Regular City Council Meeting April 3, 2018

0:00:41last book is really hard 7 p.m convening the regular city council meeting uh pledge of allegiance to the flag or observation of moment of silence and that's with councilmember paul fideli and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for

0:01:12all good evening let's start with uh council staff communications uh councilmember abelson here councilmember fideli here councilmember lyman president mayor pro tem pardue okimoto here and mayor quinto thank you the council staff yes last friday on good friday

0:01:53four of us of those council members were able to attend the good friday breakfast at the saint peter cme church and it was a very nice breakfast as always but i wanted to share with the public one of the things that one of the ladies got up and said and she was talking about how

0:02:15when chief moyer was here it was our chief that reached out to the church and said i want to come to your breakfast and i thought that that was a really great thing because it was our police chief at the time that was making an effort to reach out in particular to the african-american

0:02:35community here in el cerrito and that tradition has continued and our police officers and our police chief attend the breakfast as well and there was some talk about you know the shootings that have been going on particularly in sacramento and how so many communities across the united

0:02:56states are reeling from mistrust between the police department and the community and so it was really great to hear that story and to see our police officers present there and that's the kind of stuff that doesn't make the news when police police communities police

0:03:16chiefs police officers are really making that extra effort to reach out and get to know all the people in the community and making that effort to build a bridge so that if they do end up in a confrontation one day that hopefully they will know that community member and

0:03:35they won't be strangers so i really appreciated our past police chief and our current police chief and all the police officers that attended and we can make change in our communities but we have to talk with each other we have to get to know one another and i appreciate

0:03:54our police department for doing that very thing also i just wanted to mention again that uh tomorrow we will be having the extended library hours first wednesday open and it's going to be a little celebration family-friendly friendly i'm definitely going to be bringing my

0:04:15family there's going to be some activities and food so please come out to the library tomorrow thank you yes i am desperately looking oh i know i remember the name now um i'm going to uh report out on the charter committee uh activities that we did meet on thursday march 22nd

0:04:45and we have uh concluded our actions and there will be a recommendation coming forward to the to the to the um council however i wanted to use this time to express deep thanks to chair dick patterson vice chair melissa eisenberg and board member committee members

0:05:08joe gagne marlene keller and leticia moore as well as council member paul fideli it was a pleasure to serve on this committee to work with the city manager and the city attorney crafting language that will come before us at some point so i just wanted to make a

0:05:28special shout out to the committee members for their for their work in getting us a a draft charter for us to to consider at some point um the other thing it that i wanted to talk about that will be coming up soon or hopefully will come forward as part of your electric

0:05:52bills mce has uh decided to maintain our rates um so we have not we're not changing our rates this year uh so they will be the same as last year so i just wanted to make sure that people knew that that was something that's forthcoming um a decision that will be made by mce

0:06:11that our rates will remain the same uh going forward the mce is about to is rolling out as of april 1st to 9 new communities in contra costa so if you are seeing mce in your in the news and are hearing about it among our counterparts it is because the there are

0:06:35nine new communities in contra costa that are now being served or their power purchases are coming through mce so thank you janet um we're we're doing the um we're just doing the um yes communications now yeah i don't i don't have any communications paul finally

0:06:57oh excuse me no i have one uh sorry thank you um earth day um earth day is coming up really soon is just around the corner on april the 21st however it is not too late to sign up and um we have a number of work sites to choose from and if you're interested in signing

0:07:20up and find out about the work sites then you can go to you can either send in a form through the website or you can email earthday which is one word at ci dot el dash cerrito dot ca dot u s and um you can you'll get information about a work site you can put down what you

0:07:49would like to work on and you can also put down any suggestions you might have for a worksite so um at noon on that day the the project itself is between 9 and 12 but at noon that day there will be a free organic lunch for all at the community center so i hope you'll

0:08:10participate thank you paul fidel thank you spring has finally come and i just wanted to start the meeting out by doing three timely shout outs to the city for some positive news that we've been having here that we've all probably noticed first is the ohlone greenway and

0:08:30the great signage and the great seating areas and the great recycling and trash along the greenway that is really making our city look great i notice it going back and forth through the city and it's just a great thing um secondly was school about to move towards summer recess we had most

0:08:50of you know we since 2013 we've had a great success and internship program here with our el cerrito stars and i just wanted to applaud the city for moving toward career pathways with the unified school district and broaden the program of internships it's really important to get kids to

0:09:09see what the work world is like so i applaud that from happening and finally i'm very happy about the pool being open after a few months the swimming pool a lot of folks were concerned it would be closed for a long time it's finally open it's clean it's fixed there's rust it's

0:09:25rust free there's new lockers for ada and for backpacks that are in the locker rooms that's wonderful and for me a bigger bench which is really good for me to get dressed in um and finally i think we would be remiss today and i'm not sure if this is the right time to do so but i would like

0:09:43to um suggest that we adjourn tonight in honor of martin luther king tomorrow was 50th anniversary of his death he was my greatest american hero so i'm i'm proud to be here and say that thank you thank you on thursday march 22nd i attended the west county mayor's meeting

0:10:05where we had the head of wittac john nemeth who spoke on rm3 which will be on the ballot and that will i am supporting this because i feel that with the public transportation that is needed this will help with new buses and more public transportation here in west

0:10:30contra costa so i thank john nemeth for giving us that presentation also we had someone from contra costa county it was uh lavonna martin who spoke on homelessness and and she spoke about one-fourth of the entire homeless population of uh in contra costa here in west contra

0:10:59costa so i will be having her do a presentation here for the city council in the next few months and on later that evening i attended the league of california cities uh where we were in fremont and my colleague janet abelson joined me and some of us practice for bocce ball

0:11:24and i did not and i was running a little late because i was stuck on the freeway but got there and we had a great turnout we had someone from the governor's office of emergency services that spoke about emergency management in california and i can leave this out to the city clerk and

0:11:46if anyone would like to take a look at that but this is something that i know every city will be looking at and studying this and we will be part of this team on friday i was joined by paul fideli and we did attend the el cerrito chamber and el cerrito rotary mixer it was great

0:12:11to meet uh folks up there at the berkeley country club and it was great to meet one of my dear friends that i haven't seen since graduating from high school he has a a business he's opening up in el cerrito and it was great to have russell doyle at the meeting on tuesday the 27th i um

0:12:38visited homebound seniors and people with disabilities with marty carlson who's the head of meals on wheels for contra costa and we went through different homes and met with our homebound seniors it's an important program that i'm sorry to say that the federal government does not like

0:13:01this but we know that it works here locally and i'm going to do what we can to keep this program in place so i'm hoping that our residents here know the kindness of our volunteers that help out in feeding our senior population our homebound seniors so again i did attend the good friday

0:13:25breakfast with my colleagues here and it was good to see greg wyman there until he had to leave and go to work but we were all there in support of being at good friday with our police officers and our community members and i thank pat durham for inviting us and

0:13:43i've been going there for the last five years now and uh it uh so many folks that that i've known for many many years attend that church so it's it's seeing family and seeing longtime people in this community and i very much appreciate the police department for being there with us

0:14:06and i look forward to seeing everyone tomorrow evening for the el cerrito library extended hours and that's from 4 to 6 pm and i'll be greeting everyone and i hope everyone will get their library card and check some books out there so this is the first time in many many

0:14:24years that we've been able to have uh extended services and that's uh and i know the parents and the kids are very excited about that okay oral communications from the public yes mayor we have nine speakers the first three is richard bell robin mitchell and al miller

0:14:51all persons wishing to speak should sign up with the city clerk remarks are typically limited to three minutes per person the mayor may reduce the time limit per speaker depending upon the number of speakers kind of state your name and city of residence for the

0:15:04record good evening council mayor i'm richard bell i'm president of el cerrito and i'm here tonight to speak about the city council um's response to an organization known as civic being thrown out of the west county detention center and it's not a specific el cerrito city issue

0:15:33but as we become aware more and often and as several of you have said we are no longer [Music] isolated little cities what happens in berkeley what happens in richmond affects all of us and the it was just disheartening it was just disheartening the council has felt the wrath of the sheriff

0:15:59about a year ago i think everybody remembers a financial punishment to us but this is sort of punishing the most vulnerable people among us detainees people just sitting in jail who now have no my understanding is have now no contact with family no way to get a lawyer

0:16:23no way to do anything except sit there and wait until they tell them what to do so thank you um and i look forward to hearing to seeing what the council is going to if the council is going to do anything and what they plan on doing thank you thank you robin mitchell

0:16:43good evening hi my name is robin mitchell and i'm an el cerrito resident and i wanted to say a couple of different things so first of all about the city charter committee i just wanted to sort of echo greg's sentiment that even though i only attended a couple of the meetings i was

0:16:59really impressed with how professional everybody was on the committee how thoughtful they were how carefully they tried to craft the language and i think they came up with a good draft for you all to look at and i just i i don't know it was and skye did a great job of trying to

0:17:16analyze what should be included in it and it was just a very different view than i had ever seen of sort of how something could come together and i think i was just very impressed with how well it was done so and then the other thing i wanted to talk about was the perennial

