Special City Council Meeting September 17, 2018

0:01:30in long beach and mayor quinto was able to be there and accept the awards on the city's behalf so thanks to staff and thanks to everyone on our staff and everyone in the city who has helped us achieve these wonderful awards thank you okay let's start over here paul do you have uh

0:01:53um just a couple announcements um i spent two days at the global climate action conference uh last week one one of the events was by calstart promoting clean clean fuels for vehicles and the nice thing about the event was they were promoting moving toward fleets

0:02:13city fleets and shipping fleets something sexy about an electric car but i think it's time for cities to look more closely and el cerrito look more closely in alternative energy fleets if we're going to meet governor brown's sb 100 that he signed last week as well to make sure that

0:02:32we're 100 percent clean by 2045.

0:02:36the second thing was about diesel free by 33 another effort that we all have to work toward and i was pleased and honored to be here for the police swearing-in of our new officers and a variety of other volunteers and helpers to the police department here in el cerrito

0:02:52okay councilmember abelson okay i was at the annual league of california cities conference and was saddened to not attend the police swearing-in um i think it's important to support our officers and um while i was at the conference i um i always try to bring back something

0:03:19that's um different or um you know sort of a a point in some topic so this year i brought back a very odd thing which was a glass and i uh put it in a bag on my luggage and i made out all the way here without getting broken um now unfortunately it's made out of

0:03:45plastic it is different than the usual plastic straw kind of plastic it also has a thing so it doesn't come out easily but it is a hard plastic and as i in my travels acquire various straws of various makeup i hope to bring them back and show what what the alternatives are

0:04:14so this is my the first one i'm bringing back i guess you could say i have found one in a local restaurant however made out of paper unfortunately i've discovered that it doesn't withhold um the surviving a whole episode of drinking it so it um it there's some work to be done

0:04:43there you i guess you could say i have seen metal straws um at a local restaurant in a neighboring city um that seems to do pretty well actually that's been in use for years i think so i just wanted to share that information i found an interesting presentation from the carpenters actually it's a

0:05:10union um and um they are embracing factory built housing which i found really interesting two parts were interesting one is that uh they're supporting it um and the other part of it is that it's a way to build dense high-rise housing so i thought that was really an

0:05:37interesting uh sort of thing and if there's some staff member that's interested in it you may have this a little flyer and you'll see me later about it another topic i found especially interesting was a session on what was called unconscious bias and as what you might guess that's about

0:06:02it's about people having a bias and not recognizing that they have a bias and the point of the session is was that we all have those biases and i think it would be a pretty interesting experience sometime if our city or whatever part of our city had a session on this

0:06:30because you can really see when you if you watch this session that we all have these biases and we could all improve um by being aware of them and trying to do better so i thought that one was my favorite one because i i really had something i could learn from it

0:06:53and try to apply to my daily living and and things here so that's what i'll share today on that topic okay thank you councilmember lymon sure um i'm gonna look at our calendar going out and remind uh residents of some of the opportunities that are coming up um we all news and views hopefully you got

0:07:16it there's quite a few events coming up the citywide garage sale october 13th there's an electronic waste collection event on saturday october 20th the halloween haunted house will be on saturday the 27th so if you have little ones this is a fantastic form of entertainment for the for

0:07:37families to use to come to the community center and enjoy the haunted house um a couple of things also in october for the election uh starting october 15th through election day we'll have a ballot box here that you can drop off your ballots early so for those of you that

0:07:59potentially get ballots by mail you can drop them off here restaurant week is coming up this is a community development department and economic development committee and elsewhere chamber of commerce are hosting restaurant week in el cerrito from october 11 through the

0:08:1517th so again october is uh arts month and there will be quite many events going on in october around arts month so that's some things that i wanted to make sure and i know we'll be getting a discussion about the recreation program tonight but i wanted to really uh highlight that

0:08:34el cerrito got 26 best of contra costa awards as voted by readers of parents press that's a that's a quite a few recognitions of best of contra costa some of the ones that i highlighted are best culinary summer camp which is cooking around the world and best technology summer camp uh which

0:08:58i'm assuming was robots and then some of the silver medals were best lego summer camp and best birthday outdoor party venue at the swim center so those are some of the things that el cerritos is being recognized for um so that's that's uh the ones that i wanted

0:09:17to highlight okay mayor carter well i can definitely um second the lego camp as well as the swim center parties i've done that like maybe four or five years in a row um so i also attended the league of cities conference and my favorite session that i attended was

0:09:39a disaster recovery and hearing stories from firefighters and other city leaders from the sonoma area and the ventura area and i think there was a third place like it's escaping me right now but very fascinating to hear about the things that they did the things that they learned

0:09:59websites that they set up now to help in the post-disaster recovery area uh era for them so that their citizens can get back on their feet um definitely a lot of things for us to kind of look back at those notes and um and implement those things those strategies here and make sure that we're

0:10:18prepared in case we are when we do have a disaster in this area um so uh and then in addition to that um i wanted to point out something from our environmental quality committee they are having an el cerrito sun shares workshop and that is in regards to getting your house ready

0:10:43for an electric vehicle and the savings that you can that you can take advantage of by i guess a group purchasing and up to 30 percent federal tax credit and in order to learn more about this please attend the workshop which will be here at city hall monday october 15th

0:11:05from 6 to 7 30 p.m and i've already shared this with one of my co-workers who's been asking me about what are we doing here in the city to to do more about around solar and electric vehicles and so i suggest you come to the workshop thank you great so i also attended the league of

0:11:25california cities annual meetings in long beach and i wanted to say that i was very honored to join our assistant city manager karen pincus in representing our city to receive the three beacon awards so it was quite an honor and we are a city in central county walnut creek received

0:11:50one of the awards as well so both contra costa cities were included on that also i wanted a report that i represented el cerrito in the policy committee meeting and the resolutions committee meeting in support of the two resolutions that were voted in late on friday which includes

0:12:16a topic on pesticides and also one that includes supporting uh pesticides and and different kinds of pesticides and making sure that uh that these are safe and uh so that will be i'll give that to the city clerk so all of you can read that later i also attended the api caucus and

0:12:45i am going to be second vice president from now until january well where i will be appointing be appointed chair of that i'm still on the lgbt caucus at large and i was i i will continue to be on the east bay division representing el cerrito at large as well so

0:13:09let's go to oral communications from the public so all persons wishing to speak should sign up with the city clerk remarks are typically limited uh i believe we have 27 or 28 30. 30 speakers now so i'm going to reduce that to two minutes each so all of you will be able to uh

0:13:32hear uh from the 30 speakers and we won't be here all night um and then comments regarding non-agenda presentation and consent calendar items will be heard first comments related to items appearing on the public hearing or public matter portions of the agenda are

0:13:48taken up at the time the city council deliberates its actions so please kindly state your name and you will see the buttons over there one is a yellow one is a green and one is a red at the center of the dice over here so sure thank you your honor and i am also

0:14:12acting as your city clerk this evening i'm doing multiple jobs today um yes where there are 30 speakers signed up to speak and as the mayor indicated uh when the light goes yellow your time will be wrapping up and when you're light when the light goes red less that you

0:14:26conclude your remarks at that time so what i'll do is i'll try to call a few people in order so that you can all be ready to speak and i apologize in advance if i mispronounce your name um so first i have howdy gowdy followed by rick tanalski and april tanolski

0:14:53good evening uh good evening mayor and council members my name is howdy gaudi i live in el cerrito um so i'm going to read a letter that you were have received robin will probably finish it for me i'll try to get through as much as i can el cerrito progressives calls

0:15:07on you to enact immediate temporary moratorium on rent increases and no-fault evictions while the city works to develop short and long-term solutions to our housing affordability crisis without a moratorium there is a serious risk that landlords will raise rents in

0:15:22anticipation of future tenant protection measures we're already hearing reports that some landlords are doing so or contemplating it do not mistake the relatively small number of renters uh speaking before council your august 24th tenant protection study session as an

0:15:37indication that there isn't a crisis some of the members of the community who are most severely impacted are likely to come and speak for many reasons including lack of time discomfort with public speaking shame about economic hardship language barriers and perhaps

0:15:50even fear of intimidation that their landlord would retaliate if they spoke out for which there are no current protections and that's what we're trying to provide um we have an undeniable problem um you know rents have gone up 30 to 50 percent we have a quarter of people

0:16:09you know paying 50 of their income for housing um and close to 50 paying 30 percent so um you know the proposed near-term actions including non-binding mediation and enhanced lease noticing requirements need to be supported by data that they actually are going to do something

0:16:30and you know we have a report about concord and non-binding mediation that shows that there was not a good outcome there or wasn't successful and and three of you did support continuing to study rent stabilization but in the end your direction to staff was you know only to study the the other

0:16:53near-term actions so i really urge you to act um to follow up on uh your intentions to keep more tenant protections on your forthcoming agendas and i'm gonna provide you with copies of letter on a unrelated thing for um item 4h which i urge you to pull from consent calendar so thank you

0:17:17thank you thanks tony rick tanowski followed by april tonolski and robin mitchell good evening hi good evening i'd like to address some issues i believe there are other people who are going to speak regarding excess vegetation and problems in the hills particularly with

0:17:36conflict conflagration we've spoken tonight your name sir rick tanowski um as was announced um thank you so other people spoken about climate change it's it's here there's been a lot of talk about that what i'm concerned about is the firestorm that's going to eventually come here and

0:17:56rip up the hill and burn up my neighborhood i've lived up in the hills for 32 years in the past there was someone from the fire department who would come by every year and when there was excess vegetation would tell the homeowners you need to take care of this or will to get it taken care of and it

0:18:15will be attached to your property taxes there was somebody coming around making an effort to keep vegetation under control i'm concerned with fire danger the specific things that i would say are one that the edges of the streets should be free of overhanging trees so that

