Regular City Council Meeting March 2, 2021

0:05:11Gabe they're.

0:05:18Hello, I'm here to Davison.

0:05:22Hi, I was going to try and.

0:05:26Today, one of those screwing things up.

0:05:29You did?

0:05:31I did.

0:05:31What is it?

0:05:33City hall.

0:05:34Oh, OK.

0:05:35I guess I get it.

0:05:37How do you like that?

0:05:37I didn't even do anything.

0:05:39I was playing around with it early.

0:05:42Now, look, Sergeant.

0:05:44Looks good.

0:05:45I can see myself because I'm all I see is this agenda.

0:05:51How do I get rid of the agenda?

0:05:56It was me screaming, Sharon, council

0:05:58member able Senate can stop it.

0:06:00Oh, OK.

0:06:01I appreciate all their ideas at city hall.

0:06:08Which I hope will be able to see some time.

0:06:11Yes, I don't quite remember what it looks like.

0:06:15I actually, I was there one day once last year.

0:06:19I think sad.

0:06:24Now, is this is it is it a reverse image or is it

0:06:31is it right?

0:06:32This is my first year reverse, but it's.

0:06:35That's correct.

0:06:36Reverse this is my left hand.

0:06:48Well, that's pretty cool.

0:06:49That means it stays.

0:06:52You don't have to do it each time.

0:06:55Anybody else put their foot it up?

0:06:59Not today.

0:07:02Have you at all.

0:07:05I'm not one to talk to her, to do it, to give that to oh,

0:07:09but I'll do it later.

0:07:10I'll do it time when I've got more time.

0:07:13Yeah, same here in my old neck.

0:07:16It doesn't work.

0:07:17Oh Yeah.

0:07:19I don't think and this ipac that I have,

0:07:22I don't think it works either.

0:07:24It does not.

0:07:26Yeah well you're the new one, they gave me and be down.

0:07:30Oh I own my own.

0:07:37So I'm having some problems that they

0:07:41thought maybe it could be solved by my getting one to a city.

0:07:45I don't.

0:07:45Sounds like, I don't really want that.

0:07:47Now Did you get a brand new one?

0:07:51When I bought this one, yeah, how long ago was that?

0:07:58I don't know, a year and a half.

0:08:02I made monthly payments on the phone and I own it now,

0:08:05I think I'm in 18 payments, it just happened.

0:08:12My most expensive possession, I think

0:08:16that's how you're sure in a good mood, you know,

0:08:18I'm going to turn the light.

0:08:20You're in a great flow and you find out

0:08:24the wrong, wrong Zoom meeting or we're on a well, yeah,

0:08:28the party's over.

0:08:30Yeah, this is serious stuff.

0:08:33That's the happy camper, the one.

0:08:35You know, nothing wrong with that.

0:08:37See if I could, you know.

0:08:41It's fun.

0:08:43And in turn, it all.

0:08:47Do you actually use it for anything?

0:08:50No, it just came on this way sometimes

0:08:53when my daughter was killed.

0:08:56So it's fun.

0:08:58I like it.

0:09:04Alex that happens to me all the time.

0:09:10Let's all do it together.

0:09:12It's just I try not.

0:09:16And I think you should leave it out of the head

0:09:23that just wouldn't come down.

0:09:25So I had to go and get some job.

0:09:27I think you got some breaking down.

0:09:39We were having fun, Karen, before you came, the.

0:09:44I was here the whole time, I just had my oh,

0:09:47OK, OK, my house.

0:09:51No, OK.

0:09:53That's interesting, huh?

0:09:56It's like if I get out of the Zoom myself, my house comes on.

0:10:03By naumov, you.

0:10:05The real view.

0:10:10If we'll ever see city hall again,

0:10:12although they said, by May they're

0:10:16going to have enough vaccine.

0:10:17So everybody can have it.

0:10:21Maybe like two months, cool, it happens, especially.

0:10:29That seems optimistic.

0:10:32Well, who knows?

0:10:34I didn't I didn't say everybody would have less.

0:10:37Did you hear my words?

0:10:38I did hear your words.

0:10:39I'm actually, I actually think it's optimistic

0:10:41that there will be enough supply in two months

0:10:44for to vaccinate another.

0:10:49150 million people.

0:10:51Well, the thing is, not everybody will do it.

0:10:55There's get to a point where there's

0:10:57sufficient societal vaccination to get Texas.

0:11:02Yeah and won't matter.

0:11:04So much.

0:11:06That I know people who did it because I did it.

0:11:11Literally I'm getting my second wind Saturday.

0:11:18Like my mom is as well.

0:11:19So listen to the other one makes so good backdrop.

0:11:25I like that, but yeah, that.

0:11:28How did you get that color that way?

0:11:32It came that way.

0:11:33Oh, I don't know.

0:11:34A particularly flattering to my skin tone, but also

0:11:39worry that it's going to act as a green screen.

0:11:41Yeah, great.

0:11:42That's against the numbers.

0:11:45If you have any special request, I'm

0:11:47happy to create the backdrops and send those over to you.

0:11:50Just let me know.

0:11:51Well, that was a very nice special request that you did.

0:11:55Yes thank you, Holly.

0:11:56You can't pick take a picture of each chair

0:11:59and be in front of, like, some spots.

0:12:05And holly, thank you for the Zoom effort you put in here, it

0:12:08seemed easy already.

0:12:09Yes, yes, definitely.

0:12:12Although I so good, I don't want to jinx this bad, too.

0:12:17So there's another factor.

0:12:19But this, I think, will be a lot easier for people.

0:12:35Man, once we get to the 7 o'clock hour,

0:12:37we do have everyone on the call and you can feel free to start

0:12:40the meeting when you're ready.

0:12:42You're welcome.

0:12:56And backwards.

0:13:04You know, I'm having a hard time getting

0:13:06in the middle of the street.

0:13:07I can't.

0:13:13You can go that way.

0:13:15And you tell me if the logo is reading

0:13:18correctly on your project.

0:13:20OK, it is.

0:13:23You're kind of covering the tree a little bit, but that's OK.

0:13:26There you go.

0:13:26There you go.

0:13:28OK, it's 7 o'clock.

0:13:30And the March 2nd regular city council meeting

0:13:34is called to order at seven o'clock,

0:13:36will the city clerk please call the roll, man

0:13:39fidele here, man Potemkin to.

0:13:45Yeah, I can't remember everything here.

0:13:48Council member mohtarma er council member, ethnic

0:13:52president, we have a quien.

0:13:55Welcome, everybody, can we talk about the teleconference

0:13:59and public comment instructions for a city clerk,

0:14:02please do that for us.

0:14:03Yes, thank you, mayor.

0:14:04Tonight, we are piloting resume within our platform.

0:14:07So thank you to all our participants in advance

0:14:09for your patience as we get acclimated

0:14:11with this new technology.

0:14:13So far, it's going smoothly.

0:14:14Let's cross our fingers.

0:14:15This stays that way for city council members

0:14:17and staff participating as panelists.

0:14:20Please remember to keep your microphones muted

0:14:21whenever you are not speaking.

0:14:23For our participants on the call today, the chat feature

0:14:26has been disabled.

0:14:27The mayor will announce the time for public comments

0:14:30on each applicable item.

0:14:32Members of the public who wish to provide oral testimony

0:14:35can request to speak by selecting the raise hand icon.

0:14:38If you cannot locate the icon, please refer

0:14:41to the document linked on page one of the agenda

0:14:43for the raise hand feature.

0:14:45For those calling in via phone only

0:14:47you can raise your hand by dialing.

0:14:49Star nine in the name of public speakers

0:14:52will be displayed to all participants.

0:14:54However, cameras will remain disabled for security purposes.

0:14:58Written comments received by the posted deadline today have been

0:15:02provided to the city council and posted online

0:15:04with supplemental materials and written comments submitted

0:15:07after the deadline will be provided to the city council

0:15:10and included with supplemental materials after the meeting.

0:15:13No written comments will be read into the record.

0:15:16Mayor, we are ready to move on to the next item.

0:15:18Thank you, IRA.

0:15:19Number two is staff and council communications.

0:15:22Do we have a report from our city staff?

0:15:26Yes, thank you, your honor.

0:15:28I'm Karen pinkest, city manager.

0:15:29And once again, thank you, holly,

0:15:31for working on our communications

0:15:35and our telecommunications and technology

0:15:37and also Thanks to our staff for making this move.

0:15:40So quickly.

0:15:41I appreciate all of you.

0:15:43First, I want to give my regular report on the local emergency,

0:15:47which, by the way, was declared almost one

0:15:50year ago on March 13th, 2020.

0:15:53So it's coming up on a very odd anniversary today.

0:15:58Several counties were advanced to the red tier, which

0:16:01is also known as substantial.

0:16:04Contra Costa, however, was not one of them.

0:16:06So we remain in the purple widespread tier.

0:16:10I'm certainly hopeful that we may be upgraded, if you will,

0:16:13in the coming weeks.

0:16:14But until then, we need to stay vigilant.

0:16:17We have heard for those of you who

0:16:19are looking to get vaccinated, we've heard that getting

0:16:21appointments has definitely been challenging for some folks,

0:16:25especially since the state website for appointments

0:16:27has been a bit glitchy.

0:16:29All we can say is if you are eligible, you can either

0:16:32go to the My turn dot, see website,

0:16:37or you can also go to the county website at coronavirus dot,

0:16:42health dog and click on Get vaccinated

0:16:46if you have trouble online or if you don't have a computer

0:16:49or if you know someone who is having trouble

0:16:51or doesn't have a computer.

0:16:52There is a phone number.

0:16:54I'll say this twice.

0:16:55You can request an appointment at 1/8 three eight to nine

0:17:00to six to six.

0:17:02Once again, that's one three eight to nine to six to six.

0:17:09Vaccinated or not, we're still fighting this virus, so again,

0:17:12please stay masked, stay distanced, wash your hands

0:17:15and continue to follow all the safety protocols.

0:17:18We're not we're not out of the woods yet.

0:17:21Secondly, I did want to provide a short update to the city

0:17:24council regarding the potential federal stimulus

0:17:27package, that if it is passed and signed by the president,

0:17:30would certainly have impacts on our community, especially

0:17:33our city.

0:17:34As for the first time, this package

0:17:35would contain a direct payment, direct payments

0:17:38to municipalities of all sizes.

0:17:41You may remember that the CARES Act only set aside money

0:17:43for municipalities of 500,000 or higher in population,

0:17:47and the rest of the close to 19,000 cities

0:17:50across the country were only allocated money

0:17:52from their states and was only allowed

0:17:54on a reimbursement basis for COVID related expenses.

0:17:58And the city of El cerrito, through the CARES act,

0:18:00received about $300,000.

0:18:02So this package certainly has the potential to be

0:18:05substantially higher than that.

0:18:06But what that allocation will be has not been finalized

0:18:10and it won't be until it passes both chambers of Congress

0:18:13and is signed by President Biden.

0:18:15We know there's a lot of horse trading going on right now.

0:18:18It is slated to go to the Senate perhaps as early as tomorrow.

0:18:22I do want to let the council know that staff has been

0:18:25monitoring this closely, but any significant allocation

0:18:29for the city would absolutely be brought to the Council

0:18:31for discussion and appropriation.

0:18:34And since it would be a federal grant,

0:18:36it may not have the same strings attached to the CARES act,

0:18:39but there will definitely be some sort

0:18:40of certification process that we would need to follow.

0:18:44So but I do just want to caution until

0:18:46and unless we have a firm outlook for a number

0:18:49that we're looking at, I'm I don't wish to speculate.

0:18:52I don't wish to debate what at this time.

0:18:55What how we would propose to use the funding

0:18:57until we know exactly how much we would be allocated.

0:19:01I also want to remind the council, though, that this

0:19:03would be a one time payment.

0:19:05And certainly staff would recommend

0:19:07that we don't use one time payments for ongoing costs.

0:19:11So that certainly would be something

0:19:13that staff would keep in mind.

0:19:14But until, again, it's settled and signed by the president,

0:19:17we're moving forward as if nothing's changed.

0:19:20But we will, of course, be ready to respond accordingly.

0:19:24Just want to let the public know if you support this bill.

0:19:26I certainly feel free to let our senators Feinstein and DNO

0:19:30and our congressperson mark desaulnier,

0:19:32because it will have to go back to the house

0:19:34because it's expected to change in the senate,

0:19:37even though it appears that all of our federal representatives

0:19:44do support the bill.

0:19:46They do find it important to hear from constituents

0:19:48if they do support it.

0:19:50So that they can tell the stories to their colleagues.

0:19:52So we would encourage that.

0:19:53Certainly this bill is way more than just

0:19:55the state and local government package.

0:19:57It has individual and family stimulus payments, payments

0:20:00to schools, pimas to small businesses, child care,

0:20:03vaccinations, all that.

0:20:05It's a very $1.9 trillion package.

0:20:08So, again, we'll continue to keep you posted,

0:20:11but a lot could change over the next couple of weeks.

0:20:13So just stay tuned.

0:20:17And finally, I have a very sad announcement

0:20:22to make to our LS3 community.

0:20:27Maria Sanders, who work for the city for over 12 years

0:20:31and has been very well known in the community.

0:20:35Passed away on Saturday after a long and brave

0:20:38battle with cancer.

0:20:41Since 2009 Maria worked for the city

0:20:43and was a big part of leading our residents, businesses

0:20:47and employees toward being an environmentally

0:20:49sustainable, resilient and healthy community,

0:20:53she began as an environmental analyst

0:20:55and eventually became the operations and

0:20:57environmental Services Manager.

0:21:00Many of she led our efforts in advancing

0:21:03our climate protection policy, including

0:21:05the Climate Action plan.

0:21:07She oversaw the city's first municipal solar project.

0:21:10So all the solar panels that you see on city buildings,

0:21:12and at the community centers is Thanks to Maria.

0:21:16She implemented lighting retrofits in city buildings.

0:21:19And on the green way, you manage energy efficiency

0:21:22and clean energy projects.

0:21:24She worked on improving maintenance

0:21:25of public landscapes and infrastructure

0:21:29and and, of course, oversaw integrated

0:21:32waste and recycling services.

0:21:34But more than all of that, she was just a wonderful person.

0:21:38And a friend.

0:21:39She was so smart and talented and respected

0:21:42and valued as one of our co-workers.

0:21:49Her work ethic, her creative problem solving,

0:21:52her attention to detail and positive interactions with all

0:21:55of us co-workers, residents, the council and the public

0:21:58has just been key to the city being known

0:22:00as the environmentally focused and forward thinking community

0:22:04that we are.

0:22:05She made the public works department better.

0:22:07And she made the city better as a whole, as an organization

0:22:11and as a place for all of us to live.

0:22:15Her LS3 family is grieving.

0:22:17We're devastated by her loss.

0:22:19And we offer our condolences to Maria's has been dead,

0:22:22her family, friends, co-workers and all those who loved her.

0:22:27I will miss her terribly.

0:22:30And with that, mayor fidele, thank you.

0:22:32And I will turn it back over to you.

0:22:35And we will be adjourning in memory of Maria

0:22:39at the end of our meeting today, very sad.

0:22:44Communications from our city council members.

0:22:50Do I see any people wanting to make comments tonight?

0:22:56I have a few announcements, then no one else is ready to go.

0:23:00I want to follow up on what Karen mentioned as far

0:23:03as the federal legislation, we all

0:23:06are encouraged to reach out to our federal representatives

0:23:10in support of the COVID relief and stimulus package.

0:23:14We've written letters to our congressional delegations.

0:23:17I've called Congressman taxonomies office.

0:23:21We've written letters.

0:23:22Now to our senators and congressmen.

0:23:28They actually responded back that he'd like to meet

0:23:30also with the delegation.

0:23:32So tomorrow, I will be connecting with you

0:23:35all about a possible web meeting this Friday

0:23:38if you'd like to attend, where Congressman Dasani will

0:23:41talk to us about our needs.

0:23:44He responded to our letter and wanted

0:23:45to get back in touch with us.

0:23:47I think that's very, very good indeed.

0:23:50I wanted to also say that in our last closed door

0:23:53session on February '20 third, we did speak internally

0:23:59about our response to the state audit

0:24:03report that is due to come out.

0:24:05So that's all that we can say about that right now.

0:24:09I was selected through with to be

0:24:12the new alternate to the Contra Costa transportation authority.

0:24:18And I'm at today with Tim hale, who is the new executive

0:24:21director, to talk about the real goals as far as transportation

0:24:26and transit issues.

0:24:28Also, the West county mayor has had a discussion on the MACA

0:24:32blue ribbon panel that is discussing how post COVID,

0:24:37the transportation in the Bay Area

0:24:40can come together and be more efficient

0:24:42and be somewhat consolidated.

0:24:45So we can get riders back on transit.

0:24:47We also had some discussion about COVID

0:24:50in that meeting with a supervisor, joyo.

0:24:54And I think that is.

0:25:00That's it.

0:25:01Anyone else second thoughts about a comment?

0:25:06OK Then we'll move on to oral communications

0:25:10and can our city clerk actually, I want to I wanted to say that

0:25:15at this time, members of the public who wish to provide

0:25:18public comments regarding matters, not on the agenda,

0:25:23consent items and presentation items

0:25:26should use the Raise Hand feature, as was

0:25:29mentioned previously, to speak.

0:25:32Can we ask our city clerk to proceed on this, please?

0:25:37Thank you, mayor.

0:25:38But we give members of the public

0:25:40an opportunity to raise their hand.

0:25:42I will just share the written public comments

0:25:45that we have received that we received prior to the posted

0:25:48deadline today have been provided to the city council

0:25:52and posted online with supplemental materials.

0:25:54This includes items that were comments on items

0:25:57not on the agenda from Cordell Handler, John fastjet, Leslie

0:26:01Adams, Gary past and Stu and Paul Duncan,

0:26:04as well as comments on agenda item,

0:26:07feisty from big business and Daniel Schulman.

0:26:11It looks like at this point, we only

0:26:13have two members of the public who have requested to speak.

0:26:16There If you could just confirm the 3 minute time limit for me.

0:26:24Three minutes.

0:26:25Thank you, sir.

0:26:26We'll go to my first public speaker, which is today

0:26:30is William kittson is William.

0:26:33You should have the ability to unmute yourself

0:26:35now and begin your time.

0:26:37OK first, thank you for the switch

0:26:41to zoom, but along with the switch, I'd like to request

0:26:45that Zoom be configured.

0:26:47So that those who are in the meeting,

0:26:48us as observers are allowed to see one another

0:26:51and see the other participants in the meeting

0:26:54and also be allowed to chat with one another.

0:26:56The way the Zoom is configured.

0:26:58Now is the most restrictive way possible.

0:27:00I do not believe that it creates a sense of community

0:27:02or invites public participation.

0:27:05I'm actually quite disappointed to see

0:27:06it configured the way it is.

0:27:09That's all I have to say.

0:27:13Thank you, our next speaker is rehearsing.

0:27:18Well, she should be at the pool and unmute yourself

0:27:20and begin your time now.

0:27:22Sure thank you.

0:27:24Yeah, I want to just spend just a moment of gratitude

0:27:30for the woman I just moved to.

0:27:32Also read a lot last year, mid last year.

0:27:35But anybody who works to improve,

0:27:39especially the environment, is a friend to me for forever.

0:27:44So lots of love to her and her family and graces good graces.

0:27:49I also want to acknowledge everybody who is on this call.

0:27:51Like I agree with William.

0:27:52I would love to be able to see my fellow citizens, I mean,

0:27:55especially these days where we all feel so isolated.

0:27:58It's more important than ever that we connect

0:28:01with our neighborhood and our community,

0:28:03especially since so many are so fearful of meeting in person.

0:28:07Then we need to find ways to connect virtually and feel

0:28:11like we're in it together.

0:28:12I mean, this is a pretty big you know, we're an emergency.

0:28:15I mean, I don't I guess some people

0:28:17are more comfortable than others in this emergency.

0:28:20So it gets kind of blown over.

0:28:22What's going on.

0:28:23Just to let you guys know, I've been

0:28:25talking about it, the social emotional task

0:28:26force for a few weeks now.

0:28:28I'm really serious about this.

0:28:30My partner, she's a pediatric ICU nurse.

0:28:33We live together here in La.

