Regular City Council Meeting December 4, 2018

0:02:36good evening uh please stand uh for the pledge of allegiance to the flag or moment of silence michelle pardue okimoto i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for

0:02:59all good evening sherry maybe have little call please sure council member abelson here councilmember fedele here councilmember lyman president mayor pro tem pardo akamoto present mayor quinto here thank you um let's go to council staff and communications uh first of all i'd like to uh announce

0:03:27the appointment of aaron gillette uh to the planning commission and also wendland lee uh for a drb design review board and uh these are short terms that will expire on march of 2019 and now we'll go to staff communication greg lyman okay um yes yesterday i attended the um

0:03:57ultibate subcommittee at berkeley city council mayor eric gean's office and we are going to have a rally the the various mayors from the i-80 corridor or are doing along with the california nurses association a rally to keep alta bates open they will be really releasing a health

0:04:19impact study of what the actual impact to our community will be if the hospital were to close and we need your support so please come out it will be around six o'clock in front of the new city hall in berkeley and we appreciate if you could come out for the rally thank you

0:04:40councilmember abelson none okay councilmember fideli yes um happy hanukkah everyone um i wanted to say i went to the chamber of commerce lunch last month with a couple new el cerrito businesses joining the chamber and lance maples retirement party just briefly to say good luck to him

0:05:00and that's it okay uh councilman yeah i was hoping mr miller would be here tonight but in his absence i will remind everyone of something that he said at the last meeting regarding the sunder shoddy holiday display it will be set up on saturday the 15th of december

0:05:18and taken down the morning of the 27th so the last night to view it will be december 26th there are some cards the cardstock or bookmarks out in the lobby that gives this information so feel free to pick one up as you leave and hopefully uh this long el cerrito

0:05:40tradition i believe they'll be celebrating their 60th year next year um is something that we all remember and can come out and celebrate so thank you um last week i had the pleasure of attending uh the the contra costa west contra costa mayor's conference so next month we will have that starting

0:06:03here in el cerrito which will be held on the last thursday of the month at 8 30 in the morning okay and then i also attended a calnet conference which included all of the asian american uh um elected officials uh it was nonpartisan and that was held at half moon bay

0:06:27and uh also had the the the pleasure of attending right after that at the berkeley country club the retirement party of our of our chief and uh and i wish our chief all the best so um with that um i'd like to go to uh oral communications from the public the first three speakers are michael

0:06:52fisher charles smith and christian teal good evening mayors and members of the council my name is michael fisher i live in el cerrito and i have the honor to be your library commissioner which is what i'm here to talk about again tonight uh about as we continue to review our

0:07:18library and what we should be doing the importance of libraries generally and i've left with the city clerk some copies of an article that appeared in the new york times on september 8th by a sociologist who asked the question is the public library obsolete you will not be surprised to hear that

0:07:46he answered that with the resounding no and i'd just like to quote a few things from that article for for everyone's benefit according to a 2016 survey conducted by the pew research center about half of all americans age 16 and over used the public library in the past year

0:08:11and two-thirds said that closing their local branch library would have a major impact on their community libraries don't just provide free access to books and other cultural materials they also offer things like companionship for older adults de facto child care for busy parents

0:08:38language instructions for immigrants and welcoming public spaces for the poor the homeless and young people and i would also add that here in contra costa we also provide literacy education as well he notes further libraries are highly popular among adolescents and teenagers

0:09:03who want to spend time with other people of their age one reason is that they're open accessible and free and another is that library staff members welcome them in many branches they even assign teenage areas for teenagers to be with each other and i can note that in our library we

0:09:27have a teen librarian and we have a teen library council that also works on issues the article further notes that libraries are the kind of places where people with different backgrounds passions and interests can take place in a living democratic culture they are the kind of places where public

0:09:58private and philanthropic sectors can work together to reach for something higher than the bottom line thank you good evening council members my name is charles smith i live in the wildwood place development on the north side of the hillside nature area and i come here tonight to speak about

0:10:30the situation with the hillside nature area not just for the wildwood place development but for all the neighbors of el cerrito who live on the periphery of the hillside nature area as we have all seen in the news uh last year and especially this year concerns with

0:10:51wildfires uh rapidly progressing has made us very aware of the situation with trees natural areas that are not dealt with fire management and and our concern is not just with the fire situation the potential for fires but wind rain freezes as they affect those large large

0:11:24eucalyptus trees i think many of us remember the hard freeze of past decades that killed some of the eucalyptus trees in the tilden area and caused them to fall the city has taken limited action in the past but for what for whatever region reason budgetary or what have you that

0:11:46action has been limited and our concerns uh the concerns of the the neighbors to the hillside nature area are such that we all know what the admonitions for fire safety keep your property clear of you know excess fuel load but our situation for neighbors bordering the hillside nature area

0:12:12we're constrained from doing a lot of those natural things because the hillside nature area is not our property it's the city's property and so we we see now with the passage of major v the potential for additional revenues coming to the city and we think the city is in a great

0:12:40situation uh in the in the near future to put some of these presumably additional revenues towards the mitigation of the uh the hazard situation there in hillside nature area we all love trees but none of us love hazards and so um i i believe that the the city council is

0:13:05going to be in a situation in the very near near future to put some of these potential uh additional revenues towards mitigating a hazard that will benefit um many of the citizens of el cerrito so i recommend you take a a real good look at at what can be done to

0:13:28to reasonably address that situation in the hillside nature area thank you for your time thank you after christian teal it's martha dragos and k sharkweather good evening council residents of el cerrito on november 26 2018 lanny johnson passed away born september 2 1975

0:13:59she started work at el cerrito high school on [Music] the september the you know just sick september 2nd 1975 she started work as a as a teacher at el salvador high school she worked for 43 years 2 months and 14 days i am here to stand because i see on the agenda that there are a lot of um you

0:14:26know people being held for their service and it is no secret that i'm against agenda item 4c titled el cerrito city council proclamation honoring city manager scott haynen especially in light of the dismal uh financial situation that he's leaving us with when he's retiring

0:14:44i want to hell miss johnson's service to generations and generations of el cerrito high school citizens uh residents and um students she became a librarian after becoming one after serving as a teacher she worked the last day that she worked was november 16 2018 that's 10 days

0:15:05before she passed away she passed away at age 73 her plan was to retire at age 75. i just want to stand up here and you know take a stand and make it known that this lady deserves praise and maybe a moment of silence or like posthumously recognize recognizing her service

0:15:26as someone who's brought education to the community all her students are benefiting from this have benefited and are going to benefit in the future because education as you know is being handed down to the future generations so i just wanted to take a stand lanny

0:15:43johnson service is i believe in berkeley on the 17th i believe thank you very much thank you good evening good evening marta dragos i'm a resident at [address removed] in el cerrito and we've lived on rifle range now for 40 years i've lived in el cerrito for 66 and have

0:16:06voted for all of you and proudly supported measure v so i have kind of laid low since my retirement but i do want to i am here tonight to speak about fire safety because where we are we see it we see it right from our front window on years ago when we first lived up there

0:16:25the fire department would periodically come around and just check on us and say you know you need to clean this up or clean that up and you know we we did we did as we were told because we agreed we wanted to be safe pg e came and would regularly keep the trees