0:17:33problem of affordable housing and i just want to give a couple of examples that have come across my radar recently so someone contacted me because they needed to get rid of a bunch of their fruit trees that were in barrels because they had a 65 increase in their rent over the last four years

0:17:49and they had to relocate so that was one thing and then the other was i got a letter i sent this all to you guys but i just kind of want to reiterate it from a physical therapy group business in el cerrito saying that they were going to raise their rates um but they hadn't raised

0:18:03them in four years and the main reason that they said they said this is a quote from the letter we have lost several staff to the local rents which have skyrocketed 20 percent a year for the last four years and the current housing prices are now beyond the reach of eighty percent of my new

0:18:19employees so they are having a hard time retaining staff because they can't afford to live here so again it's just i know you guys are doing everything you can to try to address this and i i guess i just want to reiterate that it's a really important issue and it it this this

0:18:34letter from the pt place just showed that it's not just the residents that are leaving but it actually affects our businesses too which i think is really important to you guys so anyway thanks a lot thank you good evening mayor kentucky staff al miller also a resident of el cerrito

0:18:57i was going to remind you of four slash four at four but you've done that well for me i just would like to add the main reason for that is to celebrate the opening of the extended hours on wednesday acknowledge that and to thank the council and senior staff for

0:19:18however you were able to work it out to make it happen we think it's important that users of the library have that opportunity to thank you too so i hope that we do see you there following on one thing that janet said about earth day the austrian library foundation is

0:19:36a sponsoring a workday at the library that day so it's another way people the community can support the libraries come out and help us spruce it up a bit on the outside uh speaking uh following on what greg mentioned about mce not raising their rates this year as a director of the steed sanitary

0:19:56district i'll take the opportunity to remind everyone that for the second year in a row the steed sanitary district has chosen not to raise the rates that were approved to be raised the year before following on the uh it was again mayor's comments about the food for the homebound

0:20:21the library also has a program for the homebound it's called books for the homebound anyone that wants to have access to library books but is not able to get to the library can contact the librarian by phone or email and they can we'll make available the information on how the program works

0:20:43the county range in the library has volunteers that will pick up the books that the person has asked for to be reserved or held however take them out to the phone or to the person deliver them you know and like meals on wheels we usually have time to chat with them

0:21:03and offer a little comfort and comments with them and it's really a great program and it's a very fun thing to do thank you the next three speakers are judith tanenbaum followed by sherry drogner and miguel espino hi i'm judith tannenbaum i'm mayor council staff

0:21:32so i just urge the council to take a public stand against the sheriff's rescinding of visiting in the hotline access uh to civic which i guess is now called freedom for immigrants but i also want to make it clear that the abuses at the west county detention facility aren't

0:21:49limited to those reported by the detainees that extend to everyone especially to the black women and men housed at the jail we're hearing a lot of reports the civic issue is specific and i understand you know i definitely hope you address it but i think uh or speak

0:22:07to it but um but i think that it's important for all of us as contra costa county residents to know that there's a great deal more wrong in sheriff livingston's jails in the practice of his deputies and in his consistent use of threats and retaliation as well as in his willingness to put

0:22:26county residents in danger via these threats and retaliatory actions um since i have a little more time i would also i just was able to attend one of the charter um you know sessions but i was also really really impressed and i'm really grateful to our staff for looking for mechanisms that can

0:22:48allow us citizens to have you know residents to have the services that we want so thank you thank you good evening hi good evening i'm sheri drobner i would also like to urge the city council to pass some kind of resolution um in a timely manner strongly demanding

0:23:15that the volunteer program that was formerly known as civic be reinstated at the west county jail as judith had mentioned this is a the fact that the program shut down was really a retaliatory act on the part of the sheriff because civic which has been working there for the past seven years

0:23:40supporting detainees helping them connect with their families helping them get legal help that they're not just rightfully entitled to because they're of their immigration status i'm doing things to help end isolation they also inadvertently um found out about some of the um situations

0:24:02the treatment the abuse that was going on among detainees that that in that because of that um brought on an investigation and the sheriff is going to be investigated they conducted their own investigation they found that they were just fine i find that interesting but i'm sure

0:24:22that when pasera conducts a much broader investigation we'll see a little bit more come to light about what's going on at the detention facility but we know that the sheriff has a mean streak we saw what he did to the city to our city when you took a very bold stand about

0:24:39the west county expansion and thank you for doing so but i think we have to continually stand up to the sheriff and as leaders of our city make a stand the city of richmond passed a resolution i believe it was last week and i believe you have the wording of that resolution and that resolution does

0:25:01call for the reinstatement of the civic program and i i hope that you will follow that lead as well thank you thank you good evening good evening city council mr mayor i uh up here in support of a resolution a strong resolution dealing with the issues at the west

0:25:30county jail in part that we have detainees who are being treated unhumanely and are totally disconnected from the community as a result of the expulsion of the civic program um and i'm really at a loss for words when it comes to what it is and how it is that we treat

0:26:00folks in our community in particular people who are being detained who are not in jail because of criminal activities the issue of being in this country uh without being the citizen shaper is not a felony nor a misdemeanor it is a civil situation and so for people to be sitting in these

0:26:20jails it really is unhuman and to deny them any kind of rights to have themselves being hurt and being protected by lawyers and so on is really out of the question i would encourage you all i would remind you all that everybody here last year voted for elsarito become a

0:26:47sanctuary city and it is i feel incumbent upon this council to create and pass a resolution that would ask for civic to get back into the jails and whole sheriff living stand accountable for the situations that are taking place in that center thank you sir can you state your name

0:27:13for me please i'm sorry your name please miguel espino i live here in el cerrito thank you the next three speakers are howdy gowdy nicholas galoro and linda olvera all right evening good evening mayor and council members my name is howdy gowdy so first i want to

0:27:37add my support to those calling for you to take a position on reinstating civic services and yeah i think it's an important position to take so i also wanted to talk about um our climate action plan and the follow-up of it actually this may will be five years since it was enacted

0:28:03and every five years a that plan called for a full greenhouse gas inventory to be conducted and presented to you and the results of that would you know provide an opportunity to you know gauge the progress but also potentially look at new targets and and measures

0:28:29that could be taken to be even more have even more impact so um that may all be well in hand i haven't actually followed through with where we are in in meeting that goal but just as it is part perhaps useful in in your budget process to make sure that the city has the resources to deliver that

0:28:54full report to you in this coming fiscal year i think it would be um useful um to make sure that we're going to get as you know detailed and robust a report as as we can and even though it's a fairly small portion of the total greenhouse gas inventory you know looking at our own

0:29:20municipal operations footprint is really important because it it does keep track of how the city is operating and whether we're making um the right uh progress um you know along the goals that have been established and uh and also that you know it confirms that

0:29:43the the leadership opportunity for the city to really demonstrate where the community can go with climate action is is being met so um there's been a lot of good things in those five years that the city has accomplished um you know mce the cca has opportunities

0:30:02has been mentioned that was a really impactful um climate action that was taken and then the city also um opted up their own municipal accounts to deep green which was a very important action so there's a lot of good things that i think we will look very good on this

0:30:21review of climate action but you know there are undoubtedly other opportunities too and i think it'll be really important to evaluate that whole package so thank you very much thank you the next speaker is nicholas galoro followed by lindelovera good evening my name is nicolas galoro

0:30:45and i live in el cerrito i also support the reinstatement of the civic visitation program west contra cost concha county detention facility and hope that you adopt a resolution supporting this reinstatement civic provides bail funding for people helps them and other valuable support for

0:31:05detainees i went to a event in support of the detainees and we heard some really heartbreaking stories from people about you know some kids whose father had been taken away from them for example so um you know it's uh it's something worth worth reinstating um i also support the

0:31:25council's letter urging the adoption of sb 912 i think this is uh this is a measure that will help make housing available to very low income and homeless people and i should point out that i keep seeing more homeless people in el cerrito down by the plaza pushing carts on san pablo i've i've

0:31:43gotten up early in the morning and walked to pete's along san paulo because i knew live near san pablo and there are people sleeping in doorways i i don't know if they're on their way transiting between here and berkeley or whatever but i've seen that and then finally i support

0:31:59the repeal costa hawkins and the adoption of an el cerrito municipal rent control measure similar to those in berkeley and richmond our two closest neighbors with rent control measures um this this is actually preventive measure it helps to prevent homelessness because

0:32:14it keeps the cost of living for many many people in a at a reasonable level um ronnie and i also have been working with a group called tenants together i don't know if you've heard of them but they're statewide organization and we've been counseling tenants over the phone we do it every

0:32:31friday it's one of the things we do with them and uh again you've got these stories of you know major rent increases what do i do what are my rights you know et cetera so so people's you know people they need support to to determine what their rights are in the situation they find themselves in

0:32:49okay thank you very much thank you the last request to speak is linda alvera good evening good evening like she said my name is linda olvera but i'm not from el cerrito i'm from oakland but i am a civic volunteer and we have just changed the name of our program from to

