Special City Council Meeting — Budget Study Session May 9, 2023

0:00:08Hey, Mary we're ready to begin whenever you are. Thank you, Madam Clerk.

0:00:14the May Ninth, 2,000 and 23 Special City Council meeting is call to order at 602. Pm. Well, the city clerk please call role Mayor Matiyama, President, Mayor Pretend Redneck as a Council member. Fideli I'm from Member Kinto Camp to member. Why, singer, here we have a quorum.

0:00:34and we do not need to take any action because all of our Council members are present.

0:00:40Okay. The first item on the agenda.

0:00:46I'm: sorry

0:00:48I lost my place in the script. so I would like to take a moment to recognize that at our regular meeting on May second, 2023, we adjourned in memory of former police. Chief Pat Reeve and I had wanted to share a few words about the former chief.

0:01:04former chief reuse of the city of El Cerrito, from 1,953 until his retirement in 1,987 as an officer, sergeant, lieutenant, captain, and finally as chief, from 1,980 to 1,987.

0:01:18It is a great life accomplishment that even after serving the city for 34 years, the former chief still had more years in retirement than he did in city service.

0:01:27His family has not yet made arrangements for a memorial, but will pass the information along to the city once they are made.

0:01:33Thank you.

0:01:37and the next item is adoption of the consent calendar, which consists of a proclamation and recognition recognition of public Service week. Are there any council questions or comments?

0:01:50Do I have a motion to approve a motion to approve? Is there a second?

0:01:58Is there a second? I second same second from Councilmember Pedlli. Oh, all those in favor, please see a Aye, any opposed machine carries

0:02:10thanks. Our next item is policy matters.

0:02:15Agreement with Pedro Pete Salazar for Finance Director City treasurer services. Can we please have the staff reports?

0:02:24Thank you, your honor. I'm. Senior Manager Karen Pink, is in a while. We're waiting for the staff report. I just wanted to take this time that this to let you know that this and that this item is on the agenda, because i'm sorry to inform you that Sandra Deleta, who is our current finance director and city treasurer, will be leaving the city of El Cerrito At the end of this week

0:02:43Sandra joined us in March 2022. She's done excellent work over the past year, plus that she's worked with us. She's been critical in proving not only improving our financial health, but also in redefining the Finance Department, and I understand, and her her decision. But

0:02:59i'm very sorry to see Senator go. I will definitely miss her, and I definitely want to thank Sandra for all she's done for the city. I think she's still upstairs working on the budget as we speak. I want to thank her for her dedication for her service and for being a part of our team and the community, and we all wish her well on her next chapter. So with that

0:03:19may I introduce Shannon Bassy? Thank you, Karen, the the mayor and City council. My name is Shannon Bassy senior human Resources Analyst in Hr.

0:03:29I have before you this evening a request to adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into an agreement with Pete Salazar as a Calpers, retired a new attempt to provide entering finance director Services to the city of El Cerrito

0:03:45for background. Former it Manager Pete Salzar retired from the city of El Cerrito last December of 2022,

0:03:53a resolution was adopted on January seventeenth, 2,023 to allow the city manager and Pete Salazar to enter into an agreement to authorize Pete to work as a extra hire help, retired Inuit in the classification of it manager, and to support the it. Division.

0:04:13Recently the city's finance director, as Karen explained, has resigned effective. May twelfth, 2023, leaving a vacancy and a need for immediate financial service assistance in the Finance Department.

0:04:27Pete has a background in finance, and has agreed to assist the city with serving as the interim finance director until a permanent or long-term replacement can be secured

0:04:38for additional backgrounds. State law and calpers policy set for various restrictions for post retirement services provided by retired a new attempt. One of these restrictions is that Kalpers, a kelpers retiree, cannot work within 6 months of their retirement date.

0:04:57except for when city council adopts a resolution to approve a retired inuits in to work under Government code. Section 7 5 2 2.5, 6,

0:05:08in order for Pete to transition to interim finance director for a limited duration under the calpers, Roles and Regulations. A new Employment Agreement and Resolution must be approved under this Government code Section

0:05:24in closing. I'd like to think Pete Salzar for his commitment and dedication to the city once again, and serving the community with this, said this concludes my report and I'm available for any questions.

0:05:37Are there any questions from Council members?

0:05:42I okay. I'm the first person, so will Mr. Salazar continue to be serving as an it manager during the time of him being an interim finance director.

0:05:57No, there will be a clean separation of him fully transitioning to inter finance director with a strict employment agreement that we have in place what is the salary rate for his position as it manager and for his position as an interim finance director.

0:06:15So for a finance director the scale is

0:06:24going to be. It tops out at $19,483 per month. which is equivalent to $119, 89 cents per hour. The minimum for the finance director classification is

0:06:4112,469 per month.

0:06:44and 76, $73, 73 cents per hour.

0:06:49I do not have pete's current rates for the old contract, but it is different due to the different classification that he'll be working. This is the rate that the current finance director receives.

0:07:03It is within the scale.

0:07:06That's the finance director. Classification is, and is it being offered? That's my big salary, or somewhere in between? He is being offered maximum salary within this scale.

0:07:19Thank you. Any other questions from Council. I do have a quick question. Does Mr. Salz? I have enough hours to get us through the budget period? He does so. Luckily he has been conservative up until this point with his it role. We are monitoring it, and he is aware it's his responsibility to also monitor it, and alert city manager when he reaches 900.

0:07:45The cap for the fiscal year is 960 h.

0:07:48So since we are approaching the end of the fiscal year. That bank will start over next fiscal year.

0:07:55hey? Thank you.

0:07:56And I do want to make a quick comment that you know. I would also like to add my thanks to Sandra Deleta and all of her work for us in her finance director position.

0:08:08I think I would like to have the city clerk give the public comment instructions at this time, and

0:08:18request some public comment. Certainly so, just as a quick reminder. This is a hybrid meeting. So members of the public here wish to provide or customer can be so by somebody and speaker cards to me at the front here, or using

0:08:32selecting the raise hand, feature on zoom or dialing Star 9. They are calling in by phone. I do have one request to speak virtually

0:08:44so. Now it's a time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments on this item in person, request to speak and submit a speaker card to the city clerk, and remote speakers can use the raise hand feature to request, to speak. Please remember to identify yourself in your city of residents at the beginning of your comments, Madam Clerk.

0:09:02Thank you. He will go to our speaker. Cordell, Himmler. You should be able to unmute him. Begin your time now. He he and me. Holly.

0:09:12cordell hindler: Yeah. So good evening, Mayor Moti. I'm. A Council members. My name is Prudent Hendler and i'm a rich and resident. So

0:09:19thank you, Shannon, for that report. So

0:09:23I looked at the Resolution and

0:09:26i'm in I'm. In agreement with to have Pete Salazar to be the interim finance director until

0:09:33a permanent person comes on board, so

0:09:37I I just

0:09:39I should say. I just asked the Council to approve the resolution as presented

0:09:45you.

0:09:46That's conclude our request to speak.

0:09:49Okay. do I have a motion to approve?

0:09:55Okay, motion from Council Member Kinto? Do I have a second second second from Council number? We singer. Madam Clerk, all those in favor. Pci. I I any opposed motion carries.

0:10:09Thank you.

0:10:14Thank you, Shannon.

0:10:17So the next item is fiscal year, 2023, 2024, budget Study session

0:10:24and we please have the staff reports.

0:10:43Okay.

0:10:49Do you have the do you want to try it from there?

0:10:53Start now.

0:11:01Thank you. Mayor and City Council again. I'm City manager, Karen Pink is, and this is going to definitely be a team effort tonight for this presentation.

0:11:12So why don't I sort of just kick off what we'll be talking about tonight. So this will be a review of again

0:11:20kind of building on what was discussed at the last City Council meeting for priorities for fiscal year, 2,324.

0:11:27You're going to hear tonight from the departments. This is going to be a high level draft, preview. We're going to talk about proposed staffing and highlight some of the vacancies we're still looking to fill

0:11:39highlights from last year some of the accomplishments and all of the hard work that our departments and all of their teams have been able to provide, as well as our focus and work plan for next year.

0:11:50The budget, totals, and line and detail are still being finalized, and after tonight's presentation and any questions from the Council, and any further sharpening, if you will, of any staff priorities and work plan. That's where we will start to put together all of the what the programs and services, and how that funding will look.

0:12:10We are also still working on non departmental special funds and capital improvement program that's in progress. So we won't be talking about those issues tonight, but we will still have time also at the next City Council meeting to address any additional questions if the Council has them.

0:12:27So some of the short-term assumptions that we're working under just as a preview going into the budget for what we will be looking at for this fiscal year.

0:12:38Well, once again for seeking and trying, you know. But the Council's consent, looking at very conservative revenue estimates.

0:12:47as you've all been seeing in the news, we are not sure. Are we in a recession, or we're not in a recession? Is the Federal Government debt ceiling issue going to stall the economy completely? We just don't know we're still in a very weird, very volatile situation. And so we were

0:13:05determined to be pretty conservative with our estimates. But

0:13:08as in past years. We don't. We're trying to make that balance between, you know, overly conservative, and you know, overly optimistic. So it's been definitely a challenge.

0:13:20Our service delivery will continue to reflect our environment. As you know, we still are dealing with several staff vacancies. We are doing our very best to do recruiting and trying to retain the employees we have, but it's a very tight job market out there right now.

0:13:37Of course, we also have increased our focus on recoveries and fees, and, as you know, last week or yeah, last week, at the last City Council meeting, the City council took several steps, including adopting a master fee schedule that will help us with cost recovery.

0:13:53And then on the personnel side you'll see the staffing and reach Department of Finals that we're looking at for next fiscal year. That includes all of the positions that the city Council approved at November.

0:14:04So that is still in progress, management confidential and unrepresented, we will be bringing that resolution back to the city council in June for those employees, but for all of the other bargaining units, those have been approved by the city council, and we seek to have one, the one last remaining

0:14:23subtle contract to the city council at their next council meeting next week.

0:14:31So for every presentation. I include a slide about the strategic plan, because it continues to be our guide and our roadmap for setting priorities in our work plans this time, though i'm not just including our goals and strategies. But I wanted to put a slide up there about our values.

0:14:47Our values were developed as part of the strategic plan, and these are at the heart of everything we do, and we support the implementation of our goals and strategies. They guide how we prioritize our work.

0:14:58So one of the reasons I wanted to point that out today is because we want to make sure we're remembering that the public knows that the city council is reminded that we take these values, not as tasks to be done. They are the very core of what we do. They're part of every action that we take.

0:15:16And again, i'd like to point out. Those values were identified over 10 years ago when we first developed this plan, and i'd like to particularly talk about the value of inclusiveness as a value that we've taken very seriously for all these years. And before this plan was even in place.

0:15:31We have talked a lot about equity and inclusion, but again it's not a task to be checked off. It is a part of what we do along with all of those other values that are listed there.

0:15:41So we're developing a new strategic plan. You intend to develop a community based equity plan as well. But I want to remind the Council and the public that these ideas, these values, they are not new, they are enduring.

0:15:53and what we want to do is develop a framework and define parameters of these values, so that we are indeed providing the most inclusive and equitable environment for our staff

0:16:03and for our community and all the services we provide.

0:16:10This is a repeat slide from last week of the Budget priority categories that the City Council discussed and agreed with, and so I won't. We vote them again Our

0:16:23I I will say at the outset that this slide show goes a little bit against my own personal preference for how many words are on slides and Powerpoints. So I apologize in advance. We will do our best not to read exactly, but they have from those slides, and I inform my colleagues to make sure they're doing the same, but that we're.

0:16:42But what we wanted to do is we wouldn't want to be there. This is going to be a presentation that we place on our budget page, and that we're going to have as a week, too. So we wanted it to be as as as thorough as possible. So for about the words.

0:16:55what again those categories were discussed last week. Those are what came out of the city survey. This came out of the Budget Town Hall. This came out of our online survey, and frankly, they are very much in line with all of our concurrent strategic goals and values.

0:17:09and you will hear from all of the departments that everything that they are looking to do next year in the next fiscal year, and I into the future, fall into these categories.