0:18:34large emergency vehicles can get by two people who walk in the streets need to have enough space so that the cars aren't going to run into them and that same thing applies the the street should be clear from the edges of the streets from the curb up as high as an emergency vehicle 12 feet

0:18:54high and that will allow free movement of emergency vehicles in an emergency it's bad enough that there are no sidewalks and that people can legally park on both sides of the street leaving really only one lane but that's another issue i would like to address at some other point that

0:19:13that's another safety issue if there is an emergency it will be very difficult for people to get out and it'll be very difficult for emergency vehicles to get in given the way the streets are set up up there but my point about the vegetation is that it needs to be cut thank you thank you

0:19:32april tanowski followed by robin mitchell and catherine cessa cesa i probably don't have oh it's april tenalski good evening i really don't have a whole lot to add to what my husband just said we live in the hills of bel cerrito very close by madeira school and arlington park

0:19:57and just walking around the neighborhood as we do frequently you can see very close up the overhanging trees that are in the street that only allow a car to go into the other lane to get through it's very uh i think it's dangerous you can't see around a corner in a lot of places where

0:20:25the trees are growing up and the shrubs are growing up and if we ever get a rain the gutters are going to be really clogged because the streets the debris from the trees are in the streets and i don't really know whose responsibility is to keep the trees trimmed and clear

0:20:50they're the gutters in front of their house but it's a problem that's really all i needed to say on that issue oh and then for cars that are going by that have a um the overhanging trees or bushes if you have a fairly tall vehicle they get scratched the roofs get pretty severely scratched

0:21:19you can hear the branches scratching on your car as you're driving by a problem i think and the lack of visibility as you're going around a corner that's a problem as well with the trees that's it thank you robin mitchell followed by catherine cesa david enday i'm robin mitchell i live in el cerrito

0:21:58i'm going to finish up howdy's letter that we sent you all the discussion at the august 21st tenant protection study session excessively dwelled on negative perceptions of rent stabilization rather than focusing on the opportunity really the duty to work toward a solution that actually serves

0:22:13the whole community fairly we should seek to learn from examples around us and implement something better that is optimized to serve our community with the best possible outcome for all concerned rent stabilization does not need to stand up a complex and costly

0:22:26bureaucracy volunteer citizen boards and other cost-effective measures can implement a fair and efficient solution fundamentally acting on pillar b of the affordable housing strategy is about fully embracing the importance of bringing stability to renters in our

0:22:39community homeowners and landlords largely enjoy consistent costs of ownership because of 30-year fixed mortgage fixed rate mortgages and tax rate increases limited by prop 13.

0:22:49however many landlords were buffed with disdain when their renters or the city government asked them to fairly share this stability to exclude those with less socio-economic power from sharing the privileges afforded those with more power and money is nothing short of

0:23:02exploitation and the city should have no patience for this damaging trajectory for our community there is no intention to restrict a fair return on the landlord's investment in maintenance and upgrades for health safety and energy efficiency but the culture of entitlement to raise rents any amount

0:23:15without justification must change the so-called market rate isn't an infallible guiding light the market can be broken it can be wrong shelter is a fundamental human need and it shouldn't be distorted by speculative and exploitative economic manipulation exceeding real costs and a fair return

0:23:31is unjustified and unacceptable and it threatens the housing security of our fellow el cerrito residents our community faces a serious housing affordability crisis and it requires your decisive meaningful action not timid half measures and delay please enact a rent moratorium to establish

0:23:47immediate relief and time to proceed with developing a well-thought-out policy to address the problem it's a dereliction of duty to this community to deny our extreme housing emergency and act like it can be treated with a band-aid solution of non-binding mediation it is imperative to step up to

0:24:02the responsibility to protect the most housing insecure in our community establish a moratorium and we will have a safe space to do the more deliberative work of resolving our rental housing problem for the long term thank you thank you catherine cesa i'm sorry did i get that

0:24:17right close enough close enough okay good evening i'm kathy cesa i live on [address removed] honorable male quinto and and honorable councilmen and women i just have a real simple thing i wanted to say although it may not be so simple i'm concerned about potential fires from

0:24:36cigarettes thrown from people as they walked out our trails and in our city and from our cars and i don't know if you've noticed i walk the city a lot and we're getting an awful lot of cigarette butts all over the place and not very many receptacles to put them in and we've banned cigarette

0:24:53smoking from our restaurants and and apartments and people are using the streets without realizing that that's a hazard i watched the berkeley hills fire from elta bates hospital and i can tell you how many people were not discharged that day because they didn't have a home to

0:25:13go to and i don't want that to happen in el cerrito so i have sympathy for those people who are asking for more uh abatement of the hills and trails because people people are absent-mindedly throwing the cigarette butts all over the place and i've seen some start fire in the grasses

0:25:35along along the high school of course it quickly put out but that's the kind of thing that starts fires and it's been known that the fires that we've had here lately some have been caused by human neglect human probably errors they're not even really responsible knowing they're responsible

0:25:57so anyway don't let that happen else rita let's do something thank you good evening hi my name is david endry um i'm here with my neighbor to represent the homes that are along the um we board of the berkeley country club um the mira vista country club also known as in

0:26:19any case uh there are some very large eucalyptus trees eucalyptus groves there are thick groves out there we're very concerned we've been writing letters to the golf course concerned about the one the height of them and the possibility of them falling on our houses but also

0:26:35more important the fire the fire threat they there's plenty of fire fuel on the ground branches haven't been cleaned up there's bark from the eucalyptus trees all over the place so my question i guess is when does is private property of course uh they're not paying attention to the

0:26:52neighbors who are saying you know ask them to do something about the trees when does it become a city concern when neighbors are negligent on their on taking care of their land so thank you thank you okay next up is al miller followed by michael fisher and susan duncan

0:27:17my name is elle miller and i live in el cerrito good evening mayor quinto council members and staff the lcy el cerrito libraries one city one book program has been launched the friends of the el cerrito library and the l street library foundation has donated 150 copies so that members

0:27:39of residents of the city can read the book free the book is the 57 business the true story of two teenagers and the crime that changed their lives it was an event that happened in 2013 on ac transit's 57 bus in oakland as the kids were on their way to school book is being distributed in the lobby

0:28:05of the city hall at the el cerrito library at the community center and at well-grounded coffee and tea on stockton avenue so pick up a copy read it and then pass it on to somebody else so that they can read it a discussion with the author dasca slater is scheduled on tuesday october 9th at

0:28:30the library and on monday october 15th there will be two discussion groups a youth discussion that will start about five and then a community discussion that will start uh 6 30 and go to eight also the friends of the el cerrito library will have their fall book sale

0:28:54in the parking lot and basement of the library saturday september 29th from 9 00 am to 5 pm and on sunday september 30th from 11 a.m to 3 p.m and they also have a new book bag featuring the new logo of the friends of the el cerrito library and it's on sale for ten dollars it will

0:29:19be you can buy it at the book scale and other locations are being established thank you thank you michael fisher followed by susan duncan and marlene george good evening good evening my name is michael fisher and i have the privilege of being your library commissioner

0:29:39on september 4th the library celebrated the debut of contra costa county's first ever lgbt plus special collection due to the generosity of the deluge and troy trusts ribbon cutting featured supervisor john joya mayor quinto council member fideli and library manager

0:30:05heidi goldstein great food was provided by el cerritos vietnam grill there was a drag queen story time i think that's this one and the rainbow community center of contra costa county provided information and financial support came from the library foundation and friends

0:30:49the event showed once more how much we need a new library in el cerrito this shows how everyone is crowded into that one space librarian tom swain told me a story last week that he was approached recently by a mother of a fifteen-year-old non-binary child the mother

0:31:13and her child both attended the debut event and the child will soon be volunteering at the library because it is the first place that the child has felt safe and welcome so go to our library see its many activities made possible in part by the hours funded by this

0:31:37council and see how even better it would be with an appropriate and affordable 21st century library building thank you thank you good evening good evening susan duncan [address removed] i'm here tonight to address a very urgent problem the overgrowth and fire hazard in hillside natural area

0:32:06i submitted a packet to all of you i hope you had time to read it and review it all the reason i put in articles going back to 1967 is just to show you that in the five decades nothing basically has happened it's now time to stop that it's time to act before we all burn up and it's not

0:32:22just if it's when um currently in the quarry grove of eucalyptus trees there are fuel ladders that go that will take the fire to the crowns i don't know if you ever walked it you should go see also check out two of the three other groves uh that appear to be fairly hazardous the

0:32:41one that is just south of wildwood court and the one behind ganges keep in mind that the west slope of wildcat canyon hasn't burned in about a hundred years when the warm dry diablo winds start this end of september early october with our hot temps the embers could very well start a fire in hillside

0:32:59natural area and vice versa know that live embers from the oakland firestorm landed in san francisco in reviewing the latest city budget under on page 173 capital improvement programs i see that it is uh wanting to ask for another master plan for vegetation management you have this

0:33:19one from 1986 that you paid ten thousand dollars for you have one from 2007 that i'm sure the city paid for use those you have very experienced knowledgeable firefighters who have fought in the oakland hills fire the napa fires the santa rosa fires use their knowledge

0:33:40don't spend more money on another freaking plan use their knowledge let them give them permission to go into the parks the groves and tell you what needs to be cleared how it needs to be cut how it needs to be managed you have the resources use them you also have an arborist listen to him too

0:34:00thank you very much thank you do it something now marlene george followed by [Applause] marlene george followed by nick zamarano and scott tipping good morning i'm good morning good evening my name is marlene george and i am a resident of el cerrito i moved back to el cerrito approximately

0:34:24a year and a half ago with my husband who's right here i grew up in this area and like many of you here i grew up here and i returned after about 30 years and i remember the oakland hill fire i wasn't living here but my mom and my family told me the story about having their

0:34:42cars packed up and sleeping with their clothes being ready to evacuate and i don't need to impress upon the council about the fire danger we see it all around us and i'm here tonight to talk to you about my concern my my all of our concern about the fire in the hill area

