to pull an item which one 4d uh except for 4d okay i move that second that okay so it was uh first by um council member abelson second

0:28:04by paul fideli and taking out i'm sorry d okay all in favor aye thank you um so we're going to talk about d okay okay d transportation development act article 3 grant application approval adoptive resolution approving a request to the metropolitan transportation

0:28:39commission mtc by the city of el cerrito for an allocation of physical fiscal year 2018 2019 transportation development act article 3 pedestrian and bicycle project funding in the amount of 100 000 for carlson boulevard and san diego street crosswalk improvements exempt from sql

0:29:01right and it's a minor point but i i number one wanted to congratulate staff for pursuing this i think that crosswalk has been dangerous it's good we're seeking funding the one point that i had to make is in the financial considerations i think i think we make the point that we're

0:29:20going after sb one money for matching funds and i just wanted to ask why is there some reason why we're not stating that in the resolution itself i think that's something that should be stated in the resolution so that we do come back and that's evident in the budget

0:29:44does staff want to comment on that or is that that i think that's an easy thing to add to the resolution that exists here [Music] good evening mayor and council my name is melissa tickbaugh with the engineering division division manager for public works um the we can definitely add that into the

0:30:08resolution great thank you okay okay all right so did you make a motion um i move that we pass item 4d with an addition with the edition of uh language uh uh mentioning that for matching funds we will be including twenty thousand dollars from um sb1 second uh we have a motion by paul fideli

0:30:39second by councilmember abelson all in favor aye hi unanimous presentation we have a presentation stand together contra costa county rapid response program and i'd like to introduce mr ali asaidi contra costa public defender regarding stand together contra costa county the

0:31:10rapid response program welcome thank you very much council members mayor thank you for having me today i'm originally i was very excited to come and speak with you all about this exciting new program um but given current events and kind of what we're hearing out of washington

0:31:27right now i'm have a more serious tone because we really have a lot of work to do to protect our immigrant families not only here in contra costa but here in el cerrito i have distributed a project abstract a stand together coco summary to the council members it's also available

0:31:47here for any members of the public that would like to look at the one page summary i will try to be brief and just kind of very briefly outline the program and the need for the program and then hopefully we can have a minute or two if you have any uh questions so stand together coco is a program that

0:32:06was uh voted on in uh september by the board of supervisors of contra costa county and unanimously adopted by that board it is a 2.5 year two and a half year pilot program that is mixed funding essentially it's about half funded by the county and half by private and public foundations so we

0:32:31were able to leverage public dollars along with private dollars to make this really important program essentially what stand together coco is is a due process and community-led civic engagement program for vulnerable immigrant families in contra costa county the program can be thought of in some

0:32:55ways as a as a three-legged stool there's there's three essential parts to the program uh the the backbone of the program is something that many of you may have heard of in the past it's the rapid response network itself um and so i'll describe that briefly that's essentially a 24-hour seven-day

0:33:11week hotline that any community member can call when they observe suspected ice enforcement activity isis immigration and customs enforcement the need for this uh is is clear not only in the adoption of this kind of program by counties throughout california and the

0:33:33bay area but you know we know close to home you know earlier last year there was uh panic spread throughout the community when people thought that there was ice over at costco i don't know i don't know if you guys remember that but nowadays with social media panic can really

0:33:48spread fast and there's a real lack of credible quality information getting out to community members and it can be very very disruptive for our economy as well as for the mental health and well-being of our immigrant families not to know what's going on on the ground so if a community

0:34:06member calls and says hey i think ice is at costco for example the phone will be answered by a trained dispatcher who will then dispatch trained community responders these responders will then go to the scene they are trained in legal observation that's de-escalation

0:34:26non-interference and they are also trained to observe what's going on to be able to first and foremost verify whether or not there is some kind of ice enforcement activity going on if there isn't like was the case in costco then they can transmit that information

0:34:44back to the dispatcher and then through our community partners we can basically quell the fear in the community and say no it was just the security guy at costco don't worry about it it wasn't a nice activity um but unfortunately as we know um despite the fact that california is uh

0:35:01you know has passed the california values act that doesn't mean that ice can't still operate within our state or in our county in our cities so if there is a nice enforcement activity then the rapid responders will observe and then if someone or multiple persons are actually detained

0:35:22then our rapid responders are going to be serving a couple of functions one they're going to be getting back to dispatch and activating one of our program's attorneys so many people don't know that in immigration court in immigration removal proceedings it's unlike what we see for example in

0:35:44the criminal arena where everyone regardless of their ability to pay has the right to an appointed lawyer right everybody's seen tv if you can't afford an attorney one will be provided to you free of charge well that's because having an attorney where there are lots of uh civil rights on the

0:36:04line things like being free from incarceration being able to stay with your family being able to stay in this country and not be subjected to to deportation require a due process structure but unfortunately in immigration law people are not given the right to have a free attorney appointed

0:36:24if they cannot afford one so what this program does is the first step for contra costa county to develop internal removal defense uh infrastructure in contra costa county because until this program we have not had one non-profit agency in contra costa county that is able to provide free or low-cost

0:36:46removal defense services and this program is a start so it's going to have 3.25 lawyers uh to do this which obviously is is not many lawyers but it's a start uh who will then be able to go to san francisco to the immigration detention facility there and actually meet with

0:37:05any of our community members who have been detained by ice to basically talk to them and give them due process access to basically go over their situation let them know what their rights are what are the next steps evaluate their case to see if they may be eligible for bond

0:37:22or they may be eligible for some other form of immigration relief this is very important because this program is not aimed simply at helping those that are facing removal or deportation proceedings by immigration but of course this affects all of us it not only affects the

0:37:40families that are being separated and torn apart but it affects what happens in our schools it affects the mental health and physical health of our families our children and it also affects our economy in very serious ways so the hotline program basically does that

0:38:00now while the lawyer is going and getting ready to meet people at the detention facility what will happen is that those rapid responders will be there to provide trauma-informed support to the families that are left by to let them know what is the next step what is happening where

0:38:17are they taking my family member and in so doing can also help collect useful information for the legal defense so that's what a rapid response hotline does we're lucky to have one that actually has legal representation with it not all do but that's just one leg of the stool

0:38:35that's kind of what i like into the um that's two two legs of stool essentially it's the hotline the rapid response the verifiers and then the legal services that is essentially the emergency room services right if something really goes bad we want to be able to respond in a

0:38:52rapid fashion but i liken it to healthcare where you'd rather have preventative medicine than reactionary medicine right and so the other part of the program that we're very excited about is really the civic engagement and community development side of the program so the program will have hubs in

0:39:10different parts of the county there will be a west county hub an east county hub and a central county hub and at these hubs there are not only going to be trained responders but these rapid responders are also going to be community leaders they're going to be people that are from the community

0:39:28that are trained to not only transmit information to the community about what services are available but to get information from their various communities that have so long been excluded from civic engagement to let us know in the program and in the county what they need what what is the

0:39:48reality on the ground in addition the way that we're going to be doing that is through community events and workshops where the lawyers when they're not running off to rapidly respond are going to be actually going in safe spaces where our immigrant families feel

0:40:05comfortable to come and do actual free consultations with individuals we're going to be doing not only know your rights workshops but workshops in terms of things like family preparedness plans you know what to do in case your family is separated who's going to

0:40:23take care of the kids who's going to have the authority to make educational or medical decisions for our kids we're going to train the community in these things and furthermore it's going to be an opportunity to really promote civic engagement across the other services that we have in our

0:40:39cities and counties that unfortunately are failing to reach many of our most vulnerable immigrant families and so we're really excited about the program and that community and education piece of it is going to result in a west county hub of community leaders from immigrant families that can not

0:41:02only gain the trust of the community and promote civic engagement but can also tell us what's going on and what we need to do to be responsive to all of our residents regardless of immigration status and regardless of ability to afford an attorney the partners that we will be working

0:41:23with at the stand together coco program it's it's administratively managed by the office of the public defender at contra costa county but really the work this is a community-based program the community called for this program and community organizations are going to

0:41:38be the ones that have won the contract to provide the services the lead agency is catholic charities of the east bay and they have partnered with several other great organizations centro legal de la raza oakland community organizations monument impact jewish family and community services

0:41:59the international institute of the bay area as well as bay area community resources so we're really trying to have a platform and a footprint county-wide to be able to take trusted organizations that have already had proven success in providing key services to our most vulnerable

0:42:21community members and those organizations are going to be doing the on the ground work in terms of timeline this is the part that that has me a little worried and why i'm i'm serious right now um we are in the process right now of the the rfp was just awarded in december

0:42:40so we're just finishing up the contract between the county and catholic charities we're in our launch phase the first two months of this year january and february are the launch phase and then there's going to be a four-month implementation phase so our goal is to have the hotline up and

0:42:56running and live by march 1st 2018.