0:33:12freedom for immigrants and i just wanted to ask for your support for our program we are compassionate people that volunteer there once a week to help them reconnect with their families some of them are brought in from southern california texas arizona you can't imagine the phone system the

0:33:37email system the money system there they have no idea how to work it and it's up to us to teach them how to do it um they ask us to buy them books i was asked to buy a rosary i made a mistake and had amazon send them a rosary it got sent right back because i guess they thought it was

0:34:00contraband or something i don't know but then i learned about those rosary books so i sent all we do is give them hope um and we've been doing it for seven years so what happened well we know what happened in the news the media covered the inhumane conditions that were going on there that

0:34:24are still going on there but it came out in the media as you know last year end of last year november and december um but it is it is hard to believe that most of these people most of these immigrants they're nothing criminal but they are in jail wearing the lime suits and when

0:34:45they march them in they've got their hands behind their back i mean they're treated like criminals they're in cells and they're just there waiting for their hearings and immigration court and their the games that the deputies play with them the games that the other criminals

0:35:02play with them uh is is so sad um and these are so innocent such innocent people that like i said most of them haven't done anything criminal they're just didn't have their papers and got caught and so we'd like to get rid of this system where these immigrants are incarcerated

0:35:21but for right now we have it and we are a visitation program we're national um there's uh 200 about 240 centers like this throughout the united states and there's only 40 uh civic freedom for immigrant visitation programs and so i want you i'm hoping i'm coming

0:35:43here as representing civic to ask for your support we we never did anything wrong but to help the people that are in there right now thank you thank you let's get to adoption of the consent calendar that's items 4a through 4f a is approval of the minutes b is earth day proclamation c

0:36:18parking demand and management strategy consultant award d is accept the engineers report on landscape and lighting assessment district number 1988-1 adopt a resolution of intention to order improvements and set the public hearing e 2018 slurry seal program f support for senate bill 912

0:36:48removed second so i have a motion by party location second by abelson all in favor aye aye aye zero unanimous let's get to uh presentation we have a presentation for household hazardous waste program update and the presentation by nicole fort of republic services

0:37:20good evening mayor quinto and members of council i'm maria sanders and i'm with the operations and environmental services division and um i wanted to introduce nicole last summer council approved a contract with recyclemoore and republic services to introdu to provide a one day per week

0:37:39household hazardous waste or hhw service at our recycling center this is an innovative approach to providing this service so we thought it would be a good time for us to check in and let you know how things are going um so nicole forte is um with republic services she's the operations supervisor

0:37:58for their hhw services um and i'll just hand it over to you thank you maria good evening good evening mayor city council nicole forte so as maria stated um this is an an operation um that is a partnership and that's with the city of el cerrito republic services and recycle more which

0:38:30is a joint powers agency that el cerrito is a member of i really want to give kudos to maria sanders for all the help that she's given us to getting the program running and keeping it running her staff is phenomenal this presentation is going to be the six months that from when we started back in

0:38:53june of 2017 through december of 2017 i know we're already through q1 already but time is just slips by us too fast so the facility opened on june 20th and we had a soft opening and what that means is we didn't we didn't say anything we presented here to you uh we opened on the 20th and on word of

0:39:23mouth people came so i think we had two or three that day we wanted to get through the logistics of how cars were going to come through the back of the facility how the staff was going to handle cars coming through how the recycling center operations were going to continue to go on

0:39:44so it was very soft opening in the beginning but uh and then we had the july 4th holiday we're only open on tuesdays so it's just you know one day a week so they had the july 4th holiday and then with by july 11th we had 24 again word of mouth people talking at the recycling center

0:40:04uh asking at the information desk um by september 17th we had 63 customers come through and this was maria had put it into the newsletter and the word was out 63 cars participants is a lot at our huge hhw facility that's been going on for 15 years uh 63 is probably like the on the higher

0:40:32end so this was really a phenomenal turnout um for the res for the community i should say that if this is open to el cerrito panel hercules el sabrante and richmond residents i should have said that in the beginning so those are customers from all over um since so from june through december we

0:40:55had 916 customers come through that facility if you haven't been there i know a couple of you have stopped by to check it out i welcome you to to come by and talk with the staff if you want i can schedule a tour and we'll put you in proper gear of that 916 659 of those 72 percent have been you

0:41:21guys el cerrito residents um i think this is just phenomenal for the residents um the other cities is the 28 257 a new sign there underneath the el cerrito recycling center it tells you the times and days the blue sign this is a pointer yeah so this is the i wanted to show you some

0:41:44pictures of the area so most of you know how to get into the circle well we direct you on tuesdays to go behind the circle which is at the beginning it was very awkward for a lot of people because everybody was always told do not go back there right big signs do not enter don't go

0:42:02now we're telling you well you can come here on tuesdays so the blue signs direct you back the cones direct you back then you veer to the left you come straight ahead and we unload you right by that stop sign that says stay in the vehicle and then our staff stereocycle staff we

0:42:18staff it with three stereocycle folks they're the ones that transport and dispose of the waste we ask that you stay in the car for the safety of everyone and then they unload your vehicle there so what we found is this is this is el cerrito participation this is el cerrito residents would go to

0:42:41the permanent household hazardous waste facility in richmond right this is what you've been doing for years um in q1 um it was i actually have the exact numbers but you can see how it's changed over time q3 is one we opened um at 517 and then in q4 it went all the

0:43:04way up to 540. this is almost three times more participation than you've had in the past we we couldn't be happier um what this is showing to us is that convenience and location and and closeness to where people live plays a huge part so in our richmond facility we

0:43:26get obviously the majority of people using that facility is the ones within a about a five mile radius of richmond uh in richmond and san pablo so this has been great for el cerrito um i actually have what do we have i have yeah so in q1 let me just on average q1 in 2016 was

0:43:47192 q1 in 2017 176.

0:43:51q2 291 q q2 2017 257.

0:43:56so in q3 of 2016 to compare was 307 to 517 so that's a big jump and then in q4 of 2016 it was 189 and then in q4 of 2017 540 i mean that's that's just el cerrito so i also want to show you what the whole purpose right is we're getting the material the hazardous waste out of

0:44:24people's homes right that's been sitting there um this is the proper way to dispose of it we don't want it thrown into the garbage um we want it to be handled properly so q3 numbers in july 5000 pounds august it doubled to 11 000 almost 12 000 pounds september went down a little bit

0:44:47um so you can see the q3 totals of 26 000 pounds um q4 about back up to 11 november 7 7 900 december almost 1500 pounds so what this also doesn't show is we've been filling a paint roll-off bin it's a 30 cubic yard paint roll-off bin it's 22 000 pounds of paint

0:45:15so in six months we've these participants filled a very large container full of paint that they no longer wanted that paint fortunately gets to be remade into paint that's a latex paint where you're part of the paint care program which is an organization that takes this paint and

0:45:36makes it into new paint recycled paint so amazing amount of material coming out of the homes so a total for the six months was 44 tons of material um that people no longer wanted uh you're also the el cerrito recycling center has been collecting sharps and meds for years

0:45:58um i put that in there just to show how many pounds are being collected um the sharps is uh 2 687 pounds of sharps and then meds pharmaceuticals um 5 331 pounds a lot of material of course that's not even counting all the recycling material that is collected at

0:46:19the recycling center this include the my tonnage includes batteries fluorescent lamps the paint i talked about pesticides fire extinguishers all that kind of material that is my presentation okay any questions thank you do you have any questions janet if somebody wanted a

0:46:51to see an extensive list of the materials that you take where could they find it yeah so i just actually put some out in your hallway but we have a we have a guide um that we produce and we're actually in the process um i just put some of these out in the hallway but um

0:47:14it's it's not truly an extensive extensive list um but it is the the majority of materials that people do bring to us and it lists them here and we are creating another guide um as well and these are available at the el cerrito recycling center as well thank you

0:47:34yeah is it a online is that information yeah you can go to recyclemore.com they've published it they've put a copy of it online thank you yes and actually speaking of extensive that actually has a a list of even a better list um it's not just the guide but there's a

0:47:50list of all hazardous waste that people can bring to us recyclemore.com thank you okay paul fideli thank you for this i'm really happy this is in our community it's a it's a great service i've done it twice and in fact i was gonna try to do it today but it got too

0:48:11close to four o'clock so i couldn't quite get my act together and each time i went there was someone from a different community panel and richmond friends that were coming there to use it so we really are a regional center for this and it's important to be to be that so thank you for all your

0:48:26efforts i had a question on the medications yes i i was also going to say it's a it really is like a drive-through and it's like almost tsa where they're show me your driver's license show me this stay in your car it's kind of like a disneyland ride sort of but you're giving hazard as weight

0:48:44um never been referred to as a disneyland ride on the medications um is there any special treatment with those and who takes those and are they in the form of pills and what happens to them yeah so the pharmaceuticals that that's you can actually drop off um old meds

0:49:04and pharmaceuticals uh whenever the el cerrito recycling centers open so that bin is there um whenever they're open but uh the the company that collects them is called sharp solutions it's we're in a contract with them they are incinerated so they take them to a facility and have

0:49:24them incinerated we close it's not handing them over to the personnel like that has it like the paint no no so in order for these these kiosks to exist and we have them throughout the west county area is it has to be the resident taking them into a blocked bin we are not allowed to handle them so

0:49:49what happens there is you'll go to the front of the el cerrito recycling office and one of the staff members will walk with you out and they'll unlock it you'll put it in and they'll lock it back up so yes yeah it we can't handle it by by state law but they're all over as well thank you

0:50:12rachel i don't have any comments okay hi thanks nicole for your presentation i do have a couple of opportunities for you to expand on on the information you have um most interesting i'd love to have you you talked about how the proximity increases participation i know last summer uh

0:50:33recycle more hosted household hazardous waste events in other communities and they were met with tremendous uh participation as i just wondered if you had you don't have to have the numbers precise but if you could speak to sort of how how much more participation there is

0:50:51when events are local oh yeah um yeah thank you for the opportunity to say that we held three events last year and um hercules is our community that's a little bit further out from our facility it tends to be sort of about almost about 10 miles which is sort of that cut off in

0:51:12people's mind about how far they're willing to drive and so the turnout at the hercules event was astronomical did we get 500 there 540.