0:34:59i am concerned i also live along the arlington the arlington park and i know what mrs tomoski is talking about there are overgrown trees there's one property on the arlington and brewster that is high risk and i've i've written letters of complaint nothing has happened

0:35:17and it is a fire waiting to happen i've expressed my concern to neighbors and i joined forces with the duncans and last week we went on the walk through the hillside park or the nature area and i was very concerned about that that is a fire just waiting to happen

0:35:34and evidently there are other hillside areas that are high risk as well and what i'd like for the council to do is to consider placing this on an ongoing consistent basis basis on the agenda for the community to to discuss an action item and perhaps appointing someone from the

0:35:56council or a staff member to work with the community to develop an action plan and i agree with sue that we do not need more studies the the the city has spent a lot of money on studies and i think now is the time to take action i also see that there's a measure

0:36:14v on the ballot that we are encouraged to vote for that will bring more money into the general fund and perhaps more money could be devoted to fire prevention so thank you very much thank you nick zamarano followed by scott tipping and gary prost good evening my name is nick samarano

0:36:40betty lane el cerrito i'm just here to reinforce all the statements you've heard about the fire threats and the concern of your citizens in regards to the hillside natural area and some of the overgrown vegetation along the neighborhood homes this is a situation that has become very

0:36:59very serious and very concerning for us and i hope that you know you have or you take a sense of urgency that we feel so that you can implement a plan for um fire prevention and the time now is to act on implementing that plan and be being proactive and not being reactive

0:37:23thank you for listening thank you scott tipping followed by gary prost and robert howe good evening good evening council members and mayor my name is scott tipping i'm a resident of el cerrito and i'm here to talk about the concern about the fire danger in the natural open space

0:37:45for quite a few decades there's been various plans made by the city and they seem to there's been a concern about the open space but as my neighbors have stated the plans keep coming but nothing's happening in the open space if the 1987 plan was followed all trees 10 inches or less

0:38:06that our eucalyptus up there would have been cut down it wasn't adopted by the city in 1994 there was a hillside natural area fire hazard reduction plan we're in 2018. eucalyptus trees aren't coming out we think the live oaks and whatever the fire department should natural habitat

0:38:22should be there but when these neighborhoods were built those eucalyptus trees were not there and now they're over 100 feet tall i had the unfortunate experience of evacuating people in the oakland hills fire and watched those trees go up like kitchen matches these 100 foot trees

0:38:40just it was stunning to see one go up there's hundreds and hundreds up there on that hillside area and then most recently i have a number of coworkers who lost their homes completely in the fires up north last year and here we are september october tis the season so i really hope

0:39:00that there's an ongoing long-term plan that this can be addressed maintained there was a period of time where some of the brush was being better maintained than it is now i see activity there now so that's encouraging but the eucalyptus trees are the thing that

0:39:15multiple fire chiefs from the city of el cerrito have identified as a huge huge issue so thank you for your time thank you good evening mayor city council my name is gary prost i live on contra costa above the hillside natural area it's my first time in front of council

0:39:37so bear with me um i'd like to continue on the theme of fire risk mitigation in particular i'd like to make a specific suggestion regarding the hillside fire pit i provided you with some supporting material so i'll just go through and hit the high points this fire pit is is has been used i guess for

0:40:03decades it sits just above the el cerrito recycling center on one of the access roads up there the hillside natural area is shown on the el cerrito on hazards map as an extreme fire danger zone all experts say that it's not a matter of if it's going to burn at some point

0:40:25but but when it's going to burn so we need to do everything possible to mitigate that risk as one of many concerned homeowners i've been documenting use of that fire pit just in the last year since october 2017.

0:40:40whenever i see the fire rings been used i tear it apart pack out the garbage i know i'm not the only one that's been doing that but it's been used at least five times in the eight months that i documented it neighbors have all been working with the police and fire department

0:40:57we got the police to put in a camera up there and the fire department has come with us and looked at the area it has a not stopped use of the fire pit so the recommendation is eliminate the danger by eliminating the pit we recommend that if it's at all possible we grade the hillside to its

0:41:17natural slope in that area plant some fire resistant trees or put up some benches on a concrete pad because it's a beautiful view spot but that's our recommendation thank you thank you robert howe followed by libby tipping and diane strauss good evening good evening my name is

0:41:44robert howe i've lived in elstridle my whole life i too am concerned i live up above the arlington i'm concerned not only for the eucalyptus trees but also the monterey pines that have been planted el cerrito probably back in the 60s i actually watched arlington park be

0:42:06built the trees are great i noticed a couple went down last winter new trees have been planted and there are still some that are dead and dying i live next to camp herms and that is a big concern to me because if camp herms was ever to go up i believe that most of thor's bay road

0:42:30rifle range road it would be very very hard to fight that type of fire especially years ago we used to worry about october well now we worry from june until november until our first rain we don't sleep sometimes the hillside area is also a big concern because it's

0:42:52mostly eucalyptus trees and as everybody knows they're a tinderbox they explode when they catch fire uh oakland fire was a good example of that and anybody that's ever burned eucalyptus in their fireplace which we no longer can do they know it burns very hot and very

0:43:12quickly so as people talk about action that is what needs to be done if trees need to be thinned then thin the trees if things need to be around on the ground need to be picked up and mulched then that should be done if trees have to be taken out then that's that should be done because we all love

0:43:38trees but we don't want our homes to burn down and everybody's paranoid about it now and when things get out of hand it's a little too late so i feel we should act now before we do have a catastrophe thank you will be tipping followed by diane strauss and paul duncan

0:44:05good evening libby tipping baron court and el cerrito um i'd like to emphasize that the information we've been hearing about the inevitability of the fire is something i feel strongly about this time of year when i leave to go to work in the morning i'm a little terrified my husband has

0:44:24put sprinklers on our roof we've spent thousands of dollars removing pines and juniper and things like that from our own property and a lot of hours working on our own in the open space behind our house um just trying to do what we can but it's overwhelming even gordon white couldn't

0:44:42do it all himself although he was pretty amazing um and when we bought our house we bought the bad house in the good neighborhood it's a lovely home but it had deferred maintenance the original owner had uh passed away in her late 80s and but we wanted to live here we wanted

0:45:00to live in this area and we love the open space our property opens right onto it we hike out there a lot and the first things i wanted to do when we bought our home of course were like the kitchen and the bathrooms instead we did the sewer lateral we got a new garage door we did drainage we did

0:45:20all the work like i said around our homes the non-glamorous things and i understand when we're looking at budgets and passing bills and things like that to increase revenues people like the glamorous things lights and plants and pretty things but i would really like to encourage us to

0:45:39think about the maintenance and the things that we need to do in order to make it safe to live here especially in these times thank you thank you you want me please good evening council members mayor and staff i'm diane strauss i live at [address removed] um and i live with john faulconer who grew up

0:46:08in that house and he's been living there basically for 70 years a couple of years out to travel in between i'm reading this from him he could not be here tonight he wants to know where this particular document is from 1994 the el cerrito hillside natural area fire hazard reduction plan

0:46:30the hillside natural area fire hazard reduction plan systematically addresses a significant fire hazard and liability to surrounding residential areas in el cerrito the plan proposes fire hazard mitigation activities to reduce fuel loads and buffers surrounding neighborhoods

0:46:47the fire department public works department community groups and private landowners carry out activities outlined in the plan to ensure safety the hillside natural area pilot project would take these activities into consideration identifying modifications where needed

0:47:03to ensure that fire management is well balanced with sensitive habitat and native vegetation areas in the natural natural area this proceeding what i just said comes from the el cerrito urban greening plan appendix d and is also referenced in other city documents

0:47:22we want to know where this document is and if its recommendations were ever funded and acted upon i also want to talk about plans to expand the usage of the hillside nature area including new improved signage that will increase the fire risk and what about what factors are in the

0:47:43city's risk management plans to reflect this in that plan also our full force flow test with multiple outlets operating being regularly conducted along the pressurized water lines that are in place to fight fires that was a problem in the oakland fire how often are these tests conducted and

0:48:02are they a matter of public record i would also like to just say that i'm so glad that somebody was meeting with the firefighters from sonoma and napa and talking about what to do in an emergency but let's not get there okay we need to prevent that emergency any of these

0:48:20plans that are written over a year ago that we're going to do studies that time has passed we are now in a situation where it's emergent and i would think that we could get emergency funds that could be diverted to deal with this before all our homes get up uh get

0:48:36wiped away with a fire um environmental impact yeah that's important but what's the environmental impact of a fire that just wipes us away so i'd like to fast have you fast pack any environmental impact studies um and i noticed as far as pulling out eucalyptus thank you

0:48:58uh city of berkeley was very busy doing that just a few years ago thank you for your time thank you uh please uh no applause [Applause] yes ladies and gentlemen we would appreciate it if you refrain from applauding or booing so that we can get through this list of speakers and also

0:49:16so that everyone feels comfortable to come up and speak no matter what their opinion is thank you so much for that um going on we have paul duncan followed by sherry dropner and kathleen wong thank you good evening i'm paul duncan [address removed] i haven't addressed the council in many

0:49:36years but the issue of fire safety is vitally important to me my neighbors in the whole city so i decided that i had to speak tonight i'd like to use my time to underscore the points made by sue and others earlier the fire dangers were known to be high 50 years ago when the adjacent

0:49:51neighborhoods were being developed trees have multiplied and grown much larger since then what little maintenance the city has done over the years hasn't kept up with the growth of trees and the growing threat of wildfire let's not forget that this year alone california

0:50:05wire wildfires have destroyed thousands of structures burned one and a half million acres done three billion dollars of damage and worst of all cost 14 deaths including six firefighters specifically what you need to do now is to implement the existing vegetative