0:28:34And every day she's at Children's Hospital in Oakland.

0:28:37And she comes every day telling me

0:28:40about kids coming in with suicide

0:28:42who are from marginalized communities in our backyards.

0:28:45And more so teens and preteens are

0:28:48coming in committing suicide.

0:28:50They feel.

0:28:51I also work with kids, mind you, I work with wealthy kids

0:28:55and impoverished children.

0:28:57And they're both talking about suicide, talking about.

0:29:00There's no point in living.

0:29:02And some of them might not even be telling

0:29:03the parents we're on this call.

0:29:05What's going on with them.

0:29:06They won't communicate that the same way.

0:29:09So I'm really serious about cutting

0:29:11the social emotional task force.

0:29:13I'm getting a lot of support from buddy Akashic on the scene

0:29:17as well.

0:29:17So I even advise, please, whoever is interested.

0:29:21We're going to meet tomorrow at the albeniz senior center

0:29:24at 1:00 PM.

0:29:25Come join us.

0:29:26I think the assistant city manager is joining us.

0:29:29Come to walk.

0:29:30Let's talk how we can do this together.

0:29:32I imagine a council of seven to ten, seven to 10

0:29:34people, including a few parents, maybe a teenager on there, too.

0:29:40If you a senior, a couple of seniors, maybe a teacher.

0:29:43I'm a teacher myself.

0:29:44I can offer that perspective, but I just

0:29:47feel we need to do something really proactive

0:29:50to prevent, you know, depression, anxiety,

0:29:53these suicides, you know, no matter

0:29:56what happens with these vaccines,

0:29:57this problem is going to get.

0:29:58It's just getting worse every day.

0:30:00And whatever happens with the economy,

0:30:02I mean, I don't know if you guys know, we're know,

0:30:04we're at the precipice of really a bigger depression

0:30:07than we express in 2008.

0:30:08So we should be figuring out ways to build resilience

0:30:11in our community, with our children, our seniors,

0:30:14as well as all of US adults.

0:30:16You know, don't have good practices

0:30:17for our mental health.

0:30:19So let's lean in really well.

0:30:20And I appreciate all of you guys for your time.

0:30:22Thank you, Andy.

0:30:23Thank you very much.

0:30:25Holly, did you want to make a comment?

0:30:28I made similar comments about the new platform to holly,

0:30:31and she had some good answers.

0:30:32Did you want to respond at all to the security.

0:30:36We have in place?

0:30:37Yes yes.

0:30:39The council meetings are set up an incentive

0:30:41for a couple of reasons.

0:30:42So the chat features just to make sure

0:30:45that there's no inadvertent violation of the Brown Act

0:30:47and side conversation to the main discussion that's

0:30:50going on in city council.

0:30:52And the videos are not an for members of the public

0:30:55for security concerns.

0:31:01Visual security concerns that.

0:31:04That is correct, and for the same reason.

0:31:06The images for profiles has also been disabled,

0:31:10and that does conclude our request to speak at this time.

0:31:14Thank you.

0:31:14Thank you for that.

0:31:15We move on to the adoption of the consent calendar.

0:31:20And I wanted to read those items that

0:31:22are on the consent calendar.

0:31:23There is the approval of the minutes.

0:31:26And I did have one change to read

0:31:29into the record for this item for the February 2nd meeting.

0:31:33Minutes to clarify my comments about the restaurant food

0:31:38orders.

0:31:39We add the word for restaurant food orders

0:31:41to the end of the statement that deals

0:31:44with delivery fee charges.

0:31:48And number five, B is women's History Month proclamation.

0:31:54C is Arbor week proclamation.

0:31:57These is environmental quality committee

0:31:59appointment recommendations.

0:32:02It is urban forest committee reappointment

0:32:06f is a resolution recognizing March 10th of this year

0:32:10as the 60 second anniversary of the Tibetan national uprising

0:32:15and to affirm the support to the people of Tibet.

0:32:19Just California Office of emergency services

0:32:22form one 30 designation of authorized agents and finally,

0:32:28h.s, designating the primary and alternate board

0:32:32members to the municipal pooling authority

0:32:35of northern California.

0:32:37Do I hear a motion?

0:32:39So I move that option A second.

0:32:43It's been moved by council member Ableton

0:32:46and seconded by Mayor pro tem Gabe Quinto,

0:32:50just clarify for the record that motion includes

0:32:53the Amendment to the minutes.

0:32:55Yes, yes, yes.

0:32:58Thank you.

0:32:59May I finally say.

0:33:02Yes, sir?

0:33:02I can smell the motion.

0:33:03And did you have a question?

0:33:04Yes, I on the minutes of the second,

0:33:07there was someone's last name was missing from the comments

0:33:11on seven, a plan to hopefully that can

0:33:14just be corrected later.

0:33:16So it is a public speaker.

0:33:17May be, but that the last name was not provided.

0:33:20OK, thank you.

0:33:21Thank you.

0:33:22OK, I'll move forward with the vote.

0:33:24Mayor fidele, I mean Potemkin too.

0:33:27I can't remember apison.

0:33:30I can't remember Matsuyama.

0:33:32I can't remember.

0:33:34I think I mentioned Kerri's.

0:33:39Thank you all.

0:33:40Now we move on to presentations, our first presentation

0:33:44is an introduction of Kevin Mitchell,

0:33:46our new poet laureate.

0:33:51Can we have a request for a presentation on this, please?

0:33:55Yes, hi, good evening.

0:33:59My name is assistant city manager

0:34:03and also the staff liaison to the arts and culture committee.

0:34:06And we have here tonight Danny Gabriel,

0:34:09who is ulcerated second and most recent

0:34:12poet laureate who served our community

0:34:15between 2018 and 2020.

0:34:18Danny is here tonight to introduce

0:34:20Australia's New poet laureate, Evelyn Mitchell,

0:34:24as you'll hear from Danny.

0:34:26Evelyn has a very strong passion for her hometown of Australia

0:34:31and has a equally a strong track record

0:34:35for community involvement.

0:34:37The city's poet laureate program was established in 2015

0:34:42by the Arts and culture commission

0:34:43to promote literature within our city.

0:34:46It was also established to inspire residents

0:34:49with their own writing expression

0:34:52to bring attention to poetry and, most importantly,

0:34:55help initiate dialogue within our community.

0:34:59So on behalf of the arts and culture commission

0:35:02and the city of El cerrado, I want

0:35:04to give my extended congratulations to Evelyn.

0:35:08Evelyn, excuse me.

0:35:10I can say that for all of us here in Australia,

0:35:13we very much look forward to her poetry,

0:35:16which is something we desperately

0:35:17need during this time.

0:35:19So with that said, I will hand, the virtual zoo mic to Danny.

0:35:24Danny thank you.

0:35:27It has been amazing to be Alfredo's poet laureate.

0:35:31Thank you.

0:35:33This poem is called lente poem number three.

0:35:39The day has not yet peeked over the horizon,

0:35:43the children sleep, his truck has quietly

0:35:47drifted from the driveway.

0:35:49I've been up for hours scheming already

0:35:52about things that seem important,

0:35:55planning that next event, getting document signed,

0:35:59a very ambitious book proposal.

0:36:03And then this poem said, stop, listen to the cars

0:36:08in the kitchen timer.

0:36:09That one unbelievably loud bird, the horse wind.

0:36:14This poem whispered a story about the children

0:36:17when they were smaller.

0:36:19And I used to watch them nap full of gratitude

0:36:22for every small breath.

0:36:25This poem, cancel my plans for the day,

0:36:28you will find me at that little cafe on Stockton

0:36:31drinking my third latte and drawing on napkins.

0:36:36We're not getting anywhere, not you,

0:36:39not me, not the reaction there, castles.

0:36:43Today, I'm going to recklessly call people just

0:36:45to say I love you, even if it's awkward, even if I

0:36:50should have another agenda.

0:36:53The possibilities are.

0:36:55So much greater than the volume of my inbox.

0:36:59The children are still resting their heads on their forearms

0:37:02and my breakfast is getting cold because this problem is rioting

0:37:07all over the page, ripping holes in the paper just to say stop.

0:37:15This poem draws my eyes to the lightning sky,

0:37:18reminding me that just this instant, everything changed.

0:37:29Annie, thank you very much.

0:37:33Thank you for your time as poet laureate.

0:37:37It's been wonderful.

0:37:38Our second, we're heading toward our third,

0:37:40and I can see Evelyn loving every word

0:37:42of what you were saying there.

0:37:46Evelyn, can you take your mic off mute?

0:37:50Yes I'm hoping you're going to read.

0:37:52I still can't believe that, correct?

0:37:55I am.

0:37:56I am wonderful.

0:38:01Danny, are you finished?

0:38:04Well, I did have an introduction.

0:38:07Oh, god, I'm sorry.

0:38:09Look, when I first spoke with Evelyn, he was great.

0:38:16And enthusiastic.

0:38:17And what struck me was here is a perfect poet

0:38:21laureate for our community.

0:38:24I am thrilled to be passing along this title to someone who

0:38:27is outspoken, courageous and mindful of the needs

0:38:31of the people of Alfredo.

0:38:34According to her bio, Evelyn Mitchell

0:38:36was born and raised in California

0:38:39and courageous enough to move to the Chicagoland area

0:38:42by herself.

0:38:43She lived in the artistry of its culture for 20 years,

0:38:46exploring the lessons, long hours and benefits

0:38:50of entrepreneurial life, the diversity of the Bay Area

0:38:53cultivated her respect for others

0:38:55and allowed her to experience the beauty

0:38:57and everyone's differences.

0:39:00Professionally, Mrs. Mitchell's passion for cosmetology,

0:39:03and poetry have allowed her to travel the world,

0:39:06sharing and teaching her class from California to Nairobi,

0:39:10Kenya, and many places in between healthy hair

0:39:13and spoken word are affectionately intertwined,

0:39:17being a catalyst for her to express her love

0:39:19of people and community.

0:39:22Evelyn Mitchell.

0:39:28Thank you, thank you, thank you, Danny.

0:39:31Thank you, I appreciate you very much.

0:39:34I appreciate you passing the torch to me.

0:39:37The love that I have for my community

0:39:40cultivates my beautiful definition of diversity.

0:39:45The granite foundation laid has given

0:39:49me the innate strength, a gift that will surpass generations.

0:39:56I would like to thank the city of El syriatel and its council.

0:40:02I would like to thank the elsmere arts

0:40:05and cultural commission for picking and choosing me

0:40:10to be your new poet laureate.

0:40:13I would also like to personally thank Alexandra and labor

0:40:19for holding my hand on being patient with me

0:40:23as we begin the process of this mighty work.

0:40:29And last but not least, I would like to thank my family.

0:40:34My family means the world to me.

0:40:39And it is awesome.

0:40:41My immediate family, my wife and our 17-year-old

0:40:45have dealt with me and my mom, Patricia Durham

0:40:51has unconditionally loved me my whole life.

0:40:55She was no nuts.

0:40:58She would not know that I was actually applying for the poet

0:41:04laureate position for elsmere, so I intentionally

0:41:07kept her out of the loop.

0:41:09So with that being said, I admire and love my mother,

0:41:16Patricia Dunn, for all her money works that she has

0:41:20done and has instilled in me.

0:41:24My name is Evelyn Janine Mitchell.

0:41:29And this evening, the poem that I would like to recite

0:41:36is entitled intertwined.

0:41:47It's something to recognize that you

0:41:49are one to be reckoned with.

0:41:53I am not being cocky or concerned that I am nobody yet.

0:42:00I am somebody magical that has something to say.

0:42:05See, I have that soul stirring strength of the love Joneses.

0:42:10And I have the uniquely savvy tactics of the languages.

0:42:15The calm, chaotic crossroads that integrates this black line

0:42:22is a creative concoction of passion and poise.

0:42:26It riddled with superstitions, supernaturals and a whole lot

0:42:32of Saints unconditionally love you to give them a reason

0:42:37not to yet still forgive you.

0:42:42Allowing you to understand that it will never be the same,

0:42:45because once seduced by this model, it's hard to let it go,

0:42:50but I continue to flow in the spirit, yet.

0:42:55I am a work in progress.

0:42:57Can you dig it?

0:43:01The gaps left at the altar is a trilogy wrapped up

0:43:05in a Trinity right fist pumping the air

0:43:09for inclusion and diversity.

0:43:15But 846 was the hypocrisy for all to see.

0:43:22I am at him, so I'm going to have a very positive thoughts

0:43:25on how I wish someone would try to determine from changing

0:43:30the world, not sitting around wondering

0:43:33or wishing if I could be sovereign and proclaim to be.

0:43:39Yet what is the definition of America free?

0:43:44I absolutely love my country.

0:43:51But I've had to question, does my country love me?

0:43:59We are outspoken in terms of wanting

0:44:02more obey my own insight, shining a light on the world,

0:44:07shining a light for the world to see my afraid of being

0:44:13locked out of this country.

0:44:15But I love where I'm from.

0:44:18It's my community.

0:44:21It has allowed me to be who I be.

0:44:27OK, so I digress because this love, John's black man,

0:44:31dubbed me as forgiving, and that has allowed

0:44:34me to pass a lot of tests subliminal at times

0:44:39multiplying these lines.

0:44:41We yearn for the peace and comfort

0:44:45that lies in the arms of him and the spirits

0:44:51of them that assist in guiding our walk towards him.

0:44:56This kind of energy flow through the peaks and valleys

0:45:01and the tragedy and triumphs from Arkansas to tally

0:45:06reinforces the strength.

0:45:09My ancestors left to me.

0:45:13I am a community crusader for change,

0:45:19believing in the power of all people coming together

0:45:23with humanity to arrange the peace we all need to cultivate

0:45:31the consistency of change, for we are all

0:45:37inclined to be reckoned with.

0:45:41And you ask me why?

0:45:43Because we are intertwined.

0:45:48And that's my peace.

0:45:50I thank the city of El Salvador, for allowing

0:45:53me to hold this wonderful, humbling position.

0:46:03Thank you, Evelyn, Evelyn.

0:46:08You're on your way to being a superstar,

0:46:11and also we like your mother, like your mother.

0:46:14Yes you didn't let your mother know about this,

0:46:18but she called me last night to let me know about it.

0:46:21She's very proud about you.

0:46:23Thank you.

0:46:24Proud about you.

0:46:25And we're going to be proud about you over this next year,

0:46:27too.

0:46:28Absolutely any other council members like the wish?

0:46:31Yes Yeah.

0:46:34So first of all, I would love to say thank you to our pass poet

0:46:40laureate Danny and Danny Gabriel, who have represented

0:46:44Elsa rido and been everywhere.

0:46:48And we are grateful to your circle as a laureate

0:46:53the last couple of years.

0:46:55I'm very proud of my grandma, who

0:46:57was son, who was the first poet laureate, my dear friend,

0:47:02since college.

0:47:03So, Danny, thank you for your service and thank you.

0:47:09You have represented moms and you

0:47:11represented our LGBT community.

0:47:14I'm so proud of you.

0:47:16And again, thank you.

0:47:18And to our newest poet laureate, Evelyn Mitchell,

0:47:22I welcome back to El cerrito.

0:47:24And as someone who has been gone for a long time.

0:47:28And then came back, I'm glad you're home.

0:47:32And I've known your mom for many, many years.

0:47:36And and she was the one that mentored me

0:47:40when I was on the human relations commission.

0:47:44So I've been to your home.

0:47:46Many times.

0:47:47And then your mom was one of my dearest friends.

0:47:50And I'd like to look forward to listening

0:47:53more to listening to more of your work

0:47:55in the next couple of years.

0:47:57And look forward to getting to know you.

0:47:59So, again, congratulations.

0:48:04Council member redneck's, thank you.

0:48:08I'm so impressed by both poems.

0:48:12Danny, thank you so much for your service in this role.

0:48:16Evelyn, I wrote down, we are all inclined to be reckoned with.

0:48:22I thought that was fantastic.

0:48:24I'm so excited for what is going to come

0:48:27from your tenure as the liaison to the arts

0:48:30and culture commission.

0:48:31It's so fantastic that we are using our resources

0:48:35and LS3 to promote art.

0:48:37And please tell T Thank you for me.

0:48:41We so appreciate everything that you both did.

0:48:44Thank you so much.

0:48:45And a special shout out to the arts

0:48:46and culture commission for making

0:48:48such fantastic selections.

0:48:55Council member motorama.

0:49:00I think council member Eagleson had her hand up before me.

0:49:05And remember, everything you do need to admit yourself,

0:49:08I cannot do that for you.

0:49:13Yeah, that there, Janine, I want to congratulate you

0:49:20and I talked to your mother today,

0:49:23and she is so she's bursting with being proud of you.

0:49:28And it's something that.

0:49:30So rightly deserved.

0:49:32I'm so glad that you came back to El cerrito.

0:49:36And that you're among us now, and this is to me,

0:49:39the most exciting thing in the world, and this

0:49:44is a position that really.

0:49:50Puts a positive spin on who we are.

0:49:55And so I'm looking forward to.

0:50:02Seeing you in this position and representing LS3 very well,

0:50:08as I know you can, thank you for being here.

0:50:12Thank you, I appreciate you and I love you,

0:50:15miss Janet group council member mohtarma,

0:50:21so I'll keep this brief, but I want to thank you

0:50:24both, Danny and Evelyn.

0:50:26It's so wonderful to hear your palms

0:50:29and to feel completely in the moment.

0:50:32And I think that's what we all need, particularly

0:50:34in these crazy times.

0:50:35And so I appreciate your service, Danny,

0:50:38and I look forward to hearing more of your poetry, Evelyn.

0:50:42And I'm so glad that both of you are part of our story.

0:50:45Thank you very much.

0:50:47Thank you.

0:50:49Danny, I just wanted to ask you, did

0:50:51you have fun this last year?

0:50:52Did you have fun?

0:50:55And getting to be the poet laureate was amazing.

0:51:01And fun.

0:51:04And, you know, in this last in this last year with covid-19,

0:51:11it was challenging in some ways, but we

0:51:15found ways to get through that.

0:51:18Well, you're not going anywhere, so we expect more from you.

0:51:21Here we go.

0:51:22And even you're going to have fun, too, ok?

0:51:26Absolutely I am looking forward to it.

0:51:29Telling your mom, there's fun in your family, so.

0:51:34Congratulations, all of you.

0:51:35Thank you very much.

0:51:36And may, if I may, this is an additional request

0:51:40to speak from a member of the public,

0:51:42if you would like to take that now.

0:51:44That would be wonderful.

0:51:46Great OK, we will have its path and let's see the request.

0:51:56Sorry, I'm still getting used to the new technology.

0:52:00Bear with me one moment.

0:52:02Oh, they lowered their hand and they may not have known.

0:52:07Now we have another requester.

0:52:08So see, Richardson, you unmute if you want to begin your time.

0:52:14Thank you so much.

0:52:16Can you hear me?

0:52:17Yes, thank you for the opportunity.

0:52:20Thank you for the city of rosarito for making

0:52:23this opportunity available.

0:52:24I think it's a fantastic thing.

0:52:27I just wanted to congratulate Mrs. Evelyn Janine Mitchell

0:52:32on this fantastic honor.

0:52:34I've known Evelyn since seventh grade

0:52:38down the street from city hall at st.

0:52:40John's at st. John the baptist, where

0:52:43we attended school together.

0:52:44We also attended high school together

0:52:45and have been exceptionally great friends since then.

0:52:49She is love and light and happiness and joy,

0:52:53and I am really excited for the council

0:52:56to be able to get a little piece of her

0:53:00at each one of your meetings.

0:53:01And it will truly uplift you.

0:53:03She literally talking to her even remotely,

0:53:06even during a pandemic, is like getting a great big hug.

0:53:09And I just would like to congratulate her and send

0:53:13her all the love in the world.

0:53:17Thank you very much.

0:53:19Next request to speak, is with them, Kim Jones.

0:53:22Kim, you can begin your time now.

0:53:26Thank you.

0:53:28I am the confidante and uncle of Evelyn Janine Mitchell,

0:53:36and she is the niece and confidant of Kim Jones.

0:53:42And I just want to say how proud I am because I. Begged her

0:53:50to let the family know and let everyone know that she's a poet

0:53:55and that she's here to represent poetry, and she was reluctant

0:54:00and at some point in high school,

0:54:03she decided that this is what I do.