0:17:22So with that i'm going to start with the I suppose the internal departments, if you will. I think they're not as as fine as some of the other departments. It is interesting, but we think they are. But this is: we have the confirm of the management and finance. And so here you can see

0:17:40there will be essentially 3 slides for each department. The first we'll talk about the staffing. The second we'll talk about last year's, highlights, and then the next year's work, plan. So for finance and city management. This again includes all of the staffing. It was approved by the city Council in reviewer, and on of these charts you will see that the darker green, you know last common, there are where a vacancy exists.

0:18:04so you'll see a lot of those throughout this presentation. But, we added, as you can see, 2 positions at New Year for both finance

0:18:13and city management.

0:18:18The highlights from last year. Again I won't, read verbatim, but one of the obvious, biggest highlights and continuing and enduring values that we're very excited about and relieved by, is that we have been able to maintain

0:18:32our fiscal recovery and sustainability plan to fulfill our goal and our value of fiscal responsibility and sustainability. We've achieved a general fund reserve balance of over 30%

0:18:44of expenditures which is well above our required minimum in our financial policies.

0:18:49and the Government Finance Officers Association recommended one of them standard of 17%.

0:18:56We also completed the fiscal recovering sustainability plan that was adopted by the Council last summer, and we moved to, as you know, to the moderate risk category on the State Auditor dashboard. We continued service delivery, despite all of our vacancies.

0:19:13some of the other highlights from our city clerk's office she was able to successfully facilitate a nomination and election for November. 2022 general municipal election, and I want to give a shout out to both the city clerk and it who have taken the lead on

0:19:31all of the changes that we've had to deal with in the laws regarding to meetings. The fact that we're having this meeting in a hybrid setting with all of this equipment is a Testament to Eric's hard work back there. And how is hard work? So I really want to thank you all with the course guidance from our city attorney.

0:19:49and that's been a lot to navigate. And I'm just really proud that we're able to provide this service to the community.

0:19:55We've also updated our records retention schedule, and we utilize technology to try to maintain, not just our records, but save and get rid of paper

0:20:06one of the things in it that we're also very focused on. You've seen the rules, and we've had even employees here in this

0:20:14in our city who have been impacted by that are former employees of the city of Oakland that has been had a huge issue with cyber attacks. And so we're working on that, taking that very seriously, we've already been as as of this year we've been working to improve protection, and as you'll see next year that's going to continue

0:20:33in Hr. We established a telework program for eligible employees, and I I still find I talk to a lot of my colleagues, and we actually are. I don't. I don't know if where is the word, but it's not incredibly common

0:20:48to have a full telework scout schedule or ability to have a flexible schedule. That is.

0:20:55I think, something that is a bit of an old school versus mentality that I think that if we are not keeping up, especially here in the bay area with whether or not we can have flexible schedules or hybrid schedules for people that has been a huge issue with retention and recruitment. The certainly would encourage

0:21:14all public agencies to really think seriously about how you can implement such a system for your employees. It has really worked out well, I think. Certainly for us. We Haven't missed a beat.

0:21:28Finally, obviously, the class and compensation study has been under way, and we expect that to be completed by the fall and bring it back this calendar year.

0:21:39So I work, plan for next year and take a unit also to save that here from all of these departments and what they're talking about, to focus in their work plan.

0:21:49I I would like to remind everybody that that is in addition, so that they do so. We didn't quite all the great things presentation. Don't put that in the Budget book because we're focused on some of the bigger projects or the bigger the

0:22:06the ticket items that certainly the Council is interested in the public is interested in. But there's a lot of day to day things a lot of behind the scenes, things that all of our staff is working on.

0:22:17and you know this is in. This is on top of all of that. So it's part of their job, and yet they have a lot of responsibilities that are also in addition to some of these big projects. So just wanna make that a little clear that this this work, plan, Isn't: the only things we'll be doing this is all the day to day. Stuff is just assumed.

0:22:37So speaking of delay, that's one of the things. My biggest priority is to make sure that all of the database stuff is done in conjunction with what we do in any additional projects that we do, because that is what it makes us essential, and that's what our residents expect from us

0:22:52in finance. We just completely we're just completing the request for proposals process for an independent auditor, and we know that we've had been a bit stalled. But we have had some subcommittee meetings, and we intend to move forward

0:23:06hopefully with our in, and we'll be seeing a permanent finance director whenever that is able to get on board to the register, the Section 1 15 trust. So that is definitely something we want to do as soon as possible.

0:23:20We have a March primary election coming up, and we need to prepare for the November election. That will be in next fiscal year. But we do need to prepare for that. We, the city council's AD hack subcommittee. That is what Hollings will be working on to review city boards, commissions, and committees. As I mentioned, we're implementing an approach to ensure the city's systems are protected by cyber attacks.

0:23:46So you have a warning system, a third party monitoring system, and that the city, wide migration to the cloud is complete.

0:23:53I mentioned already the class and comp study. We are implementing, and I mentioned this at the last City Council meeting, University Equity and inclusion training for all employees. We're going to continue to work to fill those critical positions, and we want to, of course, implement the strategic plan and begin the equity and plan. Once we still are on boarding some new members of the Human Relations Commission, so that we can work that it's not.

0:24:18You know, a citywide equity Plan needs to have community involvement, and that was the direction that we took in instituting the Subcommittee of the Human Relations Commission. So we'll be hopefully getting that reconstituted and taking care of that come in the next coming fiscal year.

0:24:34So i'll pause there that city management and finance.

0:24:38and see if the Council has any questions.

0:24:43Thank you, Mayor. My My question to city Manager Karen Pink, is, is, yeah. The importance of getting that 1 15 trust in order for our our credit to be higher.

0:25:02and we need to make this decision by July and August. So I just want to make sure that that I know, you know. But I want to make sure that that our residents and and all of us here, and else we know the importance of getting this work done, and this cancel is

0:25:21adamant. Then, making sure we get this done so we can have a a better credit rating. Do you have any idea of of of how this is gonna work, and how this is going to.

0:25:36Yeah. So so we'll be ready by by August

0:25:40to say upper down, we're gonna do this bond measure.

0:25:45I don't have a timeframe for you, and as far as a ballot measure that does not have to be decided until the fall. So that is not a August is not the deadline for that. So we do have some extra time with obviously a new and finance director, and looking for a permanent. I I cannot answer that as far as timeline. But that is something that I i'll see in the interim

0:26:08talking with the fab. I'll be working with the fab

0:26:13at the of the finance director, and hopefully putting on that policy because the fund balance, as you all know, that we have there could be

0:26:22I the I. The Council wants to essentially take care of what that one balance looks like.

0:26:28There's an emergency fund that is part of the policy. There's a section 1 15 trust, which we have already direction from the Council. And so I think that that

0:26:36certainly that is something we can work on in the interim to make sure that the Council has a clear direction for staff on how that will be funded, so that I believe will be the next step. All right. I appreciate that I appreciate the the Fab Committee

0:26:52looking at this and for the chair for how to get keep in mind about the importance of making a substantial debt dent on on this 1 15. Trust to prepay

0:27:07for this unfunded liability. We bit kicking the can on for 10 years down at least. So this is one thing that we we're gonna make sure

0:27:19that this happens or we're not going to have a library measure on. So you know you we look at. And I'm just saying now again, look at other cities in West Contra Costa County, like Hercules and Panel, they made 7 million dollars. Hercules had spade 7 million dollars in prepayments. Penel has done over 10 million, and lo and behold! Everyone was saying through the views.

0:27:45But they are the 6 cities in in Contra Costa County. Well, let me tell you something, you know we it took many, many years for this council to finally get it right, and to do this right now and now we can make a dent to finally catch up on this

0:28:02and stop being the embarrassment for the 485 cities in California. We are here to make this prepayment, and we're gonna do it this year, and and it's so important. Every city is looking at

0:28:19Outer City because they're wondering why we were kicking the can all these years, and why previous city manager and everyone knew that we had to make this payment. And so I just want to remind everybody and our residence that in order to make this a successful bond measure, and for the march, the primary.

0:28:44We need to do this. So I know this council is dedicated to make sure that we do this right, and that we complement what bark and our staff is doing to get ready for this. So but so this is a

0:28:59something that that we're all working together side by side and doing this together. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. I think I kind of alluded to this last weekend, the counseling with talking about how you

0:29:14and this is something the cloud has talked about in the last couple of months, so I I was then past the

0:29:26so of course we can.

0:29:36so it's some good that we just are funding some of these other projects. That then

0:29:44part of the conservatism that we're right to these you are looking at.

0:29:49It's service estimates with sales tax. We're getting a conservative estimates with cannabis. But as You' the second Cannabis store, but it's gonna be opening hopefully. I think June is what we're looking to.

0:30:02so we can't.

0:30:04That's some. That's that accounted

0:30:08that where you know you have accounted for the current

0:30:12their current store, and so I can. Well, it's a bumps between being over the opt. It's taken time.

0:30:19but that's it's to you all the yes, with direction to explore the idea of a pilot measure for the library. I also have talked to all of the to the that the 2027 our webin sales tax manager offer needs to be renewed.

0:30:39Yeah. So to start talking at truly. Super, you didn't because we don't.

0:30:48And so they're kind of

0:30:50the

0:30:54while it has been for doing. We still are Dollar City.

0:31:00if that is absolutely

0:31:02I'm: so we are expecting revenues to be relatively flat

0:31:07next year

0:31:09in the following year, and

0:31:11we're going to detail about this when we talk about the general fund projections, general balance projections, but in 2,026. When I read about

0:31:20to pay off

0:31:22done successor, agency and

0:31:29kind of go back to regular pumpkin tax. That's when the tax receipts. So we've got 2, I think, to be somewhat.

0:31:40you know, just to kind of

0:31:47That's that's what I say. So

0:31:50this is. It's the part, though. because we've built this from balance that can sustain us against the hardships we need it through a pandemic with no fund balance. So I think

0:32:01that's a very good position to be to make it through session or any sort of economic balance. So that's what that's for. 7 6. I think we're a little tight, but after that I think we'll be able to have conversations about what we can do, and

0:32:20I don't know something about it.

0:32:22There's a lot of people want to do projects, and so I what's makes sense on sexy, if you will is maintenance. We have got to deal with a lot of deferred maintenance on this building. On all of our buildings we're looking at our streets. We're looking at

0:32:39everything. And so that's one thing to we have to balance is not just shining in feats, but making sure we're taking care of what we have.

0:32:46So that's maybe I want to say I think the next couple of years are going to be tight. But we're looking. I think we're a features. But thank you.

0:33:00I wanted to thank the city manager in the city for this plan.

0:33:04moving forward another 2 tight years coming up, I think.

0:33:09and for the inclusion of the equity issues. As I mentioned at the last City Council, meaning it's something that we decided as a priority several years ago, and Covid kind of put a delay on this, so i'm happy with the city is moving on a variety of fronts to

0:33:25bring this back up. I want to focus tonight, as I mentioned, and asking department heads about what we're doing with in each department, and whether the planning that we do, whether the question comes into our directors heads and our employees heads.

0:33:41and I'm. Hoping some manager that something that doesn't cost money would be to include those questions or the considerations of equity in our agenda items. That's not something that, in my view, needs to be delayed any more than it has been.

0:33:56But i'm very positive about

0:34:00the progress here. We're probably a little behind other cities, but we need to start asking them right questions and getting some answers. Thank you. Yes, and and that is one of the things that actually talked at length with the department heads about and what we have come. But we've certainly struggled with a few words again.

0:34:19without a framework, without a definition sometimes equitable, can mean different things to different people. And so that's one of the things that we internally are starting with is with this training, and you know we're going forward with the plan. Not just a an internal equity definition, but a community wide

0:34:37equity definition. So that's absolutely in progress. But we are indeed starting internally with the training, I think, at this point there's any late answers, but the questions need to be start.

0:34:49hey? You're per time ready. My question is around some of the cyber security

0:34:55that it's. I heard you mentioned. We're engaging a third party for a cyber security monitoring. But my question is, are we working any sort of consultant on cyber security?

0:35:07So my call you to the

0:35:16and City Council members? I'm your acting. S it, manager.

0:35:22A question number. Could you repeat the question? One more time I was listening. I'm building, so I,

0:35:28if we are engaging with any consultants on site, their security, and the cyber security planning

0:35:35which is separate, then monitoring tools. But the actual cy for security planning elements. We we we have a long relationship. It's the of a long relationship with a local nearby.