0:51:23540 people i think there and 300 and some was hercules so again proximity huge turnout uh we had one in el sobrante um i think we've got 400 and some cars there yeah you're right i don't remember exact numbers again el cebrante residents was 80 of the turnout we held one in richmond

0:51:46um as well again i think we only got 250 there and about 80 percent there was richmond so yes the closer you are and hazardous waste world it's about five to ten miles is about how far people are willing to drive to dispose properly their hazardous waste unless you're a super

0:52:11a environmentally conscious person and you'll drive however far it takes but yeah yeah and that's an opportunity for me to highlight the fact that recycle more is uh dedicated to reducing the amount of hazardous waste that's out there in the neighborhood uh that could

0:52:26be accidentally spilled during a disaster or caught up in a fire um so these it's important for us to as a community as community leaders to to pull this this hazardous waste out of the environment out of our living and built environment um and we'll be having events again this year

0:52:42uh to again uh serve to pull this this hazardous waste out of the community um so that it's not there to put our first responders at harm um i did do i wouldn't you don't know you know me a little bit from our time at recycle more but everybody else here knows me well 916

0:53:03visits over 25 different tuesdays over the times that you're open we average about 37 trips per day and it's about 10 minutes per vehicle and so even though you may only experience a two or three minute event where you are asked to stop and you show your driver's license and and

0:53:23your car's miraculously vague uh vacated of harvester's waste there is sorting and putting packaging and sorting that goes along with each vehicle so even though an average of 37 doesn't sound like a large number and 65 doesn't sound like a large number um can you spend a little

0:53:44time talking about how uh the vendor does properly sort and package the materials and that's part of the reason why it one it's it averages about a hundred dollars a vehicle um so so it's about a hundred dollars a vehicle is what is what we pay through our rates

0:54:03and fees um and it it's paying for those three people to categorize and package your materials and and the disposal and all of those things so if you could spend a little bit talking about the packaging and and time that it takes to make to make it to make it 37 to 60

0:54:19vehicles sound actually impressive yeah yeah um okay well he did a pretty good job by the way what he just said uh yeah so when a car comes up um they're they're they're not just having one gallon of paint or one fluorescent tube or it's usually packed full um we probably get

0:54:4420 gallons to 30 gallons of paint per vehicle so the the three gentlemen that work there they have to unload it onto carts and then so the cars keep moving through they put it onto carts and then they sort it later each each category has to be sorted whether it's an acid or a base whether it's

0:55:03oil-based paint whether it's latex paint every category has to be kept separate so they don't if they mix they can create a fire they can create a chemical reaction so every item has to be looked at this stuff has to be packed into big 55-gallon drums it has to be secured

0:55:24into those um lockers that have a fire suppressant system in there in case anything was to spill or react that we didn't catch we also have to label every single drum every single type of material has to be labeled and then when we close at the end of the day of course it

0:55:47has to be cleaned up everything has to be put away so that the el cerrito recycling center can operate their operations when we're gone um yeah it's it's it is time consuming per vehicle um i don't have a specific time at how long it takes but to get three three people

0:56:08to do 65 cars is i mean it's it's a good it's a good number we have sometimes we have four to five at our other facility um to get the cars through because you want you don't want people we our goal is not to let the customer wait more than you know five minutes to me that's

0:56:23a long time to wait five minutes um so what we want them to use the facility as much as possible and if they start saying to all their neighbors oh don't go down there it takes 15 to 20 minutes per car and i had to wait you know an hour they're not gonna come down they just

0:56:42won't um so we want to move these cars through quickly i've got two more things one is a quick one to speak to council member abelson's point one the one pound small propane tanks the the camping type styles are those eligible for this facility or they have to go out to the richmond facility we'll

0:57:01take propane we'll definitely take smaller paints and we'll take the large ones okay yes um and then uh what's the most exciting having worked in the waste industry myself you hear the stories about the nitrogen nitroglycerin showing up at some of these events and stuff like that what's

0:57:18the most exciting thing that's showed up at the recycling at the pitric acid so we got pitric acid and pitric acid is it's not supposed to be moved when it starts to crystallize it's highly explosive so we had a car drive in over the hump right here here you go

0:57:41our guys immediately isolated it um you know got the car got the stuff and isolated it got the car out of the facility called the bomb squad we had to it it's so explosive you don't want to move it um and then they happily uh exploded that onto our property it was just a little bang but they did uh

0:58:02surround it and set it off citric acid crystallized right there very steph thank you very much okay thank you i just have a couple of questions do you take um gardening supplies i have a lot of old insecticides uh old lawn seed that expired five years ago things like that

0:58:26uh yes absolutely absolutely we will okay definitely we don't want that in the garbage okay yep so just so you know a lot of stuff that we get you bought at home depot or you bought at ace or osh um it's not a waste until you give it to us you know it's it's usable right it's

0:58:47hopefully it's not too hazardous to you when you're home using it or you're using it properly but it was the minute you give it to us it's a hazardous waste and we have to treat it as such so i just wanted to clarify that great okay thank you thank you do we have any uh

0:59:04okay no great so uh nicole forte from public services thank you okay next we have an update from the league of california cities samantha cagle is a regional public affairs manager for the east bay division and she will discuss the league's work and priorities ms

0:59:22kegel will also highlight upcoming ballot measures that the league has analyzed good evening good evening thank you so much for having me here this evening um i really appreciate the invitation and in fact when i was driving over i was thinking about how fortunate i feel

0:59:37to work with your city um and who i was going to get to see tonight that both the council and your city staff have been involved in the league in some way shape or form and i'm very grateful for that whether it's been involvement on a policy committee or through advocacy or

0:59:54the mayor currently sits on our east bay division board of directors and council member abelson also has served on our east bay division board of directors and i know um i believe a number of you have also served on policy committees so um thank you you have an impact both regionally

1:00:10and statewide with your work and i'm grateful okay so i'm gonna run through a quick agenda um let's see okay i'm good now with you guys i'm gonna talk very quickly about the league structure i'm going to talk about our strategic goals for the year and then i'm going to do a

1:00:31quick rundown of our key issues and then an update on what we can expect for the june and november ballots so the league is 478 members city strong we are celebrating our 120th birthday this year um i think it's um fun to note that the league was actually founded in the east

1:00:52bay area it was founded in alameda the city clerk of alameda was asked to do some research on a road roller and other cities experiences with this road roller i'm not quite certain what that is but i can gather that it probably had to do with transportation infrastructure which is

1:01:07also a big topic of tonight as well um so the the cities learned that having this network was really important and they also learned very quickly that having this network and a collective voice in advocacy was also very important at the state and federal level and so the

1:01:23league was born in the east bay area and here we are 120 years later operating pretty much under the same goals of protecting local control and authority and providing those networking and learning opportunities and advocating for california city statewide the league structure we have a full team

1:01:41in sacramento who works for you every single day made up of people in our legislative team we have a legal team education and conferences are put together for you on a regular basis we have eight different league policy committees that many of you have served on in

1:01:57subject areas such as public safety environmental quality transportation and housing we have diversity caucuses at the league that you can see listed there there are 10 professional departments that a lot of you have been involved in that have their own leadership structure and

1:02:13their own educational courses and then of course we have the 16 regional divisions you're part of the east bay division which comprises the 33 cities in alameda and contra costa counties every year in november our league leadership comes together and determines

1:02:32our priorities for the year and you'll see our four priorities listed here for 2018 addressing the public safety concerns of california cities ensuring the sustainability of the public pension system protecting existing transportation funding and then of course improving

1:02:49housing affordability and addressing the homeless crisis which is an issue that touches every single community here in the east bay area okay let's jump to some legislative and issues that we're working on this year that are especially active right now housing and land use of course is a very

1:03:09big topic in the legislature it was last year we saw the governor sign i believe it was a 15 bill package that we're all still trying to digest really and we're seeing some other bills being introduced this year sb 827 is a bill that's made a lot of news headlines lately it takes away

