Special City Council Meeting and Regular City Council Meeting April 17, 2018

0:00:41scott how are you i have a staff communication i'm gonna introduce we're going to convene our regular city council meeting a pledge of allegiance to the flag or observation or moment of silence council member abelson here councilmember lyman president councilmember fideli here mayor pro-tem

0:01:26pardue okamoto president and mayor quinto thank you please join me in a moment of silence moment of silence and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all council and staff communications i have okay go ahead okay i have a

0:02:05couple of uh reports uh relative to ab1234 um and is that number changed by the way no no it's still the same but it's probably it's been chaptered pardon it's been chaptered i don't know what the statute is statute number oh okay if i say ab1234 that's good okay thank

0:02:28you um so i attended the greening the golden state um uh conference and uh exposition and i've been up in sacramento several times when this went on and i always was curious about what went on at this event it's a um two-day event and um so so i attended this year and

0:02:55as usually happens at something like this i learned something new and um this time what i learned in fact i thought i had a sample is that how heating and cooling works and not being an engineer i found it really interesting and i thought i had a sample of it but i

0:03:18guess i somehow didn't bring it but what it what they said is that one of the temperature control mechanisms that you can now use is to get this material that was being shown at the summit and it was um what it basically did is it had a certain and the greg greg the

0:03:44engineer of the group may think this is trivial that i didn't know this but i found it really interesting that depending on what material you use it will either the heat or coolness will either go in or out of that material into the space and so um it's one of the

0:04:10ways they're using these days and i don't know how long they've been using it for because i'm not an expert in anything remotely resembling that kind of thing but um i found it really fascinating that just by changing so if you it's like if if you think of it like an ice cube if you put an ice

0:04:29cube in a in a room the ice cube what happens to the ice cube it becomes water but what the other thing that happens to it is that its temperature changes so the space around it is impacted by that change and it can go both ways both up you can raise the temperature and it can lower the

0:04:50temperature particularly depending upon what the material is that's used and it's a it's really a very simple principle if you think of it like an ice cube um but it's one that they're using uh you know to control the temperature rather than a lot of machinery that makes noises and costs a

0:05:12lot of money you just use this insulation really and it it helps to take care of your climate in the in the building so i found that utterly fascinating and they had a whole session on it and i that i attended and uh they had examples of the material which i thought i had brought with me

0:05:35but i guess i didn't and uh it's just little um it's kind of like those that bubble stuff you get to wrap packages only inside the bubble instead of being air it's some sort of a material that uh uh has a different um melting and um point than um water so um it was a very interesting

0:06:02principle and um it it may i mean i i thought that was the most fascinating thing that i learned at this conference and um the um and they also had something on cigarette butts and um so i brought home some materials on that and i thought just for fun i could give

0:06:26cheryl a copy of it and maybe it could be in the packet but the reason i particularly thought that one was interesting is because cigarette butts accumulate throughout the city and particularly if there's a particular problem with them accumulating near storm drains for

0:06:46example san pablo avenue when they accumulate that way then what happens is that the butts go into the storm drain and the storm drain leads to the bay ultimately and given that cigarette butts have really toxic ingredients in them it's a real problem for the bay so

0:07:11for earth day which we have on saturday and you can still participate it's not too late we're doing a project to remove cigarette butts from the gutters along san pablo avenue and it's it's maybe not the most fun project it certainly is work we do have implements to pick them up

0:07:34with you don't have to touch the cigarette butts but it really does make a difference and one of the things shown in this and i don't know that i can show it very well now i don't is there a way to so for people to actually see what's in this picture i doubt that

0:07:53there is but anyway uh it's amazing how many cigarette butts there are in places like the gutters along san pablo avenue and we're a city that has restrictions on smoking and i'm talking about cigarettes in particular so anyway that was a really um that was interesting

0:08:16and um this particular i'll just tell you what's in this picture that there's a stat huge stack of cigarette butts and it's what was collected from the san jose international airport in three months so if you can imagine that might have gone in the waterways you can see what the problem

0:08:36is so that was one thing that i did and then i also attended the policy sessions for the league of california cities that was thursday and friday of nick of last week and the first one i went to was on governance and the main item that we covered was sexual harassment

0:09:05and what's happened as a result of all the things that have been going on around sexual harassment in terms of people revealing that they in fact were the victim of it the legislators have come up with all these laws or proposed laws to do something to prevent it to counteract

0:09:28it and so what we did is go through all these bills and it's a little hard at this point to see what in fact will come of them but that was what we covered and we mean we made various recommendations on each of the many bills and um that's what that committee did

0:09:53and then the community services policy committee dealt with a number of items and the one i picked out to talk about slightly tonight was homelessness and there was a handout on that which i'd also be happy to share if it's quite a few pages but i think the topic is so important that i'll do it

0:10:19any i'll do it anyway and um the um there were two issues mentioned as being really significant issues in california right now and uh one of them is homelessness and um the other one is um see the other one is [Music] the increase in uh crime in in our state so there's been

0:10:54those two things uh go on and so trying to find solutions to those both those items uh is would um be is a really important thing to do right now on our overall agenda in terms of you know what's happening what should we concentrate on that kind of a thing so those are the um the

0:11:21key points i would bring away from that particular set of policy committees meetings and um then um i also this okay this one goes for later on so i'm done thank you thank you except to say if i might that saturday is earth day and if you're interested in participating you can

0:11:44either clean up cigarette butts and we do have implements to do it with or you can do one of our many other projects if you haven't had a chance to sign up you can just come on saturday morning to the community center at 9 00 a.m and get an assignment you can also

0:12:04go on to the city website and send in a form it's not too late too late to do that thank you thank you council member for delhi um yes i look forward to earth day janet um two years in a row i was a cigarette butt guy and i think my record was 1826 on one saturday so

0:12:28it's kind of hard getting those tweezers down there but uh it's worth it the whole um i think i did the whole parking lot at home depot so people were wondering what i was doing but it's a worth and there's good all-natural food at the community center that day also i was on the

0:12:45transportation commit policy committee in pomona for the league of uh california cities this last week too thank you greg um yeah i i will give a plug i don't know if dave's still here but i'll plug for the hillside festival put it on your calendar that's friday may 4th through sunday may 6th

0:13:05there are out in the lobby uh free brochures for you to pick up so you can look at all the different events that are going on in our hillside natural area so i don't know if i've stolen somebody's thunder but i wanted to at least put a plug in for that michelle

0:13:24i was very happy to attend the wednesday opening of the library with the extended hours i believe that most of us were there and i was there just for a short time in between my shift at the hospital and the meeting for the jpa for the gilman fields that i had to

0:13:45attend as well that day but it was great i was able to at least stop by and get some ice cream and um or was it custard custard it was frozen custard it was really good whatever it was and i'm so just thrilled that we have these extended library hours and i think

0:14:05it was a very successful event um and there were a lot of folks there and i suggest that you make a trip out to the library on a wednesday now because it is open thank you hey great um i also attended the uh library extended hours and i want to congratulate our two library

0:14:25commissioners uh we're here in the audience and uh thank you for all your work and it all paid off uh we had a fantastic crowd and uh uh and uh it was great to see uh mrs mcneil when i was growing up down the street there at the lot from the library uh she was our librarian

0:14:45back in the day so it was great to see her and i look forward to the extended hours of 15 hours additional hours so we'll be open seven days a week and uh and it'll be a lot of things that we'll be working on and i know i believe the the library group will be having a

0:15:09library clean up for earth day i believe that's the case and so know that we have a lot of things that uh we'll be participating in for earth day and uh so i attended that uh my colleagues uh greg wyman rochelle and paul fideli were there and and the next day on the fifth

0:15:35el cerrito was uh co-hosted the contra costa mayor's conference at the former mira vista country club now called the berkeley country club and we had to speak the deputy public defender uh ali saidi and he spoke on a group that is paid for by contra costa county

0:16:04and it's called the stand together contra costa and there's a phone number here and they spoke about a rapid response team of volunteers and non-profits that work together so if there is any type of arrest and they're put into detention uh a volunteer will from contra costa will help

0:16:31and one of the nonprofits will help and give information uh to uh family members as well and it's uh they're bilingual as well uh the uh catholic archdiocese of oakland is participating and many other uh nonprofits are are participating in this and i thank uh contra costa for our

0:16:52participating on this it's so again it's called stand together contra costa and i cannot pass that down later uh on the seventh uh i actually attended a a ceremony that i took my mother to and i wanted to share this with everyone it was for my dad's uh service in world

0:17:22war ii so it is a congressional gold medal um and uh it's in honor of my dad's service in world war ii and i just he was in the battle of new guinea he passed away in 2009 there were less than a dozen soldiers that were there many of them approaching late 90s and there was one or two there

0:17:47was uh over a hundred so there's not many lefts of uh in honor of our soldiers in world war ii including my dad uh this was presented by uh major general uh garrett yee from the u.s army so it was a an amazing event to see and to see so many of our seniors that didn't get the recognition

0:18:08that they deserved uh later yeah this is a uh very nice to see and uh uh and better late than never so uh so later that evening i attended the rosie the riveter dinner we had a fundraiser and that was an amazing event and i know uh council member fidelity was there as

0:18:36well and we had three former mayors that are on the board and we had some original rosies there was a rosie from el cerrito that still has her home on eureka street and i invited her here to city hall and she accepted so hopefully uh sometime this year she'll come and visit us here at el cerrito

0:18:59city hall we also had as the main speaker the former editor of sunset magazine who worked there for 40 years and and told us about her favorite moments and working for sunset magazine so i also attended the league of cities on the environmental committee and we worked on

0:19:28a few things that that we're working on here regionally and one is a lot of our recycling is not being accepted any longer in china you're looking at tons and tons of plastic that so we need to work on this now i'm hoping with cap and trade money we can find things that we can do here in california

0:19:58to recycle our own uh recycling waste instead of taking it to another country and have them worry about it cap and trade funds will be available so we we support the league of cities and supporting uh using cap and trade funds to uh for future recycling of goods that are

0:20:20not accepted in other countries now so today i i was joined by uh council member abelson at the el cerrito chamber of commerce luncheon and we had my classmate from fairmont school russell doy who i haven't seen in many many years and he spoke on his business on

0:20:45his new business here in el cerrito which deals with reverse mortgages and we had someone speak on alarm systems and it was bay alarm and it was a good event and i i see folks here in the audience that attended as well so let's go to mayor before you hi if i may i have a communication staff

0:21:11communication for the council thank you your honor i'm karen pingas i'm assistant city manager and maya would you please stand i wanted to introduce to the city council and to all of our residents in the audience and beyond maya williams who is our new assistant to the city manager she

0:21:28started last monday maya comes to us from the city of fremont and before that the city of oakland she has a masters of public administration from san francisco state her bachelor's is from uc santa cruz and she is a member of the icma emerging leaders development program and we are

0:21:46thrilled to have her here as assistant to the city manager and we know we're going to have great things for maya and so i know she's looking forward to getting to know all of you and the public and just want to welcome maya to the team thank you welcome mayor just a couple things uh as

0:22:10our meeting before this we did make two appointments i don't know if you wanted to announce those appointments um so as part of our interview process for to filling boards and commissions we did uh appoint tenzin rangdall to the financial advisory board and art machado

0:22:25to the park and rec commission in honor or in recognition of the number of people that are here i'm expecting them to speak on item 4 g i'd like to pull that item so that we can take their comments at as part of that item oral communications in the public we have 14 speakers and

0:22:54um let me just take a moment to separate out the 4g okay in the meantime all persons wishing to speak should sign up with the city clerk remarks are typically limited three three minutes per person the mayor may reduce the time limit per speaker depending on the number of speakers

0:23:14kindly state your name and city of residence for the record comments regarding non-agenda presentation and consent calendar items will be heard first comments related to items appearing on the public hearing or policy matter portions of the agenda are taken up at