0:54:07This is what I am.

0:54:09And this is great.

0:54:11So I'm so proud of you.

0:54:12Janine, thank you.

0:54:13Thank you.

0:54:14City of cerrillo.

0:54:15I'm glad you guys took the time to engage

0:54:21with her and her art and her.

0:54:25A passion for her community.

0:54:27So we thank you.

0:54:30And thank you, Jenny.

0:54:32I'll see you tomorrow.

0:54:36The next request to speak, is shale cotton show,

0:54:39you were unmute right.

0:54:41You can unmute begin your time now.

0:54:43Am I unmute you are explain to my cousin, Janine.

0:54:50She's one of my cousins who's closest to my age.

0:54:53I am so proud of her.

0:54:56Someone previously said love and light.

0:54:59And that is what Janine brings every day, every encounter

0:55:02that you have with her.

0:55:04And I'm so excited that she's able to share her love

0:55:06in her light, through her words, with all the rest

0:55:10of the city of Toronto.

0:55:11So I'm so proud of you.

0:55:12Janine, congratulations.

0:55:14And I'm very proud of the city of ossorio

0:55:15for making that decision.

0:55:17Great choice.

0:55:18Excellent job.

0:55:19Thank you.

0:55:21You are next because vernette crocket, vernette,

0:55:24you can unmetered begin your time now.

0:55:28Hi, my name is vernette crocket, and I just

0:55:32wanted to say I have known Janine since probably I

0:55:36was seven years old, we all attended st. John's

0:55:41Catholic school together.

0:55:43And the city of El Dorado, as you know, has a gym.

0:55:47Janine has a heart of gold.

0:55:49And although, you know, life happens, and we don't stay

0:55:53in touch as much as we would like to,

0:55:56she's still there if you ever need her.

0:55:57And I just want to thank you for choosing her and picking her.

0:56:01And Janine, I love you, and congratulations.

0:56:14Thank you.

0:56:16Evelyn, do you want to admit the final word?

0:56:20I apologize, Mary.

0:56:21I didn't realize I was muted.

0:56:23So we do have several speakers still cute.

0:56:27So continue.

0:56:29You can meet your next speaker.

0:56:31You can begin your time.

0:56:32I've already spoken, and I'm just really proud of Janine

0:56:36and very proud of the choice that the city has made.

0:56:39So I love you, cousin.

0:56:41And my apologies.

0:56:43OK, looks like.

0:56:45Let me see.

0:56:47Jamila Crockett.

0:56:48I believe you may be next.

0:56:50Jamila, you are unmetered and can begin your time now.

0:56:55Hi, Janine, and the city of El Reno.

0:57:00Thank you so much for having Janine as the poet laureate.

0:57:04Janine, I'm so proud of you.

0:57:06I am.

0:57:08I am Janine, sorority sister with Zeta

0:57:10Phi Beta Sorority Incorporated.

0:57:12And we've known each other for a very long time since college.

0:57:17And I just want to say that I remember

0:57:20when we were in Chicago around the same time.

0:57:24And I remember your poetry touching people in Chicago.

0:57:28And even then and it's always wonderful to hear

0:57:31you do your poetry and also allowing

0:57:37it to be an inspiration not only to people

0:57:39that are close to you, but also to basically the world.

0:57:44So I love you.

0:57:45And I'm just so proud of you.

0:57:47And congratulations.

0:57:53And our next speaker is Stephanie Turner.

0:57:55Stephanie, you can meet and begin your time now.

0:57:59Hi, this is Chanel.

0:58:01My wife, Stephanie is sitting beside me in the eye right now.

0:58:05Janine, Janine, you have meant the world to us.

0:58:11Your poetry has touched me in.

0:58:13So many ways that you do not fully understand.

0:58:18I'm always thinking about you.

0:58:21Stephanie is always thinking about you.

0:58:24And thank you for bringing me into your family with Stephanie

0:58:30and also telling Stephanie.

0:58:33She made a mistake.

0:58:35So thank you, Janine, so much.

0:58:39We love you.

0:58:40We are so incredibly proud of you.

0:58:43And as usual, you took my breath away.

0:58:47We love you.

0:58:49Thank you, our next, because Anderson Cooper, alisyn,

0:58:53you can and you can begin your time now.

0:58:56Thank you.

0:58:56Hi, my name is Alisyn Cooper.

0:58:58I'm on the arts and culture commission.

0:59:01I'm currently chair, and I just wanted

0:59:03to join at this big group hug because this

0:59:05is just so beautiful to watch your community

0:59:08come out for you, Evelyn.

0:59:10Huge thank you to Danny.

0:59:12Getting to experience your work over the past,

0:59:15through your tenure has been amazing.

0:59:17It was awesome getting to see your workshops

0:59:19and getting to the table beside you at some of our events.

0:59:26And so thank you so much again for bringing everything

0:59:29that you bring to the city.

0:59:31And I look forward to more.

0:59:32And evelin, huge.

0:59:33Congratulations so excited to have you here.

0:59:35And again, it's so powerful to get to see all of this love

0:59:39from your community right now.

0:59:41And I have to say to your reading

0:59:43just now, I felt your power and your charisma through zoom,

0:59:48which I think is just so, so telling and amazing, so really

0:59:51excited for all that you do.

0:59:53And finally, just thank you for the city of El syreeta,

0:59:56because I think it's really special

0:59:58that we have this program and that we

1:00:01are able to fund art like this.

1:00:04As we said earlier, you know, during this time,

1:00:05so grateful to live in a community that gets to have

1:00:09a poet laureate like this.

1:00:11So thank you all.

1:00:13Thank you.

1:00:14Our next speaker is gatun janek attorney,

1:00:17you can unmetered begin your time now.

1:00:20Hello, everybody, my name is I'm the wife of Janine Mitchell.

1:00:26I would just like to say, Danny, thank you

1:00:28for paving the way for my wife to step

1:00:32into this wonderful opportunity.

1:00:35I am very proud of Janine.

1:00:38I have only gotten to hear that poem.

1:00:41This is my second time hearing the poem tonight.

1:00:44And as always, she has done a wonderful job for poetry

1:00:48is meant so much to me.

1:00:50And as I see, it has meant so much to lots of other people

1:00:55on this phone.

1:00:57Janine, I just want to tell you that I am.

1:01:00Immensely proud of you.

1:01:03I am honored to be your wife and I am honored

1:01:06to take this journey with you.

1:01:09And I'm honored to see you blossom

1:01:10and just come into this poet laureate position

1:01:17and take this on with gusto and courage and love

1:01:22and light and happiness.

1:01:24And I wish you all the best.

1:01:26And I just want to say to the Toronto city council,

1:01:30thank you for allowing this opportunity

1:01:33to grace our family.

1:01:36Is ready for it.

1:01:37And she is she is she is just excited to be

1:01:44a part of this ulcerate family.

1:01:46And so I thank you.

1:01:47But Janine, you did a fantastic job.

1:01:50And I am honored to just call you my wife.

1:01:53So thank you very much.

1:01:56OK, you.

1:01:57Our next speaker is Kyler Davis.

1:02:00You can then begin your time now.

1:02:03Thank you.

1:02:04My name is Carla.

1:02:05I am ginnane sorority sister of Zeta

1:02:07Phi Beta sorority, Inc. Janine, you

1:02:11have an amazing gift of poetry.

1:02:14And to the council.

1:02:15Nelsa rido, great choice.

1:02:17Enjoy every moment of her.

1:02:19Thank you.

1:02:21Thank you, our next speaker, Stacey Strickland.

1:02:25Stacey, you can begin your time.

1:02:28Hi, I'm spacy, Jermaine's sister,

1:02:31and I just want to say that I am so, so very proud of you.

1:02:36I have tears in my eyes.

1:02:38You are my ray of sunshine.

1:02:42And you have always been my sunshine inside.

1:02:44So, so very bright.

1:02:47And I just want to say I love you.

1:02:49And I'm just so proud of you.

1:02:50I'm just proud to be your sister.

1:02:52Period in the whole family is proud of you.

1:02:56And I can't wait to see you again, Martha.

1:03:00That's all I want to say.

1:03:01Thank you.

1:03:02Thank you.

1:03:03Our next speaker is Dr. Tammy Matthews.

1:03:06Tammy, you can meet and begin your time now.

1:03:13Tammy, are you with this?

1:03:16I am doing this, I apologize for that.

1:03:20Yes, I just wanted to say how impressed.

1:03:23I am and the city council.

1:03:25Danny, you did an amazing job.

1:03:27And Evelyn.

1:03:29Oh, my god, you are amazing.

1:03:31I'm calling from Atlanta.

1:03:33And I have to tell you all, Evelyn has taken

1:03:36me on virtual tours of Cerino.

1:03:39And although we met in Chicago, I relocated to Atlanta.

1:03:43Now I'm thinking about maybe I need

1:03:46to think about relocation also.

1:03:48Rita, what a beautiful city with beautiful people.

1:03:52Evelyn, you are amazing.

1:03:54I am so proud of you.

1:03:55And congratulations.

1:04:00And that does conclude, I request

1:04:02to speak on this item, mayor.

1:04:08Evelyn, do you have any final words to say before we hit you.

1:04:13Goodbye and Hello.

1:04:14With her?

1:04:15Oh, absolutely, I do.

1:04:20The ammunition that comes with my strength

1:04:24has been represented.

1:04:26It represented this evening.

1:04:29I would like to thank my family, my friends, my community,

1:04:36my whole world right now for supporting me, for loving me,

1:04:44for allowing me to be who I am and grow with me.

1:04:50I love you all.

1:04:51I look forward to the work that I

1:04:54will be doing with the city of El Salvador

1:04:57and cultivating new relationships

1:05:01and experiences all the same in unity and in change.

1:05:08And in peace and in harmony.

1:05:10So thank you.

1:05:12Thank you.

1:05:13Thank you.

1:05:13We've had I've listened to people from the East Coast

1:05:17all the way to the West coast, everywhere in between.

1:05:21And my gratitude to you all is priceless.

1:05:26It is unconditional.

1:05:28And I appreciate you wholeheartedly.

1:05:32Thank you.

1:05:35Thank you very much.

1:05:37Thank you, Danny.

1:05:39Thank you all.

1:05:43And interesting, we go from the joy of poetry to callipers now.

1:05:47Here we go.

1:05:50But that's what a city council does here, so.

1:05:55Enough of this fun, let's talk about callipers.

1:05:59Yes, the next presentation is the city of LS3 retirement plan

1:06:04presentation.

1:06:05Can we please have a request?

1:06:08For staff presentation.

1:06:15Well, I can jump in and introduce Craig hill

1:06:18from Nasa advisors, and I just want

1:06:20to thank you for being here.

1:06:22It is kind of a bit of a whiplash to go from something.

1:06:25So joyous to something.

1:06:26So technical.

1:06:28But I'm sure, Craig, you are up to the challenge

1:06:30of trying to follow such an amazing presentation.

1:06:35So, Craig, thank you so much for being here.

1:06:38Yes, thank you, Karen, and my associate,

1:06:42Mike Meyer is also going to join, so if you can let him in,

1:06:46he'll help me through some of this presentation.

1:06:51But I will go ahead and get started.

1:06:53You're absolutely right, man.

1:06:54It's tough to follow and act like you just

1:06:58had great to see organizations such as the city

1:07:03embracing the arts and really encouraging community support.

1:07:09It makes our side of the equation, which

1:07:11is much more of the drive financial

1:07:13a make makes joining these council meetings,

1:07:17a lot more enjoyable.

1:07:19But what we're going to talk about tonight

1:07:21is really intended to be kind of an overview of what really is

1:07:26the city's largest liability.

1:07:29When you think about the services you provide,

1:07:31you think about the facilities that you operate

1:07:35and the equipment that you have.

1:07:38It really pales in comparison to legacy liabilities that

1:07:43have accrued for all cities in California

1:07:46along the lines of the pension.

1:07:48And it was an issue that for many cities for many years

1:07:53just was kind of on the books, but never really focused on.

1:07:57And as callipers has changed their approach to requiring

1:08:01cities to address the unfunded liabilities,

1:08:04it's really put a lot of financial pressure

1:08:06on the cities.

1:08:07We've been working with the city of El cerrito now,

1:08:09I think for about 10 years, just specifically on cash flow

1:08:13and budgets to try to make sure that you are

1:08:18able to operate in a comfortable and a consistent fashion going

1:08:22forward.

1:08:23So tonight, we're really going to just focus

1:08:26on kind of at a high level cost management strategies

1:08:31as it relates to the pension liability.

1:08:34We're not going to get into any of your other budgetary or

1:08:39reserve policy conversations and feel free to interrupt us

1:08:42as we go through this.

1:08:44As you know, we're intended to kind of blow through it.

1:08:47And then really engage in a conversation

1:08:49that any of the council members may have.

1:08:51So with that, if I can just get the next slide.

1:08:54And if I may, you should have a pop up on your screen

1:08:56to give you permission to control the screen share.

1:09:00And then you'll be able to advance

1:09:01the slides yourself opening.

1:09:05There you go.

1:09:06There we go.

1:09:07OK, so as I mentioned, you know what we're really

1:09:10going to be talking about today is your unfunded

1:09:14liability, which is currently anticipated

1:09:17to be about $70 million.

1:09:19Again, probably the largest liability you have across any

1:09:24of your other things.

1:09:25It is you know, this is increased

1:09:2770% in the last 70 years or seven

1:09:30years, which is substantial.

1:09:33Again, similar to what many of your peer

1:09:35groups, your other cities that are out there.

1:09:37But nevertheless, when a $70 million

1:09:40debt has to get paid over a fixed period of time,

1:09:45it really puts a lot of cash flow, pressure.

1:09:47What you're seeing is your current payments

1:09:50are just inside of $5 million that

1:09:53are anticipated in a matter of five years to be almost seven.

1:09:56And so when you think about your budget going forward,

1:09:59if you don't have revenue enhancement measures,

1:10:02how do you really address this $2 million

1:10:04increase over the next five years?

1:10:06In addition to the other, you also have your liabilities.

1:10:12And there are some financial obligations, some bonds

1:10:16that you've issued that we've assisted

1:10:19with over the years to either deal with some

1:10:22of your long term or annually what

1:10:25the city has been doing as the tax and revenue anticipation

1:10:27notes.

1:10:28I think most of the council members

1:10:29are familiar with approving those.

1:10:31We're typically doing that in June or July,

1:10:33and that's just to deal with cash flow

1:10:36during a current fiscal year until you get

1:10:39your property tax collections.

1:10:43What we really are spending a lot of time

1:10:45with a lot of city councils right now

1:10:47is addressing the how do you handle

1:10:49this increasing pressure.

1:10:51And what are your options around addressing

1:10:54how to make those payments?

1:10:57What we're going to try to introduce tonight

1:10:59is at a high level, a section one 15 trust, which

1:11:03is a concept of kind of banking or putting money aside

1:11:06to deal with this in the future, potentially taking one time

1:11:10dollars and giving them to callipers

1:11:12to help pay down the debt.

1:11:13Kind of like prepaying your mortgage if you make one time

1:11:16payments to the bank, how it affects the liability

1:11:19that you have remaining or the mortgage balance

1:11:21you have remaining.

1:11:22And then we're going to touch slightly

1:11:23on this concept of a restructuring, which

1:11:27is a chance to really almost think about refinancing

1:11:30the whole debt or a portion of the debt to kind of cast

1:11:34how you're going to make those payments.

1:11:38So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Mike Meyer, our vice

1:11:43president and our firm, to speak specifically

1:11:46to kind of callipers and pensions

1:11:48and what you is all about.

1:11:52Thanks, Craig, and good evening, mayor.

1:11:54Honorable council members Mike Meyer, my vice president,

1:11:58then also manage our pension group.

1:12:00And Craig, are you OK with maintaining

1:12:03control of the slides?

1:12:05Yeah OK, so first section, we're just

1:12:07going to talk a little bit high level about the city's plans.

1:12:12Look at the last several years in terms of cost trends

1:12:15and talk about some of the reasons why those increases.

1:12:18And then talk about some of the cost management strategies

1:12:20that Craig mentioned.

1:12:22The city does have two primary plans covering safety members.

1:12:27And then all non safety in what's

1:12:29called the miscellaneous plan.

1:12:31There's about 700 covered employees.

1:12:34So this includes retirees transferred,

1:12:38employees inactive.

1:12:40So you can see there at the bottom of slide five,

1:12:42there's about 180 active employees.

1:12:47So quite a bit more in terms of retirees versus actives.

1:12:53You can see also the under each the miscellaneous on the left

1:12:59and the safety on the right that their new employees have been

1:13:04converting to the new Pro plans, which are the lower cost, lower

1:13:08benefit tiers, but you still maintain

1:13:11several classic employees.

1:13:12So on the miscellaneous side, there's 63

1:13:15and on the safety side, there's 44.

1:13:17Over the course of time, these will

1:13:21be converted to the new PEPPER plants next like Greg.

1:13:31So the city makes two.

1:13:36Two payments to callipers each year.

1:13:38There is what's called the normal cost.

1:13:40This is the annual cost for current employees.

1:13:42And then you have a payment to pay down your unfunded accrued

1:13:47liability.

1:13:47And this is what's known as the.

1:13:49And what we're going to be focusing on for the rest

1:13:52of the presentation.

1:13:54This is essentially the shortfall

1:13:56between what the city has in assets right now being managed

1:13:59by callipers and what it needs to have in the future

1:14:03to fully pay out retirees.

1:14:06This is a big number.

1:14:07It's $70 million right now.

1:14:09And as we'll look at, it's grown by about 70%

1:14:13over the last six or seven years due to factors

1:14:16we'll talk about.

1:14:17It's obviously not required to be repaid all at once.

1:14:21So it is amortized over a period of time.

1:14:24And calipers does charge you 7% interest on that debt.

1:14:29There also are probably about 30 to 40

1:14:33different layers of that uol that all have different terms.

1:14:37So if you think about it like a mortgage,

1:14:40typically a mortgage is a 30 year loan with level payments.

1:14:44When you talk about a uol, you have

1:14:4640 different little mortgages.

1:14:48They all have different time horizons.

1:14:50So you might have some with five years, some with eight,

1:14:53some with 20.

1:14:54And when you aggregate them all together,

1:14:58you have this repayment shape that is quite irregular.

1:15:00And we're going to take a look at what the city is

1:15:03facing in a couple of slides.

1:15:05So flipping to slide seven, if we can, Craig,

1:15:09the uncle was not a term that there

1:15:13were no uncles back in the late 90s and early 2000s.

1:15:17Most of that was due to the fact that the stock

1:15:20market was earning double digit returns at about the same time.

1:15:24There were a lot of benefit enhancements

1:15:27with the assumption that returns would continue to be robust

1:15:31and cover those benefits.

1:15:33But what we've seen after the burst in two of 3.

1:15:39And then again in 08 with the Great Recession

1:15:42is that the 20 year average for callipers

1:15:45returns has been sub 6.

1:15:47That's lower than they expected.

1:15:50They have been modifying their assumptions

1:15:53over the last 15 years as well.

1:15:55So they have what's called a discount rate.

1:15:58That's their expected earnings.

1:16:00And they've lowered that several times since 03.

1:16:04They lowered it from 8 and 1/4 to 7 and 3/4 in a 3

1:16:08down to seven, 50 and 13.

1:16:10And just last fiscal year, they finished a three year phased

1:16:14reduction, down to 7% There are discussions going

1:16:19on right now about potentially lowering

1:16:22that again in the future.

1:16:23And we'll talk about how that could impact the city.

1:16:27Other assumption changes as well with mortality rates, given

1:16:31that people are healthier and living longer, so that that

1:16:34has added a little bit as well.

1:16:37One bullet that we don't have on this draft

1:16:40is the fact that the new uol increases

1:16:44are being forced to be repaid on a 20 year repayment schedule.

1:16:49It used to be a 30 year.

1:16:51So it means that you do it is less interest over time,

1:16:55but it does mean your annual requirements are

1:16:57higher because cowbirds essentially

1:17:00wants to get repaid faster.

1:17:02And so that has been a exacerbating this cash flow

1:17:05impact to all cities statewide.