0:50:22management plans prepared by lsa and others in subsequent years instead of seeking grant funding on a two hundred thousand dollar plus master plan design spend that time and energy looking for grants or other funds to reduce fuel loads and fire hazards i think we all

0:50:40want safety before more and more design removing brush and smaller trees will reduce the fuel ladder that lets low burning grass fires climb up into this oily fast burning crowns are the big ux once the crowns are burning they create their own wind which carries hot embers

0:50:57for miles we saw that at the oakland firestorm fire burns downhill as well as up so flatter parts of el cerrito are not immune to fire either something has to be done to minimize the threat of a big fire in hillside natural area the currently required minimum of a

0:51:16hundred feet between trees and homes will mean very little if the eucalyptus crowns catch fire when a grass fire climbs up the current fuel ladder i want to remind you that cal fire has designated almost all of kensington and el cerrito down to navalier as being in

0:51:31the highest risk zone so fire safety before more design plans please which one of you now is going to take charge of that we want to we want comments we want some commitment and we want an answer tonight thank you thank you sherry dropner followed by kathleen wong

0:51:53and miguel espino good evening hi um good evening mayor good evening city council members my name is sherry grobner i live in el cerrito i was approached by a tenant she didn't want to come forward to the meeting this evening just for fear of retaliation and but asked if i would tell her story

0:52:16so i'm going to read you a short story i was living on haven's place in el cerrito in a studio on the property of the landlord i had moved from the richmond annex because el cerrito was less expensive i had been there one year this is back in 2015. the landlord and his wife went on

0:52:33a cruise and during that time their daughter came and stayed in the house and when the owners came home they had a very large electricity bill although we had an arrangement that pg e was their responsibility they asked me to pay an additional 200 the next month when the

0:52:48bill came i explained to them that i wouldn't pay it as it was not part of our original arrangement they later came to me to set a lease and they raised the rent from 1100 to sixteen hundred dollars they said is it was what the market would bear at the time of receiving this rent hike

0:53:08i had been diagnosed with polyps had been let go from a job i had no health insurance and very little savings they have given me 90 days to pay the increase or leave i was using that 90 days to look for work and deal with my health and i ended up being homeless in el cerrito

0:53:25their memory created a structure to help me sleep in the car i was couch sitting for eight months i finally left california and worked in north carolina for 10 months but i returned to california i found a job and found a place to live through craigslist in el cerrito again this was 2017 and i

0:53:46found a room for 9.25 but it didn't work out i found another room from a family who was subletting their own rental to help cover their three thousand six hundred dollar monthly rent unfortunately when they realized they could not afford to buy a house in the bay area they moved out of town leaving

0:54:04me with no choice but to move again today i paid two thousand dollars for a townhouse in el cerrito and i have to pay water so i am enjoying the experience of quality without the home equity i am a professional who will be 55 in november i just want to encourage

0:54:21you to take action on a rent and eviction freeze thank you thank you kathleen wong followed by miguel espino and micalia aga good evening good evening my name is kathleen wong and my husband and i live at the last block of gladys avenue next to the el cerrito natural area

0:54:44uh the pres the chance to live adjacent to the natural area was a huge draw for us to move to the area and we love looking outside and and over the beautiful green canopy of oaks all the time but in the years that we've lived here um california has become a tinder box

0:55:04over you know from from june till the first rain start and every time i see the thick groves of eucalyptus trees those invasive eucalyptus trees from australia i get more and more concerned about the safety of my house my husband and i have done what we could to clear all the brush from our house

0:55:25and we've knocked down all the and pulled out all of the junipers that used to be on our property but there's only so much that an individual homeowner can do our house is ringed by the monterey pines that were also planted and don't really belong here and are nearing the end of their

0:55:43their natural lifespan and um and the fact that the eucalyptus are not native makes them an additional fire risk because there are no because they have these oils that a lot of um native uh decomposing insects don't um won't won't break down and so the leaf litter builds up and causes a greater

0:56:07risk of fire in addition the stringy bark tends to get carried away in the wind when there is a fire and they're just raining they just rain fire brands over other people's um houses and yards so i would like to encourage you to do anything that you can to take out or at lea these eucalyptus

0:56:28trees or to remove as much of the fuel ladder below those trees and in the natural area as you possibly can thank you for your time thank you good evening good evening mayor council my name is miguel spino i am resident here in el cerrito i have a concern which if you read your newspapers daily

0:56:59over the last week at least that i've been doing so about the high housing crisis and the situation is taking place throughout the bay area my concern is that we have people who are suffering from raise rents increases that seem to be going really out of out of control

0:57:20and this is lending itself to a situation to deal with homelessness in the area and or the plight of folks who generally could stay here they could afford to stay here and are being forced out of the area and i believe it's important that as we seek to build more and more housing in

0:57:39el cerrito that the new housing that comes in that is going to be a rental should be affordable for people who are on that curb who are you know trying to make it and trying to make it to stay here i've been around the city here and i've talked to folks who work

0:58:01in the industries here and who say you know it's like i can't live in el cerrito i don't know what i'm going to do you know it's a real issue when it comes to folks who live here and can't can't can't afford to stay can't afford to pay the rent so i'm here in support of a rent freeze

0:58:22which is really important and needed for our city thank you thank you macaulaya aga followed by angelina tyner and michelle maharbis good evening good evening mayor and city council member my name is makalia aga and i am continuing on the serious issues about rent

0:58:48increase in our city for the last three years there's been an increase of 20 percent and i find it to be really ridiculous and out of control i don't think anybody young or old should be put in a situation where we have to choose whether we have to put food on the table or pay rent i don't

0:59:09think that's fair at all so i urge the city to put rent freeze and rent rentals protection until some type of solution is figured out which might be the stand rent stabilization or rent control thank you thank you angelina tyner followed by michelle maharbes and eleanor

0:59:39roche good evening good evening my name is angelina tyner it's my first time in front of city council so i am a young professional and student sorry i'm here to represent the rent freeze in my concerns as a young professional and student who's barely making it right

1:00:03now and who just wants to find some sort of way to establish herself and i can't do that when the rent just keeps increasing beyond control it's absolutely ridiculous that someone in my generation or younger can't even afford to live in the city that they grew up in

1:00:19i've been living in el cerrito for over 20 years and this is absolutely ridiculous it's a crisis and it's something that needs to be handled and i'm urging you to please put in a rent freeze until a solution is made there's just no way this is completely inhumane and no one should have to go

1:00:38through this sort of stress just trying to make a living and as a young professional at least i have options but for people who are older than me people who want to retire it's completely out of their control it's they are i'm not able to do that and they shouldn't

1:00:53have to have that stress when they're trying to retire and they're trying to live out the rest of their life and i just urge that you guys put in a rent freeze thank you thank you good evening um good evening my name is michelle you got my last name right and you smiled over um

1:01:13i just i'll make it very brief i'm here to echo uh the fire concerns with the eucalyptus i live on shevlin and baron and rather than repeat a lot of the concerns i'll just add two echoes briefly sort of personal uh takes on this the first is that i i have been happily surprised at how this has become

1:01:34a how every neighbor on shevlin that i know and it says several dozen uh this has become the topic of the last season and i think people are very aware um i've been educated i've lived there as a homeowner for 10 years i've been here since 98 as to the number of studies have been

1:01:50done and i think that the level of uh how informed people are is remarkable and i think it's a pretty pressing topic so that's one quick remark the other is that i my family hikes we hike everywhere in california is why we like this we hike certainly in the hillside nature area

1:02:06and one thing i will say is that over the 10 years that we've been hiking there it is it's become very very obvious that the level of activity has increased markedly we do find cigarette butts everywhere now but more to the point it really does seem if you're there a

1:02:20lot it does seem like this is a catastrophe waiting to happen you just see evidence of people leaving things behind either at the fire pit or otherwise where you can tell that it's just a matter of time before something goes up so selfishly obviously we care about the eucalyptus

1:02:34grove closest to the power lines right on there but that whole stretch just looks like a total disaster so thank you and have a good evening thank you good evening eleanor and um i live half a block from the hillside natural area which is as everyone has pointed out a

1:02:56fire hazard disaster um i want to add just two comments and one is that it's really important in fact it's it underlies it it comes before all the other wonderful things that we want to do that you want to do and and are doing and are spending money on because if that hillside area goes up in flame

1:03:24and explodes there goes el cerrito there goes all the possibly you know better housing and and all of everything uh it won't make any difference it will be just totally mute if it's all ashes so it needs to be paid attention to now and and things actually done about it

1:03:49um the second point is that this intersects the charter city amendment which you guys and or certainly lots of people seem to be pushing with very ill-designed flyers that keep coming in the mail um and from my reading of the discourse at least on next door el cerrito were those funds

1:04:19earmarked for public safety first and fire prevention and all the things that need to be done to survive it would have a much greater chance of passing than now because people are totally again you know really furious at it uh for not for spending money on all sorts of

1:04:49things and not addressing these very urgent public safety problems so wake up ronnie polanski followed by tommy nagai roth and nicholas galoro good evening good evening to everybody my name is ronnie polonski and i live on lexington avenue in el cerrito and i just want to say how fortunate all

1:05:22these homeowners are to own homes to have a place to live and feel secure about where you live so we're here to represent people who don't feel so secure about where they live because they're worried about the rents going up so once again i'm sad to say i stand

1:05:38before the el cerrito city council concerning the problem of housing our renters in this community as a group the el cerrito progressive alliance has requested a temporary rent freeze we're all anxious to preserve the wonderful composition of el cerrito which is about 40 renters

1:05:55at this time we don't have the problem of 10 people in a one-bedroom apartment because of enormously high rents as occurs in other cities however there's nothing to prevent that from happening here we're all anxious to see if proposition 10 passes it has already been supported

1:06:10by the la times as the beginning of a solution to the homeless crisis here there sorry zillow has published a study stating that a five percent hike a five percent rent hike is directly correlated to a three percent rise in homelessness los angeles having the largest homeless population in the state

1:06:30is now considering rent control for the county for la county where 220 000 people are in danger of becoming homeless if no steps are taken to halt rent hikes whether or not proposition 10 passes we here right now could legislate rent stabilization for those buildings built

1:06:48before 1995.