0:23:29the time the city council deliberates each action item individuals wishing to comment on any closed session scheduled after the regular council meeting may do so during this public comment period and we have five speakers at this time for items not on the agenda cordell

0:23:46hindler followed by barry coops michael fisher good evening good evening uh mayor quinto uh thanks council i am cordell handler richmond so if you remember at the last meeting i had i made a statement that i have seen that el cerrito police has been coming into my area not only my area but other

0:24:08parts of richmond and i have no and the reason i say this because one of my neighbors brought this to my attention she said that that she has seen more of el cerrito police than we do richmond police and i'm like i agree with her so that's one statement number two is um

0:24:22what i just passed up on to the podium is a is a play called vanya and sonja and marsha and spike and it's a wonderful show uh i will go see it on may the 6th which is that's my nephew's birthday so you have to go see it it is a funny show uh that's number two and then number

0:24:39three is um i've also wanted to acknowledge miss williams that uh for her uh coming into the to being this assistant to the city manager is it's very helpful because we need someone who has who has a experience you know like working um with a with city manager in the past and

0:24:55i said this is perfect so so we as we go um as we move forward in the upcoming months miss williams will be more than happy to work with the not only with the city manager but with staff to figure out what kind of ideas that you want to bring to the table so here's an idea if

0:25:10you remember at the back of last year when we had uh the students from the high schools come to the um to you all about what it's like you know working in like in city government so that's one of my main ideas that i've always seen and and then the other idea i had was uh we

0:25:26need some more young energy on these boards and commissions because it is important because they because i mean you don't think that you don't hear what a young person has to say but but if you if you like listen to what they have to say chances are you'll see results

0:25:40like that if we had some more young people on these boards and commissions that can bring a whole lot of attention so i'm gonna give my time to the next person thank you barry coops good evening my name is barry copes i'm a resident of el cerrito and i am the library

0:26:01commission alternate last year the council voted unanimously to increase ours at el cerrito library from the county provided 35 hours to 50.

0:26:14the additional hours allow the library to be open every day instead of closed wednesday and sunday it took a while for the staff to arrange the additional hours but the increased hours began this month l miller will under the auspices of the foundation be commenting on this further

0:26:34and celebrating the major improvement in services that are possible with these additional hours we celebrated this with what we called first wednesday which many of you attended on april 4 from 4 to 6.

0:26:52and this is the first wednesday and who knows how many years that the library was open on wednesday in addition to the library foundation other sponsors of the en of the event included the city the county library system friends of of el cerrito library and we had business sponsorships from

0:27:13east bay sanitary service and from fat apples restaurant and bakery we want to thank mayor quinto mayor pro tem purdue okamoto and council members fidelity and lyman for attending we note that supervisor joya was present we thank him too for his support and we note that uh city

0:27:36staff provided support in arranging logistics for the event and arranging for the presence of the fire department truck which was especially interesting to the youngest patrons of the library and we were pleased that both scott hannon and karen pinkos were able to

0:27:54attend too on that first wednesday the numbers for that first week of expanded hours are in and the patronage in week one was four thousand two hundred and three people and that compares with an average of two thousand one hundred and four about double infect per week the last fiscal year

0:28:19on average that means that 600 people patronized the library every day and that compared with 310 per day on average in the previous fiscal year while perhaps 25 of this increase is the result of that first wednesday festivity that does mean that the remaining 75

0:28:41percent is due to the increased hours clearly your investment in additional hours for our library is a major benefit to el cerrito towns people and we thank you thank you commissioner good evening mayor and council members i'm michael fisher and i have the privilege to be your library

0:29:10commissioner as my colleague barry has already noted we're speaking jointly to stay in the three-minute limit we want to thank the county library staff and especially our brand staff for their efforts for the first wednesday celebration they not only allowed their

0:29:30normal daily activity to be upended but for weeks in advance publicize the event among the library's patrons and while we're on that subject of library staff i hope you'll all stop by the library in the near future we have a complete staff including those needed for increased

0:29:52hours for the first time since i've been commissioner and we have a more than complete staff for an unknown period as we're accommodating and utilizing some of the staff from the el sobrante branch which most of you know suffered a tragic fire and is temporarily closed

0:30:14the staff is energetic helpful resourceful and inventive and it demonstrates how important it is to have a great leader as we do with heidi goldstein our branch librarian the response to first wednesday and the increased hours show how much the community values our

0:30:37expanded availability and we urge the council to continue funding that program of course one of the things that was abundantly clear on wednesday was how crowded the library was as you can see from this photo and i will point out someone we all know right here in this photo which we'll give to you

0:31:03we have the crowded situation is borne out by statistics we're the second smallest library in the west county based on size for population the average size library in the county system again based on size for population is nearly one and a half times bigger than our library

0:31:27our library was the first library built in the county following world war ii at a time when the population of our city was only eleven thousand we're the full fourth oldest library of the 25 in the county system and all three older buildings have had extensive renovation

0:31:49and two of them i'll point out our historic buildings we know you all support a 21st century library for our city we hope all elsa readings do they certainly deserve no less and i'd like to also hand to the city clerk for you copies of the [Music] 2017 annual report of the county library

0:32:15system thank you thank you commissioner our next three speakers are al miller robin mitchell and howdy gowdy good evening mayor canto council members and staff they just made my speech a lot shorter but as the president of the illustrious library foundation we also wanted to acknowledge the

0:32:38support of the city council janet i'm sorry you had other obligations and weren't able to pen you missed one heck of a party i'm sorry too and uh scott and karen thank you all for being there one of the benefits of the expanded hours is that now the county employees

0:32:59who serve library staff are able to find a full 40-hour week at our library before that they would part their time at our library part of our time at another library so we now have a full staff children's library an adult librarian and a couple of other clerks and

0:33:22lower levels of the staff but we're fully employed at our library now so things will only get better and in closing so thank you all and i would ask that any budget actions that bring brought before you for approval we ask that you ensure that they include the hours to continue the dollars to

0:33:46continue the expanded hours of our library i also want to go against the council members lyman's uh motion to make it easier but i support your actions on intended actions on item 4g thank you hi everyone i'm robin mitchell i'm a resident of el cerrito and i was reminded once again this week

0:34:18about the affordable housing problem in el cerrito because a friend of mine who rents a little cottage in my neighborhood was informed by her landlord that she needs to move because he wants to renovate the building the house and she works at uc she's a few years

0:34:34from retirement and even though she's still working she doesn't think she'll be able to rent an el cerrito because it's too expensive when she's looking for a place now that she has to do that and she's also pretty certain that she won't be able to retire here for the

0:34:50same reason she'll have a slightly lower income and she won't be able to afford el cerrito so i just it just seems like every week i find you know someone that i know that's being affected by this issue and i know you all are working really hard on it but i do consider it to be sort of

0:35:06an emergency situation it's really a crisis and you know our whole city is going to change if a lot of these long-time residents are not able to stay living in el cerrito anyway thanks very much thank you good evening good evening mayor and council members my name is harry gowdy i

0:35:30live in el cerrito um so i just wanted to second the comments that were made about the library extended hours i really appreciate your investment in supporting the library and i think it's a very valuable and important thing to do and in line with that i thought i would announce that the

0:35:49environmental quality committee is going to be hosting a fix-it clinic at the library june 9th it's a saturday from 12 30 to 4 and you can there will be further announcements of that fourth coming but um it's just a fun event for um people to be empowered to actually learn and fix

0:36:09their own items so it's it's basically about encouraging a culture of repair and reuse so that we aren't throwing things away and um so that's a comment thanks thank you that's all i have for items not on the agenda thank you next is uh adoption of the consent calendar uh a approval of minutes b okay

0:36:35yes i was just wondering about 4g so shall we deal with 4g uh we can deal it yeah we can deal with the consent first okay okay so let's uh do the adoption first in the calendar a approval of minutes b construction contract award for centennial park phase one improvements c

0:36:56senate bill 1 the road repair and accountability act list of projects for fiscal year 2018 and 19.

0:37:04deoposition of tax fairness transparency and accountability act of 2018 e open government professional service agreement amendment f summer 2018 city council meeting schedule so moved second so i have a motion from uh pardo okimoto in a second from lyman all in favor all

0:37:29right so now we will uh go to g support of reinstatement of the freedom for immigrants advocates program sure i've got a couple questions for the council members that brought this forward i'm hoping that they can let me know some of these statements that are in

0:37:51here um apparently allegations appears i'm just curious what's the basis for some of these statements when in in reality we should be focused on the solution which as far as i can tell we're a city of immigrants we're a sanctuary city we want to get services for these people

0:38:11reinstated we should be focusing on the the affirmative statement and not spend a six whereases uh you know trying to figure out why we got to where we are so i'm just trying to figure out what's the what is the motivation for focusing on civic and then it's not until the last

0:38:31whereas there where we say the city of el cerrito is both the sanctuary city and the city of immigrants i mean we're el cerrito we should be potentially focusing on that and that should be one of the first uh whereas clauses so i'm just curious if the two motion makers

0:38:44could would speak to this item you know i have no pride of authorship in how this is drafted i just want to get the action done and the word out that civic and the folks in the facility need to be have a response of people from the outside to see that things are

0:39:04going okay in there there's been a lot of public information and articles there's going to be an attorney attorney general review of the situation at the facility recent news articles within the last week about concerns that's disheartening there was some discussion about sending a letter

0:39:27at our previous city council meeting some of us thought this a city resolution would be the best uh way to send that message in our county there has been a name change from civic to the new name that they go by freedom for immigrants and i agree we need to look forward and

0:39:48looking forward to me is making sure that there are people in that facility that are well served and protected i certainly agree with that um i did not have a chance to research our letter uh from a year ago to the county uh board of supervisors uh that that letter requested that the contract

0:40:09between the the sheriff and ice be terminated is that correct i don't i yeah i don't know if we have an opportunity i mean that to me is the ultimate solution would be for this facility not to be an ice contract and so for me this should be much more about a statement

0:40:28about um you know what we want what we our vision is which is to get and freedom for immigrants back in there so they can provide the services they need that the detainees need but ultimately we should be calling in this resolution for the end of that agreement between

0:40:45the sheriff and ice so to me that this is focused too much on the past and not necessarily on the vision and so i don't know if you're you're amenable to to some friendly amendments to this i'd love to see the language i know that our supervisor is for the similar thing that you've just

0:41:01discussed i know that this was narrow enough on discussion enough uh has been out there in our community that this was something similar to what richmond just did that we could follow along quickly and get the message out quickly to um the county i mean if not having the the letter that

0:41:20we wrote last year available for us to cite potentially there we could we can build off of this um it to me this is this is much more about um the freedom of immigrants uh formerly civic and and their what happened to them and not necessarily about what we want um and so

0:41:41to me this is this is it dilutes the impact to have all of that other information in there and i would just uh you know it would love to have this be much more simple if the if you guys are amenable to that there are 11 whereases if you number them um my goal would be to start with the 11th

0:42:01one followed by the 10th one and then come back up to the top of the document and use the the first two warehouses and move straight to a now therefore be it resolved uh based on some public comment we'll hear tonight i'm more than willing to strike the last words in our resolve clause so that uh

0:42:19you know it that starts with so long as program persons follow the facility policies that's implied um you know so that it's a very simple clear statement of what we want to see happen if it would be for whereases and the resolved clause that we have could you do me a favor and tell me

0:42:39again sure because i just now had time to number much less follow eleven which is whereas the city of el cerrito is both a sanctuary city and a city of immigrants followed by number ten whereas detainees do have rights under our constitution followed by number one

0:42:56whereas freedom for immigrants has operated a visitation program and free hotline at the jail since 2011 and whereas number two whereas freedom for immigrants volunteers play an important role in supporting people in ice detention and their facility families now therefore be it resolved by the city