0:35:48No, i'm networking.

0:35:51and we are leveraging them to help us. How how we want to deal with, you know possible attacks and what it might be the right tools to target, to acquire.

0:36:01Excellent. And then my second question, and related to City of Oakland, and what how they were compromised. A lot of that compromise happened from emails being sent to staff, and they look

0:36:13completely normal

0:36:15folks click on it, and they're fishing attacks. They're sparing attacks. And are we doing anything with our staff around awareness for what these emails look like. how they can spot them, how they can fill with them if they believe that they have them. But it's really these are frontline people that protect their network.

0:36:32I'm: so glad you asked that Council Member. Yes, actually, we do use the on

0:36:37a third party service to it from our user there. I'm not gonna tell how frequent when is it scheduled? But we do regularly send out us

0:36:47pushing emails, and it does keep track of who's coming and put them on everything. And so i'm gonna try to engage them and say, hey, here's some more training that you should be going through on it's online. It's not like we we sticking in the room somewhere. It's online. They will

0:37:03go through and learn to identify a lookout for signs of these might be fishing emails or things that might lead to very adverse

0:37:11experience with a city. Thank you, because that not only protects our city, it protects our residents; it protects their information and protects our data. That's confidential data, and it's really our whole part infrastructure of information. So I appreciate that extra effort you're putting in. Thank you. You're welcome.

0:37:33No, I don't have any questions. I think this work plan is quite in line with our priorities, and I hope that we can get everything done. I'm. Particularly looking forward to seeing the class and comp study. My concern is that the clock, cap, class, and comp study will actually increase

0:37:52our personal expenses.

0:37:54and I think that will be a a when we get when we get there

0:37:59all right. So at this time we'll turn it over to the departments, and we're going in alphabetical order. So we'll start with community development.

0:38:09Let me give you the

0:38:14up to you.

0:38:16You call

0:38:44City Council

0:38:48as Karen. Technically. So I get to go first, and I am your Community Development Director.

0:38:55My department consists of a pretty broad range of

0:39:02of divisions, all really with the goal of creating a kind of a high quality safe

0:39:09that environment.

0:39:11The screen is putting something in front of my face that I don't

0:39:16the the divisions. The 2 larger divisions are our planning and building division, and, as you know, in building, and we take in. But we entertain a lot of questions about what people can do what requires building permits. And so a a a really huge volume of questions

0:39:34and then permits. And this can do anything from click over the counter permits for water, heat, heater, replacement, for example, to a complex role model

0:39:42with in in our city in particular, remodels consist of a lot of our permits, and we do about 1,200 permits total a year, but that could be for a to use new decks, remodels, Of course, commercial tenant improvements or the multi-family buildings.

0:39:57I'm. Not as the largest department, with, I believe, it's not in an or chart here, but

0:40:03about 7 or 8 employees. Our department has largely positioned with that of 2 positions over the last couple of years, and then i'll talk about those in a moment

0:40:12in a planner. We do both advance and current planning, so making sure that things that are being built or proposed confirmed with our city zoning regulations.

0:40:22And then in the third division. It's kind of a combination of administration, economic development affordable housing, and in that division we have recently also taken on business licenses and rent registry and issuing of parking permits.

0:40:37Often those parking permits and business licenses and other cities are often in the finance department, but for here it made sense to bring it into our department, partly for business licenses, so we could also have direct communication with new businesses

0:40:49and her occupations.

0:40:52And then we also did. Council last year added a position in our planning division, which is for the transportation planning manager.

0:41:00So again early in the alphabet, and also, I believe, the city's smallest department.

0:41:07So this year has been. It's always amazing when we reflect at the end of the year, in the beginning of a New Year, just trying to remember on a continuum when things happened

0:41:17this year is actually incredibly busy, and maybe in questions and answer, or maybe in my presentation, it's also, as Karen mentioned a changing time in terms of the economy, so I do think there is a bit of a

0:41:30some, let them, and strategizing around projects that we thought were going to happen that might not. But this year was still busy, especially as some of it was pivoted. And a lot we're still moving forward. And so one of our main accomplishments and something that Council has expressed a lot of interest in is advancing the production of new mixed income housing.

0:41:49and that includes working hard and long to try to get assembly all of the funding needed for the Mayfair bridge affordable project with 69 units we've

0:42:01secured and partnering with bridge about 8 million dollars recently, and are still working on getting the rest, hoping that it will break ground in the winter of 24, as you know, we also entitled 70 Units of affordable Housing. I've gone through the Pl for tid, and I've already secured

0:42:173 and a half 1 million dollars and grants for that, and applied for 2 different grants, totaling 20 million dollars. So 2 of about 20 million

0:42:25and excitingly. We also earned designation as a pro housing city from the State Department of Housing and community development. And just today we're informed that we earned a that we were awarded a $620,000, grant to support affordable housing through that program. So congratulations to all of us.

0:42:45There's a lot of businesses coming and going. I think many of, you know, but we have supported new businesses. We really try to make sure that when they come in for a business license, as soon as we hear from them, or even before they've reached out to us, we can reach out to them to try to make sure we have somebody who helps walk them through the process, especially small business, small.

0:43:04independent businesses. But we've actually welcomed a few, both small independent businesses and franchises to town recently, and in the way. So, as we know, Banter Weinbar opened a couple of weeks ago, which is exciting. It was creating a new food destination, and one that never had been. And so that's quite a project, as i'm sure they can tell you about.

0:43:22We also on tovito's. Guatemala Pickles is very popular, and so that's an exciting turnover of an existing business, and the pizza place super slice took over that space. Dolly's Italian was going to be under opening in there. So those were kind of an assortment of small, so many of them. First time brick and mortar business owners.

0:43:42So that's one process.

0:43:43And then, of course, the the Plaza. There's a lot going on, and i'm sure some of you might have some questions about various pieces, but for now we know California fish. Grill opened. Dave's hot chicken is about to pull a building permit, and Ikes is under construction

0:43:58as well as, of course, you see, there's a pop up anime in where junk it was. So there's a lot of activity there as well

0:44:04and kind of a friendly project. This year was re-launched by alserr.com, and it's a pretty cool web page that I feel sure it really led.

0:44:14Who's our housing and economic development program manager. And it's fun because it's the place. You can go where we assemble all of the properties that we find out that are listed, and over time we want to keep develop developing it as a place that people can go who might be thinking about looking to open a business here. So that was done in partnership with the Economic Development Committee.

0:44:35Advance planning was quite busy this year, and we completed the Sixth Cycle housing element, which is still in the Hcd. Approval process. We just got a few more comments.

0:44:44We we all of these actually, that you're looking at the housing environment, the soft story, inventory and the specific plan. We're all grant funded. So that's exciting. When there are grant funds, we we actively pursue them and get them sometimes there aren't, as i'll mention, for the sake upcoming safety, element.

0:45:02and we completed all of those efforts this year and all of these, actually, both during the pandemic and at the various phases of the pandemic. We've done a lot of community outreach. So we've done lots and lots of zoom public engagement and a couple of pop up community engagement as well

0:45:20as you all know, one of the biggest projects the city will have ever really participated in to date is the project of the elsewhere to Plaza Bart. Tod. So that has taken. That's been a a a tremendous undertaking.

0:45:34There's lots of unique laws obviously doing a project with Bart and other public agency who has a lot of other missions, in addition to to housing and financial issues themselves.

0:45:46has been has been quite an effort. But you've seen that there's been a lot of community engagement, both about the new library and that location as well as

0:45:55library. Yeah. Library stakeholder meetings. We've done a pop up to a really well attended pop up at the Plaza Art Station to introduce people to all the elements.

0:46:04and I can, of course, and we've been applying for lots of grants to help that project come into being.

0:46:12Importantly, we've been working to improve technology with Eric, and that's i'm happy to report actually, for the first time publicly to you all, but we are caught up in real time. I know many of you saw us being quite delayed for quite some time, but we are actually in real time, and so building permits Don't experience any

0:46:29inordinate delay, and we have a lot of grateful customers. So I really want to thank Eric and my the whole building staff for working really hard to do that.

0:46:38and we still have things to do to be able to continue to streamline and make it efficient, for example, to be able to schedule inspections. Self schedule is kind of a limitation. We don't have a gis or

0:46:51instant voice recognition phone system. So there's still things that we can do that will still kind of again lessen the pressure on on the front counter and and provide them in more streamlined customer service.

0:47:04we did secure a recent grant to comply with the Sb. 379 so machine learning requirements, and that's to support cities to of our size. We're not required to be compliant until October of 2,024 but we anticipate by the end of the fiscal year we will, but it's been kind of a

0:47:21a rolling process. So a couple of years ago, one of the things that did

0:47:24contribute to some of our backup was, we were processing all of our solar permits ourselves, and there's a 3 day turnaround mandated time. So every time a solar permit came in, everything else had to get into the back of the line.

0:47:34So we did work hard to already off-site do outsource that and that's worked really well. So we've been complying. And there's gonna be new requirements in in October, including, for example, that even if you're doing battery storage, that it's more streamlined. So we still

0:47:49I need to learn the details, and then kind of a small project, but one that I wanted to point out was launching a pilot program with Gig. You're probably seeing the gig car shows around town. And those things don't happen without effort. And so we are actually the lowest density, highest car ownership

0:48:04place where they're operating right now. So it's quite interesting trying to get just to see how that model works. So we did allow them to do a pilot project here that's about to end, and we are going to go ahead and extend that.

0:48:18and also hope to be able to expand their home zone, to, for example, to be closer to the Bart stations, which right now they're not because they don't currently like operating where there's Rpp required. And so we're just trying to work through some of that, and some of it might come back to you.

0:48:34So and so next year again, in terms of a portable housing.

0:48:39we actually are scheduled to meet with Assembly Member with this summer to try to talk about the challenges with securing funding for financing. I think the State Legislature looks a lot at zoning, and we modified our zoning before the State required it, and we entitle projects, and then we spend years and a ton of time

0:48:57along with our nonprofit partners trying to secure the funding. And so it feels to me that this is a big thing that the State and the region really need to work on. If we want the housing, we have to get it through the into construction.

0:49:09This is also actually participating to in on a regional steering committee to look at a regional housing bond, and that for for Contra Costa County it has not often looked like we could do our own housing bond. And so a regional one would really serve the 9 Cities the best, really aggregating our resources and solving

0:49:30the challenge of housing an economically diverse community together.

0:49:36So again, I could talk a lot about the tid. You've heard a lot about it, but that is something that we're continuing to do. We do have. We have a programming application for the master plan, and we expect an application soon, and there's lots of planning and funding that we're continuing to work through.

0:49:54I'm a big project that's required by the State that we need to do, and we didn't get to it last year. But we will get to you, and it will come up when we get to the numbers in budget. But we need to do our safety element.

0:50:04which is exciting. I think it's something. The 1,999 general plan is definitely needs to be updated, and the safety element is something that we're required to update, and that can be looking at everything from

0:50:19what is the word route? Safe routes to to evacuate evacuation routes and other wild wildfire mitigation and other issues. So that will be a third robust process of involving the public and really taking a fresh look at a safety element.

0:50:33Again, we have several projects with software that we're doing, and one of them is we still have an offsite database for our parking program and our business licenses, which also creates an extra workload at the front counter when people cannot check when we can't check

0:50:47business licenses at the same time, we're doing permits and zoning. So we're working with it to start a migration process for contractors, and then to hopefully soon migrate the whole system over

0:50:58all of that also is with the intention of creating more self service options. Now for the public, which will also help because one of the things we get a lot of is public records, act requests, and if people can get their own information, then we don't have to answer as many phone calls and can handle the more complicated ones.

0:51:15I'm something that I put in here because I think you guys probably all wonder, and I do what's next. For in Public avenue the economy was a real interest. Rates really changed things a lot, but equally as important, the State laws that are really making Berkeley not be able to say no anymore.

0:51:32You see the cranes, you see it happening, but it really is a shift in the marketplace. Given both the economic conditions and the State laws because we created the specific plan we create the yes here. Yes, you can come. Do these projects here where other places we're still saying no, and now they can't say no so

0:51:52Well, financial feasibility is stronger is where you see things happen. So I think it's a real question for us. And the last time we did an economic offices on the Admin. It got us to our specific plan, and so I think it's really important for us to look what's next? What do we need to do next to keep developing our vision.