1:17:09We could flip to slide eight, Craig, one more,

1:17:13so on slide nine, we have the last seven,

1:17:17eight years of this unfunded accrued liabilities.

1:17:22So if you look back to June '30 2012.

1:17:26This number was under 30 million.

1:17:29And if you look to the right in the chart

1:17:31that those the blue bars are at about 70 million.

1:17:36And that's what's projected for June 30 of 2021.

1:17:42And we have a little text box there

1:17:44in teal pointing out a couple of years when there

1:17:48was discount rate reductions.

1:17:49You'll see there were some big increases there in the US.

1:17:53All other reasons why those bars increase

1:17:58are that any time callipers Mrs. their mark of seven percent,

1:18:01you see an increase as well.

1:18:03So both those combined are factors that have been driving

1:18:06up the unfunded liability.

1:18:09This is as we turn the slide.

1:18:11This is not an El cerrito specific issue.

1:18:15This is something facing all callipers members.

1:18:17So we did want to just take a look at some of your neighbors.

1:18:21The funding ratio kind of in that middle '60s to low '70s

1:18:25is pretty common.

1:18:28Obviously, different sized cities

1:18:30have different dollar amounts, so we

1:18:31chose to kind of compare in terms of the funded

1:18:34ratio on this slide.

1:18:36And then if we move to slide 11, we also wanted a chart

1:18:40for both miscellaneous and safety plans,

1:18:43how much pension costs are right now as a percentage of payroll.

1:18:48And so you can see in the blue bars

1:18:50for the miscellaneous plans anywhere between 25% and 40%

1:18:56And then a bit higher on the safety

1:18:58plans for torito, about 50.

1:19:0156% of payroll is pension costs, which is fairly in line

1:19:07with some of your neighbors.

1:19:09I will say it's we are pulling that data from reports.

1:19:13So maybe not always apples to apples.

1:19:16There are some cities that have cut workforce.

1:19:18So when you chart those dollars as a percentage of payroll,

1:19:22that could get a little bit weird sometimes.

1:19:25So slide 12 is really an important slide

1:19:30in terms of what the city is facing, in terms

1:19:33of the required repayment schedule on that $70 million

1:19:38worth of debt.

1:19:40This is this is that amount amortized

1:19:44at the 7% interest rate.

1:19:46And we wanted to go back to 2018 here.

1:19:49Obviously, if we went back further in time,

1:19:51these numbers would be quite a bit lower.

1:19:54I think you were under pain under $2 million dollars,

1:19:58probably in twenty, sixteen, 2017.

1:20:01Last fiscal year you paid a little over 4 million

1:20:04to amortize the until you could see that number growing

1:20:08to about six million by 23 and then close to eight million

1:20:13by 2031.

1:20:16Important to mention a few things here.

1:20:20This is a snapshot in time.

1:20:22So this does assume that callipers

1:20:24can earn 7% into the future.

1:20:27What will happen, though, is every year or any year

1:20:30that callipers Mrs. that mark.

1:20:33They're going to make a change to your uncle.

1:20:35So if they earn less than seven percent,

1:20:37you'll see an increase in uol.

1:20:39You'll see those payments layered in to this chart right

1:20:43here over a 20 year period.

1:20:45If they do better than seven percent,

1:20:47you'll actually see an offset to this chart.

1:20:49So you'll see it come down a little bit with.

1:20:52What kind of a negative 20 year layer?

1:20:57This is, as I mentioned earlier, that there's probably

1:21:0030, 40 or more components of the unfunded liability,

1:21:03and when you aggregate them all together

1:21:05on these different time periods, this is the shape that you get.

1:21:08So quite regular.

1:21:10It's a shape that is very common for any callipers member.

1:21:14So it's characterized by an escalating repayment shape that

1:21:18peaks at around 32,031 or 2032.

1:21:22And then a lot of those layers start to drop away

1:21:25after about 15 or 16 years.

1:21:27And that's when you see the steep drop

1:21:29off after twenty, 35 or so.

1:21:33Again, based on seven percent, I think from our standpoint,

1:21:38it's often good to one, make sure that those numbers are

1:21:43built into the city's forecast, but also

1:21:46make some assumptions that are perhaps more conservative.

1:21:49A lot of folks feel that callipers might have trouble

1:21:52meeting that 7% There are some really

1:21:56good new tools on the Cooper site

1:21:58to allow for different assumptions.

1:22:01So what if they reduce the discount rate to 6%

1:22:05or what if they earn 5% year over year?

1:22:08What does that do to my cash flow?

1:22:10And those are big numbers, but important as part

1:22:14of the planning process to not just look at the status

1:22:18quo seven percent, but but some of those

1:22:21what if scenarios to plan for the future.

1:22:25And so as we flip to slide one more, Creg, if you can,

1:22:30I wanted to talk high level about some of the strategies

1:22:34that other entities are using.

1:22:37This isn't everything, but it is some of the more common

1:22:41cost management strategies.

1:22:43The first one is something that historically,

1:22:45the city has done.

1:22:47It is prepaying the annual uol payment that's required early

1:22:52in the fiscal year in July.

1:22:54You do get a discount for that.

1:22:55So that's probably been between 102 100,000 of savings

1:23:00each year when you do have the cash to do that.

1:23:03I know that in some years, you don't have the reserve levels

1:23:07that early in the fiscal year.

1:23:09But I believe that this has been a fairly consistent

1:23:13practice in most years.

1:23:17The second option is what's called

1:23:19a fresh start amortization.

1:23:21That's in the second column here in Navy blue.

1:23:24This is a program that's always been offered by callipers.

1:23:27It essentially means that you collapse.

1:23:31I mentioned, there was 40 different layers

1:23:33of the unfunded liability.

1:23:34You collapse it all into one layer.

1:23:37So it's more of a linear repayment shape.

1:23:39The issue with the fresh start is that callipers now requires

1:23:42you to shorten the repayment period,

1:23:44which means that you need to pay higher in the near term.

1:23:48And there's not a lot of folks out there

1:23:51that have the capacity to pay more than what they're

1:23:54currently on the hook for.

1:23:55So that brings us to the options in the tiel, which

1:24:02are essentially another way to throw more money at this issue

1:24:09with while still maintaining some flexibility, which

1:24:12the fresh start program doesn't give you.

1:24:14And so there's two main options within this strategy.

1:24:18And again, this assumes that you have reserves or annual surplus

1:24:24to use.

1:24:25Obviously, this is not something we would recommend if you're

1:24:28not meeting minimum reserve levels

1:24:30or maintaining those rainy day funds

1:24:32that are important as well.

1:24:34But the first option being a one 15 trust.

1:24:37This is a trust that's managed by another party

1:24:41outside of callipers.

1:24:43Callipers does have one.

1:24:44Now They just set up one.

1:24:47But for the most part, most entities that have one 15 trust

1:24:50have been managed by other firms.

1:24:53There's probably four or five firms in this space.

1:24:56Once that money is put into a one 15 trust,

1:24:59it legally must be used for pension and OPEB expenses.

1:25:05The second one is to send money to callipers

1:25:07and you can just strategically tell them,

1:25:10which layers of the uncle you'd like to pay off

1:25:13and you get a credit at that 7% interest

1:25:17rate in the main benefit of the one 15 versus the pay

1:25:22down is that money is diversified

1:25:24away from callipers.

1:25:26It does give you a little bit more flexibility.

1:25:29Let's say if you were having a challenging budget year down

1:25:33the road and you needed to dip into that fund

1:25:36to make your annual contribution, you can do that.

1:25:40So that I'd say in talking with several of our other clients

1:25:44that have a one 15, that's probably

1:25:45the number one benefit.

1:25:47It's just a little bit of added flexibility there.

1:25:50These are common strategies.

1:25:52There's probably two.

1:25:53I think last year, we talked to callipers.

1:25:55There were 400 additional payments made

1:25:59through this direct pay down.

1:26:01And I know there's about 300 or 400 entities across the state

1:26:04with these one 15 trusts.

1:26:05So fairly common doesn't solve a $70 million problem overnight,

1:26:11but it does help expand your options

1:26:14in terms of what you can do with some of those monies.

1:26:17As you probably know, money sitting in your general fund

1:26:20is restricted in terms of what you can invest

1:26:23in with the government code.

1:26:25So these do expand your options to invest that money.

1:26:29The last option is really restructuring the UL

1:26:33using debt, a pension bond to pay off some or all

1:26:38of the value in essentially converting that 7% to something

1:26:42lower.

1:26:44We do have a few slides on this.

1:26:45It's a fairly complex vehicle that probably if council wanted

1:26:50to look into this further, would probably

1:26:52require more workshops.

1:26:54But given where interest rates have been kind of in that 2

1:26:57and 1/2 to 3 and 1/2 range, there

1:26:59has been a lot of activity in the last 12 months.

1:27:03I think 40 agencies have done this for about $3 billion

1:27:06of uol.

1:27:072021 is looking to be even more entities are

1:27:12coming to market with these.

1:27:14Given where interest rates are.

1:27:16There is a lot of risks with pension bonds.

1:27:19And I'll and I'll touch on that as well.

1:27:22So slide 15, very briefly, I mentioned the fresh start,

1:27:27it does callipers does force you to shorten

1:27:31your repayment period.

1:27:32And so we kind of charted what that would

1:27:34look like in the orange line.

1:27:35Again, that would mean your payments are higher

1:27:38in the early years, which for most entities

1:27:43out there is challenging right now.

1:27:45The other downside is once you lock into a fresh start,

1:27:49you can't go back to your old repayment schedule.

1:27:51So for that reason, we typically recommend

1:27:55using one of the other methods to really

1:27:58get to the same place.

1:27:59If you wanted to throw more money at this problem and still

1:28:02maintain flexibility.

1:28:05Slide 16, Craig, I think we introduced the one 15 trust.

1:28:10I mentioned, this is managed by a third party,

1:28:12although callipers does offer one.

1:28:14Now And once that money's in the trust,

1:28:18it must be used for pension or expenses

1:28:23against top two reasons.

1:28:24We've heard that most entities use

1:28:26this vehicle is to diversify some of the city's assets

1:28:29away from callipers.

1:28:31You do have more customizable portfolios.

1:28:34So similar to, let's say, a 401(k.

1:28:37You work with your investment provider.

1:28:40They might have 10 or so options based on your risk tolerance

1:28:43for how you want to invest that money a little bit

1:28:45different than callipers, where that money just

1:28:47goes into the same bucket of money that's being invested.

1:28:54Important to note that this will not directly

1:28:57reduce your unfunded liability until that money

1:29:00is given to callipers to actually pay it down.

1:29:03So you won't see if you were to, let's say,

1:29:06put in five or 10 million into a trust,

1:29:09you would not see that uol reduced

1:29:12by that amount of callipers, but you would have that asset

1:29:15on your balance sheet.

1:29:16It just wouldn't translate into your uncle

1:29:19going away until you actually sent that money to callipers.

1:29:23So, again, conceptually wanted to show what taking $5 million

1:29:31and investing that at we arbitrarily assume 5% went

1:29:37somewhere in between the callipers target and something

1:29:40that's more conservative just to show that if you were to take

1:29:44that 5 million, invest it over time, it grows,

1:29:48you may have enough to fully extinguish

1:29:50that uol about eight or nine years early at that point.

1:29:55Again, this isn't a recommendation.

1:29:58Just wanted to conceptually show what a one 15

1:30:01trust could be used for.

1:30:04The other option with using surplus cash

1:30:07is to send that money.

1:30:09As I mentioned directly to callipers.

1:30:11You would tell callipers which part of the uncle

1:30:15you'd like to pay off.

1:30:16And so you could pay off a 10 year layer

1:30:20of the uncle, a 20 year layer.

1:30:22You do get credit at the 7% interest rate they charge.

1:30:27And so what we wanted to show here, just kind of four

1:30:30apples to apples.

1:30:31We assumed a $5 million pay down to callipers.

1:30:36And that chart on the right is the amount

1:30:38of savings you would get each year from callipers

1:30:42by eliminating that five year, sorry, $5 million

1:30:46layer of the unfunded liabilities.

1:30:49So it's about a little under 500,000 on average, each year

1:30:55for a lot of our clients who start making

1:30:58these additional payments.

1:31:01Oftentimes we find it's more strategic to pay down

1:31:04those layers that are really contributing to that peak

1:31:06in the next 10 years.

1:31:08So to really focus in on those 10 to 12 year layers,

1:31:12because they then make the most impact

1:31:15in terms of reducing that peak in payments that you're facing.

1:31:19So something to keep in mind.

1:31:23Flip-flop into 19.

1:31:26Another just matrix, I think we just

1:31:29went through some of the differences between a 15 trust

1:31:32as well as the pay down.

1:31:34I do want to take maybe this opportunity

1:31:36not to run through each row, but just to say that.

1:31:41These strategies aren't mutually exclusive,

1:31:43we have a lot of clients that have one 15 trusts that also do

1:31:48pay Downs, that also have done a restructuring

1:31:51of a portion of the US.

1:31:52So this is doing one doesn't preclude

1:31:54you from doing another.

1:31:56This is really just meant to give you

1:31:57kind of a menu of options as you start to explore

1:32:01some of these strategies.

1:32:04Moving to the last concept of the restructuring.

1:32:09Again, this is where an entity issues a bond.

1:32:14You take that money, and you pay off

1:32:16some or all of with callipers.

1:32:19And the typical structure is through what's called

1:32:21a pension obligation bond.

1:32:24As I mentioned this up until two years ago,

1:32:29there wasn't really no market for these pension bonds.

1:32:32There was a lot of investors that lost a lot of money

1:32:34after the Stockton and San Bernardino bankruptcies.

1:32:38We've seen that changed in the last two years.

1:32:41And we have seen a lot of entities that are issuing bonds

1:32:45at lower rates, but mainly the as we'll

1:32:50get into on the next slide or in a couple of slides,

1:32:54it's really using it as a restructuring opportunity

1:32:57to change the shape of your repayments

1:32:59that are really smoothed out that taking payments.

1:33:02As I mentioned, there is reinvestment risk

1:33:04with any pension bond, which I will

1:33:07touch on in a couple of slides.

1:33:11These are a few cities in the last 12 months

1:33:13who have issued pension bonds.

1:33:14As I mentioned, it's been about $3 billion

1:33:17in 2020 I think 2021.

1:33:22There's been about 600 or $700 million.

1:33:24Those top the cities on the top left there came to market.

1:33:28In the last few weeks.

1:33:29The interest rates have ranged from about 2 and 1/2

1:33:32to a little to little under 4% And it's really

1:33:36had to do with the credit rating agency, the term of the bond,

1:33:41as well as just where we were at in the market.

1:33:44The market's been quite, quite volatile just

1:33:46given the pandemic, the election.

1:33:48We've seen rates on pension bonds

1:33:51fluctuate by a full percentage point.

1:33:54In the matter of a month or two, we could flip the slide to 23.

1:34:00One of the things I mentioned, is that some entities are using

1:34:04the pension bond to create a new shape

1:34:06in repayments that's more conducive for predictability

1:34:10and budgeting.

1:34:11So you can see here, we just we chose four cities out

1:34:16of that the last slide.

1:34:18And we just charted out their strategies

1:34:21for developing a new repayment shape on the pension bonds.

1:34:25So you can see Ukiah here on the top left,

1:34:27they had a little 1% escalating shape.

1:34:30And then a decline to 2050.

1:34:33As you can see with the blue line Riverside,

1:34:37they chose to just smooth out the peak

1:34:39in payments with that purple line there on the top.

1:34:41Right and then their payments kind of

1:34:43mimicked the old schedule in the back end city of Hawthorne

1:34:48on the bottom left at a 30 year financing

1:34:50with level payments and West covina, 2% for 25 years.

1:34:55So really just meant to show that there's no one size

1:34:58fits all for these.

1:35:00100% of the entities that have done these

1:35:04have really tried to chop off that peak in payments.

1:35:07But beyond that, it's been all over the board in terms

1:35:10of how far they went out with the restructuring,

1:35:13whether they did a level payment shape or an escalating

1:35:17repayment shape.

1:35:18You'll notice all four of these cities

1:35:21took a little bit of savings in the first year

1:35:23to deal with COVID induced revenue declines.

1:35:27That's why the bar is a little bit lower in fiscal year 2021.

1:35:31They're I think the benefits here are on slide 20

1:35:37for obviously chopping off that peak does produce a good amount

1:35:45of expected savings and does increase

1:35:48the funding ratio of the plans.

1:35:50I think we already mentioned the flexibility to modify

1:35:55the maturity of your debt.

1:35:57Where I really want to focus is on the right side, which

1:36:00is reinvestment and market timing risk,

1:36:02because with any pension bond, you're

1:36:04giving callipers a large sum of money at one point in time.

1:36:08And so any gains and losses they have on that money

1:36:13will really magnify the impacts on your unfunded liability.

1:36:17And it's the rule of thumb really,

1:36:20is that if callipers earns more than the rate

1:36:23you pay on the bonds, then you're better off.

1:36:26So if you borrow at three percent,

1:36:28if callipers earns more than 3% over the next 20 or so years,

1:36:32you're better off.

1:36:33However, if they were to earn lower

1:36:35than what you paid on your bonds,

1:36:37you actually were worse off.

1:36:39And so this is an unknown and a very big risk

1:36:42for any of our clients who undertake

1:36:45an evaluation process of this.

1:36:48We highly recommend what we call a stress testing process, which

1:36:53is to obviously, the savings looks very intriguing if you

1:36:59assume callipers earned 7% But what we've found very helpful

1:37:03is to really model out what a person only earns 4% or 5%

1:37:07or what if there's another recession after the bond,

1:37:10are you better or worse off?

1:37:12And those are the types of things

1:37:14that are helpful in figuring out if that risk is

1:37:18worth taking, if you were to evaluate a restructuring.

1:37:24Craig, moving on to I think probably

1:37:26are we do have a slide here on what potential savings could

1:37:32look like on a restructuring.

1:37:33I think you went over at Craig, look back to 25.

1:37:39This just assumed that the city did a level repayment

1:37:42shape in the orange line produces about two to three

1:37:47percent, two to three million of annual savings

1:37:51through the first 15 years.

1:37:53Again, that's based on callipers earning 7%

1:37:56And we would always recommend looking at some

1:38:00of the more dire scenarios.

1:38:03If you were to look at this option further.

1:38:07Again, one option to show the concept.

1:38:09In most of these projects, we've looked at dozens and dozens

1:38:12of options because there's a lot of ways you can slice and dice

1:38:15the pension bond with taking out perhaps

1:38:1850% of the uol versus 100% And just

1:38:21looking at different optimizations of that idea.

1:38:28Jumped into the last slide.

1:38:30No, that was a lot that was a lot of numbers,

1:38:34a lot of information.

1:38:35I think our goal with this presentation

1:38:39was to really bring forth an update.

1:38:41It's been four years since we were in front of the council

1:38:45with an update on the unfunded liability,

1:38:48I think even since that meeting.

1:38:50It's grown $20 million.

1:38:52And so wanted to bring this back,

1:38:56especially with some new members on the council.

1:38:59Talk about how important it is to really

1:39:02bring this into your forecast, your five year, 10 year

1:39:05forecast.

1:39:05And, you know, not just the 7% rosy projections,

1:39:10but perhaps even doing some sensitivity analysis

1:39:13is important.

1:39:15I think, lastly, pension funding policy is something

1:39:18that many agencies around the state

1:39:21are adopting to really provide kind of a roadmap for how

1:39:27to treat future surplus if you are in that position where you

1:39:32have surplus monies and where does that money go to,

1:39:36whether that's perhaps a one 15 trust

1:39:38or an additional discretionary deposit.

1:39:41And a lot of our clients have been really tying those

1:39:44in with their overall reserve policies

1:39:47just to make sure that all the buckets are filled up

1:39:50to the minimum levels and whether that's capital

1:39:53or rainy day funds before you start sending, let's say,

1:39:57more money to calliper.

1:40:00So, Craig, if I missed anything, feel free to chime in.

1:40:03I know I breezed through that, but I

1:40:07think that's a lot of information

1:40:09for the first meeting here.

1:40:12And thanks, mike, I think that that was a good overview,

1:40:16hopefully, you know, I know all the council members had

1:40:19the slides and we're happy to answer

1:40:22any specific questions on it, but we'll

1:40:24turn it back to staff.