0:43:14council of the city of el cerrito that it hereby requests the reinstatement of freedom for immigrants advocates program at the west contra costa county detention facility and jail to provide access to the community visitation program for detained undocumented immigrants and the program hotline

0:43:33that's it that's the whole thing i prac i read the whole thing okay what is it that you want to do with it what do you want to do with those that's that's it that's my i'm i guess i'm making an alternate motion to the one that was presented to us that is those four warehouse clauses and the revised

0:43:50resolution where you drop last thing to cut out all the other warehouses they don't they muddle the issue the issue we want is to get services back in there let's focus on that okay we have some public comment yes mary we have 10 speakers thank you the first three

0:44:12are sherry drobner followed by judith tannenbaum and ronnie polonski hi good evening i'm sheri grover i live in el cerrito and thank you councilmember lymon i think that was a really good alternative proposal because i came here tonight saying although i was pleased that the

0:44:34council member fidelity and mayor pro tem okoper dubai was willing to put forward a resolution it seemed so weakened and illogical by some of the language at the end that seemed to have some kind of moral equivalency between what the sheriff did and the volunteers

0:44:54and i could understand that um and it was really a different resolution than what the city of richmond put forward so i felt like there was an intention but somehow it became a little bit ambiguous and i think that the alternative that i just heard is a really clear statement

0:45:12um because it's true we don't want to look backwards however we do understand i mean the sheriff is seriously out of control not in terms of just not in terms of what's happening to the immigrants there but as we see recently at the facility with the allegations

0:45:30where he covered up um certain allegations and and his investigation reported there was just consensual sex with the deputy and two inmates and then it turned out there was evidence no this was actually rape so you know what is going on with the sheriff and so he has his own truth and

0:45:49he has a truth about the civic volunteers but i don't believe that is the truth and i don't think there should be anything in the resolution that somehow validates that is truth at all so i really wanted to say that and i really do support this alternative and and we do need

0:46:06civic there until they do end the contract because the immigrants who are there are so isolated and this is their only way of getting that support so thank you thank you good evening good evening the mayor council staff i'm judith channelbaum and i live in el cerrito and

0:46:27i'm glad you're doing this and i'm also like the specificity of um um councilman lyman's um wording um [Music] and that's fine so kind of however you do it in some way is fine with me i like the specificity of that but to me it's also very important at least as a community

0:46:50that we understand that this is only one horrible thing that's happening currently at the jails and with our sheriff i mean as as sherry just said there were the the rapes there were multiple rapes and the sheriff's kind of calling that um consensual sexual activity

0:47:12there's um um though that um abuses themselves to the um to the detainees that even le that led to civics um ouster because they became public so that vindictive action on the part of the sheriff there's um as the east bay times reported there's livingston's donation to paul graves d.a

0:47:34campaign on the very day that the rape um allegations became public now that donation is legal but the timing is really suspect there's um in a way one of the worst things now the department uh publishing the release dates of um the people inside causing enormous

0:47:55fear to the population that's the most vulnerable so it makes sense to me to just focus the resolution you're writing in on this one specific but it also seems necessary that we understand it's part of a whole larger thing thank you thank you ronnie polanski followed by nicholas

0:48:15galoro and janna newman good evening hi i'm ronnie polonski and i live in el cerrito and i thought that i i'm always in favor of making things more concise and direct so i think that's a great idea um and i just wanted to say that i support sending a strongly worded letter to

0:48:32sheriff livingston in support of allowing civic volunteers to return to the west county detention center the civic volunteers are doing great work helping the helpless the voiceless and the unseen to navigate as prisoners in a strange country which has so little

0:48:45regard for their situation instead of barring a few volunteers willing to come to the aid of these immigrants we should be encouraging more citizens to come to the aid of these hapless victims of our contradictory laws the sheriff has abused his authority and behaved in a

0:48:58vengeful cruel and unwarranted manner and i'm proud of the city council for considering this resolution i think that's great my name is nicholas and i live in el cerrito um yeah just before i came to the meeting i've read the resolution and it did seem confusing

0:49:22some of the parts of it and so um i agree with uh council member lyman that uh what i think his those those items that he chose are the ones that really matter um preventing the resolution for a vote uh support of the reinstatement of the freedom for immigrants advocates program

0:49:41i lodge your willingness to defend the organization and the work their volunteers do to help immigrants in detention i feel strongly that the actions the contra costa sheriff that do not allow freedom for immigrants volunteers to help detained immigrants are unfeeling

0:49:56unethical and retaliatory immigrants come to this country for many reasons to escape poverty for greater freedom and as refugees from civil war my parents were both immigrants they came to united states penniless with but with a willingness to work immigrants in detention are here for

0:50:15similar reasons they need the help of people like those who volunteer for the freedom for immigrants and uh and help of all of us thank you thank you janet newman followed by richard bell and helen dickey good evening hi my name is janet newman i'm a resident of albany

0:50:37and i'm a volunteer with civic go now freedom for immigrants so i want to thank the council for your resolution the new version is much preferred and much stronger and i think would be more effective i wanted to emphasize that there's a real time issue here we're we've already been

0:50:55unable to visit now for well over a month during that time we've heard that there's been dozens of immigrants sent up from the border many of them young women 18 19 years old they come up here they don't even know where they are they're not often told they just

0:51:13moved around arbitrarily without civic and other and other groups being able to talk to them they get very little help we have we do have a phone line that we're still monitoring but it's of limited limited use for many of them often there is language problems i heard of one woman from haiti who only

0:51:30spoke creole had nobody who she could talk to when she was suicidal because she was so isolated so i feel like it's really becoming an urgent matter that we should try to get back into jail we have potentially a meeting with the sheriff in our organization sometime in the next

0:51:48month he keeps changing the date we don't know what he's going to agree to what what conditions he's going to put on us being allowed back in we're quite clear that one condition we won't accept is not being able to ask people how they're doing and what how they're being treated so

0:52:06i'm monitoring so as well as helping people with individual needs that they have we also are constantly monitoring conditions and asking people and asking the men and the women how they're being treated are they getting medical care are they getting other items that they need do they have access

0:52:25to the commissary do they have access to anything even phone calls at times are restricted from them so um i thank you for your resolution and i want to just emphasize the urgency so that we can get back in there and do our work thank you thank you richard bell followed by helen dickey

0:52:47and suzanne stoddard good evening mayor council staff um there isn't much to add to what people are saying um i'm fully in support of the resolution being more concise a little clearer um i don't think anybody is opposed to freedom for immigrants being back in the

0:53:10jail um the one thing i would request is that the resolution be actually sent to the sheriff i don't know the process for the for the city but that the resolution be sent so it's not just it doesn't just go on the record but he actually has it and i also have i believe some other people have two

0:53:29some petitions some neighbors we went to neighbors and had people other residents of el cerrito sign and i forgot to say my name i'm richard bell and i live in el cerrito thank you thank you helen dickey good evening i'm helen dickey resident of el cerrito i had a speech all prepared but you have

0:54:01preempted it best bettered it um i really appreciate what you've done and i all i need to say now is i second it thank you suzanne stoddard is followed by michael fisher and howdy gowdy i won't talk long because i have a really bad cold i'm suzanne stoddard and i'm at [address removed]

0:54:32lexington avenue in el cerrito i appreciate too very much that you're really reconsidering um reinstating the um freedom for immigrant advocates uh project i attended one of the sunday gatherings um when the program was still in effect and it was just one of the most

0:54:56heartfelt things it was it was around valentine's day there were a lot of children and there were families of detainees and volunteers and people from the kahila synagogue and musicians and we were making valentine cards and you know i it just made me feel like i was doing

0:55:14something you know i can't tell you how many times since the current administration in washington has been there that i've just cried on getting up in the morning and he heard the news this program was just supportive we heard that the people inside could actually hear us and hear

0:55:30the music and they were going to receive the valentines and it was just it was so warm and it just made me feel like this is one little step i can take for peace in this crazy world and i i know other people felt the same way um you know i've stopped a lot of the

0:55:48political work that i used to do and i just want to concentrate on things that make me feel good that that i'm i mean that i'm helping somebody in spirit if not by changing a policy i've already talked longer than i intended but please do support the reinstatement sheriff

0:56:03livingston i agree with all the people that said he's a really terrible human being and let's get him to selected next time too thank you michael fisher followed by howdy gowdy you may earn members of the council my name's michael fisher and i'm speaking now in my personal capacity

0:56:29as a proud resident of el cerrito i love what my city stands for it's diverse and inclusive and it welcomes and protects all who live here as such i strongly support this item the resolution says quote or i i think it did before this may have been one of the ones removed

0:56:51the action by the sheriff appears to be in retaliation i would say there is no appears at all this is clear retaliation by a sheriff who has shown himself in the past to be a vindictive bully i don't need to remind the council and many of the people in this chamber

0:57:13exactly what happened last year when this city opposed the expansion of the west county jail facility i remain upset to this day that the county civil grand jury has not investigated that action i would request as i think council member lyman suggested that the

0:57:34final phrase from the resolution beginning with the words as long as or so long as be deleted they give unmerited credence to the sheriff's allegations and provide an incentive frankly for him to manufacture evidence finally i would like to suggest that the resolution contain a clause that states

0:58:00that we are requesting no new conditions to reinstatement of the program thank you thank you good evening mayor quinto and council members my name is howdy gaudi i live in el cerrito um so i appreciate council bringing this resolution i appreciate you pulling it and having a more

0:58:26uh thorough discussion of it and i very much appreciate the improved clarity of language that was suggested so i am basically just reiterating all the comments before me i agree with them and i think it's important that you also include with your resolution some intent about communication because

0:58:49it's it's not sort of sufficient to just have a resolution you have to actually do something with it and um and so i encourage you to do that thank you thank you have no other speakers on this item okay mayor the last two speakers did uh recommend some improvements of which um

0:59:12one i had already done i had already drafted a a be it further resolved the city manager is authorized to send this resolution to the sheriff board of supervisors and county administrator immediately um so i that that was one that i had already written before before the last the second last speaker

0:59:31got up sorry i'm glad we michael that we think alike um or sorry howdy that we think of like uh with michael's i would like to insert uh with no new conditions uh into the first resolved clause and since we've so heavily edited this if if it would please the council i

0:59:54would like to read this this motion in its entirety sure go ahead um i move a resolution of this council of the city of el cerrito california in support of the reinstatement of the freedom for immigrants formerly known as civic advocates program at the west contra costa jail

1:00:11to visit detained undocumented immigrants whereas the city of el cerrito is both a sanctuary city and city of immigrants whereas detainees do have rights under our constitution and whereas freedom for immigrants has operated a visitation program and free hotline at the jail since 2011 and

1:00:33whereas freedom for immigrants volunteers play an important role in supporting people in ice detention and their families now therefore be it resolved by the city council of the city of el cerrito that it hereby requests the reinstatement with no new conditions

1:00:51of the freedom for immigrants advocates program at the west contra costa county detention facility and jail to provide access to the community visitation program for detained undocumented immigrants and the program hotline hey further comments let me just finish

1:01:09it be it further resolved the city manager is authorized to send this resolution to the sheriff board of supervisors and county administrator immediately and that ends the motion okay question no i have additional comments so when council member lyman first pulled

1:01:28it um i was a little unclear because he had made so many amendments um exactly where he was going with it but i actually appreciate strengthening the language my original intent in agreeing to sign on to helping out on this issue that i believe that a civic or now called freedom for

1:01:57immigrants should be allowed into the into the jail and it is also my long-standing belief that we should not be detaining ice detainees as we had stated before here on the diocese and i also believe that we are in a very dangerous situation within our country today in which in the