0:16:40trimmed around the power lines regularly we were young and stupid and planted the wrong kind of trees but pg e came and trimmed them if we still owned that house we would have cut them down but we don't own it anymore okay now we live our house we cut down every single eucalyptus tree

0:16:58on our property before we built and we have power lines right in front of us we have seen transformers blow more than once we have seen high voltage wires arcing just a couple of weeks ago it was 12 feet from the power line down to the sidewalk arcing with sparks it was literally like

0:17:19a fireworks show with trees of course everywhere everywhere and whatever would start with you know near that line would go this way to those pine trees and that way right down in wildcat canyon we even took pictures of the trees and sent them tried to send them to pg e

0:17:40where the wires come right through everything and we got an automated response that they can't accept emails with pictures through that and give them a call so anyway we're still working on that so what about the future where are we going this is life and death i

0:17:56highly highly encourage i've been thinking about this perhaps a task force with you know with city staff with leaders such as some of you with citizens that are very concerned about this we put everything on the table i would love i would pay for putting my lines underground i know it's

0:18:15expensive i know you have to get the whole whole neighborhood to do that however everything should be on the table when we work as a task force everything what are the evacuation routes what are the ways that we could pay for undergrounding for those high high risk areas you know are there ways

0:18:31to do that what other options are out there berkeley i read on next door is there starting some sort of a plan or task for whatever they're doing uh kensington so the county you know contra costa county what are they doing are we coordinating these efforts because we

0:18:45are just one match strike away and i or one of these high high high voltage lines away i am terrified um i can get out on rifle range road probably because of the end of it that i'm at but the next speaker my friend and neighbor i'm worried about her thank you thank you

0:19:14nice segue um i haven't seen marta for some years but we are here with a common concern my name's kay starkweather and i'm 39 years on rifle range road aka i'm realizing the mega fire trap when the fire comes i'm gone there's just counting in my head there's 25

0:19:35large houses in our development in the canyon estates neighborhood below us are the condominiums a lot of condominiums a lot of people in the 25 houses and canyon estates at least 100 or more people i don't know the population of the condos but there's only one road out

0:19:57and there's also mardis neighborhood i don't know the name of that there's another neighborhood right there on rifle ranch and there's atwell estates between rifle range and the golf course so hundreds of people there's one road out rifle range it's narrow it's windy

0:20:12and as of two years ago it was densely overgrown with the sidewalks covered with vegetation and when i got to the point i couldn't walk down the sidewalks i called the city and the city did write some letters to the neighbors up the hill some vegetation got cleared

0:20:31the association found some money and they've cut their lines way back on one side of the street the other side of the street has the power lines going through the trees pretty scary from my house i look up at a huge tall row way up in the sky of eucalyptus trees that are on the back of the golf

0:20:48course up on vista road some pruning's been going on there the last week they're they're cutting them up the ladder i don't know who's doing that i hope they're taking them down i read on next door tonight somebody suggested making an exit map that would be really useful to us

0:21:07i would like to call for neighborhood meeting with the fire personnel at arlington park i'd like it specifically a meeting specifically for our homeowners neighborhoods so we could use the time to talk about how how we can get out can we um put a dirt road or use a dirt road

0:21:26across the golf course or what are the ways we can get out i think that's critical to us two how can we get the eucalyptus trees down three whatever happened to the citation program for overgrown private property i remember being cited around i think it was the year 2000

0:21:46i was away on summer vacation and i was told that the fire department had put a note on my lot that i needed to clear it and or they would clear it and i think i was thousands of dollars they were going to charge to clear it and i had a very short turnaround time and i

0:22:02panicked and i called some people and got it cleared is that does that still happen because that needs to happen my neighborhood is wildly overgrown um lastly two more things um i went to david gibson's presentation about two years ago in kensington at the youth hut

0:22:20what i the takeaways for that were defensible space around your house which i did get rid of your junipers which i did keep your trees you know cleared up which i did but i have a problem my neighbors have trees almost touching my home on their property huge tall trees

0:22:40they also have trees dro draping over their roofs please finish your statement please finish your statement sure so when you get this catch on fire those are going to go and i can't defend my space last point is i second volunteer committees and i'd be happy to work on

0:22:56that thank you thank you the last speaker is diane kraus strauss hi my name is dianne strauss i live on king drive in el cerrito and i'm here also very concerned about the fire abatement again the hillside nature area has been mentioned and those eucalyptus trees are just

0:23:27matchsticks they're ladder fuels to get a fire all the way up not just rifle range but all the way up all the stakeholders are not just our little neighborhoods the stakeholders are all the residents of el cerrito that fire the campfire was a house to house fire

0:23:46if you look at the pictures some trees were left standing what happened was embers went from house to house and destroyed all those homes the other mentioned the other lady mentioned the electricity wires over on contra costa road there are tree branches the electric wires and the

0:24:04transformers are right next to these over hanging tree branches some of the lines go right through them and that needs to be addressed um the other thing was the escape routes and we do need a plan all of these roads are narrow one suggestion was that if we had a red

0:24:26alert that parked cars could only be on one side of the street it would only take one car to stall and i know that that's what happened in the oakland fire a friend of mine was right across the street from where it started up in that narrow road and a car stalled and all these people on the road

0:24:44died so it's something that's really important and it's not just our little neighborhoods it's the entire city thank you thank you yes mayor if i may um i want to thank everyone for coming out and expressing your public comments tonight i want to let you know some of you

0:25:02weren't here two weeks ago when we did talk about potentially using some of the measure v money for the hillside natural area so that is something we've heard as an ongoing message that we've heard from you and we are trying to take action to that to miss dark weather

0:25:19yes we still are doing the fire citations um they take up about four of our meetings over the summer and and so i just want to make sure that you knew that that we still do that and to mr thiel we plan to adjourn tonight's uh meeting in honor of lainey johnson so thank you

0:25:36for bringing that information to us thank you any other speakers no there are not okay thank you uh let's go to the adoption of the consent calendar a is the results of november 6 2018 general municipal election uh one two is an adopted resolution two to adopt the ordinance b is

0:25:59proclamation honoring tom torlakson c is a proclamation honoring city manager scott hannon d is a proclamation honoring fire chief lance maples do i hear a motion uh hang on you missed one i think there was an f isn't there yes yes yep okay e is minutes f is landscape

0:26:26maintenance service agreements and i'd like to pull items 4c and 4d so i would gladly move a consent calendar consisting of 4a 4b 4e and 4f second okay i hear uh uh motion by lyman second by pardo okamoto uh on four a b and e yeah i pulled uh these items to um i did

0:27:02you know read from them and say a few words uh i'm not jan bridges who would be weeping at this point and so i'm here i'll leave okay excellent you can channel jan um but but on item 4c uh you know scott hannon i'm going to read pieces of the proclamation scott because uh we are

0:27:24honored that you uh led this city from and janet will speak to this i'm sure about how uh where our city was 17 years ago when you joined us um so i'm going to read a few of the warehouse clauses and and then now therefore be it resolved whereas scott hannon was appointed city

0:27:43manager of the city of el cerrito in march of 2001.