1:40:27Council member questions.

1:40:33Yes, council member mohtarma.

1:40:37Thank you for this presentation.

1:40:40I think this is really timely.

1:40:43I would like to get a sense of, you know,

1:40:47I'm sure you know where we are financially

1:40:50and the idea of the pension obligation bond

1:40:54is particularly painful because I think

1:40:56our bond rating is very low.

1:40:58We don't have a lot of reserves to pay for additional bonds.

1:41:03But, you know, given our bond rating, where would

1:41:06we fall in terms of interest rate for the pension

1:41:09obligation bond?

1:41:11We're at, I believe, minus b, b, B. I

1:41:17don't think your ratings that.

1:41:20Batlow I'm going to I'm going to I'm

1:41:23going to pull that up as we're speaking,

1:41:25because I believe it was in the A or low double category.

1:41:30Now b, b, b, B minus.

1:41:37It was in the cafo.

1:41:40Or maybe, mark, you can jump in.

1:41:42And obviously try again, can you hear me?

1:41:45Yes, yes.

1:41:47So we used to be a AA minus and we

1:41:49had a triple double, BBB minus at this point in time.

1:41:53This was the last rating, September of 2003.

1:42:09So in addition to that is part of that question,

1:42:14you know, given that you mentioned that there's risk,

1:42:17investors are risk averse, looking at cities

1:42:21that have tanked in the past.

1:42:24And so with that kind of rating in our reserve level,

1:42:28are we a candidate for a pension obligation bond?

1:42:34So one is I will double check on the rating, but at that level

1:42:38there has there has not been any entities that have successfully

1:42:42issued pension bonds.

1:42:43There's been one city in the BBB category,

1:42:47but every other city has been a double AIA rated.

1:42:52And that's where the rates are coming from.

1:42:54In terms of the 2.5 de La vista we were in the market

1:42:59with two weeks ago, they got a 2.5% rate, double AIA rated.

1:43:04There has been several cities in the a category one

1:43:08in the BBB plus category, but they did pledge

1:43:12collateral to the financing.

1:43:14So they put buildings, parks they used

1:43:17to lease structure to secure that to give

1:43:22investors more comfort.

1:43:27Thank you.

1:43:30We have the questions from council member braddick.

1:43:36Mayor, can you describe a little bit more

1:43:39about the restructuring process and what would entail

1:43:43this restructuring process?

1:43:45I agree with council member mohtarma that I our bond rating

1:43:50is very, very low in all the comparable cities

1:43:53that you compared or that you had in the slides.

1:43:56We are so much lower than all of them.

1:43:58So I think that that's something really important to factor in.

1:44:02But with this one, if you could explain a little bit more

1:44:03about restructuring.

1:44:10So, yeah, and what specifically would

1:44:13you like to know about the restructuring process,

1:44:16it just for the public.

1:44:17So they have a better sense of what would be required for us?

1:44:21Because what we're seeing is just a line,

1:44:24meaning that are we paying four point something million

1:44:29over the duration of time?

1:44:31And that's then is it agreed upon when it's yet?

1:44:35Correct and I think the main goal with that chart

1:44:38was to introduce what the restructuring concept is,

1:44:41and that is borrowing at a lower rate, if you can,

1:44:44and if you achieve the credit rating that was necessary.

1:44:49And that would be part of, I think,

1:44:50the due diligence, whether clearly, I

1:44:53think the city at this point in time

1:44:56would probably face some challenges on the credit rating

1:44:59and would probably need to put some things in, get some things

1:45:03going on that to rebuild the credit rating,

1:45:07to even to make that a more feasible

1:45:10option in terms of the process.

1:45:12In general, though, a pension board

1:45:15requires a court validation process that takes four months.

1:45:19In our opinion, it requires lots of due diligence and education

1:45:23because these savings aren't guaranteed.

1:45:25So that's why I mentioned, we in every project

1:45:28bring in an actuary, someone who can model out the what

1:45:32if scenarios, because there are situations where you can be

1:45:36worse off after a pension bond, and especially

1:45:40if callipers were to have some big down years

1:45:43right after the pension bond.

1:45:45So typically, we do a lot of that stress testing,

1:45:48but we often depend on some professional actuaries

1:45:52to do that.

1:45:53So a lot of these are nine, 12 month processes

1:45:56that we've been part of.

1:45:58A city of Riverside was a year long education process

1:46:03with community and stakeholders and really robust process

1:46:07to address risks.

1:46:10But again, I think it's a good question on the credit rating,

1:46:14which there's a point in time when that rate becomes probably

1:46:20more feasible for the city.

1:46:23And I think council member and the simple answer to the graph

1:46:29that you were holding up is if investors require a higher

1:46:33interest rate, that line actually

1:46:35just moves up compared to what you're paying with the home.

1:46:39If if you're a stronger credit or investors

1:46:43will accept a lower interest rate,

1:46:45you'd actually see greater savings.

1:46:46Right that orange line would actually drop.

1:46:49So that was an indicative rate that we put in,

1:46:52as Mike mentioned, to kind of represent,

1:46:54what, a restructuring or a re amortization of your liability

1:47:00looks like, just so you can get a magnitude.

1:47:03Write the first thing is if through this whole

1:47:05conversation, it's only going to save you

1:47:06a couple of $100,000 a year.

1:47:09You know, we don't need to have this conversation anymore,

1:47:11but depending on where that line is relative to the hump,

1:47:15you can see that it could potentially

1:47:17be a tool that would help set the city up

1:47:22for future fiscal sustainability.

1:47:26Gentlemen, I really appreciate the presentation.

1:47:29It is disappointing that it's been five

1:47:30years since you've come to the council

1:47:32to have this presentation.

1:47:34Also to note that as the millennial council member here,

1:47:40this is something that my generation of Australians

1:47:42are going to be paying for a really long time.

1:47:46This is something that I also the only council

1:47:48member with younger children that this

1:47:49is directly impacting us.

1:47:52It is.

1:47:53When I was in grad school, it was during the Great Recession.

1:47:57And so much of the conversation among public administrators

1:48:00was, what are we doing about unfunded liabilities?

1:48:03How is it that we can navigate and plan for this?

1:48:07So while this is a very delayed conversation,

1:48:11I'm really appreciative that you guys are doing this work

1:48:15and that we're having this conversation in a public forum

1:48:17because this is a huge impact on our community.

1:48:24And pro tem quintel, thank you very much.

1:48:28And a thorough presentation, our city very much appreciates it.

1:48:34And and I know you have my Facebook.

1:48:38Five, five years ago, a photo of a John chungs showed up.

1:48:44And as I remember, that was the first time we had

1:48:48the treasurer in El cerrito.

1:48:50And he explained to the League of California cities

1:48:56exactly what the invention and they're

1:48:59at the meeting of the council members that were elected,

1:49:02then were there.

1:49:04The staff that we have now where there are former city manager

1:49:08was there, our chief of police and our former fire chief

1:49:13was there.

1:49:14So that was a wonderful thing to host.

1:49:18But it was an eye opening experience back in 2016.

1:49:22So, again, I agree with my colleague, a council

1:49:27member, rubberneck, that we need to talk

1:49:29about this much more often.

1:49:32And we were warned about this back in 2016.

1:49:36So I am hoping that this is finally, all out now.

1:49:42And this is something that residents

1:49:44have even spoke up about.

1:49:47We've had the taxpayers of Contra Costa

1:49:49show up and speak about this.

1:49:52We had newspaper articles from several newspapers.

1:49:58And I just want to make sure that with this presentation,

1:50:02it shows us what we need to do and what we finally need

1:50:07to look at and work on, because this debt that was done

1:50:12should have been worked on 10, 12 years ago,

1:50:15but we did nothing.

1:50:16So I know what the city manager that we have now

1:50:20and our executive staff, we will work on this

1:50:23because we have no choice.

1:50:25I, for one, do not want to lay the burden on our new residents

1:50:30buying homes now.

1:50:32And having you know, we're not going

1:50:35to tax ourselves out of this.

1:50:36This is a problem, the generation that lives here.

1:50:39Now And it's a responsibility of the council that we have now.

1:50:44So I'm not going to be beating around the bush about this.

1:50:48This should have been worked on.

1:50:50And I know with our city manager.

1:50:53Now and our staff and our finance, we will work on this.

1:50:57So thank you for laying it out on the line

1:51:00and knowing what we have to do.

1:51:03Looking at the chart where you had other cities with high debt

1:51:11like we do, I want to let our residents know

1:51:16most of the cities that were on that list

1:51:19have a high credit rating.

1:51:21There's only a couple of cities within that list

1:51:25that have horrible credit ratings,

1:51:26and El cerrito is one of them.

1:51:28So I want to make sure that our residents

1:51:30know the importance of paying this

1:51:33down and finding a solution.

1:51:36So I have a question regarding the one 15

1:51:40trust and the lump sum.

1:51:43And I know we will have to have reserves first.

1:51:49But I'm wondering if we can have our city manager

1:51:55look at these two things to work with our finance director and

1:52:00staff when we do have reserves.

1:52:04And I'm hoping that we can definitely look at the one 50

1:52:09trust and the lump sum to bring that debt down

1:52:15because this is crushing, crushing our cities

1:52:19and crushing other cities.

1:52:21But I also know about the successful cities here

1:52:25in the East Bay.

1:52:26We're prepared for this.

1:52:28And they made their government smaller.

1:52:30We have cities that were able to do this 10, 12 years ago.

1:52:35They have a rainy day fund.

1:52:38They have a one 15 El syreeta.

1:52:41We have a lot of catching up to do.

1:52:43And I am committed to work with the city manager

1:52:47and with you, Mike.

1:52:49And with you, Craig.

1:52:52We need to play catch up.

1:52:53And I'm determined with our new council we would do.

1:52:56So Thank you.

1:53:02Janet, a council member, avildsen,

1:53:05do you have any comments?

1:53:08Questions can't remember everything you need to unmute.

1:53:16There we go.

1:53:18I think that.

1:53:20This information is really important.

1:53:24And I appreciate the city manager bringing this to us.

1:53:29I think it's really important that we

1:53:32see that because this is such a large proportion of our costs.

1:53:36And as we go through.

1:53:40The next two years were really going to have to spend.

1:53:44A lot of resources on this, so I appreciate

1:53:51it being brought to us.

1:53:53And I'm not I'm not going to repeat what's already been

1:53:58said, but just to say that this is

1:54:02essential that we keep this in mind

1:54:04as we do all of our planning.

1:54:06So I'll just leave it at that, because a lot.

1:54:09It's already been done.

1:54:10Thank you.

1:54:12Councilman remoting yama.

1:54:15I do have a couple more questions, one is regarding

1:54:20the calcars discount rate, is that an inverse relationship

1:54:25to kind of the interest rates in general, the higher interest

1:54:29rates, reduce or reduce that discount

1:54:33or increase that discount rate in tandem with that?

1:54:36How how do those two things move together?

1:54:38So as we move forward, we're understanding kind of

1:54:41the impact over the long term.

1:54:45I would say on the rates, I think

1:54:48if you're trying to compare the borrowing

1:54:50rates on the restructuring to what callipers is trying

1:54:52to earn, it's a bit different, although callipers discount

1:54:57rate is what they think they can earn for the long term.

1:55:00So that's a function of where bond yields are.

1:55:04They're investing in fixed income,

1:55:07where equities prices are, private equity, real estate.

1:55:12So they're looking at the aggregate of their portfolio

1:55:15and trying to figure out what do they truly

1:55:19expect that they can earn?

1:55:23I think there are still a lot of people that

1:55:26are experts in the investment space

1:55:28that still think 7% might be too high.

1:55:31And so I think magnitude wise, if they went to six percent,

1:55:37uol probably goes up another $25 million from that 70 million.

1:55:41That's that's the sensitivity to.

1:55:46Their assumptions on the interest rate, I mean,

1:55:50that's why the big increases have you've seen

1:55:53and all members have seen just going from 775 to 750 to seven.

1:55:59Again, though, if they were to go to six,

1:56:03it'd be a big impact.

1:56:05Last year they were at 4.7.

1:56:08So the city will see a slight increase come this fall

1:56:12in the next valuation report.

1:56:15One piece of good news is that this fiscal year,

1:56:17they're in the double digits.

1:56:18So far.

1:56:19But again, it things have to run its course until June.

1:56:23There's always a two year lag between what they earn

1:56:27and then when it actually impacts the city.

1:56:29So it's usually two years lag it.

1:56:32You'll see it in the report.

1:56:33And then there's actually a ramp up in payments.

1:56:35So they don't it won't impact the city right away.

1:56:40But over the next three or four or five years

1:56:42is when you'll see the impacts from them

1:56:45not meeting their targets.

1:56:48OK, and then my second question is on the one 15 trust,

1:56:52is there a minimum size that makes sense?

1:56:55So basically, we're starting from 0 in terms of reserves.

1:57:00And so as we build that up, does it make sense

1:57:02to take a small piece of that.

1:57:05And put that towards a one 15 trust?

1:57:07Or does that this kind of trust have enough of an overhead

1:57:11that we would want to wait until we have a certain dollar amount

1:57:15to be able to start that trust?

1:57:18It's a great question, and I think

1:57:22we talked a bit about the credit rating

1:57:24and figuring out that was a single category

1:57:27just about a year or two ago.

1:57:29I think it came down into the BBB category

1:57:33in last year in 220.

1:57:35You know, I think it's important that for the credit rating

1:57:39that a plan is put in place.

1:57:41I don't think there's any expectation

1:57:42that you're going to solve this other issue with cash.

1:57:46I mean, but it has to start somewhere.

1:57:50I do think that the credit rating front, it's

1:57:53very important not to ignore your other priorities, though,

1:57:57as well.

1:57:58The rainy day funds the reserves,

1:58:00you're holding at the city level, capital funds,

1:58:04economic contingency reserves, getting

1:58:07those foundational items to your minimum levels

1:58:11and perhaps focusing on that, the policy around that

1:58:15before saying, let's invest this money into the stock

1:58:19market or the bond market.

1:58:21I think that's a nice to have.

1:58:23But I mean, you do have to start somewhere

1:58:25to there's no minimum amount.

1:58:26I think it's putting in place a policy where once you meet

1:58:31other minimums, that perhaps there's

1:58:33a portion of the surplus that you consider trying to address

1:58:39the pension problem beyond what you're

1:58:43on the hook for each year.

1:58:44But I think addressing those core items.

1:58:47First are more important than the one 15,

1:58:52if that makes sense.

1:58:54That's very helpful.

1:58:55Thank you.

1:58:56I think this is the kinds of painful discussions

1:59:00we need to have in order to be able to set

1:59:03ourselves up on a good course, moving forward.

1:59:06And I appreciate your being very direct with us

1:59:11what we need to do, because we have a lot of work to do.

1:59:15So thank you for that.

1:59:18Thank you.

1:59:19And I think the last discussion was where I was headed,

1:59:24and I think it was sobering and it's where we need to focus

1:59:29our efforts going forward.

1:59:31And sobering because that chart, you gave us with four options

1:59:35on it, we don't qualify for any of those.

1:59:37We can't do any of those things.

1:59:38Now unless we get our other acts together.

1:59:42And I know as far as the pension obligation bond, I've

1:59:48been to several league of cities seminars

1:59:51on financial management and they have said stay away from that,

1:59:55do not go near that.

1:59:57And I just want to reiterate, even when there's

2:00:00a healthy economic balance in the city,

2:00:04don't do that because of the risk.

2:00:06Because that's true.

2:00:07I mean, we can't even think about it now.

2:00:09But if we were healthy financially,

2:00:12would you even advise that the league

2:00:14is saying, do not do that?

2:00:17You're touching on a subject that is, I'd say,

2:00:22has extreme opinions on either side.

2:00:25So there's a lot of folks that say if we can borrow

2:00:28at two and a half, let's do it.

2:00:31I think the other side is that pension

2:00:32bonds are risky, that a government

2:00:34should never take that risk.

2:00:36I don't I think know we don't take a stance

2:00:40on whether it's good or bad.

2:00:42We have worked on about 10 of these in the last 12 months.

2:00:46And we recommend highlighting the risks to say, OK, here

2:00:52is the risk with pension bonds, that callipers earns x amount.

2:00:57We have another recession.

2:00:58And we put that forth on the table to say,

2:01:02here's what your cash flows look like pre

2:01:04and post pob if x, y and z happen.

2:01:08And then it's usually up to each individual agency to say,

2:01:12hey, we're willing to take that risk

2:01:13or we have a policy in place that is going to sock away

2:01:17these savings, which are essentially

2:01:18guaranteed in the early years.

2:01:20And if there was a market downturn

2:01:22to redeploy those into the one 15 trust back to kalpa.

2:01:26So the policy is huge in terms of the framework.

2:01:30I would say it's a pension bond should be policy driven.

2:01:34And there should be safeguards put into place with locking up

2:01:38those savings, especially in the early years, because those are

2:01:40essentially guaranteed with the way

2:01:42that callipers lags in terms of the impacts.

2:01:45But, you know, a pension bond is not for everybody.

2:01:49And those are risks that 10 years ago,

2:01:53those risks were always there.

2:01:55The markets evolved a bit in terms

2:01:57of being able to actually model this out and say, OK, here's

2:02:01what you look like.

2:02:02Let's let's make an assumption.

2:02:04We have another 08 starting next year.

2:02:06Are you better or worse off?

2:02:08And then, you know, then it becomes a question of are

2:02:11we willing to take that risk if you're

2:02:14still better off or worse off.

2:02:16And by how much?

2:02:17So I don't think there's a right answer there.

2:02:20I mean, we've worked with probably 50 agencies

2:02:23across the state on cost management strategies.

2:02:25I'd say 20% have gone down the ule

2:02:29restructuring route because it became

2:02:33a tool that they needed to use.

2:02:37But for the vast majority of the cities we've worked with,

2:02:42they have employed other cost management strategies.

2:02:46So whether that's general expense reductions,

2:02:49non callipers, cost containment strategies, budget cuts,

2:02:56section one, fifteens pay Downs, typically

2:02:59the other restructuring is the last resort.

2:03:03I will say we've seen more activity lately

2:03:05because when the rates are at three percent,

2:03:08the risk profile goes down a bit.

2:03:11The odds of callipers repeating 3 over the long haul

2:03:15are probably better than if you were borrowing at 6% like that.

2:03:21And I think a lot of agencies are in a similar situation

2:03:23facing this wall and some are running out

2:03:29of options in terms of cash.

2:03:32We probably don't have to decide on a pension obligation

2:03:35bonds in the next couple of years here,

2:03:38following up again, on where council member mohtarma was

2:03:42going, I asked publicly the last couple of years about the one

2:03:4615 and rightfully got the answer back,

2:03:50that we don't have enough money in reserves

2:03:53to even think about it.

2:03:55So as was just discussed, we probably

2:03:57do need to prioritize growing those reserves

2:04:00rather than being proportional about it.

2:04:04And I just wanted to ask, when did one 15.

2:04:06Come in?

2:04:07It's relatively new program.

2:04:09Is it like 10 years old?

2:04:11Because I'm just wondering why, if it did

2:04:14exist 20 years ago, why our city wasn't

2:04:16thinking about doing this, then when did this come in?

2:04:21I believe it's in the last five to seven years, so that's all.

2:04:25Yeah, it's fairly new.

2:04:28So it's giving an option to cities

2:04:30and it hit us just when we couldn't honey.

2:04:33And so much.

2:04:33OK I mean, yeah, Yeah.

2:04:36A lot of the impacts, you know, starting in 12 and 13,

2:04:40that's when the US started to grow.

2:04:42And there became a need to dedicate more monies

2:04:45towards this problem than just because you can't pay

2:04:49callipers more than your uol.

2:04:52So we can still negotiate a different process.

2:04:57Now Right a different payment process.

2:05:01With her, you're on the hook to pay your callipers bills, that

2:05:04chart that we showed earlier with the peak, that's

2:05:07you're going to get a bill every year for that.

2:05:10And it's going to change.

2:05:12But for the most part, that's the bill.

2:05:15The cost management strategies that we introduced earlier

2:05:18are typically to go above and beyond what

2:05:22that annual requirement is.

2:05:24So, Yeah.

2:05:26Oh, Yeah.