1:02:24way in which we are treating our immigrants i see this very personal to me and my family as my father-in-law was interned as a japanese-american and i think we really need to be careful at this time in our history that we do not repeat the same mistakes of the past

1:02:48so i do appreciate council member lyman's amendments i was just making sure that he was strengthening and not weakening what we were here as our original intent with that being said i fully support the amendments that were made and i'm glad that you also strengthened

1:03:11the the destination to which the resolute the resolution will arrive because uh as mentioned it is not good enough just to say something but we make sure we're saying it to the right people and with that i also thank the folks in our town that have given so much of themselves on this issue

1:03:36i believe that you are all doing the right thing and my heart is with you and with these immigrants and for always standing up for those who do not have a voice thank you yes um i'm very glad this resolution is before us tonight and i too am glad that uh councilman

1:04:02lyman strengthened this amendment made it more concise i think it's a better resolution now sometimes than the folks that in the audience that helped and brought these issues to our council there are a lot of folks that pull a resolution together and that's what the original

1:04:21intent was is to send an important message the way the amendments change this however takes out the body of pointing to the reason that we are here today and that's about the sheriff that's the history of why we're concerned that will not be in the resolution however we know the reason we know the

1:04:46reason that this resolution is going forward and i hope he and they will too so my major concern is that when we see injustice we call it out no matter who may stand in the way or how we may be impacted by it and that's what's important here tonight that's what's really important so i want

1:05:05to thank all of us for talking thank the folks from our community it's so important uh that we let our voice be heard and when the time comes i'd like to move this resolution thank you janet would you like to comment the only comment i would like to make is somebody

1:05:24said they couldn't remember what the other one said um i remember what the other one said because and i can more or less repeat it it said i should be ashamed of myself self i was the mayor at the time and i got a letter in response um stating that i should be ashamed of

1:05:45myself a kind of word is a badge of honor to be quite honest because i didn't feel ashamed of myself at all but i do want people to understand what that there could be retaliation for this there was huge retaliation last time uh we lost was how much was it scott per

1:06:10year on 350 000 a year so um there is a big price to pay for this [Music] and i hope that people understand that um and um i i also feel like we are very alone um that we don't you know have all the the troops from everywhere coming out to support us on this one

1:06:46um as we didn't i believe on the last one either did we i don't think so um so um there is there are at least there can be a huge price to pay and i just wanted to add that to the mix i remember what was said last time and it was not pleasant anyway so i've made a motion is there a

1:07:18seconder if the motion was made i'd like to second this okay we have a motion by lyman second by fidelity all in favor motion passes five zero okay item six is a purchase and sale agreement with uh mardula and conti patel for 1718 shore boulevard so this is a public hearing to consider

1:07:58approval of a resolution authorizing execution of a purchase and sale agreement with conti patel and radula patel for the dis disposition of 1718 eastern boulevard for the purpose of hotel development we have a staff presentation melanie mintz good evening [Music]

1:08:28i don't have the council's monitors turned on because i was told there wasn't good evening mayor city council um again i am melanie mintz and i'm the city's community development director i'm pleased to be here tonight to request that council authorize execution

1:08:58of a purchase and sale agreement with conti and rogela patel for the disposition or acquisition of the approximately half acre property at 1711 east shore this is the odd shaped parcel on the screen t-shaped parcel outlined in red the former redevelopment agency acquired

1:09:18the property in 1990 along with a couple other small parcels near petrero with the goal of assembling other parcels in what is now known as the east shore triangle to attract and facilitate a larger scale development over the years as you can see and what from what i

1:09:34understand it was difficult to acquire the other parcels to assemble a larger site on this triangle the proposed buyers the patels have developed owned and operated the mira vista hotel at the corner of potrero and east shore boulevard you can see that outlined in blue

1:09:49on the on the diagram they've operated this hotel since 1987.

1:09:54in 2014 the patel's also acquired the property adjacent to their hotel property which you can see outlined in green with a goal of assembling that property with ours to build a second business class hotel as you can see the combined properties uh would create an extent of frontage

1:10:09along east shore boulevard in january 2017 council authorized the city to enter into an exclusive negotiating rights agreement commonly known as an enra with the patels for them to do due diligence on the property and for the two parties to conduct an appraisal and

1:10:26negotiate the terms of the purchase and sale agreement before you tonight the proposed agreement provides one year from the effective date for the proposed buyer to purchase the property during this year the proposed buyers will have 120 days from the effective

1:10:38date to conduct further physical inspections including a phase two environmental study that was indicated as necessary in the phase one that they did just recently conduct the proposed purchase and sale then also provides them the remainder of the year to complete or waive further feasibility

1:10:54studies including financial feasibility entitlement feasibility etc according to the patels who are here tonight they feel that after the 120 days they'll likely be ready to move forward but we did want to create that that ability to continue within that year so we didn't have to

1:11:12come back again by entering into the agreement the city is not compelled to approve entitlements including square approval the entitlem the entitlement process is under the city's regulatory capacity and as a separate process completely from the one proposed tonight to actually sell the

1:11:27property that entitlement would be governed by the specific plan and our zoning ordinance of note however and related to that is that in the city's currently active programmatic er for the specific plan area we are nearing capacity for residential units as you've all heard

1:11:44but we do actually have sufficient capacity for upwards of 200 000 square feet of new commercial with under which the um proposed hotel would actually be evaluated in a somewhat tangential note to that we are looking towards and in line to get a grant from mtc to update our

1:11:59programmatic eir and engage the the community in a dialogue about capacity on the avenue it is staff's opinion that development of a hotel would bring both an amenity and a long-term revenue to the city not just in the form of increased property value but in ongoing transient occupancy

1:12:16tax revenues which would be at 12 of the hotel's annual revenues depending on the size of the hotel which is currently estimated to be approximately 100 rooms and the occupancy occupancy rate this could represent approximately a half a million dollars a year in just the tot

1:12:30revenues um it's also seth's opinion that this um that having a hotel in this area would really help build out our vision for uptown or maybe two new hotels as some of you know there's another site being looked at as well finally as a reminder this property's disposition is governed by the

1:12:49dissolution statutes all proceeds from the sale of this property would be divided amongst the 22 taxing entities subject to an adoption of the compensation agreement which is still underway but getting closer the city share from the sale of the property is about 22 percent again

1:13:04that's just one time revenue as opposed to property tax and tot with this um staff is pleased to recommend that council authorize entering into the purchase and sale agreement to allow the patels to take their next steps towards purchasing the property and building a hotel

1:13:18if at the end of the year the patels have not purchased the property the psa would expire and staff would bring to council potential next steps if they do purchase the property it would be their responsibility to go forward and finance and build the hotel if they do not build

1:13:33the hotel and instead want to resell the property section 6c in the proposed agreement provides that the city would receive 50 of the net proceeds um again the patels are here tonight as is karen tiedemann counsel for the successor agency who oversees the and uh for former

1:13:51redevelopment agency kind of affairs which this one falls into that is my presentation short and sweet tonight and i'm here as well as they are for any questions okay thank you yeah i have one technical question uh exhibit a legal description of the property was

1:14:09incomplete or inaccurate i did not see a revised version at our dios tonight uh that was just for demonstration in the but we could um i've asked uh gold farming let me revise the property description when we enter into the purchase and sale so it's authorized the

1:14:26fact that it's the the fact that the um description is not accurate tonight is not an issue i believe if anybody wants to know the five parcels are listed in exhibit b so the title report does have all five parcels and the apn that's right yeah so a page uh was

1:14:41omitted from the from the packet or or more it's not clear okay thank you okay questions michelle questions okay all fidelity janet no okay uh so we're going to open the uh public hearing public testimony we have one speaker james ivy good evening mayor council um my name is

1:15:14james irie i'm a resident of albany i'm here with my wife jane lee also albany and her sister nancy of el cerrito so we're not entirely foreigners we recently purchased the property at 11 453 pablo um not sure exactly which parcel that is on that map yep yep um our plan is to well currently it

1:15:42has two single-family structures on it our plan is to tear them down and build a higher density structure ideally a mix of commercial and residential to bring both living space and some more jobs to the area but one of our concerns is being on san pablo is we need to make sure we have

1:16:00adequate traffic flow and when we look at this space and this t-shaped property it strikes us that if we could open access to east shore that that would immensely help traffic flow we did not know this property was available or being considered for sale um or we would

1:16:21have certainly entered into um into bid for it um so what we'd like to ask is that you either consider delaying the sale or if for some reason that's not possibility to figure out some way that the three parties can come up away with perhaps a shared driveway they

1:16:38could serve both properties equally or some create a solution that would help create better traffic flow thank you thank you said it yes okay so uh motion to close the public hearing do you have a motion so moved okay okay uh so discussion do we need to call that motion first

1:17:07okay um mission club uh so that is uh uh motioned by greg lyman second by rochelle pardue all in favor all right okay that's unanimous okay so let's go to discussion uh certainly that last the speaker the sole speaker on this matter aligns with one set of questions that i

1:17:30asked staff which was having looked at an aerial photograph that the two single family homes that are probably on on lots zero six and zero seven immediately to the north you know you see them and you you ask about you know aligning the the san pablo avenue frontage

1:17:48if i recall the patels and maybe they'll come up and speak to this the tells we're going to make the area that's in red that touches san pablo avenue as part of their circulation and parking uh structure so it's it it may be that it's feasible for these two private parties to work out an

1:18:09arrangement that would uh satisfy mr irie's uh request so i i i don't know if you've had a chance to meet the patels they're in the audience um but i'm not certain that uh that it that this sale precludes the ability for those two private property owners to come to some uh conclusion so

1:18:33i'm i'm i appreciate the the testimony tonight and i would encourage you to meet the patels they're in the back row and potentially work with them so and i don't have any other comments or questions okay yes i'm sorry it looks like we have one additional speaker and i understand that

1:18:56you've closed the public hearing so you know we did close the public hearing already so uh um it was our heir that was your era okay please if you'd like to reopen the public hearing i just suggest you go ahead and do that yeah we're going to open the public hearing again

1:19:17my name is casey wen i'm the agent for the uh for the owner of the uh property next to that uh that t uh bar there and then we we just acquired this uh property pretty recent and um we are aware you know the there is a affordable ability of housing affordable uh crisis and then

1:19:44today when i went to um county recording office and i find my recording fee suddenly jumped three times then before then i asked why it's so high they said oh because we have this special fund that contribute to uh housing affordability and then when they when my client purchased this property

1:20:08they have that in mind and then they want high density work uh living space there so i think they probably have better better plan for the use of the land and also that strip there is really um have more it's more adjacent to our property and it's a really if patel's

1:20:34acquire that it's really first thing it uh it blocks the traffic the other thing is that that that protruded part is really odd shape i don't know how it will really affect our development so i just you know asked the council can delay this uh this purchase that we can put in

1:20:57a bit and we you know now you know the market is very high for the uh um for the properties and then we really want to contribute to this uh you know this purchase and if we give us a chance to bid or to you know to express our intention um thank you much do i hear a motion to close the public

1:21:26hearing so moved second okay i hear a motion by lyme and second by janet davison all in favor all right okay any more discussion um well yes one there are a couple of things one um i appreciate the comments from the new property owners and welcome to el cerrito

1:21:53we appreciate you coming in and building but we do have a lot of our at least pending a lot of housing in the works and we don't have so much in terms of hotels and things that will generate income for the city coming along so that's just one of the things that

1:22:17i think of when i look at the the two possible properties in this area um so i will that's all the comments i have i'm not sure if the other council members have anything to say about it okay paul janet um so these are our comments on the comments on this item so i i actually kind of have another

1:22:46question and it's of the city attorney so do you do you have any comments about what's just happened with um and the city council is not compelled to approve the purchase and sale agreement um or the the the person sale agreement that's before you tonight but it is the