0:27:47um i'm going to skip down a few whereas scott's legacy is the culture of the city organization due to his compassionate leadership that allows staff to be flexible and nimble in their service to the public treating each other with dignity and respect expecting employees

0:28:04to can be committed to their families and personal lives as he is to his own commitment to a diverse and inclusive workforce and an engaged family-oriented atmosphere that makes el cerrito a great place to work and i'll add to live whereas scott hannon has led the city

0:28:22with a steady hand and an eye towards the long term and his leadership compassion creativity vision have resulted in a city management career that will have an impact on el cerrito for years to come and i would add a beneficial impact now therefore be it resolved that the

0:28:38city council of the city of el cerrito does hereby honor and congratulate scott hannon on the occasion of his retirement and honor and recognize him for 17 years of service to the city of el cerrito so that's the proclamation and i'll move that proclamation second

0:28:56okay so i have a motion by lyman and second by abelson and uh uh fidelity all in favor aye aye motion carries mayor if i may add a few words at this time uh scott janet's gonna clearly have worked with you the most time of anyone up here but i i am going to say that

0:29:18i've really enjoyed our time together our time working together to make el cerrito a better place i've seen you develop the staff under you and their ability to blossom and grow and then we really benefit from your time here and so i really appreciate your 17 years it really is uh goes

0:29:40without saying that we wouldn't be the city with a high level of demand if we didn't have the type of forward leadership that you've given us so thank you yeah i would i'd like to add on um i have paul and i guess have probably known you the least amount of years but the last

0:30:03two years have been really great getting to know you and in particular hearing the stories of yesteryear from janet and the other council members and i think probably my favorite is the recycling center i mean something that we all take for granted and i know it's something that my

0:30:24mother-in-law has used for years and it's really this absolutely exceptional nationwide unbelievable recycling center that is is just amazing and i know that without the work that you and janet put into it all those years ago it just wouldn't even be there so i really appreciate

0:30:46what what you guys have done and what you have done for the city and i'm sure i will be hearing more stories over the year years of the amazing vision that you were able to have for the city and i really appreciate it thank you that's a memorable son i can't really say enough scott about

0:31:08how much i appreciate working with you for these many years and how key i think that you were in so many of the maybe all of the changes that have uh come forth since and i think there have been a lot of positive changes in el cerrito under your leadership and i think that you are the key person

0:31:35responsible for all of them and uh one of the things that i know that i will miss about having you around is um that you were always kind of in my opinion at least thinking about the strategies and how do we get from here to where there is and where there is a really good thing

0:31:59and you have in um in not such an easy time at times figured out how to do it anyway i think perhaps the key one was figuring out when no one else could how to build a city hall how to finance building a city hall the very building that we're in right now you know no one else had been able to do

0:32:27it and yet you figured out a way to make it happen but there were many other things that you figured out a way to make happen to you figured out how to build the pool when everyone at the time was kind of stumbling in trying to make it happen you actually did make it happen and you

0:32:49were brand new at the time as i remember our recycling center um is is just an utterly amazing feat but one of the things that i think was particularly special about you was the way you worked with the staff of the city of el cerrito and how you looked at different

0:33:14methodologies for managing and how you enabled the staff particularly women and i'm very proud of what you did on behalf of women in our city and thank you it really i mean most places i don't think that's true today still there was a news article last night on the news about pay

0:33:48and they were talking about different jurisdictions large ones in that case and they were talking about whether or not the pay for women uh was equal to men and none of them was it or and none of them was it even close yet given that the uh effort that you put into making

0:34:10the women managers of our city the leaders of our city um that would not be true of el cerrito i think particularly management which is where it's so hard to really make a difference and so i really want to thank you on a topic that's very near and dear to my heart

0:34:33so thank you and laurel thank you for [Music] being there with him and i'm sure you know what i'm talking about that you've you've given a lot i know your family's given a lot in order for scott to do the many wonderful things that our city has seen under his uh leadership

0:34:58and it's it's i'm going to really miss uh that leadership although karen we're looking forward to you taking over but you've got a hard [Music] act to follow and um but anyway uh scott thank you so much and um i especially appreciated the many times that we talked together

0:35:27and i could express what it was i wanted to see happen in this city and um later on i found out a lot of that under your leadership did happen so thank you council member fidelity yes scott i want to salute you for the heading toward 18 years of helping make el cerrito a better place

0:35:52a safer place and as you often say a full-service city which is what we are thank you for the pool especially i like that uh and during the many elections we've had a another election here and usually that means change not this time but usually that means change and with

0:36:08all the changes and the many personalities that have come and gone in this zip code 94530 you've seen a lot of that change and you've been a part of directing and heading us in certain directions but with all that change it's come to my realization that the real power and the continuous legacy is

0:36:30and the legacy of achievement is centered in your office that's the continuation that we've had in here in el cerrito what many people don't know and i'm sure the staff has learned this is that you often may seem stern and stoic but you have a very big heart and you would rather be out saving dogs

0:36:51than being here working for the city i i don't mean to be speaking for you but um i do want to i do want to say good luck my friend on your new life your new adventures and thanks for all you've contributed so scott i personally want to thank you for uh i'm being a volunteer here uh

0:37:12then a committee member of the senior committee then uh commissioner uh council member and this year as mayor uh you made uh um the city uh the city that it is now and i'm very proud of that and to see our staff uh the most diverse staff here in the east bay i'm very proud of that to see

0:37:36so many things that we worked on such as housing housing for all we're the only city that's able to meet our arena numbers and our plans for transit-oriented development uh at our two bart stations and along san pablo avenue so that takes uh uh in-depth studying and you worked with

0:37:59so many great people through the years and i want to say thank you for uh being there being for el cerrito and i know i've texted you and texted you in the last uh four years day and night and and uh weekends and new year's eve so uh you know you won't get these uh text

0:38:17messages anymore karen will get them and know that uh you know whenever i heard from you i i felt much better knowing that uh you were there and uh and that our staff was uh here to follow your lead on that so uh again i want to say congratulations i wish you all the best in your retirement

0:38:36and i will see you at the dog park so what i'd like to do yes i would like to speak yeah absolutely go ahead scott briefly and i actually held it together thank you thank you paul almost got me um obviously i want to thank everybody and highlight you know what an honor and

0:38:59privilege it's been and um obviously as i approached 18 years as i told the council when i decided it was time for me for a lot of different reasons that i never had any interest in going anywhere else it was never about that this is why if you are here as karen is

0:39:18demonstrating now why would you want to work somewhere else so um it's been uh not without its challenges but certainly um a privilege and a pleasure to be here i had said to council member abelson when i got here this evening that i didn't actually spend the time

0:39:36and go back and count but we probably have done about 400 council meetings together um which sounds crazy um but it really really has been that long um there's just a few people and groups of people that i really want to thank and starting the most broadly you know the public has

0:39:59always been supportive right up through our recent measure we take for granted unlike too many of our neighbors um how supportive our our residents and our businesses have been over the years um and hopefully you know we've given them everything that they could have

0:40:21hoped for and you know they've always demonstrated um a trust and a respect and they were always able to differentiate what we were doing versus what was going on in washington or sacramento and that was very much appreciated and allowed us to get through the great

0:40:42recession and other hurdles over the years related to that of course i want to really thank this council and all of the councils i've had during the 18 years you know i feel the need to remind everyone who may not know that the council is largely volunteering their