2:05:26My last question is probably maybe out of your bailiwick.

2:05:29But I was going to say where our city is now

2:05:31talking about restructuring and the need

2:05:34to restructure going forward.

2:05:36So we can become sustainable.

2:05:40Is there a way.

2:05:41Are there options and maybe you can answer this,

2:05:43but to get more of the.

2:05:47Burden put on the actual employees.

2:05:52To pay for their own pension.

2:05:55Liabilities that that's probably up to us to determine,

2:06:00is that correct?

2:06:01Well, keep and keep in mind, we had one of the early slides,

2:06:06right, where a lot of this liability

2:06:09rests with legacy employees and those that are already retired.

2:06:13Right so the irony that we saw after 2008 was when

2:06:17a lot of public agencies contracted their employment

2:06:21base, you know, they froze positions

2:06:24or they eliminated positions.

2:06:25And as an organization, you now have a smaller

2:06:29contributing employment base, but you've still

2:06:32got this liability for your legacy,

2:06:35folks that had to be funded.

2:06:37So it's like fewer.

2:06:41The contribution rate on payroll became a much larger

2:06:45percentage because it was on.

2:06:47So much fewer folks.

2:06:48So as you think about reorganization,

2:06:51it doesn't the hard dollar liability amount

2:06:55doesn't change.

2:06:56Right? it's how you're going to be contributing towards it.

2:06:59So it really is when you think about it like a mortgage,

2:07:03you buy a house, it's too big and you have

2:07:06to make that mortgage payment.

2:07:08And unfortunately, you don't have the means

2:07:10of selling the house and moving your vested

2:07:14with this legacy liability.

2:07:17And just one thing, a little more context.

2:07:20I don't know if I hit it on our slide

2:07:22about the classic versus the paper, but out of your hotel,

2:07:2698.5% of that is classic employees.

2:07:30So for the new tabbara, the new employees that are coming

2:07:34into the lower cost tiers, that's only one to 1 and 1/2

2:07:38of your uol.

2:07:40So, again, those employees do pay more under those plans.

2:07:43And I think that the reforms that callipers has implemented

2:07:47will help mitigate the risk of this happening again,

2:07:5110, 20, 20.

2:07:52I live that long, right, if I live long enough.

2:07:56OK, thank you.

2:07:59Are there any other comments from council members?

2:08:01You asked council member arrhythmic.

2:08:03One more.

2:08:04I do appreciate your recommendation about having

2:08:07a reserve pension fund policy.

2:08:11I think that's something that I hope my colleagues

2:08:13and I can carry because historically, it

2:08:17looks like there hasn't been a lot of investment

2:08:21and consideration into this.

2:08:22And if we canonizes into policy and have it

2:08:25be that this is something that we must do, we can trust.

2:08:29And the public can trust in the council

2:08:31that we're going to be making the right decisions.

2:08:33And that we are building our funds.

2:08:37We are really thinking of our reserves

2:08:39and our pension liabilities.

2:08:42And that will go a long way towards this conversation

2:08:44that Councilman motorama brought up about the ratings right.

2:08:48To credit rating analysts when they look at the city.

2:08:52Yes, they're looking at dollars.

2:08:53Yes, they're looking at expenditures,

2:08:55but they're also looking at management and policies.

2:08:58And if you have hardcoded in you reserve levels

2:09:03and how you're going to build to them as well as policies

2:09:06around the pension, that goes a long way because you're right,

2:09:10you're kind of canonizing it and you're putting it into stone

2:09:14such that we call it binding the hands of future councils,

2:09:18whatever you want to call it.

2:09:19But it gives comfort and faith that you can

2:09:22you've got a plan of attack that'll get

2:09:24you into a much better place.

2:09:28Mike, thank you very much for your time tonight.

2:09:32Thank you, Mary.

2:09:34I mean, we do have at least one member of the public

2:09:36who's requesting to speak.

2:09:38Thank you.

2:09:38Let's go to public comment.

2:09:40OK Just bear with me.

2:09:57OK, the caller with the phone number and ring in five zero

2:10:01zero, you can only yourself and begin your time now.

2:10:12If he's requested to speak from phone number

2:10:14ending in five zero zero.

2:10:22Looks like we're not getting a response from them.

2:10:26That is the only person that we have signed

2:10:29up to speak at this time.

2:10:32Ken, thank you very much, Mr Meyer and Mr hill,

2:10:35appreciate your time tonight.

2:10:37Thank you.

2:10:38Thank you.

2:10:40We're going to move on to presentation.

2:10:44Five see, which is our one year review

2:10:47of our registry data protection task force recommendation.

2:10:52Can we please have our staff presentation?

2:10:58Good evening, council members, mayor fidele

2:11:01and members of the public.

2:11:02My name is Suri, I am the housing

2:11:05analyst and the community development department.

2:11:07And tonight.

2:11:08I am also joined by Gina Bartlett of the consensus

2:11:11Building Institute and our community development

2:11:15director, Melanie ments.

2:11:17So tonight, as I mentioned, I am going

2:11:21to be providing a presentation on the year

2:11:23one rent registry data as well.

2:11:27Following my presentation will be Bartlett of CVI

2:11:31that will share the tenant protections

2:11:32task force recommendations.

2:11:34Before I jump into this presentation,

2:11:36I just want to sincerely thank everyone who has

2:11:40participated up to this point.

2:11:42I know it's been a difficult subject

2:11:45and that we've had a lot of difficult times

2:11:48that have come since then.

2:11:52So I'm going to just go ahead and jump right on in

2:11:54and go ahead and cover the tenant protection actions that

2:11:58have been taken by the city.

2:12:00To date.

2:12:00So, as you know, the council adopted the Affordable

2:12:05housing strategy in 2017 as part of the Affordable

2:12:10housing strategy.

2:12:11It does include four four policy pillars

2:12:14that's also included in your package as attachment four.

2:12:17I'm just going to briefly review those for you.

2:12:22So policy pillar a does cover leveraging

2:12:26private development to address affordable housing needs.

2:12:29So that's something that we tackled

2:12:31through our inclusionary zoning ordinance policy.

2:12:34Hello b, which we will focus on tonight,

2:12:36is leveraging private development to address.

2:12:39I'm sorry, reducing the risk of displacement

2:12:41and helping stabilize at risk populations.

2:12:44Policy policy is encouraging the development of missing

2:12:48middle housing types.

2:12:49For example, to use in policy, pillar D

2:12:53is increasing local funding to continue to support low income

2:12:58and special housing needs.

2:13:00So, as you know, we convened several meetings

2:13:05over the year 2018.

2:13:08We we really started our work by meeting

2:13:11with a variety of stakeholders.

2:13:13And during the spring of summer of 2018

2:13:15before we came the council in August, we had a study session.

2:13:20And we followed that in November of 2018

2:13:23through a community workshop.

2:13:25And we came back to the council and on December 18 of 2018

2:13:29with the package of tenant protection policies,

2:13:32ultimately, those were not adopted.

2:13:35But we did do more work.

2:13:37We hosted a couple more study sessions.

2:13:41And that in May of 2020 resulted and the adoption

2:13:44of the just cause for eviction and rent registry ordinances,

2:13:48as well as the formation of the tenant protection task force,

2:13:53which you some of you are part of appointing

2:13:57in August of 2019.

2:13:59Then obviously that was, that was that May of 2019.

2:14:07Yes, so that was May 20, 20, that was just last year.

2:14:13Yes, sorry, may of 20 nights here.

2:14:16Thank you.

2:14:16That was Yeah.

2:14:18OK, I will correct that.

2:14:20And and then in 20, 20 us local, state of emergency

2:14:25occurred and the council adopted October 19,

2:14:29an eviction moratorium.

2:14:33So next slide, I'm going to just go over some things

2:14:37that have actually happened at the state level

2:14:40since over the course of our study sessions

2:14:44and after we adopted those ordinances.

2:14:47One of the main things that happened in October of 2018

2:14:51is that the governor signed a 1482 which is the tenant

2:14:55Protection Act of 2019.

2:14:58This bill basically went into effect on July one of 2020.

2:15:02It does have a sunset day of January 1st.

2:15:052030 ab 1482 in a nutshell.

2:15:09And again, there are more details in your packet

2:15:12and attachment three that covers this

2:15:14in great length, which I'm sure you've had a chance to look at.

2:15:17But in a nutshell, what it does is it includes an annual rent

2:15:20cap increase of 5% plus inflation or 10 percent,

2:15:25whichever is lower.

2:15:26So it's the lower of those two.

2:15:28It also includes protections for just cause and no fault

2:15:32evictions and provides relocation assistance,

2:15:35and it also contains tenant noticing requirements.

2:15:38In addition, it does apply to generally,

2:15:41most multifamily rental properties

2:15:43that are 15 years old.

2:15:45And there are some exceptions.

2:15:46So, again, those are noted in the packet for you

2:15:50as well as member of the public to learn more about.

2:15:53And I can answer more later.

2:15:55In addition, a, b, 11, 10 went into effect.

2:15:58And what that law basically did is

2:16:00it amended an existing civil code under California law

2:16:04by requiring a 90 day notice for rent increases

2:16:07that were greater than 10% So previously,

2:16:10it was a 60 day notice.

2:16:13And then sb 329 also took effect on January 1st,

2:16:18and basically what that bill does is it adds discrimination

2:16:23against source of income.

2:16:25So basically what it means is that anyone

2:16:28who is using a section eight voucher to rent a unit that has

2:16:32to be counted to qualify them to be eligible to a unit,

2:16:36as a source of income, because it is, in essence, a subsidy

2:16:40that provides cash for rent.

2:16:46Jump to heterocyclic.

2:16:48So once the council actually adopted the ordinance

2:16:51on May 20, first of 2019 that does

2:16:54appear in our municipal code chapter 10 100.

2:16:58We spent the month of June of 2019

2:17:01developing a lot of that information.

2:17:03So that we can coincide the rent registry

2:17:06with our actual business license renewals.

2:17:09So every year.

2:17:11And July, all business license holders

2:17:13are required to renew their business license.

2:17:16And what we did is we took the opportunity

2:17:19through our existing database to notice all business owners

2:17:23of the registry requirement.

2:17:25At the same time, we were also looking to collect data,

2:17:30not just for the current year, but we were looking to go back

2:17:32to July of 2017 and get data over a 24 month period

2:17:37through June 30 of 2019.

2:17:39So just want to point out that this is really driven.

2:17:43The data is really being driven on a fiscal year,

2:17:47not a typical calendar year.

2:17:49So it's obviously, the way the city

2:17:51does business as well as a result

2:17:54of the rent registry adoption.

2:17:56We also brought on a new staff member of September 20 '19.

2:18:00So she her name's Tony and she's our administrative specialist.

2:18:06The way that this position previously was set up

2:18:09is it wasn't finance doing business license,

2:18:12but with the adoption of the rent registry,

2:18:14we were able to bring that position into the community

2:18:17development department, realizing that half

2:18:19of their time, half of her time is spent administering

2:18:23the business license.

2:18:24And the other half of her time is working

2:18:26on the rent registry program.

2:18:28So we were lucky to have her.

2:18:30And then, of course, we convened the task force

2:18:33and that was that began to be underway as well.

2:18:39In terms of applicability, the rent registry generally

2:18:43applies to all rental properties, including

2:18:45single family residences and multifamily buildings,

2:18:48but there are some carve outs, some exceptions.

2:18:51So, for example, if someone's renting out a room

2:18:54in their home that they're not required to report that if it's

2:18:58a hotel, motel, a better breakfast, if it's

2:19:01an on site managers unit, obviously, that's usually,

2:19:04you know, kind of like the next full appointment tied

2:19:07into a condition of employment.

2:19:09Then you also have, for example, units where rents are

2:19:13controlled, like our property right next door to city hall,

2:19:16have a gardens.

2:19:17They're not required to complete the rent registry

2:19:19because their rents are set annually.

2:19:22And then you also have just units

2:19:24that are required by the city to be intended for public use.

2:19:29So I'm going to go ahead and jump to this slide.

2:19:32Some of you have actually seen some form of this slide,

2:19:37but I just want to let everyone know how the rent

2:19:40registry process works.

2:19:42So, as I mentioned, we actually use our business license

2:19:46to inform property owners that they are now required

2:19:49to complete the registry.

2:19:51So, as I mentioned, we paired it up.

2:19:54And really the goal of thinking the business

2:19:56license in the rent registry is was a one stop shop.

2:19:59So you renew your business license every year.

2:20:02And you report to the city.

2:20:03So those are notices that we generate and they go out

2:20:06in the mail typically mention.

2:20:09And what happens is property owners

2:20:11have until the end of July to reapply, renew their business

2:20:16license, pay their annual fee and submit their rent registry.

2:20:20Obviously, this was the first year with the first generation.

2:20:24We really spent a lot of June getting

2:20:26the program up and going.

2:20:28And so we did allow the option in year one to buy paper

2:20:33or electronically.

2:20:34And what happens is when those submissions come in there,

2:20:38then reviewed by a staff member, which would either be tonier

2:20:43admin clerk or myself, and there is basically a determination

2:20:48issued at that time.

2:20:49So there's one determination is that it's complete,

2:20:52everything's done, all is well.

2:20:54And we send the property owners a notice

2:20:57and let them know it's complete.

2:20:59If for some reason there's some missing data,

2:21:02we do send out a request for additional information

2:21:04through what's called a notice of completion,

2:21:06and then that comes back and staff reviews

2:21:09and makes a determination if that's complete or not.

2:21:13I just want to highlight that since we do things by paper,

2:21:16sometimes getting information.

2:21:19And one of the obstacles we heard from some of our property

2:21:22owners in the first year is that we

2:21:23were doing a 24 month period.

2:21:26So depending on who was managing the property

2:21:28and how the records work, sometimes it was

2:21:31easier to get that information.

2:21:33And sometimes it took a little bit more work.

2:21:36So in the midst of all that, bringing on a new staff person,

2:21:41convening the task force.

2:21:42And then being hit with covid, we were really obviously up

2:21:47against a timeline.

2:21:48We wanted to complete the program.

2:21:50And since it was the first year, the activity showed

2:21:53and gray did not occur because our goal was

2:21:57really to wrap up what we had.

2:21:59And get back to you and also just kind of

2:22:02respond to everything else that was going on in the world.

2:22:06So I'm going to actually now talk to you all more

2:22:09about just give you a big picture

2:22:12on what the numbers look like.

2:22:14So any property in ulcerated that has a business license

2:22:19was notified of this requirement in fiscal year

2:22:222019 2020 which is actually July 1.

2:22:272019 through June.

2:22:292020 there was 947 active residential business

2:22:33licenses covering 2,742 units.

2:22:38So because an owner has multiple units in one building,

2:22:43there obviously would not be 2,700

2:22:45licenses because some buildings contain five units,

2:22:48some contain 10.

2:22:50We also realize that while 2,700 ish have a business license

2:22:56with the city, according to our housing element,

2:22:59we are estimated to have about 4,000

2:23:02rental households in ulcerate.

2:23:04So we have about 10,000 residential housing units

2:23:08and about 40% of our residents are renters.

2:23:12So there is obviously a subset of property owners

2:23:16that are missing.

2:23:16I'll talk a little more about that later about how we're

2:23:19working to identify those.

2:23:21But I want to just give you kind of an overview of the numbers

2:23:25and where we landed, and then I'll

2:23:27give you more context on that.

2:23:29So out of the 947 license licenses,

2:23:34we were able to issue what's called a notice of completion.

2:23:37So that means everything signed, sealed, and delivered,

2:23:40that we need is there.

2:23:41And that is representative of 1,960 units.

2:23:46On the next flight, you'll see status by type.

2:23:49Notice of incompletion, so what that means

2:23:52is that a rent registry submission was completed,

2:23:55but for some reason or another, it wasn't all the way.

2:23:59It didn't give us all the data that we needed.

2:24:01So there was 47 license holders, which

2:24:04represents about 175 units.

2:24:06Then we have another subset of people

2:24:10who renewed their business license, pay the fee,

2:24:13but just didn't do the rent registry

2:24:15for some reason or another.

2:24:16And that's about 200 license holders across 661 units.

2:24:25This next slide, I'm just going to it's

2:24:28a little bit of what you just saw,

2:24:30but it does give you a breakdown of those 747 submissions.

2:24:35A lot of them came in by paper.

2:24:37So 520 three, that's actually reflective,

2:24:42I think, of some of our property owners.

2:24:44And city hall was open back then in 2019.

2:24:48Feels like so far long ago.

2:24:51But we got a lot.

2:24:52And by mail.

2:24:53And so anything that came in by mail, there

2:24:55was some added work because we were then

2:24:59required to scan those documents and then type those

2:25:03into the computer.

2:25:05And as we're typing make our reviews.

2:25:07So we I'll talk about that later.

2:25:09But we did switch staff for a year or two.

2:25:11And then, of course, we had the remaining

2:25:14224 that were completed online.

2:25:18It's made things easier to.

2:25:24So this next slide, I just want to point out

2:25:27that the data points that are in the ordinance

2:25:31are contained in this slide.

2:25:33So this is really what we're using to gather local data.

2:25:36So we're looking and of course, with direction from you all

2:25:40when this was adopted, to really learn more about the property

2:25:43owners, to really learn about the units,

2:25:46how many units are in this particular building,

2:25:49what is the square footage?

2:25:51What is the bathroom?

2:25:52Was there any major improvements made?

2:25:55What is the rent history look like?

2:25:57Remember, again, no one was looking at a 24

2:26:00month period moving forward.

2:26:02We're looking at a 12 month period.

2:26:03What is the client?

2:26:05When did the when was the last time

2:26:07that the rent was increased?

2:26:08And then we're also just looking at tenure.

2:26:11How long have tenants lived there.

2:26:13When did they move out?

2:26:15Is a unit vacant?

2:26:16Do you have a section eight voucher holders?

2:26:18So really just trying to understand

2:26:21what are who's living in the rental units here in ossorio?

2:26:26And these are in the ordinance.

2:26:30So the next slide.

2:26:34This slide is pretty important like the rest of them,

2:26:39but I do want to just point out that we've

2:26:42kind of broken down the responses into four buckets.

2:26:46So the first bucket and the type of properties that

2:26:49fall in the first one are going to be

2:26:51single family properties or condos and townhomes

2:26:55and are easy to use.

2:26:57So these are usually owned more by individual,

2:27:01not so much professionally property property manager

2:27:05persay, but that actually represents in our report

2:27:10303 properties for units.

2:27:13And then, of those you'll see occupancy

2:27:16status is that there is about 13 vacant and one it to a.s.a.

2:27:22household.

2:27:23The next bucket of property types.

2:27:25We're looking at is what we call our small multifamily.

2:27:28So that's our duplexes.

2:27:29Lexy's for poxes.

2:27:32And so that is about 205 properties or 621 units.

2:27:37Most of those are rented.

2:27:38And again, we saw and s.e a household with one of those.

2:27:43Then we kind of grow, we get a little bigger.

2:27:45We're then looking at our five to 40 unit buildings.

2:27:48That's 59 properties across 570 units.

2:27:52And we have a little more of our residents

2:27:55using section eight there.

2:27:56There's about four.

2:27:57And then we get to what we call our large multifamily.

2:28:00So that's anything that has more than 41 units.

2:28:03So there are some of the reported properties,

2:28:06there's three of those in this category and 405 units.

2:28:11I do want to point out, when I mentioned the source of income

2:28:14discrimination law that passed and our affordable housing

2:28:17strategy, this is one of the things

2:28:19that we definitely want to see more of,

2:28:23is to see more households and retail that are using a housing

2:28:28choice voucher to rent a unit so that I can

2:28:31talk a little more about later.

2:28:37In terms of property profile, I know

2:28:39this was something that the council is interested in.

2:28:42So about 2/3 of our property owners are

2:28:47not ulcerated residents and about a third are actual

2:28:51live in town.

2:28:53On average, they own.

2:28:54They have about 3 and 1/2 units or 1 and 1/2 buildings.

2:28:59In terms of average length of occupancy, you know,

2:29:04this was something that we heard a lot when we were

2:29:06doing our study sessions is that we have

2:29:08our tenants for a long time.

2:29:10And so based on those property types,

2:29:12you're generally going to see a six year average length

2:29:17of tenancy or a little more.