0:52:09and then

0:52:11and appropriately, I think, while the economy changes, we're going to also see some vacancies. We haven't.

0:52:18as we know we hear vacancies, and we actually don't have business vacancies. What we have is properties that are vacant and not being built built or even leased.

0:52:28Once a. We really can talk to any commercial brokers. We will have anything that's legitimately for lease for very long that goes fast. But with those other properties one of our challenges is having somebody who's responsible within

0:52:42easy for us to contact, responsible for inspecting their properties, and really informed about what their maintenance needs are.

0:52:48So that's something that our neighborhood preservation officer, Steven Mellow, brought up as an idea would be to create of a construction to update our reconstruction ordinance to require minimum maintenance standards, reporting in quick, quick, quick, quick responses, and I think that can help with some of the issues that we see on vacant

0:53:04on properties, and I think that is.

0:53:06that is not

0:53:08at the end of my 3 slides.

0:53:10Okay, any questions from Council members.

0:53:13I saw a council mayor perch, and we'll go to Council Member King, too.

0:53:18Thank you for the presentation, and director binds so the building official. I know that we recently lost our building official. Do we have a new building official? Actually, I forgot on that first slide to reiterate what? So the manager had pointed out. I do have 3 vacancies currently. So I do have the building officials vacant, and we have an interim building official working. The senior planner is vacant, and it's been vacant all year, and has been very difficult to fill.

0:53:45We did are currently just partially filling that for assistance work with Ted Project, and I do also have a Permit technician position vacant, and all of them are definitely out of line in terms of salary. So we are

0:54:00both going to recruit and also anticipate that until our class and comp study is done, and we really look at that. But it'll be very difficult in this market.

0:54:09But happily we do luckily that the whole industry is quite thin. Actually so, even though we do work with temp agencies, they also sometimes have a hard time building the positions right now for a permutx, for example, and but fortunately we do have a building official who's working really strongly with staff, and we.

0:54:25when I say that we are caught up. You know our building official Bernie's appeals as ever. Part of that I also have a process evaluation that we funded with one of the outside consultant firms to really really evaluate where we are. We getting stuck where we're all bottlenecks, and what are the changes can we make? And he's helping to implement

0:54:42that as well, if you that was even more information that I asked. But it was really helpful. Thank you so much. And then the second question. So you mentioned the 9 cities that are on the that they're exploring potentially a bond reserve, as 9 cities are for the folks at the 9 central airbag City. So it is. The

0:55:02The area of financing authority is bringing in and out of a bag, and I actually don't have a ton of information, but it will be

0:55:09the the 9 a. Bg: Cities. That would be. I'm: sorry. Any mean that that counting. I know some of the counties. Thank you. Yeah.

0:55:25Okay. Thank you. And you asked a couple of my questions already. So but I just have one question here. Can you explain to me more about.

0:55:36Yeah, I'd like the idea of a vacant structure ordinance, and the north side of town looks just horrible. The quantit hut looks like it was bomb back, and you know, many, many years ago. And so yeah, residents in my part of town are just so frustrated about

0:55:56what a what a mess it is up there, and what we can do

0:56:00to you know. Make sure that these owners of these vacant properties, you know, keep up with their responsibilities, and just clean it up now and then that I don't see that. And then I know that's been frustrating for our staff, who come out, who have to come out there day after day. What what can we do to to.

0:56:22you know, make things better and more streamline for for our city staff. so

0:56:28tweet for done which has been exciting is again Steve and our neighborhood reservation officer

0:56:35something called Google Ticket, because I did a

0:56:37fire with code Enforcement. It was hard, sometimes following up on everything so that.

0:56:42you know, let's try to reach out personally with you that it goes right into the system where they are. The end data ticket, just like in whatever citation that you get is continuing to follow up. So that's one to try and automate our citation collections. And we also do that with business licenses soon, so that.

0:57:02as you all recall, there was, for example, there were several Mentors that Don't have business licenses, for example or commercial property on this is one that again I used to was mentioning, but often Don't have them, so I think all of those things will help, and they can structure ordinance where we' look. I I think it will work.

0:57:20you know, a fee in the registration, so it's again. Better

0:57:25lines of communication, but it's the challenge. And so we're doing for at a property on their

0:57:31to please general?

0:57:40And in regarding the the rental registry, are we getting more. What what is the percentage of now of small business owners participating in that? Do we still have that one third of

0:57:55landlord? It's not participating. So I don't have our current events. We're about to enter into our season where we do business license, renewals, and so again working to get that data, and we'll provide to you, Counselor up with it. But we've also had a variety of ways that we are working to identify

0:58:13options, are which you not? Have business licenses. So we're also doing targeted when they're trying to pull those in. So you know, I appreciate that 1 one more question regarding

0:58:26like

0:58:27short term rentals? Do we have an ordinance dealing with Airbnb's, and and technically do what we have is that you're not allowed to do short term in terms of less than 30 days. We all know that they do occur. So it's been quite complete

0:58:44since it's challenging, and we haven't we? And compared to many cities we don't have a we do have them that I do believe, that tried to create

0:58:53just to look at those and have more contemporary regulations. We have to

0:58:59so a lot of different ways. You could go

0:59:01so so you haven't, and it's not. That was something. Technically you have

0:59:09that in breakfast.

0:59:12and so I have some very specific can can go to the next level in the future, and then your future cause, like even in my neighborhood, we're getting the so called Airbnb for a night here in the night there, and and and and residents are are concerned because they are

0:59:34same on certain, and the things happening in the middle of the night, and then we're we've talked about in the past. If we do something, for example, is Auster, or if if you decide to go. Allow them for someone to have number. Some people, Some of towns like them. They'll move them more Google to your businesses, etc. They I think a lot of residents do like them for the families when you're saying, etc. But you can, for example, do a rental. You could do a re some sort of registration requirement and go fire payment of T.

1:00:00And things like that. But when you work up the process you're going to have a a gamut of opinions. And so we'll do quite a process in terms of trying to figure out what we want to do. whatever we can do to to help streamline things. And then and I know you know we we just in your department, and all the shortages that you've had

1:00:16through the years, I mean the last 3 years I've just been it's it's been like that for your department, but that how much we appreciate all that you've been doing, and and I excited about this future project going on at the the Plaza bark and the Don't next to the Del Norte Bart station. So but thank you for all your work.

1:00:36Thank you, man. I I just want to first apply the to the department, you know, from being able. It's all the time for such a small department. That's really helping me vitalize the city, you know. I I first

1:00:55I mean, you know they speak very. They They ask me about you all the time, and I you know it's really a testament to you as I get to watch the folks that come in, and I think that you might know better than you that people, maybe at 40%. Now

1:01:11I give the the the most income it was. It's loose because there's so many different types of people.

1:01:22families black and most people of color and cool from someone has a the poll in their apartment. I'm not going to put all that out there, but you know, so i'd be really in the Testament to what we're trying to do in the city as 5 diversifying it wouldn't really have for anyone. And the question that I want to ask, though. Hello, I'm: in a lot of meetings

1:01:40they have a lot of. We are focused. You talk about. We are focused. You talk about and collectively working to continue the success of the same type and the specific plan, and they change with they can.

1:01:58and we are here. and for myself through the wider city, both as the city come up with the plan to try and help them to make it during the rough time. The so also the shadow of the I'm gonna take that for you, obviously, as Jenni would say, for tracking. So i'm doing this cancer live so.

1:02:24And this is where I get this awarded to chief, and because i'm i'm going to ask the any question, because everything is the actual question of how you would, but to support marginal, I suppose, because when you support them as possible, you actually the people at the top being supported. Right.

1:02:41So what do you see as far as studying for? I think we the working team is, except for the same. How a specific! But when that's going to support that

1:02:49into the city, and so much of the housing as tumbling. What are you seeing that I know? That's a large question

1:03:00I can forward to you. And do you see that on the outside of the city, instead of depending on the chamber to support these logged into these poc business that are coming into this city.

1:03:15It's right, so they can.

1:03:34And so sometimes I like to look so that that has.

1:03:39Yeah, it's it. It helps at what I've heard Some of our small businesses so haven't been able to. Even some of them actually can't even get enough staff, as we know, just like us by using. And then the people also recruits are gonna be able to live in a tremendous awareness of of of of this multi family housing.

1:03:59I think it comes in, spat doesn't, since we

1:04:01it's it's some require reach out, and we also try to connect them with small business development center, which I know of the business you're talking about. We we do. I I was. I had not had contact, and so we reached out to make sure that they were in touch to support the full entrepreneur. There's a lot there's a lot that goes into

1:04:20and

1:04:23I also thank you.

1:04:24It's it's a it's a

1:04:29chapters in our city's history around from trucks, but I some interest, because it's also kind of a

1:04:36it's terms of different purpose for entrepreneurs and the the public license, and how to

1:04:50the city was not not to be.

1:04:55It's it's it's it kind of a sense of improvement, Grant, because I think the last thing we did, so I i'm open to that's often has multiple jobs. So I still cause a lot of hats

1:05:13student about it co-inforcement. There's a lot of hats we all do, and we try to reach out. We try to make sure our staff is as soon as you heat of somebody. We we pro active in terms of direct assistance and training. It's a more than these motivation, and do try to link those

1:05:32sources. Those are mostly coming to the small business to that, you know, Sbc. And I, which I mean strictly to have different places. So if that helps a little bit. But I think it's something to get, you.

1:05:42you know, like

1:06:11Yes. So off the board we actually expanded our temporary permit to allow that to be challenges of that location, because it also required a cal trans approach from it to shut off the to.

1:06:25but it was great otherwise I know there's a lot of people we're excited about moving after the it's i'm a pocket. We we completely allow that. And so there would be. I think

1:06:36it's okay to these per minute. I just so that we can set standards and talk up and to a public noticing process, so that we can learn

1:06:45issues. If there are sets and cleaning standards, just talk about some of those things that we'd love to welcome something like that.

1:06:52And so you can see we've done them on kind of one off, and there's a lot of different forms, but on on the public right away it's a little. It's it's different issues that we have to entertain, but on private property. It isn't allowed. It is something that we

1:07:10Yeah, I thank you for the rundown on all the the work plan

1:07:15items you're going to be doing since we're going to be dealing with the budget coming up soon. I thought this might be a little pre budget here as well. We did mention the vacancies.

1:07:26Is there any other budget, high level budget, info? We should know about what we will be encountering upon the budget in your department like? Is there a certain large percent increase. You're going to be asking for or

1:07:38Yeah. So I think that we've a couple things on that. So the one the one time. Special project is the safety of it.

1:07:48which is, we do have a about a 30 or $35,000 grant foot, so we're going to need $140,000 to complete that in terms of operations. I think we've with the city manager and the Finance Department come up with a pretty good way of budgeting for the unknown in terms of big projects. Right? So when a big project comes in or doesn't come in, it requires that they get

1:08:096 50 milliondollars in construction financing, for example, and when they do come in they submit. Their building Permit is a large building permit when they apply, and when they take it out

1:08:20it does provide quite a bit of department support, but we do not budget for those unless they come in because those can really make a real big difference. And so when they do come in, they create some expenses along with them. So if it's comes in for to apply for a building permit we about 70% of that goes into the direct expenses.

1:08:40paying somebody to do plan check, but the rest goes to support department and overhead, and similarly with inspections right? So if somebody pulls an inspection, so those are unknown. Otherwise I think that i'm in the same about

1:08:5370, you know. It's changed since we added this transportation program manager position, which i'm. Asking for some small budget $20,000 to support his program.

1:09:04Otherwise we we stay at a pretty high cost recovery. About 70% of our expenses are covered by revenue, 60 to 70%.

1:09:12So we'll stay at that same ratio. So you just said that $100,000 for the safety study might come, and that's our our long time request, so we'll have the general fun. Yeah, I think that as you manager, to talk with what's up, we have further still.

1:09:29still looking at revenues, and we're still looking at some we'll have some more answers for you. And okay. So here here's my equity question that I promise. So your department has so many different things.

1:09:42so many different arenas, where equity and diversification and inclusion could play a part. How do you prioritize? What are you thinking about As we're heading toward more scrutiny on our equity front.