1:06:50we have an obligation to our current renter population yet this city council seems impervious to the appeal of renters when we approach staff they mentioned months of study and the possibility of mediation mediation is not typically used to forestall rent hikes but to arbitrate such issues as

1:07:08habitability or deposit returns or lease issues this is not a tool for rent stabilization we're hoping this body will see this as a local issue and move to help those who need it thank you good evening good evening mayor and council members and staff my name is

1:07:32tomy nagai rota i live in el cerrito and i'm with el srito progressives i'm here to read a statement that was sent to us on behalf of someone who could not come a fellow el ceweto resident and renter i have lived in my place for five years the landlord keeps raising my rent by

1:07:54200. every start of the year for the past three years this is still cheaper than market value but i'm really close to getting priced out when will it stop we need rent control so i'm speaking on behalf of a rent rent freeze and a moratorium on addictions until staff can

1:08:19further develop options to protect our renters and i really feel that this this approach is really homeless homelessness prevention at el cerrito as we all know berkeley and oakland are full of tent cities and it will happen here if we don't address this thank you very much thank you

1:08:47nicholas galoro followed by kathy compagno and joe christian hi my name is nicholas galoro and i live on lexington street i'm here to support rent freeze as well as just cause eviction and to speak to the issue of whether mediation works or not all the near-term staff recommendations

1:09:13to the rent crisis presented at the i believe is the last council meeting include non-binding mediation unfortunately non-binding means that neither the landlord nor tenant legally has to do what the mediators recommend all the mediation programs in the cities listed in the staff report presented at

1:09:31that meeting are non-binding none of these mediation programs gives landlords or tenants any new rights i've tried to get some information on the success of mediation in the cities listed in the staff report at the last council meeting albany doesn't have anything in place at this time and the

1:09:49other three cities concord san leandro and union city all utilize the same office at eden housing as their phone contact so far i haven't received a call back from in housing i have here a 2018 report titled the housing crisis hits home in concord and i i love their motto where families

1:10:09come first that does provide useful information about the success of the rent review mediation program in concord this report was created primarily with the assistance of first five contra costa the children's advocacy group east bay alliance for a sustainable economy

1:10:28and raised the roof of coalition representing many regional groups including california nurses association contra costa labor council and alliance for community empowerment as we all know ace they and that we don't all know that but it is called these they surveyed 968

1:10:45concord residents at the beginning of 2018 so this report is new and in some cases they got their personal rental stories they found that one the concord city council rent review program the meet their mediation program that's what they call it does not protect residents from sharp rent

1:11:01increases in unjust eviction in one case john they only use the first names because keep it confidential a concord resident received a 20 rent increase john filed for mediation the mediators recommended that the landlord lowered the rent increase however the landlord

1:11:19required that john paid a rent increase anyways and john had to move again non-binding mediation does not legally require that either the landlord or tenant followed the mediator's recommendations they also found that only one percent of the 968 concord residents surveyed had

1:11:36used the rent review mediation program without a local rent without a local rent stabilization ordinance the landlords can increase the tenant's rent to any amount the tenant legally must pay the rent increase or vacate the union even if the tenant has a legal right to delay the renting place in the

1:11:54near-term medium-term or long-term mediation without rent stabilization and just cause eviction does little to end the rental crisis thank you kathy compagno followed by joe kristen and jeff levin good evening hello mr mayor and or ms mayor and council members and everybody else my

1:12:20name is kathy compagno and i've lived in el cerrito for over 30 years now and i'm here in support of the action to be taken against the fire abatement and the hillside trail and all these other issues that i had never quite realized but they all are deserving to which i

1:12:38have no details to add but a moment of philosophical reflection is looking back we all remember the oakland hills fire but then berkeley in 1923 the whole city burned and it was the eucalyptus trees so here we are almost 100 years later and we still contending with eucalyptus

1:13:00trees will we ever learn thank you thank you joe kristin followed by jeff levin and george gage good greetings first firstly thank you for your time tonight i'm here to speak in person for my support for rent stabilization and just cause eviction ordinances i just want to be brief and state that

1:13:28this is a very real issue i'm sorry to backtrack a little i'm a tenant in el cerrito i've been here for about five years they i don't think that rampant profiteering off the backs of tenants for their homes that they cannot afford to own is just thank you for your time thank you

1:13:52good evening good evening my name is jeff levin i'm a 29 year resident of el cerrito living on stockton avenue i'm also the policy director with east bay housing organizations which is a non-profit membership organization working on affordable housing throughout contra

1:14:08costa and alameda counties i'm here to speak in favor of a freeze on rents and no fault evictions we do not think that rent control alone will solve the housing crisis to do that we need to build more affordable housing and preserve the housing resources that we have but that takes time and in the

1:14:27meantime we need to protect our low-income residents from displacement which is why we need to look seriously at rent stabilization and other measures but while you are doing that things are still happening out there in the real world and that's why immediately we need

1:14:44a moratorium on rent increases and on no fault evictions let's just freeze things in place while we deliberate on what we're going to do going forward i know that some people feel like maybe this isn't enough of a crisis because we aren't seeing large number of

1:15:00tenants here at these meetings so let me give you some numbers that give you the magnitude of the problem there are four thousand renter households in el cerrito according to the most recent census forty percent of them make less than fifty thousand dollars a year and using

1:15:17the standard of thirty percent of income for rent what they can afford is twelve hundred dollars a month or less of those people making less than fifty thousand in renting eighty percent are paying more than thirty percent right now and over half of them are paying half

1:15:34their limited incomes for rent we have a crisis already these households are at risk of displacement even a small rent increase could make the difference between whether they can stay in el cerrito or not we need action now so please take action declare a housing

1:15:51emergency establish a moratorium and then we can move forward on long-term policies thank you thank you my name is george gager i've been a resident of el cerrito for about only 12 years so i'm a newcomer and i like to talk about the numbers in rent control i spend my days working

1:16:30as an affordable housing consultant for hud so it's what i do um there's a there's an avalanche headed our way if we look at the peninsula in an arc down to san jose in the next three years we will see the construction of 12 million square feet of office space the typical

1:16:59employee occupies between 150 and 200 square feet in the office let's not forget that their home is a minimum of probably 800 square feet but at 200 square feet the 12 million square feet of office headed our way will generate 60 000 new employees in the bay area

1:17:27currently those people new employees working on the peninsula are driving two to two and a half hours each way to and from home that is that avalanche is going to have an enormous effect on the real estate market here in el cerrito if we look at hud's fair market rents

1:17:55in the united states as of about 18 months ago the bay area has higher fair market rents than any other community in the united states including new york city it isn't going to get better it's going to get worse and it's going to happen quickly one quick example

1:18:20facebook is going to build 2 million square feet they already own the land of new office space 10 000 employees i'd like to add just one other thing about fires okay please complete your statement yeah very quickly um i grew up across the street from my grandmother one day i saw her house

1:18:45catch fire the fire truck got there put it out later in my life i got a call from a neighbor your house is on fire before i got home the fire was out personal pain and that happened because it was only one house burning in the whole community that can't happen here

1:19:06if the if the wildlife area catches fire thank you i have no more speaker slips okay did i miss anyone thank you everyone for being so patient let me reply me yeah i want to highlight a couple of comments i heard tonight so i want to thank miss george and miss rush for

1:19:29pointing out uh that we have an opportunity here to get additional funding um ms rosh you you asked us to that we would do better if we were targeting a specific cause but if you've been participating you would know that if we did designate measure v funds for a specific entity we would actually need

1:19:52two thirds of a vote and have much less likelihood of passing so we are trying to get more money for the city it can be used for many things including housing including fire management so i want to make sure that you know that we do hear what you're saying and for those that have followed the council

1:20:15for some time mark friedman said it very well a couple years ago enough with the plans let's get on with it but without the plans we don't get funding and without funding we can't move on with the plans so whether it's rent stabilization or fire management we don't have the

1:20:35resources in our budget to do them today and so i encourage all of you to tell your neighbors about measure v measure v is a way for us to raise 2.7 million dollars almost a 10 percent increase in our general fund and it can allow for a lot of the things that you

1:20:52are asking us to do so it i would only encourage you all to listen to each other and walk out of here saying we've got to move this forward we've got to get more funding because that's really the only way we can move out of the planning phase and into implementation again whether it's

1:21:11housing building a library uh moving forward with fire management uh replacing our public safety building getting a financial reserve that actually would weather some storms uh fire storms earthquakes or others these are all critical things that we need in our city

1:21:30to maintain the level of services we're looking for when i moved to el cerrito their street lights weren't on that that landscape lighting and assessment district only generates 800 000 a year the street lights cost us 1.3 million dollars a year we could turn the lights off and save

1:21:48800 thousand dollars and spend that on something else do you really want no street lights i don't think so so i'm just here to encourage you all to enjoy the resources the the great place we live in go out talk to your neighbors about measure v so we have the resources to do

1:22:04the things you're asking us to do thank you okay um i'd like to move uh a presentation up i know we have some uh young people here it's a school night so i'd like to uh uh do number five the presentation on the 2018 ec stars intern program to let's do that first

1:22:36[Music] good evening mayor quinto and council members this is always such an exciting time for us here at the city as we recognize our young young scholars and the hard work they put in over the summer our ec stars internship program is a partnership that we've had with west

1:22:59contra costa unified school district now for six years and this year our uc stars program was integrated with the district's career pathways summer internship program which is a district-wide program and the success of our uc stars program was the guiding force behind a district

1:23:15even creating their career pathways internship program so our ec stars program created what is now being conducted throughout west contra costa county and so with this new integrated program our internship went from nine weeks to six weeks giving students more time for some