1:03:25local land use control around major transit and bus stops it takes away your ability to define height density and parking requirements just to name a few issues around the bill there's another bill that's very similar to this ab2923 that gives bart some land use authority um in

1:03:46the same manner and while we can certainly appreciate the spirit of these bills um housing is something that's very important in our communities um it certainly we see this bill as a one-size-fits-all bill that when you talk to a lot of our communities around the state you'll find

1:04:04almost every single city has a different reason for why they're concerned about this bill whether it's a lack of affordable affordability requirement or you know concern about the character of their communities that they've worked really hard to do these specific plans

1:04:18um so um so there are also some bills around funding for homelessness and um we're watching those very closely the league historically has supported funding for homelessness um so and i think that was actually something that you guys took up on consent tonight which is great um and then um

1:04:40economic development you know um redevelopment was abolished a few years ago and there's been some buzz in the legislature to talk about bringing this back so we've actually seen a few bills addressing this to bring it back in some way shape or form politically i don't know if there's

1:04:55going to be the will for that this year but it's nice to see the conversation started and see some tools being developed for your use in the future hopefully i also wanted to touch on the league regarding homelessness the league and the california state association of counties had a joint task

1:05:13force that came together and produced a statewide homelessness report that we recently released and this report contains a plethora of data about homelessness in the state and also contains a lot of tools and resources that would be important to you as a city and that can be used

1:05:30regionally so i hope that that report is a good resource for you i also wanted to touch on the league released a retirement system sustainability report recently and this report we hired a consultant to come in and do a pretty comprehensive survey of our cities looking at

1:05:50your liabilities moving forward and what that means for you 10 20 years down the road and then he also delved into data from calpers and you know what that report really saw it confirmed that pension costs for california cities are approaching unsustainable levels and cities need

1:06:07tools and resources moving forward so i encourage you to also take a look at that report let's jump to the ballot in 2018 true to california politics it's going to be an interesting and active year both on the june and november ballots here is a list of what we're going to

1:06:29see on the june ballot the league is an active coalition partner for propositions 68 and 69. i know that el cerrito has become coalition partners as well on this and thank you for taking that up um just very quickly proposition 68 is a 4 billion dollar general obligation bond

1:06:47for parks and water there is 200 000 in per capita funding for cities and then beyond that there are a lot of grant opportunities for things like safe neighborhood parks water conservation and storm water projects so you know hopefully if this should pass you guys will be able to take advantage

1:07:06of some of that as well who else is a part of the prop 68 coalition well you joined a really diverse coalition as you can see from this list here there are local government representatives labor business and then a whole host of local agencies and and cities who have also jumped on

1:07:24board proposition 69 let's talk about this in conjunction with sb1 last year we also advocated for the passing of aca 5 to constitutionally protect the new the newer funds under sb1 i believe that about 70 of those were already constitutionally protected and there were about 30 percent of the new

1:07:47funds that we need to make sure stayed in transportation accounts and weren't used for anything else um so this is now going to the voters on the june ballot as proposition 69.

1:07:59so why is it important to protect these funds well well-maintained roads are safer and they relieve traffic congestion poor roads cost consumers it's estimated up to 762 dollars per year whereas under sb 1 this will cost the average driver about 10 dollars a month

1:08:18transportation funding adds to our local economy a recent report by the american road and transportation builders association affirmed the positive economic benefits of sb1 in that it supports nearly 183 billion in economic activity and supports or creates 680 000 jobs

1:08:40over the next 10 years so quite significant who else is a part of this coalition that you've joined well local government as you can see again it's very diverse labor business chambers across the state environmental groups and then some some of our local groups out here

1:09:04so i should also note actually as we look to november that there's an effort to overturn sb1 um there the effort is currently collecting signatures it's looking pretty good that that's going to end up on the ballot i believe that when you join the coalition you also preemptively opposed any effort

1:09:21to overturn sb1 so thank you for doing that if this does qualify for the november ballot we're going to be doing coalition building around that proposition as well okay so um also for november there are approximately 40 measures being circulated right now i'm sure you've

1:09:39seen folks with petitions in front of grocery stores and at bart stations asking you to sign to qualify a number of initiatives for the november ballot so far the only one that's qualified is sb3 the veterans and affordable housing bond this was placed on the ballot

1:09:55legislatively this last legislative last year during the legislative cycle this bond is a four billion dollar bond one billion dollars goes to veterans housing and three billion to affordable housing we are asking our cities to consider joining this coalition as well

1:10:16and i wanted to touch on an initiative that's of concern um this measure is being routed around for signatures right now by um it's being pushed by the california business roundtable which is a collection of businesses in california it would limit local authority to impose

1:10:33a tax for general purposes by majority vote and require a two-thirds approval it also restricts the ability of local governments to impose fees or charges um and so this um obviously could have um you know detriment to a lot of cities uh general fund budgets um it is

1:10:53retroactive as well so for anything passed as of january 1 2018 if it didn't pass with that two-thirds it would have to go back to the voters which would be a shame we have a lot of cities in that boat so we are doing coalition building around this initiative in opposition as well

1:11:11and we're encouraging our cities to contact um those members of the california business roundtable let them know hey um you know this is what this could potentially mean to our community and and and to our budgets um and we're hoping that you know the initiative

1:11:26won't move forward but again they're collecting signatures they're they're doing research and it looks like it's going to be on the november ballot and um if that's the case we will certainly be opposing it and lastly please connect with me we're on facebook you can connect with us on

1:11:43twitter and there's my email address you know that my door is always open to you with that are there are there any questions or comments michelle no no questions greg okay janet abelson just have a comment i would like to thank uh sam for the the very uh difficult job you

1:12:09have and all of the hard work that you do thank you thank you i appreciate that and i just want to emphasize on prop 69 it seems kind of esoteric but i can remember back when governor schwarzenegger took all the money from transit and roads for five years in a row to balance the

1:12:30state budget so money can be taken from transportation and transit so it's important to support that proposition as well thanks for all your work sam thank you i have a question regarding uh the two third vote on the last who do you have that is you have a business group of people

1:12:57are they local here some of them are yes and in fact i sent um to our membership out here in the east bay division today um kind of an action alert um in regards to this proposed initiative and in that alert there's a link to the members of the california business

1:13:15roundtable so you can take a look and see what businesses are in your community and i think it's a great idea to contact those businesses because you know for the hopefully you have good working relationships with them and they wouldn't want to um you know yeah

1:13:35yes thank you do you have any public honor no mayor okay sam cagle thank you so much thank you so much for having me okay policy matters a annual parcel assessment for the national pollution discharge elimination system npdes program and drainage maintenance activities for fiscal year 2018 and 19.

1:14:22thank you all right good evening mayor quinto and city council my name is will provost i'm a management analyst in the public works department and i'm the city's clean water program coordinator the action brought before you tonight is to adopt a resolution establishing the

1:14:46annual parcel assessment levy for the national pollution discharge elimination system or npdes it has been an annual requirement of contra costa county cities since the storm water utility assessment was established back in 1993.

1:15:00however as in past years staff wanted to take this opportunity to provide an update on the city's clean water program and the various activities funded by the stormwater utility assessment to ensure compliance with the city's municipal regional permit in particular i'm going to focus my

1:15:14presentation today on providing an update on the city's green infrastructure planning process which is required under the permit and will need to be submitted to the water board in 2019 the city of el cerrido is one of 76 agencies regulated under the municipal regional permit or mrp issued by the san

1:15:32francisco bay water quality control board the current permit was issued in 2015 and will be revised and updated for a permit term starting in 2021 as you can see from this slide there are many different components to complying with the municipal regional permit these

1:15:46include our municipal operations responding to illicit discharges having an integrated pest management policy installing and maintaining trash capture devices working with new developers to install storm water controls and and monitoring those storm water controls on

1:16:00an ongoing basis doing public information and outreach and increasingly it will mean meeting pollutant load reduction requirements for things like pcbs copper and mercury given the range of activities involved these programs and activities are coordinated by a variety of public works

1:16:19staff including our operations team environmental staff and our engineers the program is also supported by the community development department in areas such as new development copper controls and building demolition the city also greatly benefits from our participation in the county-wide clean

1:16:35water program which uses shared resources to coordinate compliance efforts for just jurisdictions throughout the county so as mentioned the focus of my presentation today is on c3 in regards to new development with a specific focus on green infrastructure c3 requires the development of a green

1:16:54infrastructure plan to meet future load reduction targets for pollution like pcbs this plan will cover public projects such as the rain garden on the ohlone greenway at fairmont and will also set guidelines for private development projects such as the green infrastructure incorporated into the

1:17:10design of the summit k2 school or at the steez sanitary district offices a quick review on green infrastructure green infrastructure includes things like rain gardens bioswales permeable pavements green roofs such as the one at corimatsu creek daylighting rainwater harvesting

1:17:29or tree planting they're basically projects that try to mimic the natural water cycle by using soils and plants to slow down and clean storm water the benefits for green infrastructure include helping recharge the ground water supply mitigating flood risk by slowing down the water creating habitats

1:17:47and wetlands improving water quality and providing additional community benefits by planting trees for example el cerrito has been ahead of the game in this regard in terms of implementing green infrastructure seen here is a rain garden on the corner of fairmont at

1:18:02the alone greenway during a rain event here are a couple rain gardens on san pablo avenue one during a rain event and here are two rain gardens at the recycling center we also as you know have rain gardens outside of city hall and there's a new project expected to

1:18:19begin begin construction this year at the moser in san pablo as part of the san pablo avenue green spine project so the green infrastructure plan will build on these efforts the plan will identify and prioritize potential green infrastructure projects that could be

1:18:34implemented through 2040.