0:43:01it's a delicate dance because you don't want to disseminate a hotline number until you have all of the staff and the actual training done to do this responsibly that being said our organizations are in place right now and so [Music] if something happens and if the threats by the federal

0:43:23government against california and our residents come to fruition before march first uh i would encourage uh anybody here at the on this council or anybody in the community to reach out to catholic charities of the east bay or um that would be the primary place to

0:43:40reach out to and then if you can't get through there reach me at the public defender's office and we'll do our best to get services linked up although the hotline won't be live till march we do have one of our lawyers is already staffed right now so they're able to take some cases

0:43:59at this time so if any of you do get concerns or calls from community members that need emergency immigration help we can provide that now it's just we don't have all of the infrastructure yet in place uh for just the calls to come in and so i don't want to take up too much

0:44:17more of your time but i want to open it up to to questions um from the council okay i'm going to start this on this side do you have any questions paul um yes thank you for this effort really much needed so i'm looking at the the budget that you have for for over a two year period is about over a

0:44:39million dollars yes the approximately the budget is approximately one million dollars a year half of that coming from ab109 funds from the county and about half of it coming from uh private and public foundations and you say one million dollars a year this is a pilot project

0:44:55for the the current the way that the uh program was written up it's a two and a half year pilot project but we're uh we're confident that the need is going to be great and that um we will be able to demonstrate the need and the success of this project to hopefully

0:45:10continue it past the two and a half years and early on up front as this is being established i'm assuming there will be some outreach monies to get the word out in a variety of ways absolutely and and that's actually part of what uh why i was very uh pleased to be invited

0:45:26to to this session here um we're looking forward to partnering with cities with libraries and so forth to you know a key piece is again the civic engagement piece and not only are we going to provide the outreach to all of our civic institutions in concert on contra costa

0:45:44county including the cities um but we would like to partner with uh cities in terms of having events and so forth where we can um you know the issue isn't only a due process issue it's also this issue of inclusion of community and i think it's important uh you know the fact that the

0:46:04board of supervisors unanimously voted yes on this program i think is important separate from the services and the dollars that this provides it's symbolically important to immigrants like myself to know that our elected officials care about us recognize what's going on

0:46:20historically in the country and are willing to step up and participate in a californian and a contra costa that is inclusive and that includes everyone regardless of immigration status thank you and please let us know how we can continue to help thank you councilman

0:46:40i guess one of the things i was uh wondering and it just occurred to me to think about that so maybe it's here and i just can't find it but it should be really easy to find and that would be what's the phone number to call ah yes the phone number to call is not set

0:46:56yet and in fact uh we don't necessarily want it easy to call yet because we don't want concerned community members calling a number that is not live and then thinking that this number is is no good or won't work i promise you that as soon as i have the hotline number and and the launch

0:47:15date set and live we will be getting back with all of the cities in contra costa county and making sure that you have not only the phone number but materials that you can distribute to your particular cities okay okay um do you have a timetable for that well we

0:47:38we definitely have to have everything by march 1st um we're anticipating right now we actually have our first official launch meeting with all of the partners um tomorrow and this is one of the items that we're going to discuss my guess is and i'm sorry i can't give

0:47:54you a more firm answer is that probably about two weeks before we go live is when we would start disseminating the actual phone number we don't want to go too far before that because we want to at least be able to answer the phone before even before everything else is set up we want to be

0:48:10able to answer the phone once the phone number starts to go out or at least have a message that says you know it's going to be ready in two weeks or something like that but i'm sorry i don't have a cleaner answer for you here's another probably equally problematic question

0:48:24um which is do you actually have to live in contra costa to call or ask questions or can you be anywhere or what's the criteria for for using yourself so the program is is a contra costa program it's for people that either live in contra costa county or have ties to contra costa county whether

0:48:44they go to school or work here or so forth in terms of calling the hotline if you know you're an alameda county resident you happen to be in contra costa county and you see some suspected ice activity absolutely you can call the question of being a resident of contra costa county doesn't affect the

0:49:01calling of the hotline it's more likely to affect whether or not our limited legal team can represent you what if somebody lives say in alameda county but works in contra costa county does that do those people get included yes they would be included and what we would do

0:49:20we work closely with the other regional rapid response networks alameda county has a program called a selip or the alameda county immigrant and legal uh education partnership and so what we would do in that situation is figure out which uh which network is best suited to

0:49:40fill in in that particular case um and we would do so sometimes if the family lives in alameda county they would rather have their lawyers be close by in case they later need to visit the lawyers and so forth rather than be lawyers in contra costa county um so we're partnering very closely and

0:49:56we're we are part of the regional rapid response networks um that are that are popping up thank you very much uh for your presentation and for being here you're welcome thank you councilmember lyman yeah um thank you for being here tonight and presenting and and i

0:50:13appreciate the questions about the budget um how much is the budget set because that's what the funding that's available and how much of it is set because that's what you've estimated the clientele have you got any sense of the clientele you need and and are you you made

0:50:31comments during your presentation that this is what you have this is maybe not enough um but is it not enough by a little bit or are you really you know trying to be you know a finger in a in a fire hose um so what's what's how how what is the expected clientele

0:50:54well i i think that there's there's a few different kind of uh problems that we're trying to address one problem is the lack of removal defense or deportation defense representation for those that are arrested by ice that number is really really hard to tell but i can tell you i can guarantee

0:51:16you right now that the three lawyers are not going to be enough to represent all of the people that are just currently facing ice that are currently contra costa residents that are facing um deportation proceedings so that's the sense in which i feel like the three lawyers is not enough

0:51:37to ultimately meet all of the potential need for that due process protection however what we're trying to do again with that preventative measure that we talked about is reach out to the community we can reach exponentially more people that way um and do the consultations and the

0:51:54intakes and hopefully be able to then steer community members to other nonprofits or to other services that are available in in that scenario so i guess the answer to your question is the the budget was based on what we thought would be the bare minimum to make a program that could provide

0:52:16these services and start building our due process and and coordinated immigration rights infrastructure across the county one of the things that i didn't mention i'm sorry if this is a good place to mention it is one of the things that we'll also be doing is doing train the trainer events

0:52:35what we mean by that is we're going to be using our immigration both legal and just know-how about immigration issues in contra costa county and we're going to be going to other agencies and other partners both community partners and public sector partners and offering to train their staff

0:52:55on on different things like you know we've gone to train um mental health professionals on how to help their clients prepare a um family preparedness plan for um their children in case things happen and so forth so we're trying to use a very lean budget in our view to have an exponentially

0:53:15large impact by creating more knowledge about what is going on on the ground in our county for immigrant families and to be honest with you there isn't a lot of data on that and that's another piece of this program that we're very excited about is using it as a platform to start

0:53:32collecting data about the on-the-ground realities for those that have so often and for too long been excluded from civic engagement um and so that's that's part of what we're excited about and i'm um you know i never wanna we haven't started yet so i don't wanna say it's

0:53:48not enough but i suspect that we'll be trying to raise more money and um in the near future because i think that this is a really great program and our our people need it thank you could you explain a little bit more about how the current presidential administration has recently

0:54:11done actions that make you feel like you need to hurry um with your program um yes there was uh the particular concern is there was an article in the san francisco chronicle i don't remember if it was yesterday or from this morning where an anonymous source from ice reported that there's

0:54:34large-scale raids being planned for northern california for the bay area potentially in retaliation of you know california's role as a leader in protecting immigrant rights and particularly recent ninth circuit decisions regarding the daca program so you know part of the concern here is we

0:54:56don't want to spread fear or panic so although we are concerned and we take these things seriously we want to be ready we want the community to know that we are getting ready that there are um platforms coming into place and that um you know we can only do this if we model

0:55:18the behavior that we are trying to fight against i'm sorry that we model the behavior that is the alternative option to what we're fighting against in terms of the continued attacks upon people of color and immigrants in this country and i think to do that we need to

0:55:38do programs like this that show that local government local philanthropy local non-profits and ultimately maybe even you know contributions from local businesses all go toward making sure that everyone that's a part of our community is treated as such as a full part of our

0:55:55community thank you very much thank you i know we met uh last month at the west contra costa mayor's conference in san pablo and so i know that uh i believe el cerrito is are we the first city that you met with so far in 2018. you are and i'm very pleased about that

0:56:18good so i'm very proud that you were able to uh be with us and i hope you get to attend uh and meet with the council members and mayors and the other 18 cities in contra costa thank you for being here so uh today we had uh uh assist we had contra costa public defender ali saeed so thank you for for

0:56:40being here in el salvador thank you mayor okay so we now we have a lime bike dockless bike share program a presentation by megan colford lime bike operations manager and we also have uh will provost here from our city to give us a presentation welcome great thank you

0:57:08good evening mayor and city council my name is will provost management analyst in the public works department we're excited today to be introducing bike share to the city of el cerrito increasing bicycle ridership is a key goal of the city's active transportation

0:57:22plan the city's climate action plan and the city strategic plan through 2020 to that end staff has been actively seeking out opportunities to add bike sharing as a transportation option for el cerrito residents businesses and visitors limebike a privately funded bike sharing

0:57:38company stood out because it offered a turnkey solution at no cost to the city in addition the dockless bike sharing model will allow the city to add bike sharing to the community while avoiding costly investments in docking stations and without taking away existing parking