1:23:34summer fun the first week students spent time in a classroom setting working with teacher advisors on career exploration and job readiness the next five weeks our stars worked in their assigned city departments where they develop on-the-job skills were exposed to local government through

1:23:49their out through their work and also enhance their educational skills this year our interns were assigned to the following departments so we had maddie smith she worked in community development with aisa shorey so she did some work on some housing projects that

1:24:03we have and jordan texan was in i.t with eric ing as his mentor vincent nguyen was in administration so he was working in both our city manager's office and also finance with maya williams and andrea arriaga sam mann was working in our police department so she got a lot of fun time

1:24:23with ride-alongs with our officers and she was partnered with officer sarah perez in recreation we had proceed papa and he worked in senior services with mark de leon and also in child care with eden o'brien brenner and so we of course like to thank our mentors for their time and their support

1:24:44throughout the summer and throughout this six-week program and there was a change in this program with the integration in the district however uh his role changed in the process we have corey mason here who i'd be remiss if i didn't acknowledge and give the utmost appreciation to

1:25:02for his role in the implementation of the stars program without him this this program would not be here in its form as you see it and so i'd like to pass it over to him he's going to have some remarks on behalf of the district also on behalf of himself to acknowledge uh the work that he's

1:25:18done over the last six years for this program so corey mason thanks kristen thank you hi citizens good evening good evening thank you and esteemed council members thank you for welcoming us this evening it's the sixth iteration of ec stars summer internships it's our pride and pleasure to present

1:25:40our stars interns shortly star stands for students training and ready for success these students are currently seniors at el cerrito high enrolled in career and tech ed intern within the auspices of wcc usd career and college readiness around the district career and college

1:26:01pathways include sequenced courses and internship opportunities in performing arts engineering health information technology law and media each provides rigorous instruction along with immersive interactive experience among guest speakers job shadowing resume prep job search interview skills

1:26:20toward internships and informing next steps in higher education and direct entry-level opportunities in the professional workforce we want to acknowledge our original guiding lights and advocates including janet abelson and mike aronian thank you and the added appreciation we feel for

1:26:41the leadership of wcc career in college cte academy's coordination team mary cadree and terry waller mary was here earlier but uh had to attend to a non-urgent family matter so it's all good but she had to slide away we also thank our instructional colleague chris merida of tech futures

1:27:00chris thank you brother mr ron whittier the founder of tech futures along with a robust bravex if you please for our city internship liaison and ec star indeed kristin cunningham thank you kristen um mary asked me to redouble the good news that the el cerrito stars program model

1:27:23this year newly integrated into the wcc district internship program has proven to be an inspiration to encourage positive development of similar programs in nearby richmond san pablo hercules and panel additionally mary wanted me to bang the drum a little bit to extend an

1:27:40invitation for our nearby business owners to learn more about the career internship program by searching pathways on the district web portal and reaching out to terry waller employer partnership coordinator and now we give you our ec stars the evening did advance as you know

1:27:58madeleine arachiga smith who worked in community development and mercedes sam mann with el cerrito police did have to adjourn their folks came to pick him up so if you please we'll welcome our stars kristin so up first we have jordan texan he was in rit department and also i

1:28:23didn't introduce myself earlier i'm kristin cunningham the city's human resources manager good evening my name is jordan texan and i was in um the id the it department so about the internship my supervisor was eric and he had me um move equipment from the old senior

1:28:58center to a new senior center and i also had to set up computers at the senior center as well i also had to update the active directory at city hall and i just assisted in the ticketing system and tested data cables which like at the police department from the police department to the new

1:29:29senior center as well and for an extra week i also digitized the city hall for four floor plans so things i learned was i learned to a bit of more independence one week eric had to like leave so i was just like almost by myself just doing work so i also had like self-management

1:30:12i learned like what it's like to be in i.t which is one reason why i wanted to like be in this internship and also very much work in general and more communication skills thank you [Applause] and so up up next we have vincent nguyen i also want to give him a special shout

1:30:47out he wrote a letter for a wrote an article in our news and views on behalf of the program this summer so he detailed his experience as well as his cohort experience in that newsletter so vincent good evening uh good evening mayor uh council members staff and citizens of el

1:31:08cerrito i hope you all are doing well my name is vincent nguyen and i'm here to talk about my experience here at working at city hall during this internship so i was placed in the finance department and the city's manager's office department and my supervisors were maya williams and andre ariaga

1:31:27yeah some of the skills i was able to learn uh during this internship was respectfulness um it's it's very important to treat your co-workers with respect and i think um it's a great experience you know getting the reciprocation of respect back uh when you act that way um professionalism

1:31:45obviously in a professional work environment you have to show up and be professional and this internship really helped me with that skill uh cooperation and teamwork and communication were all big things i got to sit in a couple meetings with some of the workers and

1:32:02really listen in on a professional setting and how they work together and communicate to work on projects and ideas to help improve the city so some of my department responsibilities where um i worked on the business tax license renewals with uh andrea um in the finance department

1:32:18and uh with the ascended managers office i was able to help promote events uh organize and help uh create them and i got to learn about ordinances and i basically got to help the city managers and the assistant city managers and the people who worked under them with their

1:32:34daily duties such as notifying notifying the citizens about certain events maybe like july 4th festival maybe important news and stuff like that and so the experience was honestly great i got to learn a lot and i got to meet a lot of new people and connect with a lot

1:32:51of different people and just you know learn from everyone and thank you thank you to the county to the city and to all the people that were able to make this internship happen it was truly a blessing and it was a great opportunity for me to learn from so many different people

1:33:07thank you [Applause] so in last but definitely not least we have proceed tapa who was in recreation hi my name is percy tapa and i worked at the city of el cerrito in the recreation department so luckily for me i got to work in two different places so on mondays on tuesdays i would work with

1:33:40eden at the community center while on wednesdays i would help with mark at the senior activity center so about the internship i got to work with eden and mark out the two locations were the community center and the midtown activity center at my first job was to help with the fourth of july

1:33:59festival which our department was holding and i think it was a really great experience for me because i got to work with everyone around me and also like the different departments and just getting everything ready up to date with the code my next job was to help around the

1:34:13summer camp so i got to work with like a wide range of people from little kids at the summer camp to older folks at the community center my next job was to help around the office at the community center so i helped around the different tasks by like laminating photocopying and doing

1:34:31the other office work which i needed to which they needed help with and lastly i helped run ran the elder tech program which was us team teaching older folks how to use technology and i think that was my favorite part about the internship because i got to connect

1:34:48with people who i would normally not be able to connect with and it was a really great experience what i learned was time management because i for the summer camps i had to help around with the with the transportation of the kids so getting all my job or my files in on

1:35:09time was really important next thing was teamwork which was just working with the different people in the different summer camps and just making sure everything went smoothly then communication was a major part of my my internship because i had to communicate with a wide range of people

1:35:28from little kids is telling them what to do to older folks and teaching them how to use like an iphone or an ipad and it was a really great experience and adaptability was really important it was something that mark told me in the first day i met him he was recreation is

1:35:44all about adaptability because you have to be able to adapt to the different situations which you may you may face throughout the day and lastly the most important thing was just independence and just getting everything on time and just doing knowing the things i had to turn

1:36:02in on a daily basis and doing it without anybody having to tell me what to do and lastly i would like to thank everyone the city of el cerrito el cerrita stars and wcc and the district for the career pathway program because it was a great experience and it's something that i'll remember for a

1:36:20long time thank you so that concludes our presentation and we'd like to thank of course ac stars and the district for helping us out this summer and we're open for questions or comments that you may have for our stars okay that's remember lyman yeah i want to thank you for the presentation tonight i

1:36:44want to thank the students for coming out and speaking and you you put a face to a program and that makes it so much more real for us and for the people that are watching at home so it really makes a big difference and i want to thank the district and and of course corey mr mason um you know the

1:37:04maturity of this program over the last six years is really evident um we've gone from sort of stumbling along in the first year to now we've got a very strong program and it looks like we can really utilize the students and and you guys are significant contributors to our city uh

1:37:22when you're when you're here um having hired a number of employees recently i can tell you that some of the skills that you all discussed tonight independence and self-initiative those are very important skills and i'm glad that you've been able to be exposed to

1:37:37them this early in your career keep those skills and and carry those forward both in college and your future profession so thanks um it's great to see you out here tonight you all did very wonderful presentations um i appreciated every one of you and it just made me flash back to

1:37:59my internship that i had right after high school at the viticulture and enology research center at fresno state and i thought that at that point i might want to work in a lab and after working in a lab i figured out i didn't want to i wanted to work with people and i went

1:38:18on to integrate people with science which is nursing so so i hope that you enjoyed your internship and maybe you found a career path or maybe you figured out what you don't want to do but thank you for all the work that you've done and it really shows that um that this program seems to

1:38:35be working very well and i'd like to see it continue expanded and once again i hope you had a great time thank you yes and i'd like to thank you for coming tonight i know this probably wasn't the most fun thing you've ever done [Laughter] but i'll bet you learned something from

1:38:59at least i hope you did and i hope you find it useful as you go on to bigger and better things and um thank you for all of the service that you've given to our residents because they may not not all know that you did it but i think they know that it was a good job so thank you

1:39:21councilmember great job students great job i want to thank corey and terry waller and kristen and the rest of the staff for their hard work on this and i hope you guys um boys girls women men see that government is a good thing but you realize it's not an easy thing

1:39:40so i'm sure you experienced that firsthand thank you very much okay and uh as mayor velcrito and an old gaucho uh i want to say uh congratulations and uh this is something that you will look back at um you know in the next few years you'll be going to college so uh

1:40:01these skills that you learned uh you will use them in the future and i want to uh thank kristin and uh my my friend over there uh mr corey mason and a shout out to my uh uh classmate 1976 uh uh gaucho uh macaroni and uh it's great to see everyone and thank you for being here on a school night