0:41:03time i mean they get a very small stipend but when you think about the insane number of hours they put into this city um it's truly remarkable i mean we get paid to be here um and you know from the first council in 2001 to now we have been spoiled by the fact that

0:41:25all these folks are here and probably started on boards and commissions and leave their families and spend multiple days and nights here with the sole purpose of making an el cerrito a better place and that's really not always the case and i also related to that though feel

0:41:45like i want to point out to folks that are here folks that are listening folks that are talking to each other that i realize the mood particularly in washington has become really cranky and toxic the last couple years please think of that when you address the council they they really are trying to

0:42:03do what's best and even to a fault where the staff has got irritated at them behind their backs because they tried so hard to not allow anyone to leave here upset as much as they can they really do listen to every speaker read every email believe me i know because i get all of them um and i

0:42:26really want to do what's right by as many people as i can i want to specifically call out janet um because it has she was on the council and hired me and it's she's always been super supportive of me and the staff and um it's kind of amazing that we've been together the whole time

0:42:46i i also wanted to mention councilmember lyman who has become just a real supporter a confidant someone i could vent to have a beer with and brainstorm with and it's really been invaluable and additionally since i saw him walk in i i would call out uh mark friedman

0:43:06who was on the board of my prior job when well laurel and i will never forget when we got the monday night phone call after the city council left closed session and didn't decided they didn't want to make any offers to the city manager pool and called and asked if i

0:43:21would come over and speak with the council and the rest i guess is now history um i do wanna it's already been mentioned a few times and i'm never gonna stand up and take credit for it as you know but we have great staff and it really makes it much more easy for me to do this

0:43:41knowing all of the staff i mean every person that works here but certainly the senior staff that are going to be running the departments you're left in great hands these folks love the city they love being here they really want to be here and they never give up and they never say they can't

0:44:00and no matter as i i know how many times we've said we're going to do more with less we never did less and i'm sure that's going to continue i do want to call out a couple folks obviously i want to mention karen who has been at my side for 17 years and good things

0:44:22happen if you wait um i also do want to call out the city attorney who's just kind of sort of hides back here um because sky has been a great resource and it's probably better that you don't have to hear from him but um he is you don't realize how lucky you are to

0:44:42have him as a city attorney and he's been invaluable for me and while i have the mic um i'm sure you're going to get to it in a second um uh chief maples has been um sort of a wing man for me for over a decade now and i'm not sure i could do it without all these folks and and

0:45:02frankly everybody but i particularly wanted to do a shout out to those three um and finally as i uh paul alluded to um my family over here who um at some point laurel stopped saying you have the strangest job in the world um of texts in the middle of the night um for

0:45:23some reason when someone goes hey why are an el cerrito it always happens it's sunday night at 2 30 in the morning and i go back to when i was relatively new and some of you who've been here a long time remember chief kirkland who was sort of an interesting old

0:45:38school personality would i'd obviously be we'd be in bed sleeping the phone would rang and it takes a while to get used to when you see your phone light up and it's the police chief like oh my god what's going on and to show it cookie it was he would always say

0:45:54how are you like i'm good how's laurel i'll ask her she's she's fine um and and that's sort of how i got started here and i just something about that story struck me as that's how it's uh kind of been here since the you know the weirdest job but the most rewarding i you know obviously i've

0:46:18lived here for over 11 years now i'm involved in a whole bunch of things my kids are involved in a whole bunch of things which has really been helpful to me as the staff knows when i'm calling them from play fields and clubhouses in the pool driving them crazy um

0:46:35and they know i'm going to continue to do that as a taxpayer so again i just i'll stop i just want to again thank you all and thank everybody it's been a great run and i have no doubt it's going to continue thanks thank you [Applause] so for photos let's do the photos uh at

0:47:03the end of the ceremony okay i'm sure i'll move on to item 4d uh which is another proclamation in recognition of fire chief lance maples again i will read portions of the proclamation um whereas lance maples fire chief has served the el cerrito community with dedication and compassion and upon the

0:47:25occasion of his upcoming retirement is deserving of recognition and whereas lance started working for the el cerrito fire department in 1991 as a firefighter was promoted to engine near in 1993 became a captain in 1997 and a battalion chief in 2000 and whereas lance was assigned as the

0:47:47interim fire chief in december of 2006 and later appointed as the fire chief in april of 2007 and whereas lance has held every rank the fire department in the in the fire department and has always strived to empower those around him to believe in themselves excel in their jobs

0:48:11achieve their dreams and provide outstanding customer service for the community they serve and whereas lance is supported every day by his wife anna and his adoring children joseph and adriana now therefore the city council of the city of el cerrito takes great pride and

0:48:30pleasure in drawing special public attention to lance maples for his record of service to the local community and extends to him our sincere appreciation and best wishes for continued happiness and success in your retirement i move that proclamation okay second i have about

0:48:52uh let's say first from greg lyman and second by purdue okimoto all in favor aye that is unanimous motion carries mayor if i may start comments at this time uh lance uh it's been just a pleasure working with you for the last for me for the last 10 years um your

0:49:18understanding of our city the understanding of the culture of our city the development of a culture in our fire department is without question um we would not have the culture and the men and women of our of our city uh fire department without your leadership and so i want to thank you

0:49:43personally for that because it's really made it easier for us to know that we are providing not just full service but exceptionally great full service through our fire department so thank you very much i just wanted to say that meeting lance has been another great opportunity being

0:50:07a member of the city council i met with many of the department heads in my first year one-on-one and i just to this day think about how friendly you were and how welcoming and i really appreciate the way you welcomed me to the city um and i just also wanted to say i'm

0:50:26really sorry i couldn't make your retirement party i was doing my own service as a nurse at the hospital and that's the only thing that could have kept me away so thank you so much for your years here and you've done a really great job and i can i look forward to continuing to

0:50:46work with the fire department but we will definitely be missed councilmember abelson well i did make lance's retirement uh dinner and i am so glad i did because i learned so much about lance that i didn't already know and all of it was really positive and it made me really

0:51:09help put together another part of what our city is all about because i could see in what people said there people that i didn't necessarily even know before that night that what he had done is make it possible for so many people to to uh advance to you know to to a higher level than

0:51:36they were already at um and and he always treated everyone in a very supportive way and i would put in that category our city because i think lance did a lot for our city that we didn't really know about and it was all positive and um i think it was because he truly and still does i

0:52:01think truly cares about our city and um his support of our city i think went way beyond that support that you would even expect from an employee of any sort and so i don't know where you are out there lance but somewhere i see the hand anyway i just want to let you know that

0:52:28i really really appreciate all you have done to make el cerrito a better place and i hope you have a fantastic retirement uh and i know that we will all miss you thank you for all you've done photographer i want to echo that what janet has just said um lance and i

0:52:50thank you for all the work you've done in this community even before i was a council person um i'm always impressed with how smart and articulate you are not for a fireman but just because you are um and i have much respect much respect and awe for our firefighters

0:53:14and i say this in all due respect um you got out alive and god bless you um it's a very dangerous profession we all know that especially lately and i hope you enjoy your retirement thanks well okay thank you chief i also want to say thank you for your service i echo what my