0:57:53spaces limebike is now successfully operating in more than 30 communities including the nearby cities of alameda south san francisco and now albany and so we're excited to be launching a six-month pilot program with lime bike here in el cerrito that will allow users

0:58:08to bike throughout el cerrito as well as albany during this time we will also be able to collect data monitor usage and hopefully increase bicycle ridership to ensure a smooth launch to the pilot program city staff will be entering into a memorandum of understanding with

0:58:24limebike to highlight the turn to outline the terms of a six-month pilot program including identifying the data to be shared specific parking standards and insurance requirements the mou is also not exclusive and so it will allow city staff to continue to explore other bike

0:58:40share programs such as the ford go bike program which is operating in berkeley oakland and san francisco any feedback we received from council this evening or from the public during the six month pilot period will help us work with limebike to make improvements

0:58:54to the program and test how well bike sharing works in el cerrito without any further delay i'm pleased to introduce lime bikes megan colford to tell you more about the program good evening good evening mayor council and staff thank you for the opportunity to be here and thanks will for the

0:59:13introduction my name is megan colford i am the general manager for limebike for the bay area um i have a presentation here there's a lot of information in it so i'm not going to be going through every slide quite in detail the purpose of tonight's presentation is to give you

0:59:28an overview as well as to answer any questions you have about us and how we plan to work with you um so what is limebike and why are we building it our goal is to revolutionize urban mobility we want it to be fun we want it to be convenient we want it to be affordable um so you're probably

0:59:47familiar with the traditional dock-based systems um there are quite a few limitations of this that led us to create our dockless bike share system the number one reason is that it is really expensive to install bike racks both to the city and communities that these systems operate in

1:00:05and also to the users so that cost is split it can also be inconvenient and it's really limited because you have to tie the bikes to a specific location so since launching six months ago with our dockless system um here is a map that shows our current spread it's probably outdated already we're

1:00:25growing so quickly but we're in about 40 markets total including two international markets and at the end of this month in the bay area we'll be in seven locations and um the yellow dots are schools and the green ones are cities or communities so what sets us apart um as will

1:00:46mentioned we operate at no cost to the city no dollars from el cerrito are going to limebike we are an american company we're based in san mateo we're homegrown and really proud of that we like to work really closely with the city we like to take feedback and make

1:01:03sure that that this is a system that is modeled after your needs after the community's needs because that's how we're really going to to be successful and we are currently the largest u.s dockless bike share provider which is really exciting so how does it work it's all done

1:01:22through an app that is free either on the google play store or the apple itunes store users can simply download it to their phone the app it's a really simple sign up either with facebook or your phone number you input all of your information and then you're ready to unlock a bike

1:01:41using the camera on your phone and then ride the bike wherever you will and then you lock it up when you're done and all the payment goes through the app as well we do have options for those without smart phones or who don't have a credit card as well this is a little bit about our bike

1:02:02there are a few key things i want to point out one that people are always really excited about there's a solar panel in the front basket that actually powers both our gps enabled smart lock as well as the front light and the rear red blinking light all of our bikes have the highest safety

1:02:21standards the best approval that we can get and they're meant to be as maintenance free as possible for example the tires are actually made of foam so you never have to worry about a flat tire and there's several other kind of small things that really make it easy on our

1:02:36team and on riders to never have to worry about the maintenance another thing about our bike is we're constantly trying to improve so an example when we first launched in july we got a lot of feedback that the seats didn't go high enough i'm a tall woman and they didn't go high enough for

1:02:52me either and within a few months we were able to iterate and create a new version that had taller seat posts for all of our existing markets so we're constantly creating improvements like that it is priced quite affordably we think at a dollar for every 30 minutes

1:03:09there's no membership fee there's no sign up fee it's it's just as simple as that if you ride 15 minutes or 27 minutes it's a dollar if you ride 42 minutes or 59 minutes it's two dollars so every 30 minute increment is um just one dollar there's also a membership

1:03:24option for anyone who's riding all the time and that's thirty dollars a month for a hundred rides and i mentioned that we do have our lime community network which is for anyone who uses low income or equity options in any other form can receive a five dollar for 100 rides per

1:03:44month deal so what does it mean once we're here we're not just going to drop the bikes and leave as the gm i have teams in every single city that really work hard to make sure that the bikes are available that they're in good working order that they are where people want that

1:04:03want to ride them so part of the way we do that is to have regular patrols in each community another key thing that we have that really sets us apart we have a 24 7 customer service line that is accessible via the app you can submit a request through the app you can text you can

1:04:21call or you can email that customer service department then dispatches the appropriate team around the country and we have a two-hour response time to respond to that concern within our operating hours we also use the data that we collect to make sure that we're continually

1:04:39putting bikes in the hot spots that everyone wants spikes in and adjusting the number of bikes in the community as needed parking is always a big question and people are always concerned about how does a dockless bike share worry about parking there are a few things that we do number

1:04:57one we are the only dockless provider that has proactively put out information to promote safe parking last tuesday we released our first video i think edutainment educational entertainment that was based on the matrix and it was you know a fun way for people to watch a two-minute video that

1:05:17highlights some of the key considerations when parking such as don't park on sidewalks don't park on side don't park on corners don't park on sidewalks that are too small don't park at bus stops park your bike on cement et cetera et cetera we have two more videos in that series that will be

1:05:36coming out so i'll send them along and hopefully you can have some enjoyment out of them um all of the uh park the bike racks are also identified in the app so that users can easily see when they're finishing a ride how to park correctly and we do have the option to follow up

1:05:54with users who have continually poor behavior to educate them or if needed suspend their account um we'll mention data we're really proud that as part of our partnership with all the cities we share key data such as how many trips we're seeing in el cerrito where people are riding

1:06:13how often people are riding and this is the kind of data that as you look to make safer bike lanes safer bike paths safer city streets we think is really going to help you in that endeavor and we want to be a part of that so we look forward to sharing the data we collect

1:06:29with you all the data is of course privacy protected so it's anonymized so what does it look like in el cerrito so it will be a six-month pilot um we're initially going to launch with a hundred bikes um and as i mentioned we'll monitor closely to see what the demand

1:06:45is to see if we need to increase or decrease that number we are having a launch event two weeks from today that we hope you can join us for that will be just a fun kind of inaugural unlocking as we introduce the bikes to the city we are also coordinating social media

1:07:03and press with the city we know that may is national bike month and may 10th is bike to work day so we'll likely have events around that and as part of our continued safety endeavors we'll work with local schools or community organizations to figure out how we can get helmets into the hands of

1:07:22people who need them so that not having a helmet is never a reason for someone not to ride a bike and like i said we're continually improving so please share your feedback we'll definitely share ours so that together we can make this a successful program and with that i will take any questions

1:07:38thank you member fidelity this is exciting stuff i have a lot of questions so i'm at the starter here um how very exciting stuff how did you choose el cerrito yeah that's a great question um well el cerrito has been great to work with i think part of our model is to to

1:08:05find cities that have interest in this that are that are talking about and thinking about this and um you know if there's a nibble there then we'll pursue that um and will at all have been great to work with us so on in how to use with your app um without having

1:08:24um a parking structure people will see where the bikes are in the city and go to the bike yeah so they may be parked right so when you pull up the app um if you if you get a chance to go to to alameda or south san francisco where we're already operating that's a great way to see how

1:08:42this works but if you open the app um it will show little icons of where there's a nearby bike and you can click on a bike to walk to it and then once you lay eyes on that bike you can unlock it you can also just happen upon a bike um somewhere on on the sidewalk and decide to unlock

1:08:59it like that so it's either just happenstance or through the app and what if someone's not done with the bike in that location and you go there yeah so it won't show up on the app if it's in a ride currently we don't have a reservation process um because we think the best way to

1:09:16have bikes when and where people need it is by having the appropriate number of bikes so we get the question about reservations a lot um but that's something we're thinking about but at this time not something that's enacted so there will be bikes all over the city

1:09:32yes and have you have there been discussions staffed with our police about bikes and stolen bike issues um i have not been part of those conversations we've kept the police department apprised about the the launch of the program and actually in working with the

1:09:49city attorney we uh developed some provisions about uh removing the the bikes off the streets if they're uh remain in one place for too long because it does open a whole new yeah there are considerations certainly right um and i do like the concept that i mean this

1:10:07is a pilot and our city will be working with other bike vendors because i see the most important two venues being the bart stations uh and having that first and last uh mile uh being resolved and having people getting out of barton knowing that there will be bikes there and

1:10:26you're saying there probably will be just because yeah absolutely so we actually in all of our other bay area uh locations we see the bart station as probably our highest pickup and drop-off i think nationally 40 of rides start uh near transit stations um so when our team is moving

1:10:45bikes around we're making sure that our number one priority is essentially transit stations and we're also in close contact with um bart about our program and our growth okay and i think my last question is maybe the staff again we're not done with our san pablo avenue

1:11:03redesign and reconfiguration how does that play into this because i'm hearing some people concerned about safety and this means more bikes on bart but we're not ready for bike paths on san pablo avenue is that correct yeah this might be a better question for our city engineer but i