2:29:19There is the large multifamily is a little bit off.

2:29:23And the reason why I say that is because we had a new property,

2:29:25a new project come online.

2:29:27The metro five went to apartments.

2:29:29So since it was not completed until 2017,

2:29:33obviously, it was open for a shorter window.

2:29:36So that's why that number is just

2:29:38going to look a little different than what

2:29:40you see compared to the rest.

2:29:45So I'm going to walk you through each of those buckets

2:29:48and I'm going to start with the single family

2:29:51condos, townhomes 80.

2:29:54So, again, as I mentioned previously, this is 303 units.

2:30:01Here's what we did is we actually broke down

2:30:05the average rents, remember, we are using the reporting period

2:30:10of 2017 to 2019 from summer to summer of each year, not

2:30:15the calendar year.

2:30:16And we basically took each year.

2:30:19And then we broke it down by bedroom size.

2:30:22So you'll see in this category.

2:30:26So obviously, when you look at this bucket of unit types,

2:30:30it's predominantly going to be your single family

2:30:32condos, townhomes.

2:30:33So most of them are going to be 2.

2:30:35And three bedroom units.

2:30:36So you'll see studios on average were about seven.

2:30:4075% month and 2019.

2:30:43I'm going to use the gray.

2:30:45The latest one bedrooms were about 1877

2:30:50and then below is the price per square foot

2:30:53based on the average size of the unit for a two bedroom.

2:30:56So it's a little over $2 per square foot at 22.

2:30:5985 three bedrooms.

2:31:0120 seven, 70 three, four bedrooms.

2:31:04About 3,000 an hour, five to six bedrooms,

2:31:08which you can probably imagine where those properties are.

2:31:12They're about 39 60.

2:31:18This next slide actually gives a breakdown of average rent

2:31:23increases by year, so this is combined

2:31:26for all properties, again by fiscal year from July 20, 17,

2:31:30on June 20 '19.

2:31:32So between 2018, and 19, the average rent increase was 4.63.

2:31:39And the year before 2017 2018 and was about a little over 3.

2:31:43And a quarter.

2:31:45In terms of running free thresholds, what we did here is

2:31:49we broke them down a couple of different ways.

2:31:53We did see that 53% of properties

2:31:58did not have a rent increase.

2:31:59And then we use 5% or less.

2:32:03And there was about 23% of those.

2:32:05And remember, we were looking at like a rent

2:32:07review program that was at 5.

2:32:09So that was kind of the baseline that we used.

2:32:12We looked at rent increases less than 10% So there was about 14%

2:32:16of those.

2:32:17There were some cases, about 9% that

2:32:20saw rent increases greater than 10%

2:32:23And then obviously a rent decrease is a sliver there.

2:32:31Now, I just want to remind you that our ordinance does not

2:32:35require us to collect any leases or any rent increase notices,

2:32:40so everything that we're giving you is obviously self-support

2:32:44and as it is submitted under the penalty of perjury.

2:32:48So you will notice here that a lot of about 24%

2:32:52of the reported rent increases were reported to happen.

2:32:56When there is a new tenant or 18 percent,

2:33:00you'll see where increased expenses and others were

2:33:04either market rate or animal.

2:33:05So I'll talk more about how we've improved the data.

2:33:09And you're too.

2:33:10But this is just, again, year one.

2:33:12And with anything, you figure out how to do things

2:33:16better, right, as you dig in.

2:33:19This slide here, we're actually giving reasons for move out.

2:33:23So again, so here, you'll see other and 33% So some of those

2:33:30were answers varied from voluntarily

2:33:33moved out to the least.

2:33:35And to the property sold behind that you saw unknowns.

2:33:40So there were some cases where we

2:33:43got unknowns where they were like they

2:33:44just told me they were moving.

2:33:46And they didn't tell me why.

2:33:47So we dug as much as we could with the goal of moving this

2:33:52through and getting all of the files

2:33:53done while also trying to understand what was happening.

2:33:57And why units were turning over.

2:34:02Next, I'm actually going to move on to are two to four unit

2:34:05multi-family buildings, and as I mentioned,

2:34:09those are generally properties that

2:34:12are two, three and four units.

2:34:14So obviously, we have a lot of those.

2:34:17So as you drive around town, you see those.

2:34:20And this is just to give you a sense,

2:34:23these are generally owned by more of a smaller

2:34:27property owners, smaller units.

2:34:30We know a lot of people who manage these themselves

2:34:35as well.

2:34:36And others use property managers.

2:34:39This site is pretty much what I just shared with you,

2:34:42but this is going to be R2 to four unit buildings.

2:34:45So, again, looking at the 20, 19 numbers,

2:34:48the studios were around on average, 12, 19 to one bedrooms

2:34:52on average at 1470 nine, two bedrooms

2:34:56on average, 18, 11, again, 20, 19 and three bedrooms

2:35:00at 20 four, 24.

2:35:02Most of the two to four unit buildings

2:35:05are it's a lot of two bedroom units.

2:35:09So that's again, you drive around the city a lot,

2:35:13maybe as much as before.

2:35:15But so you get a sense.

2:35:17Again, this slide does again, give an average

2:35:20of rent increases by year.

2:35:22So here, you will see between 2018 and 2019.

2:35:26It was almost 5 and 1/2.

2:35:29And for twenty, seventeen, 2018 it's about two.

2:35:34So this.

2:35:35Remember Abbey 1482 went into effect January of 2020.

2:35:40So this is, again pre Abbey.

2:35:421482 These, these numbers in this presentation.

2:35:47Oops, I'm sorry.

2:35:48Let me go back.

2:35:52Following the same rationale of running crispi thresholds,

2:35:55you'll see 43% to not have a rent increase again.

2:35:59I know we heard different things from different property owners.

2:36:03You you'll see that about 18 percent, less than 5% 23%

2:36:10have less than 10.

2:36:12And then greater than 10 was about 15.

2:36:16Again, reported reasons for move out, I think,

2:36:20and in this particular one, you're going to see a lot of it

2:36:26was primarily New tenant or increased

2:36:30expenses or costs of living.

2:36:34There were a few instances that were unknown.

2:36:37And then in terms of move out, this,

2:36:40again, was another thing where we saw

2:36:43a lot of unknown and others.

2:36:44So when we move this to just doing it online,

2:36:49it's more of a drop down menu, type of selection.

2:36:52So it'll look different in the future than more of kind

2:36:55of like a fill in or you wanting someone

2:36:59to go back and fill a paper in and they don't fill

2:37:01it in versus doing it online.

2:37:03It's you have a pick list.

2:37:05So I just want to highlight that before we jump into our five

2:37:09to 40 unit buildings.

2:37:13So here, you'll see on this particular slide,

2:37:18this is 570 units across 59 properties, four or five to 40

2:37:25units, so when you get to five to 40, you really depending on,

2:37:30you know, kind of once you get to 10 or more,

2:37:33you're going to start really seeing more of a property

2:37:37management model or something of that sort

2:37:41where it's more professionally.

2:37:43A lot of people like to run their rental units themselves

2:37:46and do a hands on.

2:37:47But I think the bigger it gets, then

2:37:49it becomes a little more complicated

2:37:51and paperwork to manage.

2:37:52And that's what we heard a lot from owners and the smaller

2:37:56buildings, like I don't have information going back that far

2:37:59or it's in stories.

2:38:00And I can't get to it.

2:38:01So, you know, we learned as we reached out to our property

2:38:06owners, but here in 2019 four studios,

2:38:10you'll see that on average, those were about sixteen,

2:38:1461 and then four one bedrooms.

2:38:16Those ran on average fifteen, 80 three,

2:38:19four, two bedrooms, 19, 18.

2:38:22And for three bedroom units those

2:38:25were more closer to 2,400.

2:38:30The rent increases here between 2018 and 2019

2:38:34with a little over 4 and 1% And twenty, seventeen, 2018.

2:38:41So, again, this is for all of the units combined.

2:38:45And you'll see here that about 37% did not see an increase.

2:38:50And then about a little over a quarter

2:38:52saw less somewhere under five percent,

2:38:55the rest somewhere under 10.

2:38:57And then there was about 10% of these that saw greater than 10%

2:39:02rate increase.

2:39:04And then there were some instances

2:39:05in some times property owners that we actually worked

2:39:09with our tenant to decrease.

2:39:10So there is a subset of those that we do want to point out.

2:39:13The you know, those do happen from time to time.

2:39:17And I think, you know, it'll be interesting to see

2:39:21what the future looks like.

2:39:22And just what's happening now.

2:39:24But here we are today looking at twenty,

2:39:26seventeen, twenty, 19 numbers.

2:39:28And so some of the reasons that those rents were increased

2:39:32were primarily stated cost of living or other things,

2:39:37just bringing it to market.

2:39:39That was some of the things we heard to hear.

2:39:43There was again, getting the reason why people moved out.

2:39:47It was pretty interesting because sometimes

2:39:50people were just like, I don't know, they didn't tell me.

2:39:52They just told me they were leaving.

2:39:54And so remember, we're just gathering what was heard.

2:39:58And this was the first year.

2:39:59So this is also just kind of training our property owners

2:40:03and managers on the kind of information

2:40:06that we are going to be looking for.

2:40:08While they might keep records of their own information

2:40:11and things, we just have to remind them

2:40:13that these are some things that the city

2:40:15is going to be looking for them to provide on an annual basis.

2:40:19And at least we won't be going back for two years.

2:40:22We'll be going back one year.

2:40:23So hopefully it's a little more refreshed in their files.

2:40:28And if you're like me, you remember a lot of things

2:40:31when it comes to numbers.

2:40:32So it depends on how our brains work.

2:40:35So when we look at the larger 41 plus unit buildings,

2:40:40again, this is really three properties.

2:40:42So when you have buildings that have 41 or so units,

2:40:47those are generally probably more newer,

2:40:50and they probably have other costs associated with them.

2:40:54So for example, I mentioned, one of the new projects

2:40:57came on the market.

2:40:58And obviously for new construction,

2:41:01the first 15 years of occupancy is really paying back loans

2:41:06and they got their project bill.

2:41:08And then it's going to have new amenities, new.

2:41:12It's just going to be newer.

2:41:14Right so those will generally start off more closer to market

2:41:18because it's what the market will bear when people move in.

2:41:21So in the studios, you'll see on average for 2019

2:41:27those round about 20 five, 88 for one bedrooms.

2:41:31Those came in 2019 23 30 two, two bedrooms at 20 five,

2:41:3856 and 41 44.

2:41:42So there are some.

2:41:44Large three bedroom units, as you just saw,

2:41:47like 13, 72 square, but I know there

2:41:49are some houses in all three that are not even that big.

2:41:54But yeah, I just wanted to mention that.

2:41:58So you'll see that the rent increases by year.

2:42:01Like I said, those will generally

2:42:03start off a little higher, as you saw from the numbers.

2:42:06So the rent increases will be less.

2:42:08So between 18 and 19.

2:42:10I was a little over 1 and 1/2 and between 17 and 18,

2:42:14it was about for one.

2:42:17Again, the same thing on the thresholds.

2:42:20So you'll see that some properties

2:42:23do not get any rate increases.

2:42:26Some 37% saw less than five percent, 11% for less than 10.

2:42:31So again, and then in some cases, the rent decreased.

2:42:36So like when leases come up for renewals and depending on what

2:42:39you lock down at, like, for example,

2:42:41if you're the first to move in and a unit,

2:42:43you probably got to move on special.

2:42:45And then when your lease came up.

2:42:46So there is a lot of variables.

2:42:48Of course, no two properties profiles are alike.

2:42:52They're all different.

2:42:53It's kind of like we're not.

2:42:54All right.

2:42:55We all have our own.

2:42:59So here, interestingly, the rent increase

2:43:04reasons, we didn't get it.

2:43:06So if we don't know the answer, we put unknown.

2:43:10So you'll see a lot of that on the large multi-family.

2:43:13But then we saw right behind that, that was either

2:43:17their annual lease was renewing or they

2:43:19were bringing it up to market.

2:43:21So, again, kind of when I talk about have a new building

2:43:25and you might get this new incentive or you

2:43:28might have locked in a lease for a longer time at a lower rate.

2:43:33Some of the reasons for move out is,

2:43:38you know, some properties had a lot of students living in them,

2:43:42so they might have moved out the area

2:43:44or were here for educational purposes.

2:43:47We are, of course, adjacent to universities,

2:43:51even though a lot of them are remote right now.

2:43:55And then behind that, you'll see that there were some successes.

2:43:59People were actually able to purchase

2:44:01a home, which is great.

2:44:03And just other reasons included.

2:44:07So this slide here is just one.

2:44:10I give you a sense of what our neighboring cities

2:44:13look like in terms of average effective rents.

2:44:15So these are actual average rents

2:44:18for multi-family properties.

2:44:20And it's based on the price per square foot.

2:44:22So and also rido the year to date in 2020 when this was

2:44:27prepared last year, looking at, you

2:44:30know, up until the middle of last year

2:44:31before the pandemic really changed the game,

2:44:35we were looking at about 274 square foot next door.

2:44:41Excuse that over in Berkeley there are about 350

2:44:44to a square foot.

2:44:46Contra Costa County as a whole is at $0.32 per square foot.

2:44:51Richman's at $175 dollars and 75% per square foot and San

2:44:56Pablo is at centimeters.

2:45:00So we got through the first cycle.

2:45:03What did we learn?

2:45:04Well, we learned that having things more automated

2:45:10is something that we definitely need to do.

2:45:13And I think that I know that since we were

2:45:16able to get the first cycle in and get people in the computer,

2:45:19it will make it a little easier when they go back when they

2:45:22went back in for a year or two because you have a profile

2:45:26in essence built by that point.

2:45:28So it's not as if you're starting from scratch

2:45:30or trying to inventory all of your units, lists, all of them.

2:45:35But when people moved in and moved out.

2:45:37So it's really more of an updating.

2:45:40We are also looking to automate our business license.

2:45:44So as I mentioned early on, early on our business license

2:45:47and rent registry portal and live in the same house persay,

2:45:53but our land use and permitting system is in it.

2:45:55And another software.

2:45:57So ultimately, our goal is to get that moved over because we

2:46:01do have the rental inspections and just

2:46:04all of the property information, property profile, anything.

2:46:07If the property got a capital improvement,

2:46:10we ideally are going to move that all over.

2:46:12Of course, it takes time because we've already

2:46:15made a move in our building department

2:46:17to bring that to a cloud.

2:46:19So we're doing it in phases.

2:46:21And then we also worked closely, closely

2:46:24with our code enforcement who his position is, half code

2:46:29enforcement and half rental inspections

2:46:31to actually bring on an enforcement

2:46:35software called data ticket.

2:46:37So if people are not in compliance,

2:46:40we're going to start using this platform

2:46:42to refer properties that are not compliant into data ticket.

2:46:46So the city can only send.

2:46:47So many notices before you let them move them

2:46:51into this enforcement category, because ultimately, it's

2:46:55a codified ordinance and property owners

2:46:58are required to respond.

2:46:59So we just have to make sure that we have

2:47:01the tools to be able to follow through with people

2:47:03who are nonresponsive.

2:47:05And then, as I mentioned, having it all online versus allowing

2:47:10that paper mill in option does, like I said,

2:47:13allow more streamlined data reporting with the pick list.

2:47:18And then, as I mentioned with COVID in year two,

2:47:22since we renewed business licenses in the summer of 2020

2:47:28we did switch to all electronic.

2:47:30We we did in some cases allow paper.

2:47:33We don't have that many.

2:47:34Of course, we have that built-in if there

2:47:36is an exception needed.

2:47:38And our goal was really to do clinics and things.

2:47:43But again, a lot change.

2:47:44And I think it's just knowing that it's a one year period,

2:47:48it's been a lot more straightforward.

2:47:50So the last thing I just wanted to touch on with you

2:47:55all was obviously just some covid-19 legislative update.

2:48:00So the city council on March 25 of 2020

2:48:05adopted a temporary moratorium for evictions

2:48:11for residential and commercial tenants affected by a covid-19.

2:48:15The ordinance is still in place.

2:48:18It will remain in place until the expiration

2:48:21of our local emergency or the governor's

2:48:24proclamation of state of emergency, which is later.

2:48:27So the ordinance doesn't provide grant forgiveness,

2:48:30but it does provide anyone who's financially impacted.

2:48:33By covid-19, 180 days from the time that the local ordinance,

2:48:40the local emergency declaration expires to repay that rent,

2:48:45and then obviously, the county also took

2:48:49some action in April of 2020.

2:48:52And the county board of supervisors

2:48:54also adopted a temporary eviction moratorium

2:48:58for residential and commercial.

2:49:00And then they also did a moratorium

2:49:02on certain residential rent increases, that's

2:49:04currently in effect still.

2:49:08And then, of course, at the state level,

2:49:09there was a 30 80 eight, the tenant

2:49:12protection tenant, homeowner and landlord Relief Act.

2:49:16And then more recently, that was followed by sb 91, which

2:49:22is also going to provide some relief to small to landlords

2:49:27for unpaid rent.

2:49:29So that's going to there's a really good state website.

2:49:33It's housing is key or the link here.

2:49:36Landlord does.

2:49:38So for property owners that do have tenants that are

2:49:41and their ears.

2:49:43That application is supposed to be launched by March 15.

2:49:48So in the coming weeks, we will be

2:49:50looking to get some announcements out

2:49:52to the community about that.

2:49:55And I'm actually going to turn it over to Gina at this point

2:49:59because we're going to open it up for question and answer,

2:50:02because having that information along with this wall,

2:50:07I'm kind of wrap everything all together.

2:50:09So, Gina, OK.

2:50:12Thank you, everyone.

2:50:14Hello, my name is Gina Bartlett and I'm with the consensus

2:50:17Building Institute.

2:50:18I'm a senior mediator and facilitator there.

2:50:22And so I'm just going to I have a few slides.

2:50:25I'm going to walk you through the tenant

2:50:26protections task force that the council convened.

2:50:30And I served as the presenter.

2:50:37let's sorry.

2:50:42Let's see, can you help me go back?

2:50:46I'm sorry.

2:50:47I haven't used this feature before, I want to Zoom all day,

2:50:50every day, but.

2:50:57Hold on one sec, let me control, OK, Thanks again.

2:51:01So just click once, it'll take me forward.

2:51:04And you can if you have a really on your mouse,

2:51:07you can go up and down to go back and forth as well.

2:51:10OK, great.

2:51:10Sorry about the delay there, folks.

2:51:14So the city council, the council,

2:51:16you you issued some categories of four recommendations

2:51:21that you wanted the task force to consider and.

2:51:31Can you take it back to slide two, please,

2:51:34and I just advanced for you.

2:51:35Yeah, that would be great.

2:51:36Sorry, it's like Heinicke with my now.

2:51:38So there's five category.

2:51:40If you go the next slide, please.

2:51:41There's five categories that you as a council

2:51:44requested the task force consider.

2:51:46You can see those here.

2:51:48And I'm going to walk you through what recommendations.

2:51:51The task force was able to make next slide.

2:51:54Before I jump into that, though, I just

2:51:56wanted to outline that the task force did meet five times,

2:52:01and we started in the fall of 2019 in the fall of 2019.

2:52:08The state also introduced Assembly Bill 1482.

2:52:13And then as I said, just talked about there

2:52:16was quite a bit of registry data that had to be analyzed.

2:52:21And so with the combination of COVID, the onset of COVID

2:52:28and the need to register to process all of the data that

2:52:32was submitted, we did have a year long break

2:52:36in the midst of the task force.

2:52:38And so when we came back from meeting three,

2:52:40we saw the presentation, much like what you just saw,

2:52:43and then in meeting for the participants were

2:52:46able to delve more into the data after having

2:52:49some time to process it.

2:52:51And then also to identify the types

2:52:54of policy recommendations.

2:52:55They might want to make to council.

2:52:57And then in meeting five, we actually

2:53:01assess the levels of support for those policies

2:53:05and recommendations.

2:53:07Next slide.

2:53:09So I'm just going to highlight the consensus recommendations

2:53:12that the task force is putting forward

2:53:14to you all as a council.

2:53:16Next slide.