1:09:57Well, I I think one of Carolyn Licinger spoke to

1:10:01the new housing that's bringing in the in, I think, addresses. It is a very core level.

1:10:08It takes a lot of effort, like, we said, to to to plan for those projects and to try to help them get funded. And so I think that's probably like the biggest, more solid contribution. And I think really providing

1:10:20was this support like when we heard on to hit those come in. A couple of us were Spanish speaking. We directly went and met with her to make sure she really understood what what she was, what she was doing

1:10:32the but art did require, and it was interesting that it required a differently. It required translation for all of the public meetings that were done.

1:10:40I don't know how all those were utilized and available. But that is one thing. So some public meetings do that, and I think, as the city manager said, I will forward to the can be email commission and

1:10:54city staff and the public working together to define what that means in our Cerrito, so that we do have kind of targets and frameworks, and we're we're identifying those that we can all improve. And I know my staff. Look forward to the trainings that are also upcoming, so that we can become more

1:11:10kind of more deeply versed in what that means in in contracting. I don't really know the

1:11:21that the philosophy of the city, as far as focusing on minority and women on contractors do you, is that something that automatically cause it comes up? It's required by. So we so grants, and most of the grants we work with have different requirements. Most of our Federal transportation that could speak to that, and the City doesn't really have a centralized procurement

1:11:43division, department, or staff person, and so that could be, for example, something that does or doesn't come up, but definitely by large or grant funded projects that are federally funded or State funded, often have a

1:11:55a few that diversity, that diversity, yeah requirements.

1:12:15Beyond that we actually are precluded for limited in our ability to consider a race gender to some degree. So it's it's, it's it's a very complicated area.

1:12:26Oh, we can right in certain ways in certain ways, but also not because bark went through the same process of focusing on outreach to Yes, that yes, outreach. So it's just it. That's why I say it's a it's a extremely complicated legal area. So it's something that we'd have to be very careful about.

1:12:50I have a couple of questions just in your staffing for plan check, is it? Do we rely on consultants for plan, tech.

1:13:01and how that's working with my checker?

1:13:04And so we can we do about the 12 of the permits a year summer? I don't, I don't require plancheck. Some do so, both of our kind of small small projects we pull our My checker has been for quite some time, does it?

1:13:17Our large multi-family projects we large commercial tenants tenant improvements we send out, and then, when those up to go to a backlog, we could send it out. So we have one he gets, you know. The contract is really well. He gets simple.

1:13:33Put them for larger projects. We send those out. Now we have back to you sometimes soon, and I think around October to refresh our sale of outside concerns, but we have an on call

1:13:44of consulting phones with this queue, so we'll be sure that there's we. We started that process when we adopted the specific plan, knowing that we at times. and that will be going to multiple different forms to be able to make sure you can get that in a timely manner. And is that a 100% cost recovery for that.

1:14:03So that's that's that's that's that's it's it's it's it's all established through our fees that we can also cover the issue of it's done internally. Yes.

1:14:20and with the all the streamlining and software integration. I know I really appreciate that you guys took on that really difficult work because it was. I know it was really more complicated than it sounds. I was wondering. Can you just tell us, how long does it take for, like a small business to get it's

1:14:37permit? If they need to do some tenant improvements. I would love it if I like. Kavanaugh. Lunch was listening right now, so i'll find it adding that I like to say, if I ask a question like that, it depends.

1:14:48So that's going to be my answer. So it it depends. It depends on whether you have a heart attack to in what you're doing. It depends on if you are, for example, like on to heat those or Dolly's just going right into a place that was already being, or like the enter, and you're trying to create something that was never.

1:15:06It depends a little bit on so many things. Yeah.

1:15:12Does that not help or help Doesn't: okay, like, how long did it take Antokitos? What's mal? Take us? It's it's right to answer all us right. So it's like it's like how it's getting to figure out your head, I would say less than 3 months. I think we don't complete those.

1:15:28and then for banter, because they were doing a new use, and that was also complicated because it kind of ran into the time the car went through the wall. Yeah.

1:15:40I think once we're typing, i'm gonna guess if Claire was here. She might tell me otherwise. But i'd book that I still think 6 under 6 months. It could also be 3. So again she and she did have a good architect, and they were skilled. But you know you're doing plumbing your up the ground. You're doing all a lot of work

1:15:58again. The turnaround is fast, so it's so the way the process works is, You submit. Now that we don't have a backlog, we hopefully see within a few to figure out. If it's complete or not, we send it out. It only takes. If it gets

1:16:10let's say it's it's 2 weeks at most, but a week or 2 weeks. Then how many comments! So how complete was your set of plans? How many comments do you get? How quickly do you get it back to us, and you get it back, addressing everything. If your architect is good you've done a full code, it might take only another 2 weeks, and then how long it takes to construct

1:16:29depends on its scale. So the plan, check and response process is really interactive. So the more completed is the first time. But it's not a very long. It's it's actually not a very long delay. A lot of it like They're everybody's having the same experience we are. How do you get your subcontractor? How do you get your contract, or how did you get the right one? Are they good? So that that's where the it depends. It just our part that 3 to 6 months is that typical? Now, are we back in kind of like the

1:16:55so we'll look at it now. So the delays that you were hearing before we were up to 30 and 40. But sometimes, before we were able to even be up your client to see if it was late. So now days.

1:17:07Yeah. So we're supposed to be able to do that. Then, depending on how complete it is, you pay your fees that it's Still, there's little bumps there, but that should all be within

1:17:17a week that we're very in touch with you. And then again, it's usually for the first plan check depending on the scale of the size of the project, You can be attentive team. It could be one bye

1:17:26to 15 day turnaround. How long, how many comments, how long does it take you to address those comments?

1:17:32But so with the way it shouldn't be specifically in plan. Check. It's just depending on the the the scale and scope of your work. I can tell that things are better because when I first started on Council almost every single email I received was about the delays

1:17:49or approvals, and I have not gotten any of those emails in a while. So maybe now I've mentioned it. Maybe i'll get some good exceptions, but so I I do appreciate that the other is. Do you have any update for us on San Pablo Avenue or the Plaza

1:18:06any

1:18:07any good news. So when I was in anticipating this question, and i'll let the city kind of you all decide right. This can always be conversation, and in the past we have done kind of after budget process. Sometimes an update just on

1:18:19ahead of that. I think that people have heard Marshalls as to the Plaza, and so some people haven't heard. So now you have heard, and so that is official. They've signed their lease, and expect that to be.

1:18:33It was a lot of kind of rumor and various phone calls at first, so that is one that we can. And now

1:18:41Regency definitely tells us right. That they are, you know, getting full. They definitely feel that they're past their kind of any pandemic-related slowdowns.

1:18:52Other other things are probably big and long. But what do you? So the the projects that are so I maybe you've heard me use this metaphor before, but I use a child's smile for the avenue. You have some really nice new, shiny teeth.

1:19:05You have some. They are crooked, and some fell out, and it takes a while, and so some of them that I get some laughing back, but they laugh in the front and right so they're laughing like if I can see you. Maybe

1:19:24we've talked about internally, and i'm sure you guys are feeling it so a lot that's been accomplished over the past few years, and a lot is still happening. Those people who've still signed leases. I think we're we. That map that we produced was so much right that I think we couldn't help but get our hopes up that it was gonna go faster than it ever has in the whole day.

1:19:42Corridor right? And so guess what it's not, and it has. So it's a combination right? How do we deal with the things that Aren't going to happen? How do we still celebrate and support all that has happened? And I think, as as councilmember license, you said, support support all these businesses that really do have new customers. There is a lot happening.

1:20:01It's not all concentrated right. It's on a long corridor. If you put that all on a few blocks, it would be this tremendously diverse, interesting collection. So there are going to be some that are stalling, so I mean I could give you the numbers at some point. But the first prophet things are not penciling

1:20:18very strongly. Some are, and some figure it out so I can tell you right now. Right 6501 fermat is in for a building permit, and seems to be at very active. Some of them we could talk about specifics in a meeting, or if you guys want. But there are many others that are saying that until the economic conditions change there that they can't move forward. And so I might. I'm in. And I am in communication with city manager and maybe with you guys to begin study? What is it that we can do that can help incentivize them? We can't change the interest rates.

1:20:48We can't provide money. What do we keep doing to create a really high quality attractive place? But we aren't the concentrated. We're not Cal by we don't. Have we don't? Have the demand, and that some places do. But so what else can we do around?

1:21:01What other incentives or or fee type stuff can we do? So? I do think that

1:21:06the specific plan emerged from a but a lot of studies that we did in 2,011 identified what we needed to do. I do think it's like in this new context. What do we do order, or do we wait it out? I don't know right, but I think it's an interesting.

1:21:19I do think there's some changed on text. and I think there's still some really exciting things happening, and some really exciting things that have happened.

1:21:26So does that help? Not help? Thank you very much.

1:21:32Okay. Any last comments.

1:21:35Thank you for the very thorough presentation You all very much for the support.

1:21:40Thank you, Melanie

1:21:41and i'm gonna drive the Powerpoint for the next few slides. So chief sailors is on the call. I think he's gonna keep this video off. And just as a point of reference we have. We are over. There have been some choppy audio we are working on that.

1:21:59so he's gonna keep him so 200 Choose it. I just want it that if it is, it's a California because he is graduating.

1:22:14But you can see tomorrow with his doctorate

1:22:18organizational. Wait, hold on! I got it. Leadership and coordination change. So i'm to to congratulate him. It's hard. I'm quick, Doctor Chief. So, Dr. Chief, take it away.

1:22:31Eric Saylors: Thank you very much. I just want to confirm city manager because you can hear me. Okay.

1:22:36Yes, we can Thank you

1:22:38Eric Saylors: perfect. Good evening, Mayor and Council members. I am Eric Sailors, your Fire Chief.

1:22:44Thank you very much for your understanding and grace for allowing me to present remotely.

1:22:49Tomorrow is going to be a fantastic day for me, and I will be back in town Thursday.

1:22:54So, starting with this presentation, i'm going. To be brief. we are looking at the fire department as the organization, as it's been for a while. The only minor changes that we did at a part time. Civilian fire marshal. That's why you see the number on the bottom call, and go from 37 to 37.5.

1:23:12That part-time civilian Car Marshall has been a huge asset to us to allow us to get caught up in planned checks and inspections.

1:23:20You also notice in the photo our new engine number is based on the county renumbering engine 51. So all of our engines have been renumbered, and we are now in line with the rest of the county.

1:23:33I'll now move on to our highlights. For the last year

1:23:39we have continued to make sure that we can keep our I so ratings taking all the steps that we're required in order to get our initial class one rating.

1:23:50You never quite know what is going to happen in the next assessment, but we're trying to make sure that we maintain that rating in addition. Last year we developed some internal core values for the far department. This is common for the fire Department, so that it's core values aligned with the city core values. We did a modified, del fine method, so that the membership actually chose the core values that they wanted to stand on and hold themselves and myself accountable to

1:24:16the process was fantastic, and it keeps us in aligned, and we'll allow us to start to develop our internal threats to you plan the little align with the city strategic plan.

1:24:27We did successfully hold a captive test, an internal promotional exam. We promoted one captain and one engineer through a trickle up promotion based on that process.

1:24:38We did have a very short focused year. We found a good team manager. We are doing everything we can to get them trained up so that we can start recruiting. We've built the basic organizational structure for our new search team based on where the stations are located and the zones of Zone Haven.

1:24:57Eric Saylors: In addition, our firefighters completed active shooter training. This was a large training done with law enforcement at Grammar School.

1:25:07The training was based on the hardware consensus, and

1:25:11something called T. Triple, c. Which is tactical combat casual to care, and i'll say that our firefighters performed fantastically. I was very proud. One of them did such a fantastic

1:25:22big job to another agency, trying to recruit them, though they did an amazing job in these series of drills

1:25:28we continue to maintain our helicopter rescue technician, drill. our sorry our helicopter technician rescue training and program.

1:25:38We were part of 2 high-profile rescues this year. Our firefighters are very dedicated. This program we're pretty much used exclusively by Chp in the area when they need a rescue technician. They start heading towards El Cerito to pick up our firefighters because they're so highly trained and dedicated to the program they perform. So well on these tough calls.

1:26:00We did initiate a cooperative agreement with Berkeley, Richmond, Albany fire to form a regional training consortium.