0:53:39colleagues here on the council have said i also want to let everyone know about my experience with chief lance maples and that was dealing with our measure v i want to thank you personally for taking that drive out to martinez and meeting with vince wells at the

0:54:01we all met there with scott hannon so that meant a lot to me knowing that you supported uh this particular measure and uh so appreciate you doing that and you know i i remember your brother when we had a prowler down at our house and they broke the fence in and

0:54:22there was a canine dog there so uh you know you're you're a family of service and your father we're the rich and pd so so know that uh we are grateful to your family grateful to you for your service to our community so thank you so much janet you scared me a little bit when

0:54:43you're going to say what they were talking about at the retirement parties i just stopped i appreciate that um all had a good time thank you council mayor it's a pleasure to have served as your chief i'm going to be your chief for approximately 26 more days i look forward to every one of them

0:55:03i'll start off this evening by looking towards mr scott hannan what can i say that you guys haven't said i don't think i can the city of el cerrito is absolutely blessed that he showed up here and wanted to be the city manager he's put the foundation forward for a

0:55:21city like no other i i can i just roll through the memories of when he first came here what the fire department's equipment was like and what it's like now state of the art it's top-notch it's it's all new and modern and ready to go i i think of the facilities we were in city hall

0:55:41the trailers those type of things um it's outstanding what he's been able to do and how he's come up with creative ways if everyone remembers 2008 in the recession that hit everywhere we're the only local government the only police department the only fire department the only recreation

0:55:58department that didn't alter our level of service we didn't lay anyone off um and that all has to do with mr hannon and his ability to be creative and figure out creative ways to still serve the public um it's a it's a little well it's not a little it's extremely humbling to be

0:56:15here tonight when we're recognizing scott hannon i can't hold a candle to what he's done and so i want a round of applause for mr hannon first so that being said city council i thank you you've made it easy to run a fire department um you've been supportive any

0:56:40budget item i've come forward you've brought forward you've returned whatever i've asked for um you've made it where i could support the men and women that go out and meet the mission at three in the morning and uh and and go for long periods of time when they're out on campaign fires and

0:56:56those those type of things as we know it takes a village it's really easy to be fire chief in the el cerrito fire department tonight i have some very special people here that i have to recognize i have the fire department's command staff david gibson please stand up

0:57:16[Applause] chief larry carr [Applause] and our training chief kevin james [Applause] they're really the glue that holds everything together once council council sets policy feeds it out to us we adopt a budget it goes down to those folks they push it out into the troops but

0:57:42none of that is possible without a couple other individuals i have our el cerrito fire department rep for local 1230 mark faguera [Applause] and then the president for local 1230 vince wells [Applause] that's the group right there that makes it where the men and women can do their

0:58:05job without that group it doesn't work when we look at the things we've done we've had we've had support with labor the whole time they've come to the table when we needed them to they've been very flexible the employee group has the management group has and uh it's uh it's

0:58:22it's not that common that it's that way um but i think it all stems from we respect the citizens we serve we took the oath to serve them we have a council that supports us and you can't you can't miss if it's that way so i appreciate your time i appreciate this evening i

0:58:40want to wrap up with saying as mr hannan has always done with this city he has uh aligned us and put us in a situation to succeed with our new city manager karen pinkos you guys are i mean he's going to move seats maybe just confuse people i wouldn't even move seats just have her

0:58:56sit there and do it and later tonight you guys will have a discussion about your new fire chief and i think the citizens can go to bed at night knowing that it's going to be seamless um issues that have come up in the recent past will be addressed and will continue to serve the citizens at the

0:59:15highest level possible so thank you thank you [Applause] sherry do we have any public comment um i don't have any cards okay good yes sir i'll fill out a card okay um vince wells uh local 12 30 president representative of el cerrito fire i i just couldn't sit there and not

0:59:50have made comments about one your city manager who i've had experience with now the last 10 years since i've been the union president as well as chief maples you know a lot of people don't know in contra costa county there's only three city fire departments there's el cerrito richmond

1:00:13and the city of panel all the other 16 cities are part of a what you would call a fire district and so the city of el cerrito has always done it the right way i don't know your procedures i didn't fill out your card and all what does that say is because the union president

1:00:34has never really had to come here to raise any issues or or address concerns because we've always had a very cooperative working relationship with all of you as a council and with the city management and with the fire chief so i want to say the city of el cerrito

1:00:53the priority that you have placed in public safety is second to none and lance has been probably one of the greatest facilitators of that when we have issues him and i are able to talk and also our membership we get together we talk we talk about whatever those issues are and we usually

1:01:19are able to resolve them without taking it any further and have never had to come here to complain about your support or needs of the fire district they've always been met so i just wanna i just think that that lance needs to go away with you guys in the community here in el

1:01:38cerrito acknowledging that el cerrito has runs its fire department it takes care of its firefighters takes care of its community and it's second to none in contra costa county thank you thank you thanks [Applause] did we do f okay so let's go to and and again we'll do photos

1:02:13afterwards in in hopefully short order so let's go to uh our next is the swearing-in of newly elected officials we're going to do the oath of office and presentation of certificates of election we can uh go out there okay would you raise your right hand and repeat after me

1:03:18i i in your name janet abelson solemnly swear i swear that i will support and defend and i will support and defend the constitution of the united states the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of california and the constitution of the

1:03:36state of california against all enemies against all enemies born and domestic foreign and domestic that i will bear true faith that i will bear true faith and allegiance and allegiance to the constitution of the united states to the constitution of the united states and

1:03:52the constitution of the state of california in the constitution of the state of california that i take this obligation freely that i take this obligation freely without any mental reservation without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion or purpose of evasion and that i will well

1:04:10and faithfully and that i will well and faithfully discharge the duties to discharge the duties upon which i am about to enter upon which i am about to continue to win congratulations and i'd like to give you your certificates of election thank you [Applause] um

1:05:10okay next we have uh an opportunity to uh say a few words uh councilmember abelson okay thank you well it gives me uh great appreciation uh for being in the place that we're both in today which is that of serving our city for another term and this i have said as i said in my

1:05:38statement on the ballot this is my last term and i hope within that last term to complete what i started out to do when i first ran which was really to work on san pablo avenue and improve the looks of san pablo avenue the functioning of san pablo avenue i wanted

1:06:00to make as i said then and i'll say right again now i wanted to make it a place and i think we've come a long way towards making that happen especially since we passed our recent specific plan thank you scott and your team for for making that possible um and i think we're in a position where if the

1:06:26economy holds out for us um that we are on our you know are on a path to making that happen i um then uh look forward to um uh spending more time with my family and there are representatives here tonight and i think that's later right introductions yeah okay okay and um

1:06:51pardon you can okay or do it now okay um i have five children and on thursday they will all be here they're all coming for hanukkah but um what the representatives of my family that are here tonight rachel if you want to come on up um and my youngest rachel is my oldest

1:07:16daughter she's an attorney from lake county and um this is her daughter uh my gran my youngest granddaughter and youngest grandchild and her name is haley and i'm really appreciative of them from coming down they actually were [Music] under a mandatory evacuation order

1:07:43during the last lake county fire and yet my daughter had to go to work in another mandatory evacuation area which is where her job was so i didn't know that there was such a thing but she's been so she's been through a lot in the last year and her husband's a firefighter so he