1:18:36the plan will include setting guidelines for new projects updating updating relevant planning documents developing a work plan to complete prioritized projects adopting policies and ordinances to ensure implementation and conducting internal and external outreach to educate staff and members of

1:18:52the public many of the tasks required by the permit are being taken on by the county's clean water program one of the largest tasks left to the jurisdictions is to develop a prioritized list of potential projects to do this we're building off of the stormwater resources planning effort

1:19:08which is being completed at the county level for that they've conducted a comprehensive stakeholder engagement campaign to identify potential projects and they also completed a rigorous desktop analysis to identify identify parcels that would benefit most from green infrastructure

1:19:24the stormwater resource resources plan will culminate in a list of potential projects that are prioritized based on the multiple benefits that they would provide in el cerrito we're also in the process of completing a storm drain master plan which will map our storm drain system on

1:19:38a gis and identify projects to improve the storm drain system using these two plans as a starting point the intention is to identify projects that are high priority in our storm drain master plan in our cip program and that are believed to have high potential to improve water quality

1:19:54and offer additional additional benefits to the community a framework for the plan was prevented presented to city council last may and we're starting to draft the plan and will be conducting outreach to educate staff members of the public as well as the city council a draft of the plan

1:20:09will be completed by next may and presented to the city council in june of 2019.

1:20:16that concludes my update on green infrastructure and the planning process but i also wanted to quickly highlight that we are effectively meeting our trash reduction targets thanks to the 92 trash capture devices that we've installed through 2017 as well as clean up efforts and sort and

1:20:31policies like the plastic bag ban and foodware ordinances were on track to meet our 80 target for 2019.

1:20:39so to conclude the requested council action is to establish an annual personal assessment for npdes at the current rate of 38 per equivalent runoff unit to support these clean water program activities and to ensure compliance with the municipal regional permit thank you

1:20:58questions greg sure thank you very much for your presentation this evening um i didn't see a presentation on c11 which is mercury and pcb chlorinated by phenols pcbs uh have what did are we doing anything successfully in in those in the areas of regulating demolition yeah so demolition

1:21:24is worse going to pass it's in the process where each of the jurisdictions are supposed to pass a building demolition ordinance by 2019 and that for that will be able to take credit as part of the program but more import importantly the c11 mercury pcbs and copper is really what's

1:21:41driving the green infrastructure so the green infrastructure reduces those those pollutants and so that's really why all the different jurisdictions are are going to be setting these targets and we're actually going to going to be modeling how much green infrastructure

1:21:57will take to meet our specific targets set by the water board i did notice that 38 is our maximum as set by the ordinance in 1993.

1:22:07unfortunately there's no uh mechanism for for changing the maximum rate um and so we're this is if i read this correctly it'll generate about four hundred thousand dollars of which about 60 plus will go to the county to the regional programs you highlighted um does that does that limit some of the

1:22:26programs i mean i know you weren't here when um i came out and and strongly said that the these the regional board is is for good reason is imposing these these wonderful uh rules on us but they're they're going to be a huge taxing cost for us and and so this is your

1:22:45opportunity to say you'd like more than 38 or 400 000 but yeah we're doing our best with the the money that's available and we have been meeting our targets uh but you know as these additional uh you know targets come online it may take additional funds and so what we're trying to do is

1:23:03leverage existing projects like our transportation projects or you know through the storm drain master plan so that we can build green infrastructure into existing projects and try and be more efficient but you know perhaps in the future particularly in mrp 3.0 in 2021 there

1:23:20might be stricter requirements where we will need additional funds to meet those goals the adopt a drain program that we've seen in the bay area does that work well for our 92 c10 and and related to that this was a not a heavy rain year did we see any flooding associated with lack of maintenance of

1:23:39our 92 c10 facilities i think they've been pretty good our maintenance crew and has been pretty good about cleaning them we clean them three times a year so flooding really hasn't been an issue this year and adopted drain we're not quite participating that as well as we could

1:23:53at this time we do really engage with our volunteers in terms of our green teams and various efforts around the city but right now we're using our contractors to clean our storm drains all right thank you michelle so how are we doing this is a regional um how are we doing

1:24:11comparatively with other cities um we're doing pretty well we're you know we're meeting our reduction targets and and definitely on green infrastructure we're ahead of the game um in terms of installing it here at city hall and and elsewhere um so yeah i i think we're doing very well

1:24:27yeah i've i've just been noticing as i go to you know traveling around the other cities it seems like we are ahead of the game but i was wondering if we actually were that was just my perception from being an el cerrito more yeah i think more often we compare the

1:24:41county as a whole to other counties to san mateo santa clara and other regions for things like c11 those are actually right now they're regulated at the regional level and so there are regional targets through the count through the region through the county before it would

1:24:56then we would have to meet jurisdictional targets and so more often we're comparing our county and our county-wide program to other county-wide programs the um the rain garden at fairmount and ohlone wasn't part of that paid for by a grant i believe so yeah so we're we are a little bit ahead

1:25:15but that was not through this specific fee right yeah but we can leverage funds in in the sua fee to try and say that we'll cover the maintenance costs say for a project that would be implemented and then the next project will be at san pablo yeah the green spine project will

1:25:33be at san pablo and moshe and there will be one in san pablo in the city of san pablo as well okay great yeah thank you sure okay paul fideli yeah thank you um so on the 38 dollar fee which i guess we're locked into right so it wasn't a difficult decision for staff

1:25:54to make sure yeah we've had that rate for some time for some time don't you think the resolution should i mean the resolution now there therefore be it resolve says it determines that the rate should assign should be set at 38. a little more descriptive and reality about

1:26:12we've reached our maximum it's not additional but we're getting additional responsibilities well right exactly we're just keeping it the same as in in past years and we have to do we have what it says in here what i'm talking about to maybe fine-tune what it says in the

1:26:26resolution that since we can't do more and we're getting more it will stay the same or right anyway that was just a comment um this is another regional effort and it says that each city must kind of come up with its resolution before april 15th what if the city doesn't

1:26:44um i would guess that the county will the county can't uh set the levy and so it wouldn't be put on the property tax rules so you miss a year of that tax i'm just speculating at this point but um we're given that deadline by the county uh so that they can put it

1:27:02on the property tax rules okay and again with the 38 maximum amount of money it was interesting to hear that part of that fee is determined by the runoff areas of it that a city has open space of asphalt is that correct yeah i think uh yes it's determined by the equivalent

1:27:23runoff unit and so uh depending on the size of the property it's giving a score of a one or two or three depending on how permeable the pavement is so i was going to ask with our development we have a lot of lots that might have changed the rate of we might be paying

1:27:38but because we've maxed out that really doesn't matter the development that we're having and taking away that open space and that is that correct that's a good question it could it could affect the erus given to a specific parcel um but there's less determination because

1:27:54we're kind of maxed out we are kind of built out so ours would be less uh very variable okay thank you thank you very much jim um no they well the the only uh item i want to mention is the uh project that's in at fairmont and the greenway the really interesting thing about that

1:28:19i remember before that project was done there would be a lot of flooding and it would be really quite nasty if there was a really significant rain so it's really um intriguing to me and um [Music] positive that we get not only uh one benefit from it but two if not

1:28:41more but a third benefit of it is also what i would call enjoyment i see a lot of people going down in into that area and i'm just relaxing and children play there i know my grandson loves that area and um so it's really nice when we can get multiple benefits from one project and i

1:29:11think that's a really good example where we did it very well yeah definitely green infrastructure can definitely have multiple benefits including flood reducing flood risk adding parks reducing co2 they're just a myriad of benefits and so especially in el cerrito where we don't

1:29:27have a lot of industrial properties to reduce pcbs and other pollutants of concern we really are focused on those other benefits okay public comment audi gowdy good evening american council members my name is howdy gowdy um personally i just want to appreciate you know the city's

1:29:52leadership on green infrastructure i think they've been doing a great job and also as was stated you know managing this increasing uh workload with you know not an increasing amount of money so i you know appreciate all those efforts um my uh comment is really maybe a little

1:30:15aspirational but i think might have some potential and and just a statement to say that while we are doing these great green infrastructure projects in the you know municipal and and major commercial corridors um it would be nice to try to envision how to broaden that into the greater

1:30:38residential footprint of the city and i guess what i just found myself imagining was you know we have a program right now where if a resident wants a street tree you know they basically pay a 200 uh encroachment fee and that buys and installs a tree if they provide some