1:26:09With the understanding that all of these agencies need each other to get through large events, and we need to have regional training, so that we all perform the same and have a consensus on what the outcomes look like on these large calls. We still

1:26:25continue to have a monthly or sorry weekly meeting every Monday morning to discuss what type of standard operating guidelines we're going to develop what type of training we want to develop in the future.

1:26:38We also issued some internal guidance on diversity, equity, inclusion. This document was used to help bring our partners into a consensus understanding of what these terms mean to them. Internally and externally. The document was used on the campus test, so that they could talk about how they understood these terms.

1:26:58and then reflect on them for themselves, and how they can improve internally in the agency. And externally we also developed

1:27:05some standard operating guidelines for residential fires, Internet Command and emergency procedures may sound like something we do standardly, but that is a term used to describe when we actually lose the firefighter in a building.

1:27:19So that's the steps that we take in order to rescue a firefighter from a collapse structure or a flash over. So to develop these standard operating guidelines will give our future firefighters and captains guidance on how to work their way through these scenarios

1:27:35prior to them having any experience with them in real life, and it also helps us align with our neighboring agencies, so that when they come in to help. They know exactly what ways we're going to use on particular fiber.

1:27:48So I will now talk about our focus for the next year.

1:27:53We're going to continue to focus on our vegetation management and our defensible space. We've applied for 2 grants, one a femur grant, and one account fire grant for the hillside natural area to help with those defensible spaces. We're partnering with Berkeley and a Grant, in order to help

1:28:10clean up some of the area between Elserito, Kennedy, and Berkeley.

1:28:14Eric Saylors: I'll keep you updated on how those grants are going.

1:28:18We are continuing to try and fund

1:28:21our training, and specifically our young part better recruit training and the standardized form. The way that we have done it in the past is, it's been a lot of on the job training.

1:28:33which is good exposure.

1:28:35but we want to standardize and get our firefighters through something like a shared academy with Richmond, Berkeley, on Albany, so that when the firefighters are trained together. They all understand what procedures and tactics they're using, so that they work together as the fire departments interact.

1:28:54We are also really focusing on our asset depreciation and how to supply funding for that. I developed a large half. That list figured out the lifespan of a lot of our equipment, and then we're looking at ways to fund this depreciation, either through grant or future funding.

1:29:14And some of those things to understand with this depreciated app that is, that we don't have a choice. Some equipment is mandated by Osha to be retired out.

1:29:24The things that we do not have a choice about.

1:29:27They tend to have the problems when it comes to total cost of ownership, which means with something like an older fire engine, it starts to become more expensive to maintain the fire engine than it does to purchase a new one.

1:29:40And those are the things that i'm looking at in building.

1:29:43Eric Saylors: Set list to figure out how we can focus on cleaning up some of those depreciated assets.

1:29:48We're also trying to locate, secure a common training ground for all these agencies that are coming together, and that is a challenge for our region is what sandbox to our firefighters said the opportunity to practice in. There is a small training ground in Richmond on Cutting Boulevard that we've been using.

1:30:06We're also looking at, you know, like the items Middle School, which is a large 12 acre site that has a lot of room for positioning of vehicles and potential classrooms.

1:30:18This is our goal, for next year is to find a spot where we can all come together and actually train.

1:30:24We published our

1:30:27our emergency preparedness, our emergency operations plan. And now this year our goal is to practice it.

1:30:34which means we are going to start focusing on how to stand up

1:30:38and run Emergency Operations Center. Make sure that our staff, internally in the fire department, is trained, but also the staff at City Hall, and then our elected officials are trained, as well as what their expectations are.

1:30:51so that we can walk our way through a scenario and get a better idea of how we'll perform if we do have to stand up in eoc and coordinate with other agencies around this that may also be standing up.

1:31:05We also need to develop and publish

1:31:09our mid rise, High rise and commercial buildings, standard operating guidelines so very similar to our residential and infinite command. So, genes this are these are so that will tell us how to operate in a mid rise and high rise.

1:31:25and they will be shared with our neighboring agencies, because they will use us to fight a large high rise or midwife fire, and we will use them, and once again to get the standard operating guidelines on paper, so that there's a consensus on how we're going to do this. It's a lot of work.

1:31:42but it makes the operations one much smoother, and it's much safer for our firefighters, and we have regular meetings with Berkeley and Albany to make sure that we are on the same page. If we go into one of these large buildings

1:31:56when it comes to cyber security, we are planning on transitioning to a cloud-based records, management system

1:32:03and apcr or electric patient care records system. The currently we have an older records management system developed in the nineties. It works, but it is locally stored.

1:32:14It's not a big red, but it is very vulnerable, and the fact is, an older database

1:32:21it's locally stored. You'll see that request in the budget line so that we can get into a cloud Space records management system and the patient Pcr. The patient Pcr. Record system that'll become much more secure, and it'll be a less workload for our firefighters to actually document patient care records.

1:32:39In addition, we are going to develop a leadership training at the session planning program where we can start to bring our young captains up and expose them to what a Italian chief does

1:32:50through exposing them, increasing their education, their training, and their experience

1:32:56and focusing on them, managing

1:32:59specific programs and projects and understanding how the budget works, so that when we do have retirements and movement in the agency.

1:33:08We have a large pool of people that can step into those upper ranks and function effectively.

1:33:14Finally, looking at

1:33:16developing a diversity, outreach and recruitment program commonly known as a door program that provides pathways to local youth.

1:33:26This is an external recruitment program, so that we can expose people to the fire service in the community. Tell them what it means to be a firefighter, and then provide conflicts for them to reach that.

1:33:39And once again we are partnering with all of our local fire departments, because, even though El Cerito may not hire a lot of people

1:33:47if you pull all of our agencies together, we do hire a lot of people, and we want to provide pathways for our local youth to come into the fire service. And we are looking at partnering with community, local community colleges

1:34:02and the other agency, so that we can provide something.

1:34:05I mean, you might call on a fire departments to death that we can get youth out of high school. Tell them

1:34:12these are the things that you need to do. If you want to become a firefighter and remove any barriers that might be there, and a system into the job.

1:34:20So that's our focus for 23 2,024. It said, I will be brief, and i'll now open it for questions.

1:34:29Thank you. Dr. Sailors. Any Questions Council Member for Delhi. Yes, thank you.

1:34:39Thank you, Jason. Congratulations to you. A on on the last point. On developing diversity outreach

1:34:48any other, it issues that you foresee in the future. And one of the things I know that the mayor is asked about is, are you going to be seeking more women?

1:34:58Absolutely

1:35:01Eric Saylors: the fire department? The fire service in general tends to look outward for di and and word for D. I, using 2 different

1:35:12right, and a door program is an outward looking lens. When you look in work to the fire department you typically look at policy, culture and infrastructure.

1:35:22I can say, I've been attempting this agency from the day step in the door. The policy is very solid. It does use a lot of procedural justice to ensure that everything is clean and equitable. The calls for fantastic

1:35:37our honestly our big gaps are in infrastructure. meaning that the actual buildings our year towards one gender

1:35:45and specifically station 51, and those are some gaps that we need to fill in the future.

1:35:52It's a shared bathroom. It's very small. It's a shared locker room. It's very small

1:35:58station. 65 hopefully. Will have some updates. Will help that station. 72 is designed or if they station 52 is designed, pardon me to handle multi genders, but infrastructure at station 51 is lacking.

1:36:14And have you ever talked about in the budget.

1:36:18It will be discussing

1:36:20the construction and changing the laboratory situation at our Public Safety Building. Are we just still waiting to redo the whole thing?

1:36:30Eric Saylors: I Don't think we have any options to do any add on to remodel on that building. I do think it has to be entirely rebuilt.

1:36:39I can re-evaluate again what it would take to actually do a large add on to that structure. But I think that would have to be taken into consideration on what it would probably actually rebuild the interstation.

1:36:53And if I may, that is certainly there's been needs various needs assessments done on that building for both the police and fire side over the years. I don't

1:37:03they're pretty old and actually in talking to our public Works Director in developing a future capital improvement program and looking at what those buildings need. It's probably a good idea for us to think about. An updated needs assessment, and what that would look like. And so I think that that's probably one of the first things that that we can do is

1:37:23is is is, look at that from a from a broader sense, and

1:37:26though even back then, when we did some of those needs assessments, and you all can correct me if i'm wrong. But it seems like one of those things where

1:37:34you know you spend X amount to upgrade a building that needs much more work than that. So it it's certainly a cost benefit issue, but that is obviously part of the whole conversation about the fact that the Public Safety building is deficient.

1:37:48Okay? And just 2 more quick questions. Here. The

1:37:53your bullet about emergency operations working on that and drills is good. Does that include the red flag issues that our communities I probably love.

1:38:06So

1:38:07Eric Saylors: i'm assuming you're talking about a red flag day, and whether we would run a scenario that had something on a red flag day with Diablo wins? Or were you referring to something different.

1:38:19Then Flag day, whether there's an extra cost to our budget for that.

1:38:24Oh. you mean for parking. Yes, yes, that would be part of what we want to talk about with the evacuation plans, and all of that we don't have. I mean, we don't have anything identified right now, but that is part of what we'll be talking about with doing an evacuation drill and looking into what it will cost to to provide. That

1:38:46will that be in the Budget plan that we're going to see. We've not been talking about that from those purpose right now. But this is something that we can bring to the Council as an adjustment. Okay, I think that would be good. And and also I I didn't see in this plan, Chief. The you know our our city council voted to support a resolution

1:39:05to work with other East Bay communities in the hillside area for a used to be a Jpa. Now it's an mou about doing things cord coordinated together. Is that part of your coordination plan with Richmond, Albany, and Berkeley that you're talking about

1:39:23Eric Saylors: that definitely fits the mission of that plan. I've been monitoring that process as it's gone from a Jpa to the Mou. I I don't know if it's going to.

1:39:33I don't know if that actual body is going to be effective, but that doesn't mean that the mission isn't worthy. So we are taking steps to make sure that we can coordinate with all of our local agencies and coordinate our communications specifically across the county line

1:39:50and the drill that we just had lot this week really show that we are working towards that direction.

1:39:59That is separate, though, from the mou effort that we it's kind of on hiatus a little bit, and some of the Fire chiefs locally are working together to come out with the plan that elsewhere that could be involved in. So I just wanted to leave that on your

1:40:13laid our screen.

1:40:16Eric Saylors: Yes, and I do communicate with the fire chiefs regularly, and if you are, if you're all referring to the potential Jpa, I think the flavor for the fire chief is kind of dropped off on that. But, like I said not the mission.

1:40:30it it's it's turned into an mou effort. So

1:40:36okay, just just to be aware of that. Thank you.

1:40:39Eric Saylors: Thank you.

1:40:44Congratulations. Dr. Sales. I like the title of Doctor Chief. It's a good one when can we.

1:40:53which was only so that it's this is a highlight. What is the tempest still show? Remember it was now? 55,

1:41:046 to 5. That was the bottom

1:41:07I under the so I think you

1:41:10stack that made that happen.

1:41:12And you know we have not the points that some of that have had around that template station so excited about that.

1:41:23But I

1:41:25alternate sides straight.

1:41:27and i'm i'm glad that it's in the that

1:41:34it's very much interested in. It's a thing to think about as we the so we'll see. and also in 40, right when I have to be in the situation.

1:41:53So I think that

1:41:55I really emphasize that

1:41:58as far as some of the regional training efforts it's really impactful, really important. And I would emphasize if I was going to ask the question

1:42:08is a discussion of making this a Jp. But instead of that will give the direction that I prefer that it's an Mog. If there's regional training efforts. I think that's just for flexibility. That makes a lot more sense. And I know how much you've been collaborating with the other agencies on that, as far as the training or the active shooter training that happened at middle School.

1:42:28I did here from parents, from the elementary school that is, next to that there wasn't proper outreach. That was done so when they were doing the sheetered brills, and that's still for the elementary school. That was

1:42:41Well, I don't think it's necessarily it's like in the so I know, if they try to make it as realistic as possible. But it would be really important if we are continuing to engage on the Adams middle school popping, that we make sure that this full next door is properly notified, and

1:42:58maybe it could be done on weekends or this week days when the when class is not in session.

1:43:10I appreciate it very much. It's been the thing that I've been pushing really hard.