1:11:18know there are uh programs like the the loaning greenway connection at richmond that are still coming online they'll probably be new bike racks that will come online in the future along san pablo but we see this as an experiment and an evolving process where you know you you

1:11:33add the bikes and then the infrastructure might come later and so rather than waiting for a bike share program down the line we'll you know kind of go with the flow and add new infrastructure as we use the data to see where we need new bike racks good evening mayor council members ida

1:11:54ortiz um so a bull i think answers the question where we can we will continue to look for grants to build the infrastructure but there's no reason to hold up the deployment of this bike share program the ohlone greenway is an off site an off street trail that runs along the

1:12:13length of the city and there's other bicycle facilities and routes in the city so our city will be encouraging riding on oloni greenway right of course we have our active transportation plan shows the existing bike facilities and proposed so those are looking to ride on more

1:12:34stress lower stress facilities would likely choose ohlone greenway but you can still also drive right along san pablo avenue but it's usually those more enthusiastic drivers that will use san pablo avenue we have city staff police and um lime bike all monitoring this for six months to see

1:12:57how it's going to work is that correct because correct look at change for our city exactly and so um we're excited about it it's a six month pilot program we will be getting data from lime bikes lime bike and um on a regular basis and we'll also be working with light and

1:13:14bike on educational workshops to inform the public putting that information on our website so um definitely there's an opportunity to learn and improve as we get feedback from the community um during this first six months thank you thank you just to add on to that um we usually do

1:13:32see in all of our launches the first few weeks are there's um quite a lot of commentary so just you know being prepared for that we do our best to educate and um you know all everyone gathered today i hope we can all educate other folks about it because that's the

1:13:46best way we're going to make this a successful program thank you i have a question this first of all this sounds absolutely exciting i've been looking at another project at the pleasant hill bart station and they've got a whole bunch of blue bikes and they just they're all full in the

1:14:07racks and this doesn't on the surface look to me like a successful project maybe i'm missing something i usually go there about five o'clock at night and then later in the evening again you know because they're just like all sitting there like they're not being

1:14:27used actually but the um so in this model let's say i start out at the bart station grab a bike and take it to get home does it then stay with me um and am i are the hours ticking off so the minute that you're done riding the bike you get home you can lock the bike manually and park it outside your

1:14:55house now that means that that bike is available for someone else to pick up and the nature of the dockless model is that someone might come pick it up if that bike stays there for a day or so then our team will come move it back to the bart station or back to somewhere else for you know a higher

1:15:15likelihood of being written so how do i get it when i when i want to go to work the next day how do i have access to a bike to get back to the bart station yeah typically um we see a lot like alameda is a great example that people are constantly picking up the bikes at the transit stations you can

1:15:32see pickup hot spots and then the whole island people are taking it all to their houses in the evening when you get home the likelihood of someone picking it up overnight is very minimal and then you can take it in the next morning and if you don't take it the next morning then my team will will

1:15:51probably retrieve it so that it's not sitting there not being ridden so on the weekend you would retrieve it um we monitor we can see bikes that have been idle we can see bikes where they've been ridden so we kind of use a little bit of intuition and a lot of data to figure

1:16:07out whether we need to be picking up all the bikes in a residential area or letting them kind of sit for the next rider typically on weekends we do see a lot more ridership from the residential areas so we'd be likely to leave it there and see if someone else rides it

1:16:22and the um so you talked a little bit about somebody who's big and tall and making a bike having a bike that they can use what about people who are on the other end of it uh short yeah absolutely so um they're the bikes are designed to be um they're you know they're cruiser bikes

1:16:47so they might not be the most comfortable if you're going on a 25 mile ride but for the first and last smile they're designed to be um available to be ridden by any shape and size so so would you say they're um i mean in el cerrito i could see that they could work really well for

1:17:07people who are going to bart uh who live within la the last mile apart let's say but also it would seem to me like they would be useful to people who are going to shopping centers and and want to get there from a variety of uh paths or to the movie for example you know i could you know i

1:17:33could see a number of destinations that would be very attractive for the for the bikes um and um so if somebody wanted to make go to the let's say somebody wanted to go to the movies um and they wanted to they wanted to be sure that a bike would be there at the

1:17:53end of their um the movie then would they would just keep it locked yeah so anytime you're not writing it you want to lock it so that someone else can't come jump on it on your account um i did mention there's no reservation process but the beauty of of dockless is

1:18:12that if we don't start out by having plenty of bikes available at the movie theaters and we see lots of people opening the app then we can quickly adapt the next day or the next hour to bring bikes to that location and we actually do have that dynamic data so it's kind of a learning curve maybe

1:18:29the first time you do that it might not work so perfectly if it's the first couple weeks but as we continue to gather that the goal is that there's always a bike either right at the movie theater or a block in either direction that you can and let's say that for some

1:18:43reason or another there was not a bike within a block can they contact somebody somehow so that they bring a bike um they can certainly call customer service and and like i mentioned we have that two hour response time i'm not sure that someone would want to wait that

1:19:00long we have it often it's much quicker like um 30 to 45 minutes but um so sometimes oftentimes people will call and say hey i'd love for you to start deploying bikes here and then they'll be on their way in a lift or uber or walking something like that thank you this is just very exciting to

1:19:19me and looks like a much better alternative than the blue one i don't even know what it's called i just know that the bikes all sit there perfectly aligned and looking like they never have been used ever actually maybe they've never maybe they never have been used i don't don't

1:19:35really know the history of those blue bikes but um this sounds like there's a lot more possibility for use yeah absolutely and that's great yeah and i i i like how it's um using the apps and so forth to do it that that's keeping up with the modern age better definitely thanks

1:19:56than the just sitting there counseling the line yeah you touched on it but i wanted to follow up on something you said during your presentation that there's uh in use that the bike could be in use and uh council member abelson just touched on it if i go to a destination

1:20:14that's not necessarily a a dense destination like a shopping center or safeway or the movie theater if i go to a destination that's a friend's house or a destination that's you know a dentist or doctor's office that isn't necessarily going to be quite as attracting as many other users

1:20:35what um is there a way to lock the bike for safety reasons but but have it remain in use you know in order i'm still paying for it so it or once you lock it it's back in the in the stable so to speak yeah um so that definitely that's one of our biggest questions and we

1:20:57don't have the capability currently to keep it in use but it's something we're talking about internally the places that you mentioned other than a friend's house but the shopping centers and and grocery stores those are places that we try to to make sure bikes are at um

1:21:12right it's a dense it's a dense destination right um and honestly we we do get this question a lot pre-launch and it's uh not something that we often hear about post launch but you did use the term in use if you walk upon a bike and it's in use you wouldn't be able to check it out so i'm

1:21:30just curious can a bike be locked and in use at the same time not at this time no but we're thinking about it because that is something but i could put my chain lock on it if you could and then our customer service and operations team would get upset at you for that

1:21:46if they find it you know if they find it find it yeah then it just looks like it's in use right i mean they don't they remember they don't even know where it is um inside your building again we we wouldn't love that the gps signal would stop all of a sudden um the parking requirements you you

1:22:05mentioned while during your presentation on concrete is what you said but under council member abelson scenario where you drive it home and you say not on a sidewalk on concrete some of our homes don't fit that criteria of having concrete that isn't sidewalk and

1:22:28well level a lot of us don't have level concrete around our house so i'm just curious what that what are the parking requirements in the residential areas because you do recognize that people take them to residential locations yeah absolutely um the the basic parking

1:22:43requirements are that you park a bike where it is not blocking pedestrian or vehicle traffic in any way um beyond that there are additional cons there are additional recommendations such as near a bike rack or um in the furniture zone of a sidewalk you know in between where people walk and

1:23:00where the cars are parked um well in your house not hopefully not in your house um but if you you know if you took it home and you parked it on your lawn that's fine by us because that's you parking it on your lawn what we wouldn't want is you taking it to your friend's house and

1:23:15parking it on their neighbor's lawn um you know that's not great so so all of these things people tend to use their common sense and once we launch as we continue to educate we really see a really high compliance rate with that and we do our best to educate but the

1:23:31the basic is just not blocking pedestrian or vehicle traffic what's the frequency of theft or vandalism like seat stealing um because i know in some communities you know stealing seats seems to be a either a hobby or a or i don't know why all the seats disappear in davis for example so what's

1:23:50what is what is the the security features uh what's the rate of vandalism or or damage to your product yeah so the the rate of vandalism i think it's somewhere less than five percent i don't remember the actual number there's quite a few features that prevent theft

1:24:07such as the seat doesn't actually come out all of the the bolts nuts bolt screws are proprietary so it's not something you can just get at home depot and start taking a bike apart um we do see some people occasionally try to do that and then give up like they can't actually take it apart and so we

1:24:25get a bike back in circulation that has some dings um but yeah we we see a pretty low um vandalism rate and uh what's the weight of one of these bicycles because there are some times when you would potentially if you are let's say you get a bike um at the north end of town

1:24:43and you ride down to the bart station and you want to ride bart to a destination in albany or berkeley or something and use it and then you know return cycle what's the weight because you have to carry it up and down the stairs yeah the weight is about 40 pounds i pick up the