1:23:11product of a significant amount of work um there's been a long-term discussion um the um as ms mentioned the city council approved an exclusive negotiating rights agreement with the patel some time ago in public it's been so there has been a significant amount of public notice that

1:23:28the city has been contemplating um this exact sale and the patel's have put in a tremendous amount of work preliminary and in looking at the site for this project ultimately the city council does not have to approve the agreement but it does represent the the items in front of you tonight

1:23:47represents a fair amount of work on behalf of the city staff and the patels regarding this deal i actually kind of had a different question thought or what question in my mind which was do we have any obligation to consider uh the information that just came before

1:24:06us in terms of the last minute nature of there's there's no there's nothing that was there that was presented during um the public hearing that would uh preclude the city council from going forward either so just as you don't have to that's not my question my question is

1:24:25are we under any obligation to consider this sorry i'm just stating this as no but i'm just stating a different way there's nothing that was said during the public hearing that would prevent you from moving forward with the recommendation oh okay okay thank you

1:24:42i have a question go ahead ball fidelity yes i i mean i as as our council mentioned this has been known for a long time and the last minute nature of this puts a burden on us a little bit for fairness and on both sides but um i don't think even if this goes forward

1:25:03anything precludes you from dealing with them in the future on access and is that correct that's correct no i mean the sale goes through the patellas we'll have yeah patel you'll be able to deal with them as far as openness or access um and i i'm not quite sure what

1:25:22the new folks coming to town are offering or what they've done previously so i'm i'm more inclined to move with what we have before us so okay yes i was going to say and the issue is a little bit more complicated than that though because various transportation agencies

1:25:46may or may not want the extra driveways that i think this is talking about i'm not clear about driveways we're not we're not talking about that i know we're not but i but that that's an issue too you can't just put a driveway wherever you want um san pablo avenue is a state highway

1:26:05for example and um it isn't quite so simple as two parties deciding where they want it you know the transportation whoever is the country i don't know who it is on um east shore boulevard but but it's not quite so simple as it's being presented i don't know what the answer is at the

1:26:24same time yeah i've got a question potentially for miss tiedman um clause 6c um which is the additional consideration for the conveyance of the property from the patel's does that does that does that deal with any partial transfers or transfers of the type of rights that are like a

1:26:53right-of-way or easement that might be worked out between these two parties as the language is currently drafted no when we drafted this language and you may recognize that it's similar to what we put in the mayfair dda what we were trying to protect against is the purchaser holding the property

1:27:15for land speculation which is not allowed under the redevelopment rules correct and then flipping it so trying to capture some of that i mean we certainly could modify this slightly to make it a the property irony portion thereof and we can talk with the patels

1:27:31about that kind of modification and and it and it would it be feasible i mean i don't i don't know the laws by which you um based this clause on if we were to um make it feasible for a transaction between the two parties by changing this clause in some fashion is

1:27:53it to encourage them to cooperate so that we have the type of smart development we want in the triangle as opposed to piecemeal is there would you is there a is there some art of language you potentially would use here that would allow for the patels to have basically to encourage them to have a

1:28:15um right of way or or used an easement an easement uh right to the adjacent property owners is there does that make sense is there any merit to that because then we get smart development here as opposed to piecemeal development i'm trying to try to encourage a holistic solution in this block the

1:28:37triangle right well i think one thing we could do and once again i mean this is a negotiated agreement so we'd have to discuss it with the patels but we could consider adding an additional provision to the agreement that basically says they will cooperate with adjacent property owners with

1:28:54regard to easements and access and egress in a reasonable fashion i mean they want to put a hotel there and they're going to have to you know it still is an odd shaped parcel no matter what you do so siting the hotel is a little tricky anyway so you know it has to work with their

1:29:12plan but we could certainly put that in and the resolution does give the city manager authority to make changes to the agreement uh subject to the city attorney's approval certainly and where i was going with my line of reasoning is potentially um you know allowing

1:29:32the 50 percent if they do or were to sell it to the neighbors if one of these rights are part thereof to the neighbors potentially that that uh cap on their profits potentially is something we could waive to encourage that participation yes okay so that that that would certainly

1:29:52that's the direction of the council we can work up some language yeah i'm just floating that out for i mean it it it is in our best interest to have amenable neighbors building and uh uh complementary projects next to each other so i would be inclined to cover us to definitely include the or

1:30:12any part thereof um in there but i also would potentially whether it's a new clause or within that clause i i would love to see some encouragement um whether it's a financial encouragement or just encouragement by words i would love to have some sort of encouragement that would

1:30:32lend for cooperation between these these adjacent property owners so we can have the type of cohesive and um comprehensive development in this area uh with with all these uses so that i would just certainly for sure into this paragraph put in the or part thereof in case they do sell a

1:30:55portion or or give away an easement right we should certainly benefit from that that protect against that but i was certain that that's a that's a to me that's a requirement but the the second one i would love to have discussion again my goal is to make sure that we have a

1:31:13holistic comprehensive development and we have cooperative and i see the city manager has words yes yes um if we could step back i certainly agree with the sentiment that the patels and these folks can talk just like any private property owners in the city but i feel compelled to reiterate what has

1:31:38been said that the council directed us to enter into an agreement to bring you back a project which we've done the whether it's this property the mayfair site any site the city has owned we are required to dispose of it that we have no say over that anymore as you

1:31:57know with dissolution of redevelopment so again i as we've done on number of occasions here we've encouraged private parties to talk but i would say that as we all know and we've had nothing but positive compliments from developers is we have the san pablo avenue specific plan in

1:32:14place which will help guide and i would defer to melanie on this and direct the development on the avenue and the triangle for those of you who go back we wait the redevelopment agency tried to acquire all of these parcels and couldn't get it done and while not piecemealing it is great

1:32:35karen when did what year did you would you guess you first worked on not piecemealing this triangle so my point is my 92. so here we are and so while we could always hold out for perfect i hate to get it in the way of very good and i think both parties are going to have to go

1:32:59through the entitlement process both parties are going to have to go through a design review both parties have to go through the planning commission there's plenty of opportunities to sort of get this right and so what i'm hearing if we go forward out of fairness to the patels is that we would

1:33:14have to go back and sit down with them again and we're talking about is the price still valid i'm not sure as a city why we would want to settle for less as part of this deal because we already are losing most of our money because of redevelopment to all the 22 taxing

1:33:30agencies so i'm just putting out there again i'm not it's not that i'm so championing the project although i think the project is something that's missing in el cerrito something that could really benefit el cerrito that could as council member purdue akamoto mentioned

1:33:45we have housing applications in across the street caddy corner across the street down the block likely del norte bart at some point so there's a lot going on there and mixing that up a little we felt is attractive and that's reflected and the purchase price and the staff's recommendations so

1:34:05again i'm not trying to preclude or suggest that the parties don't talk they clearly could and should but i'm i'm i'm hearing i'm getting a little hesitant about sort of renegotiating the deal on the diocese and why we would do that here you know what than any parcel we would do that so

1:34:26that's sort of my two cents so obviously you can direct us and we will do whatever you like i'm ready to move the resolution forward i move the resolution of the city council of the city of el cerrito authorizing execution of a purchase and sale agreement with kanti patel and

1:34:48radula patel for the disposition of 1718 east shore boulevard for the purpose of hotel development second okay i have a motion by pardo okimoto second by abelson all in favor that's five zero unanimous motion carries so next is masterpiece schedule revision for fiscal year 2018 and 19.

1:35:27so this is a public hearing to consider approval of a resolution approving the physical fiscal year 2018-19 master fee schedule we have a staff presentation shannon collins county supervisor welcome good evening mayor quinto council members my name is shannon collins and

1:35:45i'm the accounting supervisor with the finance department with the city i'm here tonight to present the city's updated fiscal year 2018 annual master fee schedule the schedule was made available for review on the city's website and the city clerk's office as you know the master fee schedule

1:36:04includes all of the city's user fees charges for services and business lice tax rates and is revised annually adjustments to the fees are intended to cover charges or changes in the city's costs of providing services the proposed fiscal year 2018-19 master fee schedule includes changes that were

1:36:26previously approved for the community development and the recreation department by council at the march 6 2018 council meeting as well as a recommended 3.5 consumer price index increase for most of the remaining department fee schedules while some of the fees have remained

1:36:44constant other proposed changes are based on the demands for services or current market trends in an effort to allow the city to remain competitive with where with regard to the city services new rates for these changes will go into effect july 1st 2018 and any additional

1:37:04revenue will be included in the fiscal year 2018-19 budget i'll be happy to answer any questions you have and there are other staff members here tonight that will answer any questions specific to their particular uh areas however staff receives specific inquiries regarding

1:37:25the possible subsidies to the community development fees that could incense incentivize my work the climate action plan and i'd like to bring margaret cavanaugh up she's the development service manager for the community development department to discuss these impacts

1:37:47good evening good evening mr mayor members of council um as you know on march 6 you looked at the community development fees and approved them and asked us to go back and look at different ways to incentivize city goals adopted in city documents through some sort of subsidy in some of

1:38:06these fees for fees related to the climate action plan staff welcome community development and environmental services met together to work with the eqc to identify some items that could be brought forward to do just to meet that goal uh the uh results of that effort are included in

1:38:26your staff report uh and i can go into any amount of detail you want on that in addition the community development staff looked at additional fees and especially in relation to the general plan and the housing element and realized that one of the main goals was accessory

1:38:43dwelling units and facilitating those um and for reasons stated in your staff report before you this evening we also incentified both incentivized both the planning and the building fees for those projects as well so that's the summary of that and um i've got with me our building official

1:39:00i've got staff um from the environmental services division that staff the eqc um all present to answer any questions you might have about how that process was uh completed okay thank you let's go to the council paul do you have any questions i have some uh questions but i have some

1:39:28comments first i i think that's okay um i understand obviously the importance of the charges and the fees that support the programs and the services that the city has to provide and i'm sensitive to those any changes that uh may take place and i generally agree

1:39:51with the 3.5 increase increase overall because of the increase in a lot of other costs of services and i appreciate appreciate the input of the environmental qual quality committee the council did want incentives for the priorities that this city has established

1:40:16and i agree with the two sectors that they've chosen i think that the eevee charging stations are critical and important and the adus accessory dwelling units but i think the subsidies are way too low and maybe i'm not in the right planet here um i i had originally thought back when we

1:40:41had our city council meeting that we might show some increases in some other fees with reductions in some of the priorities we have and i don't see that demonstrated here of what we're increasing to off put what we're decreasing you can't do that just as a reminder the

1:41:01um the way the fees for services work is that california state law limits those to to a reasonable estimate of the cost of providing the service and at the march meeting when the council adjusted the planning and building fees you opted to move to 100 cost recovery

1:41:22and so there wouldn't be room to increase other fees in order to provide deeper subsidies for others with basically the subsidies that are already being proposed or being pulled from basically from general fund revenues thank you for that um so back to my basic point though of

1:41:41um when we talk about incentives for ev charging stations at two or more we're really talking about 140 difference um and only the city losing a thousand not getting a thousand dollars less than we previously would um and then with adus with 13 we base your estimates and your changes

1:42:10on 13 permits previously a hundred and fifty dollars per unit and um nineteen hundred dollars a year in possible loss revenue that just doesn't seem like a lot for the incentives we're trying to do so i just need some explanation about that certainly uh the first thing i want to lead off with

1:42:33is the city council has the ultimate authority as to where what level of subsidy you would like to offer and and on which on which applications or projects you would like to offer them on so when we were looking at the the the two in front of you for example um

1:42:51the other thing that that we were being conservative we're balancing a lot of things and i think that was to start um with the understanding that other subsidies could be brought forward um it's my understanding i'm not um directly involved in the budget process but my