1:08:06was off fighting the fires and i don't even remember where at that point he was also fighting the uh most recent camp fire so i i guess i'm very sympathetic towards what it's like to be a member of a firefighter's family because not only is my son-in-law a firefighter

1:08:30but also my only son so i want to make sure that we do for our firefighters what i would like other folks to do for my two firefighters and that i'm very appreciative rachel for being here uh tonight and representing our family and the rest of them will be here later

1:08:55in el cerrito so it's been um a a long time i know since i got on the council and i've seen a lot of changes occur during that period of time in the beginning it was a little bit what i would call rough but as time went on and scott worked his magic and with everyone here that was helping him

1:09:25do that magic and [Music] it just kept getting better to me better and better and better we got you know better players better council members what can i say right [Laughter] we have our new way of of agreeing to go like this which actually i think is a sign lane is

1:09:50sign language for it um the um but what's happened is i think over time that we've just done a better and better job of becoming a community and i'm very proud to be to say i'm from el cerrito and i'm very proud of the people in el cerrito i don't always agree with them 100 and they don't always

1:10:14agree with me a hundred percent but that's okay and that i think is one of the things that we truly as a community get you don't have to agree with everybody all the time but you need to let the other person talk you need to hear them out you need to think about what they said

1:10:36and then after we vote yes and no then we politely together go on to the next item and i think that's what we've on this council done a really good job of doing and i hope that we continue doing it uh as as long as time goes on and i want to thank our audience because really the audience

1:10:59is part of that picture always and so let's give the audience [Applause] thank you all for coming um and it may sometimes seem like we don't want to hear you say something but we really do because we can't if we don't hear all the sides we're not going to be able to make the best decision that

1:11:26we think we can um so thank you for your part and with that i'll all i'll pass it to you thank you thank you first of all i'd like to say thank you uh to uh my partner glenn nethercut glenn say hello our anniversary of 21 years is on the sixth of uh this month and uh i'll be flying to dc that day but

1:11:56i just want to say thank you for being with me for the last four years in the last 20 years and uh i look forward to uh being with you another four years the next four years so thank you for being there for me it was a sacrifice a lot of long hours and uh but he was there to take care of our

1:12:16home and and to that i say thank you i appreciate it and also i just wanted to uh point out uh the city council gets the job done i wanted to uh let folks know about uh all the things that happened this past year uh with scott hannon's leadership karen pinkus and our staff

1:12:39i wanted to mention what was accomplished with the community development we approved 500 new residential units and 16 000 square feet of new commercial development including 67 below market rate units before the end of the year we have issued certificates of occupancy for

1:13:00nearly 200 new multi-family units including 75 below market rate units we issued permits for 14 accessory dwelling units compared to one to four units in prior years we also had the opening of the 24 hour fitness and our firefighters and our police who use the 24-hour fitness

1:13:22now i'm sure they're very very happy that we finally have that there at the old safeway and we also adopted an inclusionary zoning ordinance in may we entered a purchase and sale agreement for the 1718 east shore for development of a 100 room hotel and to sell the cerrito theater to

1:13:43the current operators we entered into a deposition and development agreement with the mayfair property for development of 223 units including 67 below market rate and almost 9 000 square feet of new you commercial financial i wanted to say thank you to mark our

1:14:03financial uh guy here mark i know you're here somewhere but thank you i also want to say thank you to our financial advisory board and also to our auditors please know i hear what that what our independent auditor said this last council meeting and i will take note of that and i will make sure

1:14:28as long as our council members are here the next four years we will work together and to our audience that is here right now that spoke about fire prevention we will do whatever it takes is el cerrito is a full-service city we've always done it and we will continue to

1:14:46be a full-service city with our fire department and with our police department we will do what needs to be done and we will use some of that measure v funding for that i also wanted to save our fire services they completed three promotional tests for the rank of

1:15:04italian chief captain and engineer we completed three full rounds of cert training and six cpr first aid classes for residents and we were awarded fifteen thousand dollars homeland security grant for rescue equipment parks and recreation received that received 26 of

1:15:22the best of contra costa county awards from parent press magazine for recreation programs i congratulate chris great job once again and i appreciate your staff successfully moved out of the open house senior center and moved into the cerrito el cerrito midtown activity center we

1:15:42completed swim center renovations of locker and chemical rooms increasing safety and ada access we worked with eden housing to design a senior center space at hana gardens we increase overall daily attendance at fairmont harding and madeira schools by after school programs by 33 percent

1:16:02increased hours at teeter totts and the casa cerrito preschool program and added kinder care program at madeira we also increased the number of subscribers to the recreation department their e-newsletter rec news to over 10 000 people with our police service with

1:16:22our our chief here thank you chief for all your work this past year we implemented the body-worn camera program for greater police accountability we expanded community outreach program with more public events increasing the focus on volunteers and hosted two community police academies

1:16:40and also we deployed roman who is a new police canine public works we launched new sidewalk repair thanks to senate bill 1 the road repair accountability act removing over 200 trip hazards through concrete grinding and beginning construction to address close to 30 sidewalks location

1:17:02damaged by street trees we prepared two uh macneilles and peterbilt trucks to replace the two trucks that currently serve the residential curbside recycling routes received three beacons spotlight awards which recognizes an agency's holistic approach to addressing

1:17:21climate change we've received a gold level medal for community greenhouse gas reductions and a platinum level award for energy savings and a platinum level award for natural gas savings i want to thank measure a street improvements the city again once again recognized by

1:17:40the mtc as ranking the top three in the bay area for pavement conditions so you know when you're leaving out of el cerrito approaching our other cities you see the difference i want to thank everyone for uh supporting that measure we completed construction of this is something that's

1:17:59very dear to me as that was my playground when i was growing up here in el cerrito it's the construction of centennial park we're going to have a ribbon cutting scheduled for december 12th at 11 a.m the improvements include a new accessible path network enhanced

1:18:16gathering and recreational spaces with the new site amenities and we also completed a cons construction of the only ohlone greenway wave fighting and pedestrian and bicycle amenities project we exceeded the regional regional water quality control board mandated trash

1:18:37load reduction goals and part of the installation and maintenance of 67 new trash capture devices we launched new every tuesday household hazardous waste collection at our recycling doubling resident participation with technology we provided the open gov financial

1:18:57transparency portal on the city's website we replaced the community center surveillance system and we also upgraded the firewall system and computer systems improving security and efficiencies and i just want to say as mayor of el cerrito this year for 2018 uh you made my life

1:19:18quite exciting to be a part of all this and to see all the changes here that happened i also wanted to just say hello to some of the folks that made it out here i know we have a couple of folks from the rotary and the chamber i thanks for being here i very much

1:19:40appreciate it and i want to thank our business community they stood by me and they supported me they welcome me at every ribbon cutting we have more businesses uh opening in the near future uh genesis reels real estate they just opened at the bank of the west building and it was an honor to be at

1:20:02their ribbon cutting and some know that we have our small businesses are the heart of our city and it will continue to be the heart and soul of el cerrito i also want to say thank you to some of our business community that's here right now to kevin wang and kathy

1:20:22trong from wang industries who plan to build housing here in el cerrito on san pablo avenue thank you for your vision i i look forward to the groundbreaking for that also to john stasek and lisa montenegro for the el cerrito chamber uh you've done a fantastic job and getting new members