1:31:04maintenance and while you know green infrastructure is decidedly much more expensive than planting a single tree the idea that a resident could come and say you know i would like a rain garden in my you know public right-of-way uh strip next to the sidewalk um i'm willing to put this you know

1:31:26money forward it would be great if there were a structure where the sort of design and engineering the costly parts had kind of been worked out in a prescriptive way that it would at least make that a more approachable thing it might still be really expensive but you know maybe there are people that

1:31:48are willing to to pay that cost to to grow the the green infrastructure in our community and maybe there's other grant opportunities and things that could help pay into that so i just i think it would be great i mean it might be a little beyond the scope of what the city can

1:32:03do and maybe it's something that we could help organize at the county level but i just think it would be great if there were a concise kind of prescriptive um way for for people to participate in green infrastructure in the residential areas so thanks thank you

1:32:22that's it okay we'll bring it back to the council paul did you have a question i i did have a question now that i was thinking about it will if you on the trash side of your presentation how problematic are plastic straws because having worked on earth day picking up garbage i've noticed a lot of

1:32:42plastic straw and there's legislation at the state level to have plastic straws by request only in certain cities and is that are you is there a yeah i can i can just say anecdotally from our green teams and volunteers that do these cleanups plastic straws and cigarette

1:32:58butts we've kind of figured out how to capture the large pieces of trash through trash capture devices and and through our rain gardens um and through land cleanups but it is those smaller uh pieces of plastic plastic straws so a statewide bill going in that direction

1:33:14might be helpful it to us as well could improve stormwater reduce traffic thank you i'm delighted to move a resolution of the city council of the city of el cerrito establishing the annual parcel assessment for the national pollution pollutant discharge elimination system

1:33:34npdes program and drainage maintenance activities at the current rate of 38 dollars per equivalent runoff unit and authorizing the contra costa county flood control and water conservation district to adopt stormwater utility area levees based on set amount in fiscal year 2018 2019.

1:33:56second i have a motion from lyman's second from partner okimoto all in favor hi hi i'm zero unanimous motion passes before you move on i do want to um having lived in one of the low-lying areas of of el cerrito with a creek in the back our public speakers comments about

1:34:18finding ways to to work with property owners to that might be interested in moving water quality forward through their property is actually something that i would like to encourage staff to do the house i was in on rosland easily a curb cut would have allowed for a green swale to

1:34:46go from the paved area to the naturally occurring creek in the back and that potentially would have slowed water down and with the proper bioswale proper uh environment that was maintained by the property owner through agreement um that could actually have improved water

1:35:06quality so and reduced flooding so it there that that comment rings true to me because of some of the ex home experiences i've had here in el cerrito and certainly would like to echo that as staff moves forward in in thinking about ways for us to work with the private property owners to in certain

1:35:28areas it's not going to work everywhere but in certain areas it might prove useful for us to consider that thank you and thank you will robust b hazard mitigation plan good evening good evening mayor council members um michael pagone with the el cerrito fire department um

1:36:02acting fire chief this week here for lance maples who is on vacation with his family we're before you tonight from asking the adoption of a resolution for the acceptance of the hazard mitigation plan the updates to the hazard mitigation plan which is a county-wide plan with

1:36:24specific sections just for el cerrito this plan this is the third very comprehensive update that's been done since the plan was first adopted or first generated and adopted by the county chief or battalion chief michael bond is here tonight to make a presentation

1:36:47he has been involved in the revisions over the years uh this latest revision has been a project he's been working on since i'm 2016 and as i said we're you know ready to adopt it and he's going to make a presentation on the highlights of this thank you thank you

1:37:11good evening good evening honorable mayor council members again i'm michael bond retired fire marshal battalion chief for the el cerrito fire department thank you for having me here tonight and again we're looking for you to adopt the resolution and accept the local hazard mitigation plan

1:37:33as written a couple things i wanted to go over with you and that is what is the hazard mitigation plan a lot of people have a little misconcept of what it actually is it was established back in 2000 with the disaster uh act and it requires municipalities to develop this hazard mitigation plan

1:38:02in order to meet state and federal requirements to be eligible to apply for and receive grant monies for pre and post-disaster mitigation projects a lot of people tend to think that this project or the the plan is an operational plan that says thou shall go forth and do these things this

1:38:24way it's not it gives us a planning template some guidelines in which we can follow to successfully apply for and receive grants so we're updating the plan like michael said this is the the third adoption of this the first one was in 2005 through the association of bay area

1:38:48governments abag that was all nine bay area counties the second iteration of this plan we said you know what let's let's deal it down let's let's get a little more specific let's make it contra costa county specific and then we can we can even dial it down farther into el cerrito more specific

1:39:11so right now the monies that are out there that are available for the the city to go after for post disaster grant opportunities just for california alone is 200 million dollars that we have the opportunity to seek through this plan we don't have to it's something that we

1:39:34can do if we so choose to it it's giving us the opportunity to do that we can also go for pre-disaster mitigation we're talking about the storm water acts and and cleaning up our runoffs and all that this dovetails perfectly into something of that nature where we can apply these posters that

1:39:55are pre-disaster mitigation dollars federally there's another 200 million dollars that we can apply for and dovetail those in and create a clean water environment as well as do flood protection for us when we started to do this we we decided what are we going to try

1:40:21and do how we going to go about doing it we did a public outreach we went through twitter and outlook public meetings to try and engage as many people as we can within the city of el cerrito and contra costa county we were very successful in doing that we had hundreds of people

1:40:42fill out and and comply with the surveys giving us their ideas of what the risks and hazards are along with statistical data that was provided through hazas and fema and cal oes we identified the the risks that we knew were there then we went developed a plan like michael said this

1:41:02plan has been going on for two years now it's not because of us it's just you know what this was a really nasty year the last two years with natural disasters hurricanes fires you name it it was out there that took up a lot of time with a lot of the people that were involved in this

1:41:22again one of the things that we have to do is we have to update this plan every five years in order to maintain our eligibility to receive these grants or apply for these grants we're out of that window right now but because of the disasters that were out there we were

1:41:37still been eligible to apply for grants even though this plan was out of date it is a living document it's not something that has to be dove into and and massaged regularly but it's something that we can do as it's on a five-year cycle but we can interject earlier than that if we decide that

1:42:01there's things that we i've identified that aren't in this plan we can enhance this plan midstream as well does require that we have annual progress reports and that is something that we've built a nice little automatic reporting device that we can be uh implementing their updates and and

1:42:22progress of this throughout the year and when it's time to to do our uh progress updates it's automatically done for us with a very small fee that we'll discuss after we get done with this is going to be a couple hundred dollars a year mitigation goals and objectives

1:42:45we had five overall goals that this plan tries to achieve the priority number one save or protect lives and reduce injury increase resilience infrastructure and critical facilities that's stuff that you know we do every day this has given us the dollars and the the

1:43:08opportunities to do that and the 18 objectives that we're trying to do a couple of them increase the resilience of infrastructure and critical facilities we can go out and receive grants apply for grants to go out and maybe get some new critical facilities rebuilt or build new or

1:43:30have additional ones built again this plan meets all the federal requirements all the state requirements that have been set forth the plan has been pre-approved through fema and cal us is is ready for your adoption and we can start using this plan as soon as that is taken care of with that i'll

1:43:52take any questions that you may have thank you yeah i've got i want to say that it was a very it's very comprehensive and actually it's a very interesting read there's lots of uh discussion in here about the hazards in our area from soil to flooding to earthquake

1:44:13obviously the ones that you know when you pick up chapter six for that's unique to el cerrito it wouldn't be any surprise to anyone that on on page 611 that our three hazards that scored high were earthquake landslide and wildfire so that's not a major surprise

1:44:34um there there are i do have a couple specific questions about chapter six i've got a general question in in volume one let me do the general one first in volume one it says that there are uh ten cities in contra costa that participated in the agenda bill it says it's 14.

1:44:53it does list all 19 cities so can you help me understand the discrepancy between uh you know whether it was 10 14 but i know all 19 are covered so part of that has to do with abag and i wasn't clarified very well abag still has some contra costa county cities working within their planning structure

1:45:17not everybody decided to come on board and just do the contra costa county specific plan okay so some of the all the cities are doing it but only some of them are provided here in contra cross county excellent thank you on page 612 and you know it's table 612 and i'll

1:45:34give you a chance to get it um so because i also have a question on t or record recommendation for a change on page 613.

1:45:54table 612. yep table 612.