1:43:05understanding is that we are close to balancing our budget right now so um we were looking at not only what level of subsidy to offer folks but what that what that leverage actually creates right so there are a number of things that um i will say it's just a little

1:43:22challenging in terms of data we don't know what the magic number would be that would make someone do the third ev charging station right we know that having ev charging stations in the public realm where people can use them will make more people use electric vehicles and

1:43:40um that that is the wave of the future so we were being conservative in what we suggested we were conservative in the amount we suggested um the other other to the adus that was another basically a low hanging fruit that we know that the council has been very clear i was before

1:43:56you a year ago when we did the accessory dwelling unit ordinance we would like to see as many accessory dwelling units as people want to provide as long as they meet basic building safety so in that case um it's still 25 subsidy you could always do more you're right

1:44:11there's not that many um however uh most of the folks that we talked to at the counter that are doing this are literally the mom and pops and that amount of subsidy might be very helpful in helping everything pencil uh the building code requirements which are very important are also very

1:44:27expensive and there's no this is a time of building cycle where there is no cheap construction happening anywhere in el cerrito we're competing with uh a lot of other people that are building at the same time so um to that end i wanted to mention that we also rolled in an additional five

1:44:45percent when someone comes in to do an accessory dwelling unit to have them consider universal design that was hopefully to introduce them to asking well what is universal design and we can go in an educational way to talk more about um why it's great and why we would be

1:45:00interested in leveraging that as they're designing so um that's why i just wanted to mention that was part of the report too thank you and and i'll i'll be briefly let me just say my little bit here is that i mean every year you have to you're required to adjust these right

1:45:14not make a major overhaul and like you just did on the on the fees um it's my view that on i mean i love the two categories you've chosen you know 25 percent i think both of these categories ought to be doubled quite frankly and in a year let's see if this is a pilot

1:45:35project have it come back let's see how we deal i mean i mean i'm sensitive to the budget issues i understand you know we need to use this money to to balance our budget uh at the same time i'm not seeing a lot of value for 140 here and 250 there and how can people

1:45:51really hear about it and that's a deal and how can we stress our goals without having something real here to talk about so i'll shut up thank you okay councilman um we're doing questions actually i think i don't think i have any actual questions okay okay good councilman

1:46:14go ahead let's remember who who would be installing the charging stations can you give me examples good evening mayor council members for those who may not know me i'm mark soltis the city's building official um i if i understand your question correctly are you asking about commercial or

1:46:44residential well i'm asking about boats because wasn't it so please go over again um so they'd have to install two right to get the discount two would be the discount that was mainly pertains to commercial installation right those commercial installations that would provide charging stations to the

1:47:09general public we have multiple charging stations in places like the the new apartment buildings at creekside and we will probably have more in new buildings that come in the future but yeah the main incentive would be things in say the plaza shopping center or

1:47:29maybe the safeway shopping center something like that where the general public parks would be able to charge their cars so if they want to put more than one in that location then we could give them a discount so that when we're looking at multiple charging stations where they're

1:47:48installing the conduits and the trenching and everything and everything's in one spot it does uh offer an economy and inspection time and we can absorb that fairly easily i think okay and then so it what was the dollar amount again for the or the discount if you did put in three

1:48:11well currently uh the the amount that was approved was for a commercial charging station is 539 dollars we could i think mark margaret was 50 or 25 was recommended a 25 discount for each and every one uh above one okay so 25 of 539 um did you calculate that here it is

1:48:46yes that's that's 75 so that would be um 404 dollars then okay so a savings of a little over a hundred dollars yes about 100 and about 130 or so okay 135 so um my my biggest concern with looking at this um comparing the two um as you said with the adus it's it's

1:49:18um you know people in el cerrito that are coming along and you know a few hundred dollars to a resident is probably something they're going to fill in their budget it's going to be you know something extra for that month or for their project whereas i'm wondering if you're looking at an

1:49:36apartment complex and they're paying fees like if they would even think about a hundred dollars um well to be to be fair in an apartment complex the um the fees for new construction already uh have plumbing electrical and mechanical included so their plans would detail where they're

1:49:58going to put the charging stations but we would not charge them anything extra because it's already included in the new building fee okay thank you okay welcome that's member lyman yeah so i'm gonna um first i want to thank the environmental quality committee for their work in in

1:50:19identifying a number of uh topics and that staff actually you know worked with their their recommendations and came forward with these two um this is a starting point if it works then maybe we'll consider other ones a year from now or two years from now um because in indeed what we're trying

1:50:37to do is is change um behaviors with incentives uh and those incentives come in the back of everyone in the city we're all all you know taxpayers all all of us are paying for these incentives so we need to be judicious about which ones we pick to move forward with

1:50:59to that end though i'm trying to figure out how to so i serve on mce and mce's goal right now is to make sure that people are charging their cars when solar energy is absolutely the cheapest so it would be from you know 10 am to 3 pm and so one of the goals would be to make

1:51:17sure that we get ev chargers where people are at those times of days and that's not their residences so we we don't want to necessarily you know give the type of incentives to large condo developers to put it in we need to be figuring out how to get it into places that are employers high

1:51:36volume employers um or for example the planet fitness or the 24 hour fitnesses that's going in at moser where people are going to be during those daylight hours the the question for me would be you have a large property owner the south end of town that has many stores with many employees that are

1:51:57or you know have lots of places where these things would go in and so they might come in and say hey we want to do 20 or hopefully they would come in and say we want to do 30 but we want to do 30 at 10 locations within within their property and so how do we build an

1:52:15incentive that actually gets ev chargers put in place where people are between 10 a.m and 3 p.m every day a couple of thoughts on that one we actually do have an application in right now potentially for a large tesla charging installation and we're having to look at the plaza and we're looking

1:52:34at it from a variety of perspectives including can we afford to give up parking for all for a small number so we'd need data around that so there's other planning issues i think the best way for us to do that and this is going to be punting it a little away from the fees over to oesd

1:52:50or or us but i think it's really working through backmed and others to provide the funding which is how we installed ours here there was actually funding for it so there's regularly grants and cost sharing programs to increase the uptake of that technology and making sure that there's enough

1:53:05stations available that people find driving electric vehicles very convenient i think similarly those large installations i'm not sure we could look into but similar to what uh council member okamoto said i'm not sure it's the permit fee that is there is the largest lever that we could

1:53:21use so we could look at that and we're definitely supportive if council wants to look at doing a deep subsidy and saying you know that it's a deeper subsidy on it and we'd obviously have to combine that with marketing and education and finding those commercial property owners

1:53:34who want to do that or partner with tfca or backmed like we have with the commercial installations that we've done i understand what you're saying but hearing the building official you know give us a report that the amount of work at each location i use the plaza as a

1:53:52good example because three at 10 locations is still 30 it's a lot but it's it's 10 locations in the within the plaza to potentially go and evaluate the the conduit depth and the the electrical wiring et cetera but if there is an incentive for and i'll use the plaza as an example

1:54:12because people who generally are going to be wanting to to charge their vehicle potentially are willing to walk to multiple stores so doing a bank and voting it in one trench doing a big doing a big bank doing you know saying hey look if you were to put in a 24-hour

1:54:28fitness if you were to put in 10 the the fee is not 4 000 the t the fee is three thousand dollars or twenty five hundred the second question i would have along those same lines would be and so a very deep discount for a large bank and and the benefit behind a large bank is that

1:54:48people know where it is they know that there's some probably going to be an open spot there when they go and so they're more likely to drive to that location to do their charging when energy is near near its least expensive component um i do want to uh talk about is do the fees apply for

1:55:08grants so if we got a grant from bachmed to install would we waive the fees currently we don't have any process to waive fees unless you were to introduce that as a policy okay so so at the moment we would charge our grant granted you know if we were funding it

1:55:27through grants we would be chart we and there's a reason for that we are still incurring all the inspection and all those other things so i know why we would why the fee exists um but it again i guess my i guess where i'm going then is with some and i don't know if a bank

1:55:43is six i don't know if a bank is 10 but at some point if we can get uh incentives for people to put banks in i think that's large charging stations in i think that's certainly something that we should be considering encouraging through our fee structure and so i would i would wonder if staff would

1:56:03support in addition to this one which was when when two or more of the same or property complex it's 404 each which is it represents a 25 discount that potentially if there is up to some number 10 or more in a single trend at a single location that potentially we could provide up to

1:56:24a 50 discount on that yeah i think that we would be amenable to that and i think even the building official looking at the efficiencies gained through that has seen that as justifiable aside from the the subsidy that it would actually there'd be some efficiencies gained okay great i i would

1:56:39i would be when we go to make a motion i would love to entertain adding that new fee line uh it's similar to table one so it would be just an additional line on table one okay um council member you had a question yeah i had a question regarding what was just the assumptions that were uh just made

1:56:59about where cars are during the middle of the day and and also versus the kind of development we're trying to build on san pablo avenue my understanding is the kind of development we're trying to build is the kind that would support people using transport transit rather than

1:57:19cars which means in fact they do leave their cars at home during the middle of the day they don't hop in a car to go to work and what i've noticed that kind of supports that at some level is this new development behind joanne's has a lot of cars there during the

1:57:38middle of the day and um on the other hand but banks hardly have any cars in them at all because nobody goes inside the basket much anymore they they use the atm yeah we're talking about a electric vehicle charging bank not not not a financial bank not a financial bank but a charging

1:58:00parking lot of that yes um okay i didn't quite yeah no we were we were moving quite quickly no banks could be a place that way quickly um so then that would take away the parking right it would it would alter the parking to be uh supportive of any type of vehicle and

1:58:24with a preference towards a vehicle that has charging so it would it would reduce the available parking for universal gasoline vehicles on preference for an electric vehicle so yes it would reduce parking for gasoline vehicles i i think in this situation and i could

1:58:44defer to will over here but i think the idea and it's long been one which is how do we increase the use of electric vehicles while decreasing overall vehicle miles traveled so we're remembering that walkability and transit uses our as our first goal in development we are going

1:58:59to have some on these existing lots whether it's safeway or the plaza that we're going to continue to have parking spaces in as we know our mode shift is it's it's happening at an increasing pace but there's still vehicles are still a part of our world so i think oesd is following this and we

1:59:15could kind of look at in this isn't it's not one single action that we can take and i think there's other ways that we can look at how do we understand the patterns and what would be the most effective and efficient way to support all of these different environmental and driving goals but i

1:59:31think go ahead yeah just to piggyback off that uh we are investigating the other level levers from bachman from pg e there are other grant opportunities out there and we're trying to get those out into the community as well but it is we'll have to go beyond permit fees and subsidizing

1:59:47those and so we're investigating that okay also with our supervisor john joya there are black med grants available so you see all of the uh ev chargers in richmond there's one less than a mile here at the pool at kennedy i that no one uses but they use it when they're at the poll so

2:00:12these are good places and then i agree with uh councilmember lyman about uh the bank second that where we could have that we have that we see it in marin county uh i'm hoping we can see it in el cerrito as well we need to play ketchup concord walnut creek has all this

2:00:29infrastructure we need to do the same here so it's about time that our shopping mall owners uh let us talk with them they haven't returned any of my phone calls well that's that's what i was going to ask has anyone talked to the elsewhere plaza about their plans because they don't

2:00:48do they have any they don't return calls no they don't or respond to emails we are meeting with them on other topics this you'll be happy to hear um next week so their regional manager actually called us and wants to talk so we're hoping there's some openings there um

2:01:08one of their challenges from what i understand in terms of electric vehicle stations is conflicts amongst the tenants about where they would go um so we have contacted them in the past i think well you could speak to this we've actually well at one point was going for a grant for installing ev

2:01:23charging stations on commercial properties and we actually did have a hard time identifying um ready and willing participants at this time so again i think it's a program goal and there's some challenges um associated with it again how they get charged there's just