1:40:24thank you all for your support thank you [Applause] okay so now we will go back to consent calendar and adoption of the consent calendar a is approval of minutes b proclamation recognizing janet bilbus c proclamation hispanic heritage month d proclamation national arts and

1:40:53humanities month e is a proclamation on clean air day f the appointment of mate everson to the committee of aging g is the appointment of santiago kele to the economic development committee each final subdivision map for el dorado townhomes high speed limits for eight speed zones

1:41:18and jay is the amendment to classification plan mayor by meg we have a [Music] red line at the diocese of uh one of the tech one of the classifications under 4j and i i would love to know if that's different than what was in our packet uh and if we need to uh remove that item and take it up

1:41:43separately to recognize the revisions we received tonight i i can answer that here i apologize kristen uh can come back and explain yes there are some revisions this is different from what was in the packet and i will see she's out in the sure she'll be back in

1:42:10a minute so i'll look at the city attorney i'm assuming that as a result of that we do need to take this as an independent item no you can just um move the agenda with the substitute um version that's uh on your diocese okay excellent i will move the consent calendar recognizing that we have uh

1:42:31supplemental communications on item 4j that is to be included with the consent calendar second okay we have a motion by lyman second by uh maybe temple pardo akinodo all in favor all right and that is unanimous and uh items a through j is uh passed what's that jana getting out

1:43:10we need to pull that yeah we like to pull that didn't we well we we needed to pass it so we could then recognize it did you want to read from it or do you have words on i think i wanted to do that so we have a special uh proclamation and it is recognizing janet bilbus our

1:43:29recreation supervisor for her years of service and we'll start over here janet would you like to say a few words on regarding our colleague i don't know if i could limit myself to a few words but i'll try i want to thank janet for the fabulous job that she has done for our

1:43:50city um not once but twice you could say right and i um i don't know what we're going to do without you i really don't i did meet your predecessor at a meeting today but anyway i i i think the thing that was more meaningful to me than anything else about you and there were lots of things

1:44:18to choose from was your cheerful way of dealing with it all just like you're you're cheerful now when you know you could have been at home doing something else right true i am retired it's already that good huh but anyway i'd just really like to thank you for all of the different things

1:44:42that you have done for our seniors and before that for other staff i mean other uh residents and um the um the culmination of it all just had to be moving the senior center and i almost feel like we should apologize to you for that but not that much but you did a fantastic

1:45:09job thank you thank you councilmember fidell yes um janet thank you very much you have a big big heart and the last effort that this janet just mentioned was a big big effort so thank you for that i happened to go to your going away party in alameda which was great fun

1:45:30um and and and i think one of the themes was is that recreation can be a profession yes you demonstrated that you're very professional very nice the other thing i heard was in your early life you were a cherry grader sorter sorter cherry sorter and that you had dreams about it there

1:45:50were so many cherries coming down yes and and i could i can relate to that because in richmond a few summers i was a pair sorter my dreams were bigger than yours i can relate to you so we are going to miss you i consider you a friend congratulations and good luck thank you

1:46:08very much hey councilmember lyman hi janet thank you so much for all of your service to el cerrito many many years uh to our seniors to our recreation program there's i think uh janet abelson said it well um we wouldn't have some of the recreation programs that we have today without you

1:46:31your inspiration your leadership um and so i i know it's very important um you know we one of the tech one of the stars um talked about one of your programs the um elder tech program and how much fun he had teaching um older people how to use technology and i know that's one of your your your

1:46:53babies so it must be nice to see a younger person talking about implementing your program so thank you i'm envious congratulations um and we will miss you thank you very much you're part-time thank you very much for all your years of service it's very inspirational uh to

1:47:15see someone who's given so much to their community and um i'm particularly touched by by you working with the senior population i was raised by my grandparents and spent all of my childhood around senior citizens and i just feel like you know what you do [Music]

1:47:34helps extend people's lives and gives people a sense of purpose and a sense of community and it's so important and i just thank you very much for all you've done thank you and i also echo what my council members have mentioned and said as a former senior committee member i've

1:47:51seen up close and through the last couple of years when i was in that committee all the work that you did to prepare for that and then also taking care of our seniors here in el cerrito who are a large part of our community and keeping them so active that we have the healthiest seniors here in

1:48:12west county so i want to thank you so much for all your work through the years and i know you were in panel as well so uh you have fans uh all over here in west county and i'm one of them so i want to congratulate you uh to your retirement and you and your partner are

1:48:28going to have some many many years of being retired and enjoying life and i congratulate you so um i'd like to do a photo that if that's okay good one okay ready hurry up i do want to say something i'll just say a few quick uh thank you to the city of el cerrito which even though

1:50:05i don't live in el cerrito i live close enough okay and uh el cerrito is my home this is where uh i come every day and participate in different programs and activities and that so i've always considered el cerrito will always have a special place in my heart and also i wanna

1:50:25you know thank everyone for the the the kind words but i think it's really important that people understand what makes el cerrito great was i was just one part of moving the senior center it was truly a city effort and that is what is so nice about el cerrito is

1:50:41i could go into anybody's office and the door was always open and no one ever told me no they just said how can i help you and i think that's what made a two-year deal i made with chris turn into a seven-year deal and that's also why sometimes i sit and wonder did i really make the right

1:51:00choice because it was such a easy job and something i truly enjoyed every day and my basic philosophy is i'm a senior and so just plan programs that people will enjoy and so i want to thank each and every one of you a lot of the council members i know on a personal basis

1:51:21and thank you for always having an open door and letting me flourish thank you [Applause] okay now we also have a special proclamation that uh our arts commissioner uh the head of our arts commission has and i want to uh um you have that would you like to read that

1:51:57let me find it sorry sorry let me flip to the correct do you want proclamation here it is oh thank you is going electronically uh the el cerrito city council proclamation recognizing and supporting october 2018 as national arts and humanities month in el cerrito whereas

1:52:32the month of october has been recognized as national arts and humanities month across the country for 25 years and whereas the arts and humanities embody much of the accumulated wisdom intellect and imagination of humankind and whereas the arts and humanities enhance and enrich the lives of every

1:52:48american and the arts and humanities play a unique role in the lives of our families our communities and our country and whereas the arts and humanities enhance and enrich the lives of every american sorry that was a repeat and whereas the arts and humanities contribute toward cross-cultural

1:53:05understanding and enhance the quality of life and whereas studies show that innovation and creativity are key components to a prosperous future california economy and whereas the arts and culture commission works to encourage and promote arts programs and events and has

1:53:20created a poster and web page of arts related events happening at el cerrito in october now therefore the city council of the city of el cerrito hereby declares october 2018 as arts and humanities month in the city of el cerrito and encourages all members of the community

1:53:35to celebrate and promote the arts and culture in our nation and to encourage community members to participate patronize and support the arts and humanities events in el cerrito great so i'd like to present that proclamation to ms ruth kasden thank you mayor quinto

1:53:56did she want to say something um we also have some other members of our commission here george gager allison cooper and i think christopher walsh had to go home to his young son mayor quinto members of the city council city staff and members of the public who are still here

1:54:41on behalf of the el sweden arts and culture commission i'd like to thank you for issuing the proclamation um rather than reading the whole mission of the arts and culture commission i'll give you the reader's digest consent condensed version which is to promote arts and culture in

1:55:01the city of el cerrito [Music] because october is arts month we on the arts and culture commission are involved and sponsoring many events that promote the arts and i'll give you just a quick rundown and invite everybody to attend as many of these events as possible

1:55:27we like to span all or as many areas of the arts as possible so in poetry we are going to have our poet laureate danny gabrielle conduct a poetry event at um off the grid on wednesday october 10th she'll be reading poetry there'll be workshops and there'll also be an

1:55:49open mic for those of you who are secret poets for literature al miller mentioned our one city one book program and we will have an author reading in october as well as community discussions for visual arts i'd like to remind everybody that we have a wonderful gallery upstairs the

1:56:13arts commission juries the gallery and selects the shows and in october may papito will have a show plein air landscapes and there'll also be a reception on october 4th the el cerrito art association annual show is the weekend of october 5th 6th and 7th theater is also rampant in el cerrito

1:56:41the contra costa civic theater is going to have the premiere of allegiance which is a play based on the story of the kimura family who was interned in manzanar i believe which is particularly moving to me because i just came back from vacation and we toured manzanar so i'm particularly interested

1:57:03in seeing that program in addition rialto cinemas we'll be having two broadcasts of london of place live from london um one is king lear and the other is frankenstein encore that's for octo that's for halloween for music we have our annual el cerrito free music

1:57:29festival which allows people to hear folk music to participate in workshops and actually there's opportunity to jam we already heard at this meeting about restaurant week in october the el cerrito arts and culture commission has partnered up with the economic development commission committee sorry

1:57:55um and we're sponsoring some music at el mono restaurant so you can um munch to music on october which day is that lunch to music october 14th saturday october 14th and last but certainly not least our el cerrito high school band will give a performance at the high

1:58:17school on friday october 26th anyway we have these great posters and a real shout out to our commissioner christopher walsh who was here earlier but i think had to go back to his young son which outlines these events i will leave copies for the city council members and a few extras and also there

1:58:39are some outside for members of the public you can get all the details on the commission's web page on the city's website thank you so much mr mayor and city council thank you you guys got insurance yes we'll now go to a public hearing mayor can i just can i just say on that i sure

1:59:05very proud of the arts commission it's always an exciting month in october and i know the city's going to get the arts banners out in the next week or so so we'll know that it's arts month coming out and we can really celebrate it and all the various things thanks okay anyone else

1:59:24i just want to mention um i found out today that our high school el cerrito high does not have a choir any longer nor does it have theater arts and this is a troubling news when we've always had that through the years here in el cerrito and that's what made el cerrito high