1:25:00bikes all the time and move them up and down stairs i mean it's not shitty looking four zero 40 pounds 40 pounds yeah is there a motor inside these things no although we did just announce we are also introducing our lime e our e-assist bike um and after our launch we'll talk

1:25:18continue to talk with staff if that's something that el cerrito would want and those are heavier those are about the only way we can get up our hills um what about uh you talked about between you and councilmember abelson you talked about having these at bart stations um

1:25:32what what prevents somebody from client taking it from bart and going into richmond annex or richmond um you know what what by effectively putting in in el cerrito you're actually also putting it in parts of richmond so i'm just curious what what how your service coverage is going

1:25:49to work there yeah um so we are in contact with folks at richmond and we're hopeful to um launch there in the coming months um but there's nothing that would stop someone from taking a bike you know all the way to pittsburgh or wherever they want to go we hope that people bring

1:26:04that back if they don't then our team will you know go retrieve it and bring it back and and then last i i really appreciate that you're going to share the data with staff and i know you need to make it anonymous but but a lot of times anonymous potentially does make the data

1:26:21less useful to us so i hopefully you guys are in communication to discuss how anonymous your plan to make the the data so that we can get use data so we can understand what the destinations the primary destinations are primary uses are because it certainly would be um

1:26:39[Music] hopefully we we are talking with you now about how to make the data functional when you when you do provide it yeah and something we've done in a few other cities as part of the pilot is um conduct a survey and so that's something that we can definitely talk about if it

1:26:56would be helpful to to conduct a voluntary survey to gather some of that demographic data that we don't typically share so great thank you well i was lucky enough to have the opportunity to ride one of these bikes so i'm very excited about it curious to see exactly how the parking

1:27:16works so you can park it in the street then like where you would put cars or no no no huh the um the furniture zone is like where the meters or a bench or like where a tree is parked so it does have to be up on the sidewalk or in a driveway okay yeah so that's the only thing that

1:27:35i'm curious about as to how it's gonna look when everyone's leaving their bikes in various spots yeah it's it's an adjustment but um you know we work hard to make it a smooth one so thank you i have a couple questions um we have a lot of hills in el cerrito uh will you

1:27:56have uh three speed and eight speed bikes available yes it will likely be a mixture um leaning more heavily to the eight speeds and as i mentioned we can talk about the e assist if that would be something that you're interested in okay great and uh any other questions yes um i i was just

1:28:16thinking about ac transit buses as an example in our city um they're all equipped with bike racks will these bikes go on those bike racks and does that work within your uh the type of system you've created um ideally you know the vision is that you could ride a bike to a bus stop get

1:28:35on the bus when you get off there's another bike waiting for you so you wouldn't have to be lifting the bike up and down um you know if that's not something that we're able to do because you're taking it outside of our service area someone could certainly put it on the

1:28:49bus um and again we would retrieve it if it ends i mean on the bike rack on the bus yeah they come in the bus sorry it's on the outside of the bus yeah in theory someone could um i don't think we've seen that yet um and we'll try to make it so that they don't have to you know so

1:29:07that there's a bike but in theory they could well the reason they might have to that i could see is that they're going somewhere where there aren't where they're where you where you don't have coverage right i mean like zero coverage right yeah and so so down the line you

1:29:23know our hope is that everywhere in the bay we'll have coverage but until then um i guess people might be putting them on the buses so yeah okay one more question yeah just uh two quick questions on the where to park front um have our has our business community

1:29:39our chamber been involved with discussions because i'm just thinking of a retailer that there may be two or three bikes in front of their shop and they don't want them there anymore is there a place for them to call or yeah so we actually just joined the chamber

1:29:52um last week um or we sent it last week so i don't know if we're official yet um and i've chatted and i plan to do a presentation um in the month of february as soon as i can can be at one of the lunches um to talk about these things and to give my information out

1:30:08and finally again if you did ride one of these bikes home you're saying we couldn't we shouldn't bring them into our garage for the next morning they're supposed to be outside of the building is that correct yes yeah exactly and nothing that will happen probably won't it

1:30:24um people will do that and and we do knock on doors if we know a bike is inside and um you know we we want people to be good actors and we we want to do our part to help make that the case and you know we're not going to go around the residences at midnight and and move

1:30:41all the bikes so the only way that that would leave your property would be if someone else wrote it but yeah hopefully people aren't storing them in their garages too much well just so they can use the next morning but right yeah yeah so so like i said the only way that it wouldn't be

1:30:57available is if another writer used it and if that's the case and we continually see that then we'll bring more bikes to the area so that that's not an issue thank you okay great megan colford thank you for being here in el cerrito thank you so much we're excited

1:31:12thank you thank you and we have three okay speakers okay go ahead uh three speakers cordell hindler followed by al miller and howdy gowdy so good evening again mayor quinto uh council staff this is an excellent presentation i find it very um helpful because we do have we we love to

1:31:37have lime bikes in our city because for me personally i wouldn't i wouldn't mind riding a bicycle i wouldn't mind whether i go to a movies or anywhere i say at least i would have me a bike uh to ride on so hopefully um people will get an opportunity to take a look at

1:31:54this and they'll say hey we would love to to ride a lime bike because it's a lot more easier and besides it's i mean i mean look at all the benefits a dollar for for like for 30 minutes or for five dollars for like 100 rides i'd say that to me sounds like a it's like it's like emcee go green and i

1:32:14say this is perfect so that's it so now good evening again uh i represent the dinosaurs in the city that still have flip phones i noticed i was pleasantly surprised when i heard her refer say something as she was finishing a sentence about something without smartphones so i

1:32:42encourage the city that when you're doing any outreach that you clarify what it takes or it doesn't take for those of us that don't use smartphones if we want to write them thank you good evening mayor and council members my name is harry gowdy so i strongly support bike share and and

1:33:11cycling in general um i and i appreciate you know the city uh laying out this mou to really have a clear set of expectations which i think is really important because while this is a good opportunity and lots of the data has shown that services like this have good

1:33:35ridership and and could uh help us with mode shift um i think it is you know a concern and and there's documented evidence and other rollouts that um but a system that has no explicit parking standard is uh basically ripe for abuse and and so it really comes down to

1:33:59implementation and i think it can be done well and it can also be neglected and um and so you know i'm glad janet to hear that you are excited about this coming to el cerrito but i guarantee you when you're using your wheelchair on one on a sidewalk the first time you run up against a bike

1:34:17that's impeding your progress you won't be as excited right so the important thing i i frequently am in that situation yeah well there's a hundred bikes coming that are gonna have to find a home and i think that's great i want them to find a home but i think they need to find an

1:34:35intentional home that's well executed and not hazard and so um that's where the thought that's where the effort needs to go um frankly i mean the the i'm i'm glad that they're working on outreach and i think the city needs to be a partner on that um but the the

1:34:54language that i saw on the website is is very vague it says you know park wherever a bike is allowed park in a lawful parking spot these are things that are not explicit enough to help people be good citizens and and park appropriately and um and i think there will be a tendency to

1:35:12use our existing bike racks which is fine that's a space that bikes have been identified to go but it also means we're taking away potentially 100 bike parking spaces from our city because others who rely on those racks to actually lock their bikes because these other bikes do not require

1:35:31the rack to be locking um so so it's it's really important that we identify good spaces that aren't going to conflict with other cycle ridership and uh will not conflict with the pedestrian access and other uses and i think that could be a challenge to identify so

1:35:50we really need to um to work on that and make sure that it's a positive experience for everybody and not just something where where people have a negative experience i mean there have been trials by other vendors like at uc san diego they abandoned uh dockless stations because

1:36:07it was too chaotic for them so i'm i'm sure um it can be done well but i think it needs to be done very intentionally so thank you thank you okay mayor thank you yes yeah i've got a question for council on mr woodruff on that last point um we're entering into some sort of

1:36:29agreement with them so they can bring this system to us if in at the end of the pilot program we don't want it what is there a mechanism by which i mean this is a dockless system i don't know that they do they need our permission to to operate in the city um they do to the

1:36:47extent that they're leaving bicycles in the public right-of-way um basically this if it's left on the public right of way it's an encroachment it's basically the city would be entitled to basically remove it and and take it away like any other material that's dumped on the

1:37:02sidewalk um in our mou that we've drafted outlines termination terms whereby we can cancel the agreement at any time uh without cause and give limebike 30 days to remove all the bikes from the community except that you know they could potentially enter into an mou with bart

1:37:21where they put them on bart property and then they like the example i gave before where they end up in richmond even though richmond may not have an mou with them nothing nothing prevents somebody from bringing the one from albany into el cerrito so how are we going to know whether it's an albany

1:37:36bike or an el cerrito bike when it's in el cerrito right no there will be spillover so limebeck has been a good actor in the space and came to the city is really trying to be a partner and so i think that's what we'll have to really be intentional about how we move forward with this program

1:37:51okay great thanks um and actually on bike parking as well we've really been tried to be intentional there too and so in the mou we drafted very specific parking requirements working with limebike and other city staff and i would actually expect that some people in our community like they've