2:53:18So under category c, essentially the task force

2:53:22reiterated its support for the cap that's in Assembly Bill

2:53:261482 and the task force does recommend

2:53:29further any further action on the part

2:53:32of the city at this time.

2:53:33Next slide.

2:53:35I'm just cause the task force reiterated support

2:53:38for just cause in ab 1482 and also doesn't recommend

2:53:43further action at this time.

2:53:45It's quite interesting, because I don't know, at the beginning

2:53:49of the task force if there would have

2:53:51been the same level of support.

2:53:53But clearly, once the state instituted the law,

2:53:55the task force felt comfortable with those policies

2:54:00as something that they would need to comply with to be

2:54:03consistent with state law.

2:54:05But also they seemed quite comfortable

2:54:07with those policies.

2:54:09Next slide, as I mentioned, there

2:54:12is quite a few there was an option for other types

2:54:15of recommendation and the task force did put forward

2:54:19and recommend five additional recommendations

2:54:22under the other category.

2:54:24The first was to continue the registry

2:54:27and consider adding more data parameters.

2:54:30So that's ongoing support.

2:54:31And that's underway, as I said, just spoke about.

2:54:35They also thought it might be helpful to establish a self

2:54:38reporting tool for tenants on rence evictions

2:54:41just to have some counterbalance or other insights

2:54:46into the movement, leaving apartments, things like that.

2:54:50And staff have that underway.

2:54:53And they also recommended to provide legal advice to tenants

2:54:57and small landlords and also to convene events and provide

2:55:01education and outreach to tenants and landlords

2:55:04on best practices.

2:55:06Staff already have instituted that, and it's underway.

2:55:09And then lastly, to facilitate more cooperation

2:55:12and appreciation between landlords and tenants,

2:55:15including encouraging landlords to provide

2:55:18section eight housing.

2:55:21And I note that the landlord tenant dichotomy felt

2:55:27a bit divisive and that they also, ahorita is quite a town

2:55:33where people really enjoy one another and enjoy living

2:55:36and which are really trying to foster more

2:55:38of a cooperative, kind of appreciative framing

2:55:42to future policy efforts.

2:55:44Next slide.

2:55:46So the task force was able to reach consensus

2:55:51on category a the review programs

2:55:54and on tenant relocation assistance due to demolition.

2:55:58They did consider a couple of options,

2:56:00but were unable to achieve consensus on that.

2:56:03And then lastly, I just was going

2:56:05to touch on the levels of support

2:56:07and how if you could go to the next slide,

2:56:09please, how we actually sort of measured whether or not

2:56:15there was support.

2:56:16And I know there's been some questions about that.

2:56:18So we were limited in time.

2:56:20And there were quite a number of policy

2:56:22recommendations for the task force

2:56:24that it wished to consider.

2:56:26And so we used levels of support to determine whether or not

2:56:29there was consensus.

2:56:31And this gave folks, anything from 2 to 5 really

2:56:35bit of support where five was like, I'm really happy with it.

2:56:39I really like this proposal.

2:56:41Three was I can accept it, but I have reservations too.

2:56:45Was a stand aside.

2:56:47I really don't like it that much,

2:56:49but I'm willing to let this go forward.

2:56:51And one was disagree.

2:56:53So two to five, it gave everyone an opportunity

2:56:57to be able to allow a policy recommendation to go forward,

2:57:01but also then to just articulate whether there were

2:57:04any concerns because we felt that would be informative to

2:57:07you as a council.

2:57:08Next slide.

2:57:09And this is my last one.

2:57:11And this is probably too small on the screen,

2:57:13but it is in the document.

2:57:15And you can see these were all the policies.

2:57:18Each line is a policy that was considered

2:57:21and the scorecard for each of the members,

2:57:24what they ranked each item.

2:57:26So the green highlights are the ones that we just presented

2:57:29that were recommended.

2:57:31And at the beginning of the process,

2:57:33the task force did determine that they

2:57:35needed a supermajority.

2:57:36So that would be six of eight members.

2:57:39And so the green highlights are the ones

2:57:42where we had six or more task force members

2:57:45who supported the proposal.

2:57:48So with that, we will pause and open it up for questions.

2:57:55Thank you very much, both efforts

2:57:57were quite adventurous in our city during COVID situation.

2:58:03Do we have any comments or questions from the council, Jan

2:58:08council member, Janet Abelson.

2:58:16I'm unrooted, I believe, first of all, I want to say to is,

2:58:20are you still here?

2:58:22Yes, Hi.

2:58:23I want to say that you did a fantastic job because you

2:58:29were sort of taking.

2:58:31Nothingness there was nothing.

2:58:35And you created this whole thing, which is very easy

2:58:39to read, very easy to understand,

2:58:42and I think very well will be very helpful to us.

2:58:48And I think those are the things that I mean,

2:58:51that's the kind of thing that I think

2:58:52we would want out of them for, you know, a system like this.

2:58:57So I really want to thank you for viewing a great job.

2:59:02And to thank the members of the committee.

2:59:04I don't know if they're here, but, you know, if you would,

2:59:07are they still are they still meeting here?

2:59:11They're finished.

2:59:12So the task force dissolved in December of 2020 OK.

2:59:19Yeah, I'm sure some of them are here listening tonight.

2:59:24Yeah so I think this is really helpful.

2:59:28And I think it gives us a good picture.

2:59:30The thing I remember, we didn't have

2:59:32we didn't have a good picture of what things were really like.

2:59:37You know, we didn't know how many

2:59:39people were in what category.

2:59:41We had no sense of anything.

2:59:44So this, I think, is a great basis.

2:59:48The only question that I really had about the data itself had

2:59:51to do with the comment you made about section 8

2:59:56and needing more of it.

2:59:58And I was wondering if that's really so because,

3:00:01for example, the project.

3:00:04Next to city hall.

3:00:06Is low income, right?

3:00:09Yes, it's 100% So why would we want

3:00:12to why would we care about whether or not it's section

3:00:16eight or not?

3:00:17So that's actually a really good question.

3:00:20So the project gardens, they have what's

3:00:23called Project based vouchers.

3:00:24So those are actually housing vouchers

3:00:27that truly make the income affordable to the household.

3:00:31And it's specifically tied to that unit.

3:00:35And the Section 8 that we were referencing

3:00:38in our affordable housing strategy,

3:00:40and that's in this presentation is more

3:00:42associated with housing developments that are

3:00:45not designated as affordable.

3:00:47But for people who have what's called a housing choice

3:00:49voucher, where they can actually go rent like a market rate,

3:00:53single family, home, apartment or unit.

3:00:56And so that is what we're really trying to do, more workshops

3:01:01around and work with property.

3:01:03And those sorts of projects where it's already

3:01:05been defined, the number of units like the new projects,

3:01:10for example, or that.

3:01:11I think there's pretty much all that way, aren't they?

3:01:14Are they?

3:01:15So they all actually that is that we're

3:01:19getting into that because these are really good questions.

3:01:21And so all of the Affordable housing developments

3:01:24have set prices.

3:01:26But what happens is some of them get

3:01:30a subsidy through additional financing,

3:01:32through the housing authority.

3:01:33So you have the Affordable units that are designated

3:01:36a certain affordable levels.

3:01:38And those are the nice thing about projects who are then

3:01:41eligible to get like a housing subsidy

3:01:44through that, through the housing authority.

3:01:47Is that then the income, the rent

3:01:49is truly based on a third of the household income,

3:01:52actual income versus that being a set of affordability

3:01:57formula that great.

3:02:00And again, thank you very much for the great job that you did.

3:02:04I appreciate it.

3:02:05And I do think that having local data

3:02:07is something that you are all requesting.

3:02:09And so this was a start.

3:02:11And at this point, we're just going to keep building.

3:02:15Perfect thank you.

3:02:20Er, mayor Potemkin.

3:02:22Thank you, mayor.

3:02:24I echo what my colleague Janet Wilson said,

3:02:27and Janet and I and the mayor were

3:02:29part of the last council that discussed

3:02:35this for a long, long time.

3:02:38So agreeing on the rental registry,

3:02:44you know, originally, I kept on saying, we can't afford it,

3:02:47we can't afford it.

3:02:49But I did vote for that.

3:02:51So we're looking at this and looking at how our city is data

3:02:58driven and the data proves everything that the city

3:03:03wanted to find out about.

3:03:05So I wanted to say congratulations

3:03:07to you, who I knew this was a difficult, difficult thing

3:03:12to deal with.

3:03:14When you have people from outside

3:03:16of our city telling us what our city

3:03:20is in, which it really wasn't.

3:03:22So the data proves that.

3:03:24And I wanted to let residents know that I'm proud of our city

3:03:30building housing for all.

3:03:32And and we see that on San Pablo Avenue and at our Bart station

3:03:37and the future of our other Bart station as well.

3:03:42But looking at all that, looking at our transit oriented

3:03:45development and looking at our two large projects

3:03:49where we truly build affordable housing at 100 percent,

3:03:54you know, I am hoping at a bag.

3:03:58I know our delegate for a bag here in La I

3:04:03think it is that you this year.

3:04:06Yeah Yeah.

3:04:07So I think so.

3:04:11I'm not positive.

3:04:12OK, but looking at that.

3:04:14And I'm proud of our city, we did the right thing.

3:04:20And and to have our volunteers from each side.

3:04:24On the renter side, but also on the landlords side,

3:04:30it was a group that had their differences,

3:04:32but they were able to work together.

3:04:35So, you know, looking at that.

3:04:37And I had AI was able to have a tour of our new apartment

3:04:42building that where my brother was built.

3:04:46And looking at the prices, we're going

3:04:49to have good people moving in to these brand

3:04:53new units that are lower than surrounding

3:04:57cities in Berkeley and Albany.

3:04:59And this proves with the data that our rents are affordable.

3:05:03We have good landlords and renters want to stay

3:05:06here for a long, long time.

3:05:08So, again, thank you, Lisa and Gina,

3:05:11thank you for moderating the group.

3:05:14And I know you've got a little tense at times,

3:05:16but I'm proud of you for sticking

3:05:18it out and working with them.

3:05:20Thank you.

3:05:21Thank you so much.

3:05:23You make other council comments are affordable.

3:05:28Housing expert council member mohtarma.

3:05:34So thank you so much, I said that all the time

3:05:38that you put into doing this data gathering,

3:05:41it's really fascinating.

3:05:43And really helpful.

3:05:45And I would like the other council members, my colleagues,

3:05:48to thank the task force and Gina and you

3:05:51and all the work that went into this.

3:05:54I think that it is wonderful to see the diversity

3:05:57of housing types, small units, large units,

3:06:00single family homes.

3:06:03So it's great that we have a broad set of choices for people

3:06:08to live in the red sea, you know,

3:06:11compared to some of our other neighboring cities.

3:06:14Pretty, pretty moderate.

3:06:17I was terribly disappointed when I did see that section

3:06:21eight voucher holder.

3:06:22No, because I think maybe to elaborate a little bit more,

3:06:27what that tells me is that there is something else going

3:06:30on here that if you have a voucher,

3:06:32that means that regardless of where your income might be,

3:06:36you have the ability to pay consistently pretty high rent.

3:06:41The fact that there's so few voucher holders

3:06:44in these registered units tells me

3:06:46that there is an equity problem here or a misunderstanding

3:06:49of who the voucher holders are, where they're

3:06:53discrimination based on source of income, which

3:06:55is now illegal in California.

3:06:58So, you know, I hope that as you discuss these things.

3:07:02And now that you have kind of the contact information for all

3:07:05these people to help get the understanding out of, you know,

3:07:09voucher holders are good people that need housing

3:07:12and they have the ability to pay the rent in a way that's

3:07:16super consistent and will be really

3:07:18helpful in terms of looking at who's a good tenant.

3:07:22And I hope that we can get that word out and.

3:07:27You know, I think there's just a lot of stigma

3:07:30and misunderstanding and stuff like when you say section

3:07:33eight, that somehow equals bad.

3:07:35And I hope that we can redefine that and say section 8 is

3:07:39just a subsidy source that allows people

3:07:42to live in our community.

3:07:44And one of the best ways to be inclusive

3:07:46is to have people of all different incomes

3:07:48and backgrounds living all over La

3:07:51to make it broadly inclusive and diverse.

3:07:54So that is my hope.

3:07:56And I look forward to seeing more of that learning

3:08:00and information getting out occurring

3:08:03to make us even more inclusive and more equitable

3:08:07going forward.

3:08:08So thank you so much for all your work,

3:08:10particularly the really appreciate seeing the report

3:08:13and learning more about what really is going on in our city.

3:08:18Rudnick I'm sorry.

3:08:20I was just thinking.

3:08:21Thinking sorry about that.

3:08:22Thanks council member rudbeck, mayor aestheticism,

3:08:27fantastic staff work.

3:08:29This is probably of the best staff work I've seen

3:08:31since I've been on the council.

3:08:32You should be really proud, especially given

3:08:35stepped into a role and with no data you made this happen.

3:08:39So you should be really proud of yourself.

3:08:41Question so what database?

3:08:45So what database are you going to be adopting for the public

3:08:49to use?

3:08:49And I see that you're going to be

3:08:51enhancing automation between the business license portal.

3:08:54Is it the same software or is there

3:08:56going to be an integration of these softwares?

3:08:58Can you explain a little bit?

3:09:00So right now we're in a system called progressive solutions,

3:09:05but we are looking to move that over

3:09:08into the city, the community development software

3:09:11that our building is using.

3:09:13But obviously, we need to make a phased approach that.

3:09:17And ideally, what will happen is in our building.

3:09:21And planning and all of our software

3:09:23with all our properties, it'll all like live in one place.

3:09:27Right so you'll be able to see if you pull up a property.

3:09:30Oh, it's a rental.

3:09:31Did it have a rental inspection?

3:09:33Oh, it looks like they did, you know, building improvements.

3:09:36They did an addition.

3:09:37So ideally, it will be integrated with that.

3:09:39Right now it works together with just the business licensing,

3:09:43but ideally it'll just be a one stop shop.

3:09:46And so I think our plan got a little slowed down with COVID

3:09:50and just kind of adjusting and getting other business

3:09:53needs first.

3:09:53But yeah, the goal is to bring it over there.

3:09:56So right now it's just connected to the business license,

3:09:59but we want to automate it with all of the lambrakis guys.

3:10:03My next question is, are you automating it with land use?

3:10:06Because that would be really useful for your purposes

3:10:08in your analysis going forward.

3:10:10Yeah, that is the ultimate goal.

3:10:12Absolutely and I was really surprised, aside

3:10:15from the disappointment and not a lot of SSH

3:10:18in all of the different housing categories.

3:10:20I was also very surprised that there's only 10,

3:10:2280 use in El Cerino that are I'm assuming that there could be

3:10:27more, but they're not that they wouldn't be liable

3:10:31or they wouldn't need to be in this report.

3:10:33So that there's only 10, 80 use that folks are renting,

3:10:36I thought was really interesting.

3:10:38And I hope that that's something that's shifts in the future

3:10:40as we start building more in the community.

3:10:43So, yeah, we will have done a lot of use.

3:10:47And also.

3:10:48And I think that one of our focuses

3:10:50is going to be really doing more outreach to 80 owners,

3:10:54really to ensure that if they are renting it,

3:10:57that they have their appropriate license or whichever way it is.

3:11:01And then just to also kind of educate them on other things,

3:11:05like the Section 8 program and other things.

3:11:07So, yeah, there is a universe of properties that

3:11:11are missing that is a fact.

3:11:14And we're just trying to utilize the resources that we have

3:11:17in ways that we can to bring those properties

3:11:19that we know are unaccounted for into compliance,

3:11:22including the 80.

3:11:24So that is something right now, I think last year,

3:11:28we had between 20 and 30 acres constructed.

3:11:31So it is on our list of things.

3:11:34And something that we do want to just

3:11:36learn more about in general.

3:11:37But also like, great, congratulations,

3:11:40you completed your 80.

3:11:41How is it being used?

3:11:43And by the way, did you know that if you're using it

3:11:45this way, you need this kind of license

3:11:47and then having workshops with s.a

3:11:51and just saying, by the way, we're

3:11:52having these other workshops.

3:11:53So, again, ways for us to just do it,

3:11:56keep improving our communication with our property owners.

3:12:00And then also just for people who are looking

3:12:02for rental opportunities.

3:12:04Thank you.

3:12:05Fantastic work.

3:12:06Thank you very much.

3:12:08Thank you, Lisa.

3:12:11Yes, council member of my family,

3:12:14so I just have a follow up question to that.

3:12:17I know in the past for its use before the state law came in,

3:12:23there was a statement you had to make when you

3:12:25got your aidoo that you were going

3:12:27to use it for a family member.

3:12:29So so I'm sure there's a lot of people that developed

3:12:33a use under that program that think that they can't rent out

3:12:37there, and I guess I'm assuming that because

3:12:41of this rental registry, that under the new state law,

3:12:45you can have an aide to you that you're

3:12:46not building for a family member,

3:12:48that you can rent them out.

3:12:49And so hopefully that the word will get out

3:12:52to people that have built them in the past

3:12:54that it's OK to rent them now.

3:12:57Is that correct?

3:12:59Is that basically certain restrictions?

3:13:02And I'm I mean, Melanie, if I have this right,

3:13:05depends on when you're 80, you, Isabelle, and what laws were

3:13:08in place at that time on whether they

3:13:12had to be occupied by a family member

3:13:15or if you could rent it out.

3:13:17So I can't I don't have all the details specifically

3:13:21on the top of my head.

3:13:22But I do know that there are some restrictions based on when

3:13:27you built. And obviously, there were more recent changes

3:13:31and there are 80 ordinance.

3:13:35And some other.

3:13:37Yeah, what I remember from being on the council is there was

3:13:44a point in time that stopped that wasn't that long ago,

3:13:48but it was a little bit ago when we made it.

3:13:51OK to build an attitude, attitude and encouraged it.

3:13:55And the purpose of it doing that was

3:13:59to increase our housing stock.

3:14:02Because we had a problem in the area

3:14:05with not enough housing, and so El cerrito

3:14:11passed an ordinance that said that 80

3:14:15years were OK anywhere in town.

3:14:18And I don't remember all of the details

3:14:20that were associated with that.

3:14:22But so one of the reasons we haven't had any use that long.

3:14:26So so once we passed it, we still didn't have any 80 years

3:14:30sitting out there because people had had to build them

3:14:34and their properties had have to be appropriate to do it.

3:14:39And then and then it wasn't too long after that,

3:14:44the state rules came in.

3:14:45But people have to build the 80.

3:14:48First of all, they have to have enough land to do it on.

3:14:52And then they have to build it.

3:14:53So that.

3:14:55So the lack of anything related to 80 years to me

3:14:59is not surprising because they haven't been

3:15:03an accepted form for that long.

3:15:06Yeah, and I know that I know that you are on the council

3:15:09when the parking requirements were changed,

3:15:12I had was more flexible.

3:15:16Right so just to make it possible to do the use

3:15:20and to with our existing land resources,

3:15:25get more housing units in our city without building a.

3:15:33And I should say, in addition to building,

3:15:36whatever we were otherwise going to be building,

3:15:38and there was specific and that was the specific intent

3:15:42of the council at that time.

3:15:45So which personally, I was very supportive of.

3:15:49But I've also talked to people who have themselves

3:15:53in our town built into use.

3:15:56And, you know, it's just like building a house, you know?

3:16:01And so you've got a land owner who is building a house.

3:16:06And we're not all that we're not all that

3:16:09familiar with how to do it.

3:16:10And all of those things.

3:16:11So it does take a bit of work.

3:16:15Yeah, yeah, so the council was ahead of it,

3:16:18and then, of course, the state came in and changed

3:16:21the requirement law.

3:16:23So it's great to actually be a part of a city that does

3:16:27prioritize housing and realize that it

3:16:30doesn't just come in the term of like

3:16:32a new multifamily development.

3:16:34It comes in to use.

3:16:36And things of that sort are really just utilizing

3:16:39all of our resources, whether it's

3:16:41through a homeowner or a non-profit developer

3:16:43or a for profit developer.

3:16:47Council member, Tony, you have a comment?

3:16:49Yes, my comment is, you know, I was

3:16:54invited to the signing of 82 and I attended

3:16:57the celebration of that.

3:17:00And and I want to make sure our audience

3:17:02and our residents know in the future.