1:59:43so successful so i'm hoping that we can make some changes on that to make sure that this returns uh to el cerrito high okay yeah so we'll go now to a public hearing on a fire hazard abatement good evening honorable mayor and council members here to uh put a abatement for you i did want to

2:00:20check um that you guys got the exhibit be the administrative worksheet that was added lately okay perfect so we did abate one property in the course of doing what we do though we did come across another property that we will be bringing before you again because we have a hazard that needs to

2:00:39be taken care of so this is one but we will be seeing you again in the future for another just something has to be done but it will be done probably this next week all right yes um yeah thank you it's fantastic i mean i think the list started out with well over 150

2:01:02properties on the list and it's been through communications and i think even some of the residents tonight talk about the good program that we do to manage vegetation in the neighborhood certainly some of the public comments tonight mentioned that there were properties

2:01:18that were overgrown and it was this program that debated those properties to to reduce the hazard that private property provides although many much many other comments were about the hillside natural area not necessarily being maintained one of the commenters brought up a

2:01:40private a specific piece of private property and that was the country club by whatever name you want to call it do you inspect the country club uh well we we do and it's kind of a weird thing as a jurisdictional area because uh the the townhomes are in the city of richmond the the uh golf course

2:02:00is on the city of el cerrito and so i tried to go in between them two and i also try to encourage dialogue directly between them because when it gets down to it we should technically be involving the city of richmond as well you know those homes are part of their community so

2:02:16i try to be in the middle trying to get them to connect on things and generally the the golf course has been pretty responsive they've changed managers the people managing the grounds and i don't think there's much of a change over when they do it because you know

2:02:31they do something we had a the guy mulched up a whole bunch of stuff and he left a really tall pile well he didn't realize that that was gonna make some people uh pretty anxious and so i'm sure you might remember a letter or so that you got about it and we went and he took care of it the next

2:02:45day but we've been out down the golf course for sure probably about three times already this year to talk to him about different stuff and he's kind of learning the nuances of working that course and his neighbors it and uh many of the comments were about the hillside natural area and and there was

2:03:00a shout out to one of our former uh fire captains uh gordon white um for his endless tireless uh work on managing vegetation in the hillside natural area how do how do we do that now i i saw on next door that it certainly got done sometime in august or the beginning of

2:03:20september so i know we're doing it but i wanted i wanted to give you an opportunity to potentially highlight that we are doing some of that work absolutely and the chief is sneaking up behind you okay thank you for the question good evening council members my name is lance maples

2:03:40i'm your fire chief it was great to hear a shout out about old gordon white and the work he's done up there over the years since his official official retirement we use contractors in the hillside natural area to complete the exact same work that gordon has done over the years

2:03:55ultimately uh with the limited resources we have we work on the entrances and the exits to the park both uh below and above the uh the community our goal is to work on the fast-moving flashy fuels that are in place that would make it uh more hazardous if we had an incipient fire start in the

2:04:15park um we work year around in the park we work with cal fire we bring out the hand crews i'm sure you've seen in my reports that i send out where they do vegetation management build slash piles and then we burn piles in the in the off season if you walk the park right now

2:04:30specifically from memorial grove up towards the y into the hillside natural area you'll see probably 25 piles that are prepared to be burned after the rains come as you know the the hillside natural area is a hazardous area to the community of course the eucalyptus is a

2:04:46very hazardous substance and it's a non-native species but we fight against mother nature on a very fixed budget to do as much as we can we work hand in hand with public works um and stephen pre is a city harborist to identify trees that are hazards to identify ladder fuels that can be

2:05:02removed from these trees and work through a process to lessen the risk um as time goes on with our new adopted local classroom mitigation plan it gives us more ability to apply for fema related grants and do more major work within the area great thank you that touched on many of

2:05:18the comments that we got tonight so i i appreciate that and if i may as as your fire chief i appreciate the citizens coming out tonight and voicing their concern in regards to a beautiful natural resource that we have um and and as the community has changed over the years we we as

2:05:36firefighters that do the vegetation management and do our wildland training in those areas um we we can tell the foot traffic's up our programs you know like the hillside festival uh it it's putting it's putting the park on the map and so that is also going to increase the exposure to the

2:05:53park yep um you just mentioned the hazard management plan that we passed i think in august um or may have been july uh there were some other plans mentioned tonight about management plans going back as far as i don't know early 90s or something like that in in 87 uh lsa the city had they commissioned

2:06:13a report from lsa to do a management vegetation management plan for the hillside natural area that ended up being an administrative draft and was not formally adopted but we've we still use it to this day as a guide and on top of that a company esa did another vegetation management

2:06:31plan in 93 94 and that was never officially adopted but we still use that as a guide we use we use the components that are in those for work that we do in the park ultimately um 1994 plan is pretty old a lot of environmental things have changed climate change has kicked in full speed

2:06:50as we all know and we can continue to do work as aggressively as possible and that budgets permit as you discussed earlier um but at some point we probably will have to revisit the planning process of ultimately um we you know we did our urban forest plan and that give us a

2:07:05tree count and and those type of things but to be able to do this and pull out the non-natives and bring in natives and replant you know the oak forest you've done this councilmember alignment i didn't get an opportunity to say earlier that i i have at in some of our

2:07:22annual planning sessions talked about developing a plan with the sierra club to do an acre of restoration a year because you can't a city of our size really can't take on the financial burden of restoring the 25 to 30 acres of eucalyptus to native oakland in one year it's just not

2:07:43economical economically viable so yes you and i had many a conversation on the 4th of july looking up at the hillside so this is something that is near and dear to my heart to see that conversion planned at some point um and and finding resources to do it you know have finding the volunteers to

2:08:04manage the oak sapling so that they grow up and become the type of cover we need to protect the area from future hazards sure and i think it should be noted that council has been supportive in the last few years on budget on budgetary issues with fire specifically on this i think

2:08:20in the last um um i'm shooting this out i think in the last four years we went to 10 from 10 000 to 35 000 in maintenance in the park um but as you know the cost of labor and those type of things uh creep up on us and so um we'll be back at the table next budget cycle

2:08:35and in another year to look for more funding to continue to do the good work we do i i appreciate council's support on the topic right thank you very much mayor pro tem do you have anything no i don't have any questions okay any questions questions um can i make a comment sure um i want to

2:08:57thank the chief because and the people i agree with them that came out citizens that came out tonight really important that we talk about it focus on it i think about it every day driving around our city we praised your department for the abatement efforts but our natural area is our big one of

2:09:17our biggest assets but it's also one of our biggest dangers and we need to do more because of the history around us um i was just talking to my daughter uh tonight about the agenda and this item and she was talking about that fire pit it's a real thing people smoke

2:09:35cigarettes marijuana build a big fire roast marshmallows we need to do something more about it if there's something more we can do we need to do it and i you know i don't know what it is but i love the ideas that came from the staff and doing more takes money and that's

2:09:50why i appreciate greg's comments about measure v uh when i talk about supporting the charter amendment i talk about the fire and the disaster relief and i get the most support i think from anything when i talk about that because we're here it just takes one cigarette butt as

2:10:07somebody said and our whole history our whole lives will be different so thank you citizens thank you you guys for talking about it we need to get more money measure v is one way to do that so thank you i echo what my colleagues have uh said as well and know that uh

2:10:25exactly a year ago i attended the urban forest conference and they they did mention about all the things going on that we need to take care of now because of climate change so i appreciate all your work and the work of your colleagues and know that i know that there are grants

2:10:43available to uh in the replanting of new trees uh so i hope we can all work on that together um the sierra club i'm on the board of the sierra club and know that we have a a tree group that would be more than happy to work with us together with our arborists here

2:11:02and they have wanted to do this with us for a long time now so i hope i'm hoping that our tree committee will work with the sierra club and volunteers to make sure that we take care of the trees that are dying and replant because many of the trees that we have have been

2:11:21planted about 100 years ago or less than 100 years ago are at the end of their life so looking at that and looking at the infestation of the tree beetle and our sick oak trees we need to do a better job in tree maintenance and i'm hoping that uh yeah the audience that was here earlier our

2:11:44residents we hear you and so definitely we will be partners with the fire department and with you captain to make sure that uh your job is completed and we do what we have to do for our cities thank you thank you i'd like to move a resolution of the city council of the city of el cerrito

2:12:03confirming the report of the costs of abatement of public nuisance conditions i'm sorry sorry to interrupt but i don't believe what you ever asked for public comments i don't believe there are any but this is a public hearing so if you could your honor could you please open the public

2:12:17hearing um yes do we have any public comments we're gonna open this do we and then we have to move i have no speakers okay so we're gonna close uh second okay all in favor all right okay move a resolution of the city council of the city of el cerrito confirming the report of the cost of

2:12:34abatement of public nuisance conditions resulting from the presence of weeds rubbish litter or other flammable materials on the private property designated here under the authority contained in elsewhere municipal code section 16.26 recognizing that we have a revised

2:12:48exhibit b at the diocese tonight uh detailing the total cost of four thousand six hundred and forty five dollars and twenty five cents second okay i have a motion by lineman second by purdue okimoto all in favor aye aye motion carries thank you you have a good evening thank you

2:13:07okay next is uh city council local and regional liaison assignments um let me find it real quick here i mentioned earlier from the environmental quality committee and showed the flyer i also wanted to add that they on october 4th at the recycling center are having a volunteer appreciation

2:13:36party from 6 30 to 8 p.m and they also have a new environmental fellow that will be based out of the recycling center great thank you councilman ravelson no i don't have anything okay i'm just one item the human resources committee has been working the last two

2:13:55times and a lot of discussion within the committee about what we heard tonight about the rent increase moratorium so i think they're working on an ordinance uh through the process here so okay thank you okay so we are going to adjourn the regularly city council meeting the next

2:14:12regularly scheduled city council meeting is tuesday october 2nd 2018 at 7 pm thank you you