1:45:5711 ensure that government-owned facilities are subject to the same or more stringent regulations as imposed on privately owned development um this i noticed that it's not a carryover can you can you uh help me understand uh i mean i love it i'm i'm excited about

1:46:16it because hopefully we will start rebuilding some of our critical infrastructure here in the city and we'll we'll actually you know have to live to this code this requirement but i just i noticed that it wasn't a carryover so i'm just curious that should have been a carryover

1:46:31because that's something that we've been doing for years critical infrastructure is built to a higher standard than your everyday commercial structures and stuff like that so that was sounds great that sounds right but but i wanted to point out that it didn't look like it got

1:46:47ticked off correctly and then on uh ec16 um the it the carryover seems to be coming from ce16 so that that looks like just fingers were gone backwards yeah my finger's working too fast yep and then uh just for for purposes of this is just for highlighting you know

1:47:07what the some of the things that this plan covers these are ec 20 21 and 22 we require engineering plans for retrofitting heavy two-story buildings uh soft story retrofits which we still have soft stories but i've seen a bunch of retrofits going on in town so i'm

1:47:28i know that we're we are implementing these things and 22 is uh require engineering plans for retrofitting retrofitting unreinforced masonry buildings which of course we have a a code to try and upgrade all of our buildings so just so people understand these are some of the things that are

1:47:45uh that this that the el cerrito specific portion of this plan covers that is certainly some of them and you answered my other questions thank you all right thank you okay so when you're saying there's possible money to rebuild um critical facilities could you list off what some of those

1:48:07might be could be public safety building senior centers places that the community uses that that we could be could be used in emergency operations or that types of things housing people in the event of disaster and people are displaced and things like that so there's a wide

1:48:32variety of different types of structures that can be used as critical facilities so once this plan is is enacted or approved then each city can apply for these or is it yes each city can apply individually and something i did i didn't say with the approval of this plan

1:48:57we we can apply for these grants up to a 75 percent match so they will i mean not match but they would provide 75 percent of the cost to do these and us only having to provide 25 of the cost up to 4 million dollars and then it would then it would change the uh the matching funds the way they would be

1:49:24prevented presented to us so for example our public safety building which is seems to be overdue for a rebuild we could potentially get money for that yes yes ma'am very good to know um and then there was a number of medical facilities that were just kind of mentioned in an as a number i don't

1:49:47have it bookmarked but i was wondering was there a discussion about the loss of doctors hospital and how that would affect any potential mitigation plans um that is is something that was not discussed at the at the local level el cerrito specific but yes it's been discussed

1:50:09uh regionally because it is a huge impact for the entire region not just west contra costa county here but alameda county in you name it you know it's a huge impact so it has been discussed i do not know what the what is going to transpire out of that and what kind of grants are

1:50:31going to be tried to be levied with it but yeah it is a concern that seems like another potential critical facility that if there was some sort of grander coordination maybe there could be a plan for another hospital that is something that could possibly be done i could not guarantee

1:50:52that that is one of the things because again it is within a certain jurisdiction but yet it's a regional impact so i i would think that it would be something because typically they like to have grants that affect more than just one jurisdiction when you when you're doing

1:51:10that or one group of people right and then what about the mudslides in montecito and the fires in the north um has your table discussed that i was very interested in i know we have slide areas here in el cerrito and i was interested in the the distance that was traveled by those

1:51:38mudslides in montecito and if you had any information on that that i do not know um and um i know the usgs has been doing um extensive research on the hayward fault rupture and has has your round table been associated with that discussion at all yes and that's going to be wired in one of the

1:52:06uh charts in the back here it actually talks about the hayward fault along with the dirty dozen faults here in contra costa county and the impacts that they would have on el cerrito specific as well as surrounding communities okay thank you very much okay paul fideli

1:52:26thank you um so i'm going to ask a similar question that i did about the water presentation um it says that once the hazardous mitigation plan is adopted by all of the jurisdictions then we can apply what happens if one of them doesn't get it done and apply do we have to wait it is

1:52:50what will happen is yeah if they're doing if they if they're stumbling along and you know it's gonna it's going forever and ever and ever they'll be dropped from the from the plan and that doesn't cut off our chances we're actually eligible right now again but once it takes all of them to

1:53:10get a resolution of approval right before we can well no and again this plan even though it's not formally adopted we are still eligible for grant opportunities based on this plan because of its pre-approval with oas and and fema okay is is richmond one of the cities in our

1:53:35contra costa group for some reason read through it and saw them as either exempted or not part of it they i believe they stayed with the a-bag so they're not we're not part of the same okay that's interesting um talking about being pre-approved um and i'm assuming we would go for the

1:53:57pre-disaster grants right that's our priority now actually we can we can go for both pots of money at this time because we are in a presidentially declared disaster area based on the state of california has the whole entire state had been declared our city itself doesn't need to have correct

1:54:24oh okay do we have any thing we're looking at that's prioritized right now that you can tell us um happy pursuing the soft story that's the only thing in the works right now okay can you can michael can you repeat that so that it's on the recording yes um at this point the letter of

1:54:54intent has been filed for to apply once this is adopted to apply for the for grant grant that'll allow i believe this is happening through the building department uh to go out and do a comprehensive study on um the remaining soft structure or soft story buildings

1:55:13that are still out there to identify those what's that to identify them and then once those are identified and they can get uh you know a number of them and then it'll allow for us to go out and apply for grants to assist um homeowners and or property owners and

1:55:33mitigating those problems not necessarily do it for them but you know be able to provide assistance so that we can get those corrected and get them updated okay and then my last couple here is just um there there's mentioned in in the body of the report a 13-member steering

1:55:52committee is that for el cerrito or for the county or that was for the county and that was 13 different municipalities or special districts well a member from from 13 of those were part formed the steering committee that kind of did all the the leg work to get this

1:56:11plan together and then there was the workshops that the rest of the communities came in and participated in the workshops and was that our fire marshal that was the participant in that from el cerrito yes oh oh you oh good thank you thank you for doing that um and then just a little more depth than

1:56:30what you said about the public involvement um because i didn't hear about it so i was wondering okay what we we uh more detail about the public involvement and we we worked with the the county uh public information officer as well as through our community outreach specialist

1:56:49and we did newspaper articles advertisements for meetings we sent out notices through twitter facebook different different social media platforms we had surveys that we sent out notices that people would take could take surveys and then as well as with there was uh

1:57:18public meetings that were held throughout the county so by your standards it was a good turnout of public involvement thank you it was better this time than we did uh the previous two thank you okay i just had i think one point i mean at this point one question and

1:57:35that er i just first of all thank you first of all i wanted to to remind us all that this is our emergency operations center right correct and so when it was built it was built to a higher standard as i remember what i'm wondering is is it still at the current standard

1:57:56we i i don't is it still built as a is a is it um critical facility standards right yes it's still it okay that's that's my question okay that's good to know because i i've seen this set up in in operational mode right mostly i think on a training demonstration purpose

1:58:20which is the way we want to see it because that means there's not an emergency correct that um anyway it's it's really pretty interesting if anyone ever gets a chance to look at it it's pretty exciting and as i understand it it's the reason for all of these outlets here on the dyess

1:58:39they don't really expect the council members to have that many pieces of electronics i think oh that's why they're there yeah that's why they're there and i assume these somehow these behind these walls somewhere there's also the equipment that's used or somewhere

1:58:58i'm not sure in that door where behind where are they right there okay um and uh so it's um uh what we should probably i'm wondering if we should as we build more buildings in our city which hopefully we will be doing in the very near future if we incorporate our um

1:59:24you know multi multiple purposes and try to fulfill those um so that when uh something does happen we're ready um and i'd like to thank you thank you okay uh any public comment no okay so we'll bring it back to the council any questions comments i just have one comment um

1:59:50that i'm really glad that we were able to increase our funding for our cert program here in the city and anyone at home please reach out to our fire department if you are interested in learning more about what you can do to prepare at home in the event of a disaster

2:00:12particularly a lot of preparation for earthquakes here in earthquake country and with that i can move the resolution i moved the resolution of the city council of the city of el cerrito authorizing the adoption of the contra costa county operational area hazard mitigation plan

2:00:32update volume 1 and the city of el cerrito's local annex in volume 2 chapter 6 and the appendices to volume 2. and i'll gladly second that looking forward to getting some of that 4 million dollars 400 million yes thank you so we have a motion by purdue okimoto second by lyman all in favor aye

2:00:56bush carries 5-0 thank you okay city council local and regional liaison assignments any updates no i i have an a sort of a non update um which is uh regarding wic tech um for the first time in in any history that anyone there can remember including me we did not have a quorum

2:01:25and um so the meeting uh could not be held so it's always important i think it's worth noting it's always important to attend one's assignment meetings and um it would i was there i know so our city was represented and but not all the other ones were so we didn't get any business done in case

2:01:50you saw the agenda that did not happen okay anything else um yeah i went to the arts and culture commission meeting and they came up with an interesting issue that um we all should pay attention to maybe on the new development happening in el cerrito where we have a real fund the

2:02:12one percent fund of money that goes into the creation of art along our thoroughfare there's a new development that the arts commission looked at that was they proposing to pay for through the arts fund and most of the commission members thought it was an architectural design

2:02:32as part of the building i think karen you were there and saw that and it's something that our commission had no oversight to have input into and they didn't view it as an art object in front of the building so it's something that i think we should think about and talk about and

2:02:52possibly you know developers it's great having that money but i think they may see it as money they can use for design to the building as opposed to real art objects so anyway thank you okay great no i have no meetings no reports okay good um so we're going to adjourn the regular city council

2:03:11meeting the next regular scheduled city council meeting is tuesday april 17 2018 at 7 pm good night you