1:20:45and also returning members who haven't been members in a while i look forward to working with you in the next four years as well also to my close friend and advisor former mayor mark friedman thank you i i very much appreciate your advice to me this past year and and

1:21:04the last four years so um also uh we have the uh the tibetan community here and i want to say thank you for being here i appreciate we have many residents from your community living here in el cerrito and thank you for being here okay so let's go to uh council member fidelian lyman

1:21:32congratulations uh mayor on your reelection these flowers are for you these are for you thank you [Laughter] this is going to my partner glenn other cut this is for you thank you and that is that you know there's an opportunity for uh us to make comments and i i want to

1:22:04acknowledge that both of you have family members here whether it's rachel or glenn um it's but for our our families that support us and and there are families here for both scott and lance but for the families that support us we can't do what we do here um so i want to acknowledge uh

1:22:22how much you've given to the city over the last four years we hope you give twice as much over the next four years and your families will continue to support you i wanted to thank both of you as well [Music] janet you've been a mentor to me and i've appreciated

1:22:42all of the um advice that you've given me and i was really lucky to have been placed next to you on that plane i think five years ago we just happened to be sitting next to each other on a plane and i think that's when the mentoring started so i appreciate it and gabe you as well

1:23:00have been mentoring me over the years and showing me the ins and outs of all the things that we do and i greatly appreciate it i particularly appreciate the work that both of you have done on measure b over the last year and you've done a fantastic job as as mayor

1:23:19thank you thank you so much no and i also have a little something for from all of us a little plaque that for mayor quinto appreciate it thank you [Applause] uh mr mayor last few minutes here before we can we can say it's been a pleasure working with you as mayor and

1:23:47i too want to thank you for getting involved with measure v and putting your mayorship and your candidacy on on the line and getting it done it's a big uh achievement for el cerrito and i think we'll be better off because of that um you seem to be everywhere in

1:24:03town and i just had a question for you um i just wanted to know if you like being mayor as much as your social media photos seem to show [Laughter] do you can you it's an honor to to be doing all of this and then because you are everywhere so i look forward when you are thank you well

1:24:22thank you and i look forward to working with you over the next four years and janet you know congratulations to you you must be getting used to that word now um but since you said that this is your last term on the council i think the next four years will be very special for

1:24:38you and our city and i look forward to continuing to learn from you and to work with you on some of the place making issues that you raised about el cerrito that's a big challenge that we have and i just want to say that it's my view that after those four years i think you're

1:24:56certainly headed for that wall of fame out there in the lobby so thank you very much thank you okay any public speakers no there are no public spots um i would like to say something i want to congratulate my partner janet abelson again uh she and i were able to

1:25:23win this last election together and uh we will continue to work together like we always have uh we disagree now and then but that's okay but uh she's always been my colleague and i look forward to uh working with you side by side uh for the next four years thank you for your

1:25:40project yeah and um am i supposed to say something now do you have any comments about the mayor oh yeah okay thank you well i would uh have to say that um i rem i kind of vaguely remember back when i think it was we met and i think it was an earth day maybe or at least that's when we

1:26:07started working more together maybe that was when i there was a movie theater it was the movie theater okay and uh i just talked you into doing earth day maybe yes among many many other things and um then one day you told me that you were going to run for city council

1:26:29and here we are today and i just don't know what more there is to say about it other than people keep asking me and you know what your next step is and i don't even know if you think about a next step or if this is the next step itself but i i must say it's uh it's been a lot

1:26:52of fun doing all these things together and i look forward uh to the next four years doing more of the same thank you thank you okay so let's go to policy matters the city council reorganization so i'll now declare the offices of the mayor and the mayor pro tem vacant

1:27:26are there any nominations for the office of mayor yes i would like to make a nomination i'd like to nominate rochelle pardue okimoto to be mayor of el cerrito second are there any other nominations if there's i'd like to move the close the nominations second all in favor of closing the nominations

1:27:51indicate by saying aye aye opposed none motion carries the nominations are closed all those in favor of selecting council member pardue akamoto as mayor indicate by saying aye aye any opposed no motion carries councilmember akamota purdue akamoto has been selected mayor

1:28:16of el cerrito congratulations i believe we're going to do a swearing-in if you would raise your right hand and repeat after me yes i i and your name rochelle pardue okimoto do solemnly swear do you solemnly swear that i will support and defend that i will support

1:29:13and defend the constitution of the united states the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of california and the constitution of the state of california against all enemies against all enemies born and domestic foreign and domestic

1:29:28that i will bear true faith that i will bear true faith and allegiance and allegiance to the constitution of the united states to the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of california and the constitution of the state of california

1:29:43that i take this obligation freely that i take this obligation freely without any mental reservation without any mental reservation or purpose of it or the purpose of evasion or purpose of evasion and that i will well and faithfully and that i will well and faithfully discharge the duties

1:30:01discharge the duties upon which upon which i am about to enter i am about to enter congratulations thank you [Applause] i have something [Laughter] thank you you see that kids you better [Laughter] be good right all right so i do have a few things to say once again my name is rochelle pardue

1:31:25okimoto and i really appreciate all of you joining this very special day for me here thank each and every one of you for being here first i'd like to thank my family members that came and my friends that came to visit with me today to to celebrate this really special moment

1:31:50in time i've been thinking a lot about family lately um miracles sometimes do come true and i recently found my father and so i want to say if you're watching this on recording hi dad and um because i've been able to put uh the other side of my life together that i never saw before

1:32:19i've been able to do some really important um family digging that i found in family trees and i'm trying to say um i noticed that on video i say um too much okay i'm able to trace my family now back to texas and i can trace back to three great-grandparents so great-great-great-grandparents

1:32:52of granville and sydney cleveland who were born in 1842 and 1853 in the state of texas so they were born in the south during the time of slavery and so i'm sharing this with you to tell you what my american story is because everyone's american story is different

1:33:19and now you might have guessed that by looking at me that i was most likely a descendant of slaves but what you might not know is that my grandmother who's sitting here in the front 85 years young next month was a twin born in the state of louisiana and her grandfather

1:33:43fought in the civil war for the confederate side and my grandfather my grandmother's husband who was unable to be here because he passed away in 1995.