1:38:10done the little libraries that there potentially will be people who are willing to put you know lime bike uh parking in their front yard that meets their parking requirements so i'm not i'm not trying to say this won't take off in el cerrito um and my guess is that there will be potentially

1:38:28residences who who say hey sure bring your lime bike to my name my house and walk you know three houses five houses back to your house um so i suspect this will will do well in el cerrito but if it does if we if we do end up with a lot of poor parked bikes that uh poorly parked bikes

1:38:47that end up being hazards for other users other public space users i certainly want to be able to have some leverage uh for for compliance right well quick question the grand opening the grand yes what is that yes please all come to the uh official launch ceremony it's

1:39:07official unlocking ceremony uh january 30th at 4 pm right here in the city hall plaza and there will be a ceremonial unlocking of the first lime bike so 4 p.m on the 30th thank you thanks you have a public hearing uh consideration of an ordinance adding chapter 8.42 of the el cerita municipal

1:39:33goat related to the regulation and voluntary abatement graffiti this is a public hearing to consider approval of an ordinance amending title 8 of the el cerrito municipal code to add chapter 8.42 graffiti abatement we have a staff presentation by jay marlette code enforcement officer oh no

1:39:56we don't and margaret cavanaugh lynch development services manager jay marlett is here this evening right behind me and it gives me a chance to introduce you to him as a matter of course and he's available for questions at the end it's a very brief report on this uh item

1:40:11before you this evening in the past the city of el cerrito had a redevelopment agency and as part of their responsibilities they have baited graffiti free of charge to property owners throughout the city as you know that program has concluded and we are seeing an increase

1:40:30in graffiti throughout the city of el cerrito especially along our commercial corridor currently the municipal code does not have clear language regarding graffiti abatement and our approach right now is to ask for voluntary compliance with property owners when graffiti takes place

1:40:52before you this evening if you choose to approve it is a kind of a two fold process we wanted to add language to the municipal code that would allow us to approach graffiti abatement as an administrative process much like we do most of our code enforcement we make folks aware of a

1:41:09situation we ask them for compliance a certain amount of time passes if we can't get compliance in that way but we would like to start sending letters for administrative citation we have we really do not want to go that route but something that would cause the property owner to become engaged if

1:41:27they're reticent to do so i think what staff is particularly proud of is the other path that's before you this evening which is a voluntary program where property owners could if they wanted to opt in to a program where the city would be glad to run a request for

1:41:42proposals bring a group of different vendors who do abatement of graffiti in the in the east bay for example together they've been pre-approved to get their liability insurance get all of their information on one hand and work with our property owners that are interested in this uh program

1:42:02to get you know right of access onto their property to get um a certain deposit amount of money in into uh the city coffer so so that if abatement if graffiti occurs we can abate it in a timely fashion so um of course if someone has their own property management company or they're a

1:42:21bigger organization they're not interested we'd be glad to just contact them and let them know that the graffiti is in place and we need them to fix it this is something that a number of property owners have asked mr marlette for um they're they're understaffed or they're not able

1:42:35to respond in a timely fashion they've asked for something that we could do to team with them to abate this this issue so that's the overview of it um as i said mr marlett's here and of course melanie minnesota directors here also thank you okay questions uh yes um i have a question so would

1:42:55with i'm just wondering how this would be set up could it be set up so that um you would have a contract that extends for say a period of some period of time with a maximum dollar amount and then uh anytime somebody wanted to take advantage of our contract uh they could and then they would just

1:43:21have to pay in through us or how would this work yes it's actually um i probably will be in trouble with this comparison but it's not dissimilar to how we do sql consultants um we're going to do a if you if you choose to approve the ordinance we would set out a request

1:43:36for proposals or an rfp to find vendors who already do graffiti abatement nearby we believe there's more than one or two available to us and then with property owners that are interested in joining us in this program we would work with them to get all their paperwork

1:43:52done ahead of time get a deposit account from them um save 500 thousand dollars to start and so they'd have a running balance so mr marlett or any of the members of the city of el cerrito notice um graffiti at the safeway um so uh they we contact the property owners

1:44:12we have people property managers at every place it's repeatedly tagged jay has done a lot to find folks to a live voice to say you've unfortunately they've been tagged with graffiti we need you to abate that um they can say thank you mr marlette can we use the program um

1:44:28sure we'll call the vendor find the first one that's the most quickly available right so if someone's not available we would go down the list send someone out there to paint out the graffiti and so this cost would cover the vendor's time and resources and some administrative time of the staff of the

1:44:46city of el cerrito to set up this list to call the folks to handle the invoices and then we would draw down the cost of that um abatement and let the you know as things start to get lower in that balance we would let the the property owner know you know we need you to um

1:45:04bring another check in and we can bring the account back up the point of this is to be able to move quickly before more graffiti kind of seems to attract graffiti unfortunately um to do it in a way that we're all collaboratively nobody seems to want unwanted graffiti on their property so

1:45:21we can move together quickly to get rid of it um in a professional manner so there's one thing i don't quite understand is you're saying that business owners or let me just call it property owners property owners would have to pre-deposit money into an account well

1:45:43that might i could see that that might be really good for a very large uh property owner but if it's a small property owner like even you know a very small business with a building or a individual homeowner that they may be reticent about doing that um you know and coming up with a bunch of

1:46:11money for something that hasn't even happened the only way i can think of that being very functional would be to call it insurance and they instead of paying you know then there would be an insurance program or something but um could you speak to that sure uh so the first thing to say is

1:46:31if you if your house has been tagged you have basically one of two ways to abate that if you happen to like i do have a garage with paint from my house color you know full i can go out and debate my own in brawl that you'd be very happy that's an instant response

1:46:48um of course nobody wants their their home tagged right um if for example it's the third time you've had your house tagged and you're working and you're with your family and you're not available to go out and address it in a timely fashion um we would work with folks obviously

1:47:05um 500 a thousand dollar deposit suddenly becomes something that's um maybe something you want to invest in and if we get to the end of the program or the end of the fiscal year or however we've set it up in there with a master contracts they can always if we don't use that

1:47:24money we will we can they can request a refund and we will only touch that deposit account if we had to go out and abate the graffiti the danger of doing it first and then invoicing them is then the general fund's actually subsidizing the first move out and we wanted to do this with

1:47:41absolutely no impact to the general fund i i mean i that's why if it were done on an insurance basis we could um move it over to the vendor couldn't we the cost i mean the initial um i think we would love to have could have i mean i'm just concerned that people think

1:48:07they have to put out a whole bunch of money and they're not going to do that certainly we would work with folks but we don't have um we have not set a minimum for example for the deposit we'd want to have um work with some vendors that have done a lot of graffiti

1:48:20abatement and come up with an average you know it's so individual right there's some marks that are really small and sometimes there's a whole elevation of a building that's been impacted and of course it's an hourly fee to me to mitigate that uh we would work with folks what we were

1:48:35all working towards the goal of keeping the amount of graffiti to a minimum right so um we would definitely be in conversation this wouldn't be a humanless conversation if we would be involved with them uh mr marlette has has most of the bigger property managers

1:48:50on speed dell as it is because we've had a lot of tagging unfortunately in the city so if someone didn't want to do it we would be glad to just let them know that it happened um the idea of being i would love that if we had the private sector we had a number of abatement

1:49:09vendors that were around for us to call out and use um what we're trying to do is line up vendors that are available and then find people that need them and connect them quickly so if somebody's like who do you use i'll call acne you know graffiti abatement inc that's great

1:49:26we have we're only covering the time and uh materials that it takes to have to set it up so if somebody decides they just want to go with someone without us that all the better the goal is still achieved thank you thank you yeah i um i'm willing to support this i just have

1:49:46a concern that you talk about choices and really at every whatever happens the property owner is going to pay the city will not pay right and i'm i don't know is there any pushback that we've had about that has the city ever paid for graffiti on buildings and we're taking that away now

1:50:07which is a major issue isn't it well yes and no so when the redevelopment age agency existed we did abate graffiti with no charge to the property owner but they've been gone for several years and people have been maintaining their own properties ever since so we don't have in the current budget a

1:50:27line item to obey graffiti on behalf of the of the property owners of the city of el cerrito the present situation is that the property owner is paying now and you're saying we can assist them by being quicker and telling them of someone who can assist in getting it done when it happens to them

1:50:43that's correct um and you're saying that they're probably well we won't get a pushback about the city not paying for this well i think that um folks always have we've had several calls of people saying hey you do this for free what happened right but the fact of the matter is we can't do it for

1:51:02free anymore i think we can i think it's it's a nice trial let's see what happens here personally um how um i was going to ask has this gone through the crime prevention committee this issue this discussion because no it has not gone to the crime prevention committee it's um

1:51:23we have spoken to department heads about it we've um currently um it's always discussed by department heads and staff public works staff sometimes helps out and paints out graffiti as they can please help us to identify when graffiti happens because there's other layers to what graffiti

1:51:40could represent so we try to get it painted out quicker in some situations um we really saw this as only a benefit since it's not a prevention this is a response program that's correct because they had a program dealing with art the aerial structures and putting