1:43:15Don't, you see well making sure that my colleagues are

1:43:26in the neighborhood of 10 people, since the cities had a true. and

1:43:30to go and quote that, for staff

1:43:33hair has been together. But still.

1:43:38yeah, at this point it's perfect. Time is ticking. We have to do what we can to

1:43:45make sure that we're addressing it. And then finally it comes to

1:43:49I'm. Sure that we have

1:43:54I for. and it's all science points. Here. We need a new Public Safety building so.

1:44:05and start figuring it out. See the

1:44:13that it

1:44:15The Public Safety Building has to be the next, because we are

1:44:20so that

1:44:21Yeah. fantasy people don't it's serve the community. So facilities are just so invited.

1:44:29Okay.

1:44:32Eric Saylors: thank you very much. I hope I didn't miss a question in there because

1:44:38I was getting a little broken audio on my side.

1:44:41but I couldn't agree more with the the Public Safety Building. I I spent a lot of time with our last female firefighter that retired, asking your questions about

1:44:51their experiences with all 3 of our department, and they were all positive except for the infrastructure at station 51, and it's just an update on the active shooter. If there was one at Adams middle school that was not a we actually have not drilled that Adam's not a full yet.

1:45:07We've only looked at it so if somebody drilled there, it wasn't us, and I would entirely agree with you. The outreach would have to be very expensive.

1:45:16The drill that we participated in was not in the region. and

1:45:22if I don't, I don't know who would have drilled there, but it it wasn't elsewhere to our department, and if we do take any action there will definitely reach out to the neighbors and the the ground to school for the right in front of it.

1:45:35Oh, thank you very much.

1:45:37Congratulations again.

1:45:39Eric Saylors: Thank you.

1:45:41Oh, Dr. Chief, I have a couple of questions and a request. Could we get a copy of your Di guidance, so that we understand

1:45:52what you are working towards in your department? I think that would be really helpful for us to to just get a chance to read that as we contemplate other di resources for our city and for for our Council.

1:46:07So if you could send that to us, that would be great.

1:46:10Absolutely. I I'll send it up to the city manager.

1:46:14Yeah, I think it's wonderful that you are really focused on that and

1:46:19our our first to the gate.

1:46:21To do that, I do.

1:46:25Councilmember fidelity took my question about how are you going to recruit youth that are women that want to be part of this program, and I appreciate the comment about the public Safety building. I think that If we want our public safety staff, fire and police to look like our community

1:46:44and be equitable, we need to do better than a pink powder room and call that a changing room and lock a room for all of our women that work for our city.

1:46:55So also

1:46:57how how is the coordination going? I keep hearing about

1:47:03additional groups that are doing fire, safety, and I'm. A little concerned that there's not. They are not all going through a central point, so

1:47:11as you discuss coordinated training with Albany and Berkeley, do you also talk about other citizens efforts? I understand there's now a a wildcat fire safe group.

1:47:24and I know that they've reached out to some of our local folks, but it feels like there's there's a great momentum, but I also don't want us to have overlaps and inconsistent communication if everyone's not coordinating. I was wondering if you had heard of that group, and if they've reached out to you.

1:47:44Eric Saylors: I have not heard of that group. They Haven't, reached out to me the 2 primary groups I deal with our keep, our Cerrito fire safe, which is a fantastic local group, very dedicated citizens, and then the Emergency Preparedness Committee and Kansing 10.

1:48:00Those are the 2 that I interact with regularly. If we do form a fire wise group, and else

1:48:09Eric Saylors: so we know about it. But we haven't as of yet.

1:48:14Thank you.

1:48:16Any final comments. Okay.

1:48:19Thank you very much. Great. Thank you.

1:48:25Okay. 3 departments to go. and next up is please Chief Paul Keith.

1:48:34Thank you.

1:48:38Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm. Paul Keith, your chief of police

1:48:42here tonight to talk about our 2022, 23 highlights, and also our focus for the new fiscal year. So to start off with this talk about our current staffing matrix. Right now

1:48:54you can see the highlighted areas or areas in which the Department currently has vacancies when it's highlighted it doesn't mean that I have 13 vacancies, a police officer, but it does mean that we hold it. Carry some vacancies at that rank.

1:49:07so as of right now. We have 5 sworn vacancies and one non sworn vacancy in the form of our community Service officer. It's a dramatic improvement compared to last Year's staffing Situation Going into a new fiscal year with only 5 vacancies

1:49:25is a tremendous improvement over how we did last year. So let's talk about it, because that is, in fact, one of our highlights for 2223. So we hit a high of 13 vacancies last summer

1:49:38in our sworn positions.

1:49:40and our staff did a tremendous job recruiting replacement officers training them up to be able to hit the street and putting them out there.

1:49:49So we train 14 new police up. New police officer ranked employees over the course of 15 months.

1:49:57If you think about our patrol division, we have 16 police officer, rank people, and patrol, or a team of them

1:50:05have less than a year and a half on. So I want you to think about that as we talk about issues like training and development that is going to continue to be a major focus for us going on into the next year.

1:50:19So along with training. we also developed some department of retention programs.

1:50:25Hiring replacement employees is not the solution to long term health and a department. You have to also make sure that you're creating an environment that people want to stay in that people feel appreciated and that people feel that they can get personal growth out of.

1:50:38So we started a number of employee of attention programs. We changed some policies around leaves to make it easier for officers to take time away from work created some retention. Incentives

1:50:49like snack services, dry cleaning for uniforms. Gym Memberships also improve employee health.

1:50:56The City Council reviewed the existing contract and reopened negotiations with our main bargaining unit, and really made some attractive changes to their contract with, absolutely helped us with our retention goals.

1:51:13and we also started bringing back specially assignments for career growth, and that's kind of continuing on in the current fiscal year, we're opening up positions and detectives.

1:51:23We're opening up a traffic position. We're also opening up our creating liaison officer position

1:51:29and in the last year another focus for us. It was a challenge, I would say, on one half that traffic enforcement really lagged last year, when I say it went out 25. It's 25% of nothing. I mean. We had 300 tickets issued in 2,021

1:51:47partially due to the pandemic, partially due to staffing challenges. We should about 400 last year already. In the first 4 months of this year we've issued 400 traffic tickets, so we surpassed

1:51:59all of our traffic Enforcement activity for last year in the current year. These are officers are getting back out there. They're addressing dangerous driving, trying to make an impact on traffic safety and town.

1:52:09we think bringing back a traffic officer is going to help tremendously, and our ability to target specific problems and neighborhoods. So we're really looking forward to getting that back up and running.

1:52:22So let's kinda talk more about our focus in this upcoming fiscal year.

1:52:26So the 3 areas of focus that are on this slide were developed by our command Staff and Sergeant group at an offside department planning meeting that we held in November.

1:52:37So our goals are to increase employee retention. to use technology, to improve police operations. to enhance community safety by reducing crime

1:52:46crimes. The last one, because I feel like that's the bottom line. Our job is to make an impact on crime, and El Cerita

1:52:52let's start at the top.

1:52:54Increasing employer. Attention is not only getting replacement employees, so that our shifts are staffed appropriately, and people are sharing the workload.

1:53:02but it's also making sure that our officers feel valued and important to our city. So, my officers, that my goal for the rest of my career is that they know that they're valued, and that they play an important role in the safety of our community. That's my number one priority. For basically now, until the end of my career.

1:53:19one of the things other than continuing our retention programs in the current year is to get our special assignments back up and running.

1:53:27So that would be the P. Dela. On officer I discussed, as well as our traffic Enforcement officer, also opening up those positions and detectives and opening up training for ancillary assignments, things like drone operators.

1:53:40Crime scene investigators, crisis, negotiators, our officers that would be part of the joint Swat team with Richmond.

1:53:48them all of those other our instructor cadre all of those other assignments that add depth and interest to a person's job. Our goal is to get people their minimum training and then start adding on with the extra things that really make

1:54:03the job interesting and add kind of long-term value to their personal growth

1:54:08in the realm of technology this year you approved a contract with a license Plate Reader Camera Company

1:54:15to install cameras throughout the city. We are convinced that that is going to help us deter crime and also help us to investigate crimes when they do occur.

1:54:26We're also exploring other aids in the New Year, including software based analytics and cell phone evidence systems.

1:54:33and we're with the reintroduced section of the pre liaison officer. We want to leverage our social media presence better in the New Year. When we talk about recruiting.

1:54:44We've done a really great job of recruiting, a diverse workforce and life, experience and language, skills and all. You know, all the metrics of people's, backgrounds. We have a wonderfully diverse department, but I acknowledge that one of the areas that we need improvement is our recruiting of women.

1:55:02Part of what we want to achieve with social media is to really use it as a tool to show the the variety and the interesting job that being a plea, Elsie to police officer is

1:55:14to make sure that we're hitting people and kind of all the things that interest them, and we have Sh! We we do kind of have an idea in the police world that men kind of tend to be attracted to some parts of the job, and women sometimes are attracted to a different part of the job. That just seems to be some of the observations that law enforcement leaders have made over the years. So we want to make sure that we're developing a recruitment strategy that hits all those categories for perspective candidates.

1:55:44When we talk about like software and technology Aids, Some of these items are gonna be included in our budget

1:55:52flock is an example. There's gonna be a general fun portion of flock. This proposed in the budget. There's also gonna be some grant funding that funds flock as part of our budget.

1:56:02Some of these items are not necessarily going to be included in the budget, but are going to be a big part of the work we're doing in the next year. So i'm going to talk about those in a moment after we talk about community safety. I just wanted to put that out there as a teaser to think about.

1:56:15So we talk about enhance community safety by reducing crime. That's really the bottom line of what our job is about

1:56:20this year. Our primary focus is on vibrant crime

1:56:24driving over the influence, investigations, vehicle theft and the theft of vehicle parts.

1:56:30and of course, the big one in California organize retail crime.

1:56:35We want you to be a vibrant, thriving, and prosperous community. We know that it must be safe for our residents, our business, our visitors, and our businesses for this to happen.

1:56:44License, Plate reader, cameras are a part of that also developing enforcement strategies. That target those particular crimes is also very important.

1:56:53We have so many new officers as an example when it comes to Di, that a lot of them still

1:56:59have a big training need for how to go about doing intoxicate, you know, driving early influence investigations.

1:57:06It's not just as easy as you know, going out there and stopping cars. So really things you have to look for. There's investigative clues that lead you to believe somebody is drunk and driving.

1:57:15So that is going to be a big part of our training plan and the current year

1:57:19we're we're really planning to leisure leverage our camera system to make an impact on the property related crimes.

1:57:28So some things to expect in the New Year. One of the things that certainly resonated with police is that we want to try to find some other funding sources for our license plate reader, camera system.

1:57:40So we're in the process of putting together a grant application underneath the organized retail crime grant offerings that the State currently has

1:57:50to fund

1:57:52license plate reader camera systems in future fiscal years

1:57:57to funds, some software analytics programs to fund a detective position dedicated to organized retail crime

1:58:04and to fund some evidence aids and the investigation of organized retail crime.

1:58:09Most particularly. There's there's programs out there where you can

1:58:13plug a cell phone in and get all the data out of the cell phone. That type of aid is really important when you're looking at organized retail crime, because the 2 things that make organized retail prime work are cell phones and cars.

1:58:25So if we have cars from the cameras, and we can get cell phones the other way. We can really make the connections between the different people perpetrating the crime.

1:58:35So most of the things in our general fund which you'll see next month are continuing operational funds.

1:58:41But we do have some special requests for some basic building improvements.

1:58:47I mean realistically, one of the things it's a challenge for attracting women applicants is the state of our building. Yes, I don't want to, you know, beat it into the ground, but that that certainly is a a challenge. When the facilities

1:59:00are not equitable, it creates, you know it creates, challenges to say this is, we value you as an employee, but you've got kind of substandard conditions you have to work with. That's

1:59:12that is a really big drag on our recruitment of women applicants.

1:59:17So we we have some things that are maintenance for our building to try to

1:59:22address some of the deferred maintenance that we have.