2:01:38different so we'll you might if you want more we'll can speak to that but we did at one point identify a group of potential properties yeah and the plaza i think the issue was where it would go because there are actually multiple parcels within the plaza um and so we reached out to them

2:01:52and other property managers throughout the community uh but we didn't get too many bytes uh this was in particular about the bachmann grants good good thank you um let's go to we're going to open the public hearing public testimony yes mayor we have two speakers howdy gowdy followed by cordell

2:02:14hitler so good evening mayor quinto and council members my name is howdy gowdy and el cerrito so i'm providing you i did email this to you but i'm providing you the written copy of the eqc's um recommendations that's the last three pages of this the first page is

2:02:42just my personal comments and so what i'm saying tonight is my personal comments not eqc um so i appreciate the consideration of these you know fee adjustments or subsidies um but i i'm a little disappointed by the narrowness of what's being considered tonight um i as you can see in our eqc

2:03:04proposal we were very detailed and gave a lot of feedback and um you know frankly um we're approaching this in terms of subsidy um but i think you should be i mean it came up already that you know you are supposed to apply fees that are getting cost recovery and i think you

2:03:25should be nervous that these fees are really accurate cost recovery because i think it's indefensible to say that you would charge four thousand dollars for inspecting 10 ev charging stations it simply it doesn't cost you that much to do it so this fee is not aligned like

2:03:42other fees you know you have you know decks and fences all these things you know incrementally get less and less expensive the larger they get and yet this is scaling in a in a very non-realistic way so that fee is is really broken the way it is it's not a matter of matter of

2:04:02subsidy it's a matter of getting the fee right um and you know there are other examples you know the um pv permits ev charging stations for residential are much higher than other similar work scopes in electrical work and i give the examples there i mean two or three times more expensive and i

2:04:23think there's just this perception oh this is an expensive type of upgrade and so we can charge more for it and it's not true you have to charge what it actually costs to do the work and i haven't seen anyone really you know justify these fees that have supposedly a lot of

2:04:39work went into figuring out what they should be and it seems like a very inaccurate uh conclusion so um there are many areas that we should be looking besides just the ev permit fees you know electrification in in households in general supporting you know heat pump water heaters that should

2:04:59be a simple upgrade you know it's not something that should require two separate permits electrical and plumbing you can combine those it's a simple thing to inspect so there's a lot more work to do here and i appreciate that there was a short time to to get this

2:05:16together but you know we really need to be more thoughtful about our fees if we're i mean again this isn't about subsidy this is just about doing the right thing to reflect the right cost for um what your services are so thank you that's a hard act to follow so

2:05:38good evening uh mayor council everything that howdy said was absolutely correct so i had a different approach on that um like these um agendas uh and when i was looking at the packet earlier and i said oh the amount of work that takes time they put into these agendas like

2:05:57everything uh every yo so often i said okay they're trying to like you know save on paper so i said so i'm listening to what the pres um the staff has to say about these uh these fees and i said okay this is where we're going with this so you heard what the staff has to say so

2:06:15you just adopt a resolution and that's it okay thank you do i hear a motion to close the public hearing that we close the public hearing are there any other speakers out there i don't have to reopen it okay seeing none i'll second it okay we have a motion by uh abelson second by

2:06:37lyman all in favor aye unanimous so discussion mayor if i may yes um one of the ones that caught my eye that was in the eqc as well as mr gowdy's comments it's on age 26 of 28 roman numeral 12 mechanical plumbing electrical gray water systems and it i guess it was an hourly rate before

2:07:12it's moved over to each system the eqc's recommendation uh you know plumbing 19 i'm not sure i guess the lines were numbered at some point where they're recommending you know an hourly rate [Music] or something that does scale as complexity occurs so i'm just curious

2:07:36why staff changed from hourly rate which is scalable to a fixed rate which is uh each system and uh if the eqc's method of scaling was something that was um was considered uh i can speak to that um it was a it was an error in a copy over from a previous table the greywater systems

2:08:07have always been per each system not per hour so all of the items that you see in the plumbing electrical mechanical sections for the most part are for each item not not an hourly rate it would be difficult for us to figure out an hourly rate or even charge an hourly rate so

2:08:27the greywater systems we're talking about are those that would comply with a plumbing code in chapter 11.

2:08:3511 separate items that all have to be met in order for the system to be legal so to speak and we would have to do a plan review and then go out and do an inspection another thing i'd like to point out is that when making comparisons between fees out of the miscellaneous table

2:08:57and fees that are in the plumbing electrical mechanical table please bear in mind that those in the miscellaneous table all inc that fee is inclusive of plan review inspection and any plumbing electrical or mechanical associated with it whereas in the meps that those individual fees or fees put

2:09:17together also would have to add a 97 fee for the permit issuance uh fee so it's not accurate to just uh compare thirty dollars for uh panel change out versus a electric vehicle charger in the case of ev chargers in commercial areas we also have to do extensive uh thorough plan review

2:09:47uh so that we make sure that those charging stations are going to be compliant with accessibility requirements and that uh they're built that way as well so they're a little more complicated than just digging a hole and putting conduit in and then sticking a charger

2:10:03out in an existing space those are just some things i wanted to point out as far as photovoltaic goes and even the ev chargers the state did mandate that we establish a streamlined permitting system expedited review that doesn't necessarily mean it takes less time it just means that we have to

2:10:30take those permits and put them at the front of the line when it comes to uh dealing with them so in in the photovoltaic we have the services of a consultant and we use their web portal and their electronic review process to comply with state law so that our contractors can submit their plans

2:10:55electronically and have the whole thing processed electronically in the end it comes back to us and we do the actual permit issuance and collect the fees but our consultant does charge a fee for this so it's not without cost it's nothing we can observe internally

2:11:12it's not labor that would it's a it's the labor for staff is might be considered a fixed cost on an annual basis where a sub consultant that does work for us for a fee is is not a fixed cost it's it's not it it can't be absorbed we have to pay out that cash yeah we have an agreement with them to

2:11:33review and process each individual permit my earlier questions or discussion was to to do scaling of the ev charging stations um we've got a single we've got um two or more with a 25 discount um is that is ten the next appropriate scale or would you do something in between two and ten

2:11:58like six i mean is there is there would you if i proposed ten or more fifty percent two we have at seventy five percent um is there a is there a number in between that you would recommend for scaling or is is those two milestones though i think if you were able to uh

2:12:17put together a bank of charging stations that were sharing the same conduit and going back to the same meter meter or electrical service that probably when we hit about the four or five level we could we could easily go down to fifty percent okay excellent i i will take that in under i will take that

2:12:39as um five as being a good scale point for that so thank you okay jim um no okay um just following up on councilman lyman's um 50 for the charging stations uh on the adu can someone respond if they if we did the same the 50 and maybe we have five percent for the universal

2:13:18um we're only talking about instead of 150 savings up to 300 is there an issue there there's no issue there i would love to couple that with what a council member is planning to propose certainly that would be a revision in table three can somebody help me understand what the new

2:13:38proposed rate would be is it the first line would 452 would go down to 300.

2:13:48sorry i was not paying following that that discussion as close as i normally do my understanding is that the instead of the instead of percent five percent it would be fifty percent and then for both the planning and the building permit yes and then fifty-five percent if someone

2:14:03um complied with universal design principles got it so it would it would uh be three hundred dollars for the planning permit and 675 for the building permit roughly so and and another five percent discount if they go to the um streamline what did what's the university

2:14:34universal design great thank you okay any other discussion questions i gotta find a motion here um where we're sorry staff where were the the proposed changes that were made in the agenda bill were those already captured in the draft motion that we have the draft resolution

2:15:09are you referencing the um [Music] uh information that mr sultan has presented to you is that what you mean um in we have attachment one which is the resolution and yet in the the the table 1 and table 3 of the agenda bill are not formally in the attachment exhibit a

2:15:32and so i'm just wondering how do the proposals that staff has made in tables one and three of the agenda bill get wrapped into exhibit a so it's my understanding that we will take the numbers the subsidies suggested by the council and implement them right into the master

2:15:52fee schedule in those specific fees is that answering your question it does but now i have to turn to the city attorney and find out what what do we need what motion do we need what modifications of the motion do we need to make to make sure that those subsidies we discussed

2:16:05tonight are incorporated in a future fee schedule um i think that the motion would be to adopt the resolution with changes to exhibit a consistent with um the direction given by the council to adjust the subsidies in tables one and three in the staff report excellent i will try and do my best to

2:16:28uh replicate what you just said i'm here to help so i move a resolution of the city council of the city of el cerrito adopting revisions to the master fee schedule for fiscal year 2018-19 including directing staff to incorporate into the fee schedule master fee schedule

2:16:50the fee the fee incentives for ev charging including uh 25 uh reduction in fee for two or more on the same property and 50 percent reduction for five or more ev stations and uh in table three uh making the fees at 50 percent of the 100 recall cost recovery amount for both

2:17:28for accessory dwelling units for both planning and building permits with an additional five percent reduction if they use universal design i heard a a motion by lyman and second by uh pardo okamoto and and able center all in favor all right five zero motion passes

2:17:56okay thank you so uh item 6c storm drain fees so this is a public hearing to consider adoption of a resolution approving the fiscal year 2018-19 storm drain annual report and directing that storm drain fees be collected on the property tolls we have a staff presentation again by shannon collins a

2:18:24county supervisor so the next item on the agenda of course is the public hearing for the storm drain annual report this report was made available for review on the city's website and the city clerk's office the annual report asked that the fee of 58 dollars for each single family resident

2:18:42property be continued in order to provide funding for the reconstruction of the city storm drain system and the associated debt service for the acquisition construction reconstruction maintenance and operation of the soaring drain facilities upon conclusion of this public hearing

2:18:58is our wish that the council accept the 2018-19 storm drain annual report and adopt a resolution in order to direct back the storm drain fees be collected on the property tax rolls um public works director is here tonight and i'm also here to answer any questions you may have okay thank you

2:19:20questions since jim do you have a question no okay michelle okay um we're going to open a public hearing no speakers mayor okay so no speaker slip submitted okay it's an opportunity for anybody to speak on this matter otherwise i'm going to move to close move to close the public hearing

2:19:46okay we have a motion by lyman second by abelson all in favor aye aye 5-0 that's unanimous okay so uh discussion any discussion on this matter i will move this item but but i'll throw my annual um complaint or a notification that the storm drain fee does not pay for all of

2:20:10the obligations that we're uh required to do to protect water i mean it's a very important thing but the storm dream fee is is you know maxed out based on when it went into existence many many years ago so with that i will move the resolution of the city council of

2:20:31the city of el cerrito adopting the fiscal year 2018-19 storm drain annual report and directing that the storm grade fees for fiscal year 2018 19 be collected through the property tax rolls second okay we have a motion by lyman second by abelson all in favor aye motion passes

2:20:475-0 okay so uh next is landscape and lighting assessment district number 1988-1 this is a public hearing to consider setting the annual landscape and lighting assessment for fiscal year 2018-19 at 72 per residential parcel and as noted in the engineers report for

2:21:11other classes of properties approval of the resolution also confirms the diagram and levying of the assessment for fiscal year 2018 and 19 we have a staff presentation again by shannon collins staff is seeking the adoption of a resolution setting the landscaping and

2:21:35lighting assessment the list of charges were made available for review on the city's website and at the city clerk's office the engineers report includes a per parcel fee for residential parcels of 72 dollars and other class classes of charges are outlined in the report as well upon

2:21:54conclusion of this public hearing we asked that the council accept the engineers report and adopt a resolution confirming the diagram and set the annual landscaping and lighting assessment for fiscal year 2018-19 as 72 dollars per residential power soul and other classes of charges as they appear

2:22:11in the engineers report i'll be happy to take any questions and we also have staff here to answer any questions you might have thank you do you have any questions okay we're going to open a public hearing i have no request to speak see seeing none i'll move to close

2:22:31second okay we have a motion by lyme and second by abelson all in favor aye five zero motion passes two closer to public land discussion i'd be delighted to move a resolution of the city council of the city of el cerrito confirming the diagram and levying the assessments for fiscal year

2:22:482018-19 for the landscape and lighting assessment district number 1988-1 with the usual annual comment that this is not pay for what we spend on landscape assessment i second that okay we have a motion by lyme and second by fidelity all in favor aye aye aye motion passes five zero that's unanimous

2:23:14okay number seven uh policy matters el cerdo police employees association memorandum of understanding good evening mayor quinto and council members i'm kristen cunningham the senior human resources analyst for the city and tonight i'm here to adopt a resolution approving the memorandum of

2:23:34under understanding with our police employees association our current mou with pea as they're known expired december of december 31st of so 2017.