1:51:55murals on there to prevent and i don't know is could this be something that would be open to the transit agency as well absolutely any public agency can avail themselves as well as any private property owner you would be assisting them but that's something you do anyway isn't it as a

1:52:10city letting bart know that there's graffiti on something that's true yes sir okay um last question is what is what amount of money do you believe will be in that fund to begin with so there's a little extra so um it's going to be trial and error we were talking about the trick is again what's

1:52:30the typical cost for graffiti abatement depends on how big is the graffiti and how dark was the color and how white is the base behind it right so um we did some back of napkin basic estimates of that and we think that for around three hundred dollars we could abate one

1:52:49normal sized you know once again eight by ten space you know for two hours with his own paint and equipment but if there are three or four or five all at once you need more money in that fund than 300 right so we would if if for example um i don't want to pick any particular

1:53:08small business a small business called us and said or we noticed a small business either way their whole front of their building got tagged overnight um and they had 200 in their account we they would have well they have a number of choices they could paint it out

1:53:25themselves they could put the money into the deposit account based on the estimate we've got for that major deal or they can contact a you know a vendor directly if they feel like that's just something that they'd rather do um all three get us to the goal of as

1:53:45fast as we can we'd like to get that down and and i do believe that's important for economic development for the city and the whole look of the city and i don't see i don't know if anyone's going to speak to this but no one has shown up to talk about it so thank you

1:54:01councilmember lyman yeah um on the deposit accounts uh you know i could imagine potentially a hundred different deposit accounts uh if you if you tally up all the homes along the greenway um has anyone talked a finance about this is finance prepared to handle 100

1:54:19deposit accounts so i don't think anyone said the word 100. um so i will say so this is a brand new program and we will work with the residents to roll it out if we suddenly have um 150 75 then community development might be doing some of this too right and if we

1:54:41exceed our ability to do this program in a way that no other service can suffer so this is an idea to try to solve a problem but if we get inundated there is a section in your ordinance that says if we aren't able to provide this we we can't provide it i did see that resources available or

1:54:56something to that so if we get badly outnumbered we might do it in phases and and so if if this what became a financial burden tax on finance that would be one of the resources that you would trigger that resources available absolutely um what about you you talked about businesses but

1:55:15there are several businesses in town that have a great target great tag locations to use your terminology post office boxes the cable the att cable boxes that are in the rights of way what about these assets or they don't have property managers per se are are we basically going to go

1:55:37[Music] would love the idea of sticking it to pg and ena t are we basically going to tell them they need to give us four or five thousand dollars worth for their deposit account i would be glad to use this opportunity to make that call exactly uh as you described um yes because there are

1:55:55several tag locations that are ideal for this and and um what about city assets i mean one of the other common tag locations i see is actually the sign poll itself the back of a sign there's tagging on curbs there's tagging on retaining walls along the alone greenway or in the parks

1:56:19what's obviously i don't see this applying well you could say that repos responsible party is the city sure so this does apply to us also we have 10 days yes um we i i will tell you informally that um city staff especially a shout out to the maintenance group um

1:56:38clearly exceeds the 10 day they're usually out there within 24 to 48 hours um and when when it's noticed when it will again when it's when it's identified because i will tell you that like i said the back of a sign i drive along and i'll see it on the back of that sign for a long time and apparently

1:56:55no one's pointed it out so i'm just you know it's that's a really good point yes sir as people know this program exists or if ever you see graffiti um please call us because we it's um as soon as we find it we do we do take it out other governmental entities in town bart west country

1:57:12crossing unified school district are they going to be setting up deposit accounts or are they good actors that take out their own graffiti well um this is a great chance for you to meet your code enforcement officer hi um well those are what we're really working

1:57:35towards is having an ordinance that is essentially the jurisdiction of community development public works is actually phenomenal about taking care of graffiti on public property as soon as they notice it and in fact um i often in constant correspondence between

1:57:56public works and and code enforcement because we're going oh okay this is public works you'll go get this one jay this is private property we need you to go contact the property owner because no srito can't pay for private property and so in terms of um public property

1:58:14uh public works is johnny on the spot and other entities like the bart uh tracks or or the you know the bart pillars and and caltrans they have their own hotline number that we do contact and we do kind of nag them but they do have an in-place graffiti removals so it's sort

1:58:36of like in a way three uh divisions of graffiti public property so public works is johnny on the spot on that private property that's me community development i need to contact the property owner and and engage in a notice process and then other entities like bart or caltrans

1:58:57they do have contacts and service people that are responsible to take care of their graffiti and so far we haven't had a uh a huge issue with them being negligent of their duties great um i do have one question that might lead to a change in the in the ordinance um

1:59:19ms cavallo and lynch you talked about uh two choices that the property owners have two we're sorry responsible parties have two choices but then actually in your examples you you brought up they actually have three choices and yet the third choice potentially there's a way for us to facilitate that

1:59:35one choice obviously clearly is that they do it themselves and on the other spectrum is the city does it for them through where they have funded a direct fund account through the abatement program but there is a choice in the middle where they contact a graffiti company to do it for themselves

1:59:56because they may feel like they can negotiate a better abatement rate or whatever is there a way for us to under 8.42.060 add removal by the responsible party at say an a3 that basically says that the the responsible party can hire a third party from a resource list

2:00:20that the city maintains at a website so what i'm basically trying to look for is is there a way for us to make it easier for somebody to comply without doing what council member abelson talked about is basically giving the city money to hold on to in the event that it may occur

2:00:43is there a way for us to promote that middle choice where they directly contract with somebody because they feel again then the risk is being carried by the vendor because the vendor does it and sends a bill um as opposed to us so i'm just looking for a that that middle ground

2:01:03where we connect the homeowner to the resource and we potentially can encourage them through some website where they and the vendor take all risk but the compliance still occurs the 10-day compliance still occurs so i'm just looking for a middle ground that shines a bright light on this

2:01:24middle ground that which would i think address council member abelson's concern of uh and my concern of us having all sorts of uh money that's not ours that we have to track and report on at the end of the of the year um if we can encourage them to develop their own relationship that would be

2:01:44seems like the best of both worlds certainly it definitely achieves the same goal that we're trying to do um at this moment there's not that many well-known graffiti um vendors graffiti abatement event abatement vendors um working with myers nave i want to talk

2:02:02make sure that the restriction that comes up the city staff is trained very early we can't make recommendations right so i can't say oh my we really love the local plumber that everybody uses because now i've steered service from one community member to another correct but if we do

2:02:20the rfp process um if we can legally without actually accidentally making a recommendation i'd love to have all the approved vendors on our website and if somebody's doesn't want to work with the city or we will be more expensive because i will be adding a 30 administrative

2:02:36fee on for our service so if someone's like you know what thanks but i'll just want to go with one of the top vendors yes then all the liability and all of that shifts right over to them yep i can tell you that the san francisco public utilities commission is doing this right

2:02:49now for flood protection in homes we're in the process of running a a basically we are requesting uh contractors who do this type of work to self-identify themselves and create a resource list that is available for homeowners to use so it's i'm thinking the same sort of

2:03:13thing that it would be you know it could be johnny's painter or it could be um something else the the i definitely should be through a process so that we are making sure that they all have contractors licenses we don't necessarily want to be promoting services that are not at least meeting a

2:03:31minimum standard so so i definitely agree that it needs to be through a process but i'm hoping that we can make it easier for for a choice this middle ground choice and i was wondering if uh a3 under section 6-0 uh removal of graffiti by the responsible party if there was

2:03:52some way in the next because this is the first reading correct it is the first reading maybe in the second reading there could be some way to highlight this middle ground um to remove yeah i hadn't even heard but i assumed that there was some overhead management cost on our part but

2:04:07certainly if there's a way we can encourage that that would be fantastic okay i was just gonna i i just wanted to interject briefly to say that i mean i don't know that we need to add certainly we can but i'm not sure we need to add a provision to the ordinance

2:04:22that's going to go in the municipal code that says that basically the city staff will maintain a list and make it available to property owners of vendors that have been vetted that's fine as long as it's something we as part of our implementation we do i highlight that because that that seems

2:04:41like the best way for us to um to address council member abelson's concern my concern that we're basically handling people's money that may or may never get used um and and we've got to track it and return it or reduce it uh but at this and and there's a potential overhead cost that we need to

2:05:01account for uh if we can get the responsible parties to meet their 10-day removal using a a satisfactory vendor not not the better one but the satisfactory one then that certainly is that's my goal is to get that direct service that those guys who comply i believe you have a

2:05:25commitment from staff that once they go out and do the rfq process assuming that we get we actually hear from people who want to provide the service and they vetted them and pro and we come back to the council with a list of contract with a contract to approve on-call services as we typically do that

2:05:41that list of vendors will be made available to anybody who wants to call through them and make arrangements on their own great thank you michelle i have no further questions okay uh opening the public hearing we have one speaker mayor quinto howdy gowdy good evening mayor and council members