1:33:59my grandmother and my grandfather raised me my grandma margie and my grandpa ken and he would be very very proud of me if he were able to be here today and his family on the other hand if i go back four greats my great great great great grandparents thomas and eliza toner

1:34:28lived in the state of iowa and they had a station in the underground railroad this is my american story despite that i am often asked where are you from well maybe by looking at me you can't tell all of that and when asked where are you from i often say fresno and they laugh too

1:35:01well now i can say i'm from el cerrito and when i say i'm from el cerrito i can also say and i'm the new mayor there aren't a lot of mayors that look like me i am honored to sit in the seat because as both a person of color and as a woman it is unusual to have the seat of mayor

1:35:29so i want to thank all of the people that helped me to get here we have a lot of work to do i want to thank the residents of el cerrito for voting yes on measure b we now have a great responsibility of additional income to use and to save in a very responsible manner

1:35:57during my time as mayor i hope that we will build our reserves while preparing for disasters in 2016 when i ran i said that i wanted to work on disaster preparedness and it was funny because it was not as in fashion then but now it seems to be the topic of the day

1:36:20so i want to continue with the promises i made in 2016 and work on our disaster preparedness for the city of el cerrito i want to work with east bay regional parks and our cert captains and our fire department to work on the issues that all of our citizens have been bringing up the last

1:36:40several meetings i want to keep alta bates open i consider that to be a very important part of our safety network and when or if and most likely when at least with the case of an earthquake we will need that facility there to serve the community i want to work on strong rental

1:37:06protections for our folks here in el cerrito i know that one of the things that people say over and over we recently interviewed a commissioner and he said i don't live in el cerrito because it's not there are other places i could live he said i could live in marin i could live in moraga but i chose

1:37:26el cerrito because of its diversity and i think it's very important that we put policies in place that help protect that diversity i want to work on our parks and rec master plan now that we do have some additional funds i want to go on with more things that i talked about back in 2016

1:37:47as a as a mom with two children that use the parks and rec facility on a daily basis we have a lot of work to do and i'm glad now we'll be able to start tackling some of those projects and last but certainly not least and there are more items of course that i will be

1:38:07missing on this list but i want to ensure that we continue to work on making sure we have a safe and modern library for our city and really quickly before they go to the bathroom that is my husband and my son kiyoshi [Laughter] my son kai is also here can you stand

1:38:31kai it'll just wave okay um i want to thank um well he he left but i'll save those remarks for later we'll see if he circles back by the time i'm done with this i wanted to once again recognize my mother and my grandmother if he could please stand thank you very much i appreciate you

1:39:02um i wanted to thank takashi's family who i'm now a part of of course the okimotos and so can members of the family okimoto please stan that's you guys yes you're looking at each other but i'm referring to sumiko and ned and donya thank you for being here um and

1:39:27he's not here either but i really want to make a special shout out to my brother-in-law eric and mary his wife people ask how do you do it and it's hard you know there's constantly piles of laundry at my house that i'm trying to keep up with in fact i have to wash

1:39:46some uniforms before i go to work tomorrow afternoon but my brother-in-law consistently cooks down cooks dinner for my family like every weekend almost and i just really appreciate all of the extra time and effort they put into helping to care for my family i want to

1:40:08do a special recognition to um to my brother bobby who showed up tonight all the way from fresno please raise your hand yeah um i want to thank the people that helped uh to get me here people that helped with my election in 2016.

1:40:29and uh not everyone is here tonight but i wanted to recognize scott kagawa hillary crosby lucy reilly and a special shout out to my communications director molly hazen who's here tonight can you stand thank you molly i appreciate all that you've done for me and i appreciate you

1:40:51being here tonight i wanted to thank my fellow commissioners from the human relations commission especially georgina edwards who could not be here tonight i wanted to thank all of my fellow council members for supporting me in so many ways over the last several years

1:41:11i wanted to thank also the city staff for really helping me along the last couple of years i've learned so much from you and i have so much more to learn and i am looking forward to every moment of it i wanted to thank other groups that helped make sure that i could be here sitting

1:41:29in the seat today black women organized for political action the california nurses association and many other of my brothers and sisters in the labor movement i wanted to thank my best friends um who i don't get to see as much because i spend so much time doing community

1:41:51service now so please stand miss violeta luna jones who's been my best friend since nursing school thank you for being here i wanted to thank the emerge program who trains women to run for office because yes we still do need more women to run for office more women to sit in

1:42:11these seats and make decisions for our communities if there's anyone i've forgotten my apologies but i thank all of you for being here and i look forward to serving the city of el cerrito in 2019 and beyond and thank you to all of the residents of el cerrito for

1:42:30placing me here thank you [Applause] and with that we will move on with our next item of business are there any nominations for mayor pro tem i would like to make that nomination i'd like to nominate councilman greg lyman to be mayor pro tem city of el cerrito second

1:43:11yes are there any are there any further nominations i would like to close the nominations i'll second all in favor of closing nominations indicate by saying i i opposed motion carries nominations are closed all those in favor of selecting council member lion lyman as mayor pro tem

1:43:35indicate by saying aye opposed motion carries council member lyman has been selected as mayor pro-tem [Applause] you have any further remarks um i know i'm between you and your cake so i'm going to be brief this is a a two-year commitment i've got two years left in my term and i'm uh

1:44:03going to be looking forward to fulfilling this commitment to you i want to thank the citizens of el salvador the residents of el cerrito for your support on our past measures measure r measure v and i want to continue to provide you with opportunities to speak to me about

1:44:22upcoming matters like rental policies the hillside natural area the library and on high on my calendar i think was already said by several people tonight is uh measure a extension we've got a pool bond and recreation bond that is set to sunset and that's something that i'll be looking to

1:44:47work on in this near future with that move on i call for item 7b memorandum of understanding with public safety management group fire chief their staff report yes there is thank you your honor congratulations i'm karen pinkes assistant city manager and it's interesting that this is such a

1:45:13night of of some happy endings and some wonderful beginnings and that is my item before you tonight i'm asking you to adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute an mou between the city of el cerrito and the public safety management association fire chief

1:45:29i'm very pleased to announce that upon the retirement of lance maples in 26 days and counting we will be appointing we have appointed battalion chief michael pagone as the next fire chief for the city of el cerrito and also as well as the kensington fire protection district as

1:45:48you know that we have a relationship with um with the kensington fire protection district together we provide fire service to all of the residents about kensington and el cerrito chief begonia has served the el cerrito fire department since 1995 began as a firefighter has worked his way through

1:46:06the positions of firefighter and captain to his current position a battalion chief and as i indicated in the staff report i believe that he is the consummate individual to take this next step and very thrilled that chief begonia is joining the department executive team here in el cerrito

1:46:25as the city council does not need to approve this appointment however because the fire chief is a part of the bargaining unit of the public safety management association it is required for the city council to approve this mou additionally as of january 2017 state

1:46:42law requires that every legislative body of a local agency must orally report a summary of proposed actions on salaries salary schedules or fringe benefits of executive level employees so in summary if approved this mou with the new fire chief would set his base salary at

1:46:57seventeen thousand seven hundred thirteen dollars per month and provide most of the same french benefits as the city's management employees receive his retirement plan is the same as other firefighters and continue to make a 12 percent employee contribution and

1:47:10additionally provides for a 750 annual uniform allowance and it should be noted that that is all uh pretty much the exact same contract that the current fire chief has been working under as well and so with that i would like to offer once again congratulations to chief begoni thank

1:47:27you to the public safety management association for a very easy and quick negotiations and of course to the members of the el cerrito fire department i appreciate your support and i appreciate your support of chief pagone and with that if you have any additional questions i'm happy to

1:47:43answer them this council have any questions okay are there any public uh comments i don't have any cards is there a motion on this item i'd like to make a motion to accept the resolution supporting uh our new fire chief segment um i'd like to ask for a vote all in favor aye right

1:48:15nose motion passes and with that let's see next um are there any um are there any council reports oh yes so before we adjourn the meeting i'd like to invite everyone to join us outside for some cake and i would like to close this meeting in honor of lainey johnson who worked at this high

1:48:53school thank you very much [Applause] you