2:23:45negotiated over the past few months and these negotiations also coincided with our public safety management association which we're also here tonight to seek approval of that but pea we focused much on the salaries and so we're looking to have a three percent increase effective january 2018

2:24:04and another three percent increase for all classifications effective january of 19 2019.

2:24:10and then also just some of the language some of this uh quick info vacation cash out just like we've done in other mousse we are looking to include language that complies with irs constructive receipt requirements we've included some pers language that was negotiated previously in side

2:24:27letters cto we've adjusted some of that language to coincide with when employees are backfilling for other officers and tuition reimbursement we've increased them at all levels so associate's degree employees would now be eligible for a thousand dollar per year to us tuition reimbursement

2:24:50and for a bachelor's degree they'd be eligible now for 2500 2500 per year tuition reimbursement and for a master's they'd be eligible for 3 500 per year increase from 3 000.

2:25:03kind of the biggest thing and what we spent a lot of time on was our education incentive programs right now it's a flat dollar amount based on if you have a post certificate if you have an aaa if you have a bachelor you have masters and so we are looking to change that

2:25:19just to maintain consistency in the market we're looking to change that to a percentage-based system so employees that have an aaa they would go from the fixed rate of 210 to now three percent of their base salary also employee that's pursuing a bachelor's degree or completed 60 semester units

2:25:37they'd also get three percent employees who have a bachelor's degree would get four percent of their base salary and that would go from 290 a month that they currently receive and for master's they would get five percent of their base salary and that also changes from 290 a month so those are

2:25:54kind of the big big ticket items that we included in the mou there's other language cleanup because it was from 2007 so we did just update a lot of that so with that that's kind of all we have for the pea i'm open to questions okay good any questions oh any questions um just on the last

2:26:13litany of costs that you talked about going from a percentage you said on the masters yes it was 290 right so currently employees there's only two different breakdowns so it's 210 210 a month if you have an aaa or if you have post certificates or if you have a bachelor's and a

2:26:31master's degree it's 290 dollars so it's the same amount present day but we're looking to change it to four percent and five percent respectively and what is the difference what's the end result difference the increase the increase what it would do for like for the city

2:26:44annually um so for the entire group kind of as where people are now or as of january of this year it would be it looks like a 43 000 annual increase for pea and then for the individual i think i was going for the individual to the percentage depending on his self

2:27:06his or her salary right so yeah that's why we just have the kind of the group got it i think everyone's a different thank you okay yeah i've got a quick question for you um i appreciate that you struck a lot of the um positions information and moved it to an appendix

2:27:24um i did not see the appendix and the reference to the appendix looks like it's still in draft mode double x so i just wanted to make sure the table of contents only does not list any appendices so i just wanted to make sure that that isn't indeed supposed to be

2:27:39appendix a and that that there would be an appendix a at some point with all the positions um are we talking i found it before and i'm looking for it again i apologize i started my comment without having it we're talking the actual classifications that are represented

2:27:56um i've got to find my reference sorry lots of there's a there's a policy quadruple x i think i can i think i can locate it for you councilmember lyman thank you section 13.1 on page 18 states that appendix xx is the salary schedule for all classification represented by the

2:28:35association yeah so i appreciate that you're cleaning up this document by moving in some of this information to an appendix but i just want to make sure that appendix is available or has been negotiated i don't want to i don't want to delay this any longer so i just want to

2:28:51make sure that that's just a drafting reference right so if i'm reading this correctly it's referring to our salary schedule that we have for our city employees and we would based on your approval tonight we would adjust that by three percent for these represented classifications

2:29:11i'm sorry so on under compensation on page 18 the first bullet says appendix double x is the salary schedule for all classified represented by the association right so we have one salary schedule for city employees okay um they're you know broken out by bargaining unit okay and

2:29:29is that actually called appendix double x no scholar sally schedule okay so we might want to clarify that yeah because i mean you're actually it sounds like you're referencing an existing document a second yeah um so i wasn't sure if it was an artificial document or a real document so it's a

2:29:49real document right we do have a city salary schedule so we might just want to clean up that language too and would it be would it be an appendix to this or you're just cross-referencing an existing document it's crawford car service again okay that that if you would please make

2:30:03that clear that would be great okay and then under 13 2 special assignments uh looks like another drafting placeholder 13.2 a on page 20.

2:30:17uh shall follow department of policy looks like some superhero yeah uh so that was in and it's we have some pea folks here but that should just be in draft mode still is a department policy um that they're they have an amat which is the group that uh police management and

2:30:41police employees meet and so that was kind of uh where the depaul department policy number would come from so we don't have that policy number yet but they are the amats working on a policy to establish these assignment procedures so are we drop adopting to form are we

2:30:59the actual just i don't i mean one second just verify that uh um i i just i just for the sake of safety i would recommend that when you adopt the resolution you revise the now therefore be it resolved paragraph to include the ability to um to negotiate and execute the agreement

2:31:28well i think i don't think that there's any further negotiation to be done i just think that that just to be clear that you're not adopting it exactly the form that's attached that that um uh that you're authorizing the city manager to execute the um agreement with changes

2:31:42um deemed necessary and approved by the city attorney excellent when we're ready for a motion i'll be more than willing to make that okay um council member i have a comment first though sure i just wanted to make a comment that um we don't i think don't have enough money in

2:31:59the entire world to pay our police employees what they're worth and um i appreciate that they are able to work with us and and i appreciate staff uh working with our employees um on both sides to draft this contract and i i i hope it will last it's for two years

2:32:25as i remember so it would expire december 31st of 2019. yeah so um the um you know i um i appreciate that the um police employees are willing to uh accept hopefully this contract after we have they they haven't done it yet right we do it first or they do it first they've accepted they only have

2:32:48agreement yes i appreciate they they have accepted it and um i would love to make a motion i would also like to make a comment okay yeah just a comment yeah i just wanted to echo what council member abelson said and that i know it's very difficult to do shift work

2:33:08especially night shift and i appreciate all the officers for what they do and the community policing that is done around here i know that we've seen a lot going on in the media right now around police officers and so when police officers are doing the right thing and reaching out

2:33:26to the community i just wanted to reiterate that that's very important to us and that we appreciate it and i agree with what you said think of that as well okay i think we all yes i would love it i'm sorry before you make the motion did you ask to see if there were any public comments on this

2:33:42item it's not a public hearing but okay do we have any uh public comment on yes yes please so i i i you just heard what the senior resource analyst said so i would hopefully that you adopt this resolution and i was coming back up this for 7b thank you go ahead okay go ahead okay i would like

2:34:07to make a motion um adopting the resolution of the city council to adopt a new memorandum of understanding with the el cerrito police employees association with the changes to the now therefore be it resolved paragraph proving the agreement as to form with changes approved by the city

2:34:28manager and the city attorney to clean up the existing track changes second thank you okay we have a motion by uh councilmember abelson and the second by council member pardo okimoto all in favor and that is unanimous five zero motion carries thank you okay thank you police force

2:34:53yes thank you uh pea for a very amicable and pleasant uh negotiations absolutely thank you very much [Applause] okay next is elsewhere to public safety management association moran memorandum of understanding so very similarly to our pea mou it also expired this public safety

2:35:20management association police management union for clarification expired december 31st of 2017. so public safety management association does represent four different bargaining units so this was just the one unit that we were negotiating that coincided with pea

2:35:34and so much of the agreement of course focused on salaries as well and so we have proposed and they have accepted the tentative agreement for three percent also effective january 2018 another three percent effective january 2019 and similarly we adjusted the vacation

2:35:51cash out language to comply with the irs constructive receipt requirements and tuition reimbursement we also upped it for those pursuing a master's degree to 3 500 per year from the 1000 that was currently in the mou and the same thing as we did with pea we've changed the education incentive from

2:36:10a flat dollar amount per month to a percentage and so we're only for the managers we're acknowledging bachelor's degrees for four percent of the base salary and masters for five percent of the base salaries so that is it for public safety management the police unit

2:36:27have any questions questions yes paul how many officers are taking advantage of the incentive program so we're talking police officers or managers so all of our managers have an advanced degree so they have bachelor's or and many of them have master's degrees but they're those

2:36:51suit those in pursuit of additional well there's there's a couple that have bachelor's degree so if they'd be in if they would pursue a master's degree they would be eligible for a 3 500 per year um tuition reimbursement none are now we have two that are eligible for that

2:37:05okay so it's not a huge burden to the city to provide this great incentive for another reason to right now cerrito right right thank you okay uh greg do you have any questions no that's randy wilson questions okay public comment um cordell hindler thanks chris so

2:37:28again as you as she has stated um make a motion i move the resolution of the city council unless there's further discussion i just have one comment cordell i'm so glad you like seeing these guys in in your neighborhood so thank you for that i move the resolution of the city

2:37:55council of the city of el cerrito to adopt a new memorandum of understanding with the public safety management association bargaining unit police management second okay i hear a motion from pardue okay moto in a second by abelson all in favor all right so motion carries 5-0

2:38:14thank you enough i might also thank our captain de la campa and police chief for their support as well thank uh you is city council local and regional liaison assignments any updates i have no update okay update yeah um as your representative to recycle more we met last week we went

2:38:44through some of the terms of the revised joint exercise of powers authority i can say it's moving forward actually fairly well one of the biggest changes that we've now actually worked through is having the county come on as a voting member we discussed some of their stipulations that were

2:39:11[Music] the requirements for them to become a voting member and we gave a direction to staff to comply or agree to all of those stipulations um the other thing that's uh of note as we move forward is that um actually the um the future gpa would only have one voting

2:39:34uh one vote for for each jurisdiction so richmond would go from three votes down to one vote and that is as a result of scaling the scope back to core services and any deviation from the scope would require unanimous decision and any changes in the essentially the

2:39:58funding for that scope would require unanimous decisions so in essence for the two matters that matter most to richmond uh they would have a veto effectively a veto vote so that that that's uh was ongoing we did um between the last two meetings we did move to reduce

2:40:23the reserves out at recycle more and that potentially will result in the disbursement of another three quarters of a million dollars and we would get about 10 percent of that so we're about just somewhere something between 50 and 75 000 although the the nuts and bolts of the

2:40:49disbursement formula have not been worked out that'll that's for a future day yes um i have to report back from the jpa gilman fields we are looking forward we just replaced the turf out there at gilman fields and it it's working out really well for the users but looking forward to when we'll have

2:41:17to replace it again since it's one of the highest use fields in the area we want to make sure we don't have a shortfall this next time around and so we have increased the fees in particular to non-jpa member members who use the field frequently or even on the occasional rental so there will be a

2:41:41separate fee for users that come out that are not jpa members good all right so the next regular scheduled council meeting uh is tuesday may 1st 2018 at 7 pm in the city council chambers and i want to end this council member uh council meeting in memory of first lady barbara bush who passed away

2:42:05earlier return thank you you