2:06:11my name is howdy gowdy so i appreciate that um this graffiti abatement is is being undertaken um my reaction to the i guess proposal is similar to what some of you have voiced that it it seems a little cumbersome to manage so many financial transactions and i guess in the spirit of

2:06:40graffiti abatement being a common good that you know neighbors benefit from neighbors actions it seems a little problematic to have the person experiencing the graffiti be the sole financial uh experience the sole financial burden and and so in that respect it actually does

2:07:07make sense for it to be structured a little bit more like insurance where everybody pays in a nominal amount to a single fund instead of individual accounts for for each business and that then you have a larger pool that can more rapidly respond to graffiti in any

2:07:28one place and i realize i have no idea the financial rules and and laws surrounding that kind of role by by the city maybe it's completely untenable but but it just makes more sense i think it it protects everybody um more equitably and um you know there's there's the opportunity that um

2:07:53you know the expenses can be kind of uh continually assessed so that you know everyone puts in small dues we watch the funds get used and then a small dues is is accrued again and so it's it's just sort of an ongoing rolling um participation in a voluntary quote-unquote insurance program that the

2:08:14city's probably not allowed to do insurance but anyway it just it seems a little cleaner than the alternative and i i think it also has a little bit more of a um a social uh aspect to it that we're not just abating our own properties we're work you know contributing to a

2:08:37community effort that benefits everyone because that is kind of the dynamic that's going on so i encourage you to look into ways that something could be structured in that direction so thank you thank you is there a motion uh yes yeah i've got i want to follow on

2:08:54question from that may i don't know which staff member this is to or whoever it may be to the city manager um there are some uh sim programs out there for um uh sewer lateral repair or water lateral repair programs out there where people opt in and this is very similar to what you're

2:09:16proposing where people opt into the program and for a set fee um you know they they opt in and it does work very like much like a insurance program and is frequently called a unilateral service lateral insurance program um where you you essentially say for a dollar a month or five dollars a month

2:09:39um if and when your sewer lateral breaks they come out and repair it and so um but it's an opt-in program um and so it and it but it works on the basis that so super laterals um fail infrequently um and so uh to to work on that uh last speaker's uh comments it based on

2:10:08our experience with where the tagging occurs um is is there a opportunity through this uh program to to work on a collective pool so to speak of those people so they're paying um they're paying a fee regardless of whether they get they're the target of the tag or not

2:10:31um and and the way the way the sewer lateral does is that the sewer lateral people get a franchise essentially to come in to the city and offer the service so i don't know if if there there's enough established abatement companies to do something similar but i guess i'm just trying to think

2:10:54creatively use the sewer lateral model to potentially address the abatement problem i think my best response would be to kind of take a step back and explain how we got in front of the city council this evening um while we are seeing graffiti which is um you know the unwanted use of

2:11:19spray paint or paints on a person's property or public property um increasing in our city right now um the only way we can have that removed is by asking the property owner to do so and we are it's taking a fair amount of staff time to ask folks you know remind them

2:11:42we're really hoping you can get to that um and what we've gotten back anecdotally i admit there's a lot of folks going i'd love to either sure i'm a big organization and i'll send my team out or do you guys have anybody you can recommend because we don't have a where

2:11:58to start we have no idea um this was something that mr marlette and myself and community development staff working with the city administration brought forward to try to connect a need with a response um if someone if everybody in the plan area chipped in five dollars

2:12:17i don't know that we'd have any mechanism of collecting that and i don't further know if we'd have enough money in time to actually respond to the first big a graffiti issue what i think i'd like to ask if it's possible is to give us a year or give us six months maybe i think the

2:12:37six months is on my mind because i can't wait to go out and get that bike but um um as i need it um but uh we can come back in six months and give you a report you know if folks or some folks are like you know you're draining me um we want to work with them that's

2:12:52not our goal um if we can if we do nothing more than secure a list of people that really know what they're doing on graffiti abatement and we put that list on the website it'll be a huge win um but if you could let us start this way with these baby steps um we can come back and tell you how

2:13:07it's going and investigate other revenue sources are ways it is a communal good it is a societal good and i would love to do it that way but i'm afraid that um we'll that will take months if it's possible thank you okay is there a motion to close a public hearing i know we caused

2:13:23the pub lake hearing second motion by council members and second by council member lyman all in favor all right discussion well um obviously this is a difficult issue and there's lots of questions that we've all asked i appreciate margaret what you just said because i was going to say we need to

2:13:57get some feedback about how it's working to see how how it's being implemented the reaction from the public and i i would i will vote for it as long as we do have that kind of feedback back soon from the city and because i like some of the ideas of a more centralized

2:14:16financing as howdy and others have mentioned here so i'm willing to support but i i think we need an outreach program and and to see what the city uh uh impact is uh but i think it's necessary uh and i think we need to be quick on the draw as far as getting graffiti

2:14:40off of our street so that's that's what i have to say okay councilman wilson i i think the thing that i uh would like to see as part of this is um the knowledge that it will and maybe not in this ordinance but as an understanding of what will happen is that there will be

2:14:59a report back to council about it in some period of of time what might that be we just had six months six months or a year six months would be both what every both every six months after six months and after a year i don't think we need it forever that maybe after six months and and at

2:15:24the end of a year just so we can see how it's going and see if it's working and um i actually i really thank you for bringing this to us this is a great step forward in removing graffiti and i think that it will make a very nice improvement in the appearance of our city thank you thank you

2:15:52councilman blyman yeah i want to thank you also for bringing this forward and and the creativeness of creating an abatement program um that i think some some of my comments and some of the comments from the public are more about how the abatement program is administered

2:16:08and and i would encourage us to potentially move away from an account based abatement program to a fee based uh or to use council member abelson's term an insurance-based uh abatement program where you know you're getting tagged properly frequently you want to be in the

2:16:30abatement program a for 500 bucks will take care of it for a year um you know and potentially by everybody saying oh yeah put me in for 500 bucks i get tagged once it's only 50 but peace of mind i don't have to worry about you bugging me or whatever so as you as you develop the abatement

2:16:52program and and the structure around it yes test drive what you've put thought through for six months but potentially move more towards a an opt-in program that is fixed in fee or or and not necessarily requiring finance to track against each account because that hopefully would

2:17:13get towards a a system that is more of a community system for the benefit of all and get us away from managing every dollar so so i support it but i definitely want to see the nuts and bolts of how you're developing the abatement program and how it's going to be implemented

2:17:35no further comments i'm ready to make a motion if we're ready okay i move an ordinance of the city of el cerrito amending title eight of the el cerrito municipal code to add chapter 8.42 graffiti abatement related to the abatement of graffiti second miracles mayor excuse me council member

2:17:58abelson has a motion and second by uh mayor pro tem pardo okimoto all in favor all right thank you i just wanted to clarify that was those yeses from everyone that's correct yes it's okay then the motion passes unanimously okay policy matters annual city council local and regional liaison

2:18:28assignments all do you have anything no okay councilmember abelson no i don't have anything you're gonna yeah i do um you announcing the assignment agenda item isn't an agenda it seven what is he gonna do the seven require a motion yeah okay so are you moving on to item

2:19:02eight yeah we'll move to item eight then there's no discussion no discussion okay um city council local and regional layers on assignments number eight um so on on number eight um i just wanna let you guys know that uh that this coming thursday uh we will be uh

2:19:23um the integrated waste management authority will be discussing uh recommendations from the five city managers of the five jurisdictions within uh the recycle-more jurisdictions to take up a more focused scope to potentially change some of our funding arrangements for some of our uh

2:19:51reserves because we've got two well-funded reserves um and so that'll be something we take up this thursday uh and it it you know may come back to this group at some point um as as part of the joint powers agreement that's under consideration it's aligned with that

2:20:13um the joint powers agreement is um is a document it's been in existence for 23 or 24 years it's out of date needs to be revised we've been trying to revise it for three years now it feels like and the city manager's effort to help us get to conclusion uh will be discussed this uh this

2:20:36thursday i'll keep you posted you know mayor um quinto i'm very sorry it looks like mr hindler had had submitted a card to speak on number seven oh okay i'm sorry i apologize go ahead [Music] i knew i said to myself i knew i signed up to speak on number seven so

2:20:57so here's the reason why um the reason that this council uh goes to the committee means is to update the the committee on what's happening on the council level so as you have known i have gone to every single meeting um whether it was environmentally crime prevention or centennial or task force

2:21:16so the reason why because there's always like you know there's a spot on the agenda that says a report from council uh liaison so that's what that's what you've been doing uh uh updating the the committees on what's been going on in the council level so and then also i have attended the west

2:21:32county mayor's uh meeting uh off and on but i figured because it's very important uh that we have to that you as you always update on the council on what's been happening on the west county supervisors association so i will be there next thursday uh in richmond so

2:21:51that's also okay thank you um earlier the council made a decision on a candidate for ccta ccpa and and civil service and civil service and that is mr bruciow and michael it's the cct a citizens advisory committee it's a ccta citizens advisory committee so he will be on that committee so thank you

2:22:26so thank you the next regularly scheduled city council meeting is tuesday february 6 2018 at 7 pm at the city council chambers so have a good night and thank you you