1:59:26but most of our special projects are coming out of special funds. In the next year we're proposing that so out of our asset forfeiture fund we're planning to fund the continuation of our employee retention programs

1:59:39out of our band into vehicle abatement fund. We're planning on funding a future parking enforcement. Program

1:59:47So this would be a system that uses license plate reader cameras to enforce time zones in the city. and it would also work with a parking permit system that the city has yet to identify and implement. But we want to start identifying the funding for that, and we have funding in abandoned vehicle abatement for that type of use

2:00:10in our costs Grant Fund. We intend to find a radio upgrade project.

2:00:14quick background. The State has passed a couple of iterations of laws that require encryption of police communications. So the most recent version of the laws around it require a main channel that's unencrypted. Anybody can listen to.

2:00:29and a secondary channel. This supposed to be used for all communication, involving someone's personal identifying information. So, in order to accomplish that

2:00:40all departments in the State have to have their radios upgraded for us. That's to the tune of about 150 to $160,000

2:00:48to reprogram the radios.

2:00:51So it's a lot of money. We have money in our cops, grant to account for it, and it would be an appropriate use of the funds. But that's something you'll see going forward. You'll also see a chunk of our flock Alpr. Funding out of the cops, Grant, as well. 50,000 out of the general fund 70,000 out of the cost Grant Fund.

2:01:10Okay, so that involves that concludes my summary of budget things for next year, and some of the things we were done last year.

2:01:18I'm. Available for questions. If any Council members have any.

2:01:22That's the member. Why, singer, Thank you, chief, for the that great presentation, and I would just like to say I had the opportunity to meet a former

2:01:31on Sunday who fought that I, chief, was a woman, so I mean, if it's on with the imagination. Yeah.

2:01:42she was talking about the you introduce me to. That's right. That works right, though, next to you. But Anyway, it's not important.

2:01:50One thing that you talked about, and I think you may go into employee retention. He he talked about the diversity of our of our force. And you know, just for the benefit of our public, we do actually have one of the most diverse voices

2:02:05in contrast to the county I've I've had the opportunity to sit with a lot of them in the briefing room. Have my Hill Street Blues moment, and you know they're coming from different places. We have people who are traveling to work from Santa Rosa. We have people who are traveling from back to there, and they're very intelligent. Also.

2:02:23I think I've had conversations with yourself and the small town chief, and also your chief, Scott in San Francisco, and you both kind of said the same thing about this new generation of police officers who are coming with. You know. I know my cousin came into our department. He came with a debris in criminal justice.

2:02:40and how a lot of them have a lot more about equity and and compassion. And I was very

2:02:47impressed with the the way to go into in a way that a lot of our residents are not even to in tune right with the lot of the blind spots and their equities in our city or public safety and doing that. So I I just wonder when we've talking about employee retention.

2:03:05how I know we don't really have a

2:03:07a community safety sports. But how are we actually implementing that and allowing them to be the ones that are front facing as far as being the community? That's what i'm thinking of how we operationalize, and that's that smartness, that empathy that they are coming directly into our partner with, so that we can be even better as far as doing community policing.

2:03:32So why Don't, we ask to do with our department culture? Just a side note on just a a diversity metric.

2:03:39So in our department there are 9 languages other than English that are spoken. We have 15 multi legal employees. That language skills is one of those

2:03:50one of those skills that we look for and really focus on when we're hiring new employees.

2:03:56Language skills often come along with the diversity and background, and they also provide a valuable tool to our department. That helps us connect with the different communities that we have in town. When it comes to front line officers. I think that a couple of cultural things that they also to a police department that are important, that we pass on to our officers are that we recognize the fundamental humanity of everybody in our community, whether they're victims, suspects, witnesses, or any other community member.

2:04:25and that when you go to to arrest the person or respond to a call that will recognize that this is somebody who may be having their worst day. It might just be the worst day of the week. It could be the worst day of the of the year. It could be the worst day of their life, and that we need to handle the situation with appropriate respect and compassion.

2:04:43So our policing strategy is to put our officers at the forefront of our community connections. Community policing, in my opinion, can't go through one person you can't have. This is our community place in person, and everything goes through them.

2:04:58It really has to be. Every officer taking ownership of the connection with community, and also the problem solving that goes along with helping residents. Neighbors solve the problems that are plaguing their particular part of town.

2:05:10So when we do things like National Night out the point where the the program is to get our officers out there, talking to people and getting people in situations where they get to meet an officer in a non enforcement environment.

2:05:25Nothing's at stake. They're not here to write a ticket. They're not here to take a report. They're just here to to talk about the things that are important in our town from the police side, and to hear and talk about the things that are important in the town from our community side.

2:05:38For me. That's one of the most important parts of a outreach strategy is making sure that we're creating moments that are. There's no stakes in them.

2:05:47so that our officers can recognize that our residents are just like their numbers back at their home.

2:05:54and our

2:05:56our residents can recognize that our police officers are just human beings, just like them as well. And some of them are, you know, maybe on the other side.

2:06:06But that's kind of the point of our of our community outreach strategy.

2:06:11I will tell you that one of the great strength is our of our department is our youth, you know, like youth, can be seen as a bit of a liability. There's a lot of people that need to be trained back. There's a there's a lot of in location of the organizational culture that has to occur.

2:06:26but on the other side the youth of our officers. They're coming in, and they've gotten the same experience as you know, life experiences as the people that we find protesting injustices in our communities as well. They're that same demographic. They're that same age group, and so they connect.

2:06:44You know, so much better than you know. A a 50 year old cop might try to connect with the 20 year old, you know. There they they understand it had similar life experiences, and I think it gives them such a great perspective on the profession, and about how the professions changed over time, and really how the profession needs to continue to change.

2:07:04I don't think I've had a single person. Well, I was just going to go back. I've had 15 cops I hired last year. One was a captain. None of them said, oh, I just want to keep the losing the way it is forever. You know. They all said that I would, ran on the the better, and I I can prove the connection between the cops and the community. We serve. A 100% of them said that not a single one didn't say that that is where they're all authentically coming from.

2:07:28I mean, your department is super young. It's super popular, and about people of tell us, or whatever you are doing, as far as using them. That's how i'm going to generate, though, and close with it for this. But this is why.

2:07:38and you know you. You've done a You've done a good job, but I think it's really serve in the city. I do. I'm moving on the question as a prescription question as we we're doing more i'm channeling up and down the the parking situation. But I want to ask you the question in reverse, because one thing that i'm definitely seeing, especially in a place like nightfare, which is kind of sprung up in a place where there wasn't as much housing in a place where I think there's like permanent, it supposedly permit parking

2:08:06on the side of that building. I mean, of course, we don't have the the officers on hand to really police that i'm not saying that we need to start making money on tickets, but it would be different. But what is your what are your perspective for that man? This may be a public works Question. I don't know

2:08:20that may have to change as we are continuing to build more housing, and these could be the parking situations, I mean regulations are going to change up and down San Pablo Avenue.

2:08:29So I know that public works as a transportation analyst specialists that is tasked with working with Bard in particular, and some grant money to develop a parking plan for town.

2:08:43Elements of that plan are going to include, you know, electronic permitting rows for residents to get permits. I know that a boot focus is finding ways that people who live in denser housing like a partner buildings can qualify for parking permits as well. There's some blind spots, I think, and the current regulations around that.

2:09:03So they're coming over the new parking plan that really should help with that. So we want to have a a mixture of, you know, things available for visitors when they come to shop or visit, and all Cerrito. We want to make sure that there's street parking available to residents.

2:09:18and we want to make sure that our enforcement is done evenly across the city and not done more on one part of the community and less on the other. So there's a lot of moving parts to it

2:09:28for me. I see that the future is an automated future where we have cars that have automation systems in place, so that our parking people can be more effective and cover more ground.

2:09:38We haven't settled on a particular system or a particular scheme in the city yet, but I think that's really gonna start coming together this year because it's under my that the Bart project is coming, and that more development will be happening at the North End, and we move to the member and

2:09:54and develop a plan to account for that.

2:10:12Okay. thank you.

2:10:16So I think you your master's degree right? It's only a master chief.

2:10:21Thank you, Chief. I appreciate the presentation. It's funny. It. Remember, last year we had a organized group of folks who are very critical of how we were using our police budget, and it's, I think, very telling that you know

2:10:37it is nowhere to be seen, and I think that is a really of community values. Our police department. I hope that all the folks know that, and we, as i'm, sort of licing or play out an incredibly diverse group of peace officers who are really trying to do the right thing.

2:10:54And I appreciate the leaning into technology because I think what a lot of people on the outside Don't understand is that these technology tools are some of the ways how we can combat systemic racism from profiling.

2:11:08and how it is that we are approaching folks that we can use more data than decision making our technology technology perfect.

2:11:15No, like we are so much closer to getting to a space where we can fully address crime. And I think that that's ultimately it doesn't matter where you are in society. It is so important that

2:11:27it's fine and packs everyone, and it is but, as you put it. There, we're saying someone's life.

2:11:33and also thank you for highlighting grant opportunities because they are out there. And I think El Cerito is really the perfect department. When we think about how the State is funding these things, you know elsewhere, we are a small department in a really big metropolitan area, and we need support because we can't do it all on our own.

2:11:51would say we have the newly, because there's things that would make us more effective.

2:11:56We have the crime. So we just have to combine that together in an attractive package for the people that review it. But yeah, I agree with you. I think that

2:12:06we ought to make a really competitive argument for some grant funding, especially around organized retail crime, and we're going to do our best. Hopefully. We have the support with our our Grant

2:12:17consultants who are making that happen for us because those grants are out there, and a question about the community liaison officer. You refer to it in a few different times. But if you can kind of succinctly describe what what that role is.

2:12:31and how will they be used? And what would our community see in the benefit of having a community liaison officer?

2:12:37So this officer is intended to act as a contact person for groups like neighborhood watch groups.

2:12:45chambers of commerce, business business groupings, like maybe the business owners on the south side in the theater district

2:12:54for entities like schools.

2:12:57so that they have kind of a one person contact it doesn't mean that the community lays on officers a person who does everything, but they're basically they they help coordinate all that stuff happening. If a neighborhood watch group wants to have an officer talk at their neighborhood watch meeting, then the Clo helps set that up

2:13:16helps provide them resources in advance, so that they're prepared for the meeting.

2:13:20Thecl officers also plays a a kind of a Pio junior role

2:13:26helps put out information about the department helps develop department reports.

2:13:31Really, one of the places that we want to see the Clo to use is that we have recognize that we can do a better job with the schools in our town.

2:13:41Unfortunately, we no longer have a school resource officer contract that really created a robust connection between the department and the schools that we served.

2:13:50We want the Clo to play that role of outreach to the different principles. We're really kicking up our school site security this next year we're going to be starting off the year doing site surveys of each of our schools and basically generating some reports for them about security vulnerabilities that they may or may not have.

2:14:10and we want to be a more inter integrated part of the different things they do during the year, whether it's sporting events, drills, training, opportunities for students and staff.

2:14:22So those are kind of some of the package of roles that the Clo ought to be playing in the New Year. Thank you for highlighting that. That role is also going to be engaged with the schools, because that was my next question, and it's the thing that no one wants to think about and talk about. But it's unfortunately, what we're seeing on the news, and it's is really

2:14:41and and also just the amount of guns that were founded on the regal high. These are all very real, and these are our children who are in these schools. So it's like a very sad state of affairs. But that's why we're really glad that we have the dedicated folks the Department to help for these unthinkable and UN unthinkable.

2:15:01I think it was like the click word

2:15:03unimaginable scenarios that is becoming. Mmm! Someone that's really unthinkable. At this point. Yes.

2:15:10we're trying to increase our preparedness for it and increase the the readiness of our schools for an event. Should it happen. Yeah, I'm tired of seeing the flag at half

2:15:20mass. It's really it's hard. These are really terrible times. So thank you for all that you do. I appreciate it

2:15:27really. Thank you. Thank you, Chief, and thank you. I appreciate your retention here, and we we do have an incredible diverse force here, and most of us have been to this wearing in, and it's just

2:15:42I I don't see. Yeah, recruitment problems. But I think the retention hopefully, what we've agreed to in our

2:15:50our salary issues will help retain folks here just offhand a not counting on staffing issues. What's the biggest budget request we're going to be seeing in the next.

2:16:01Thank you. Well, we're still who ran on what the final budget looks like. I would say that there is a significant chunk of money to continue a marketing contract that we started last year for recruiting.

2:16:17We are intending to still try to work with that company. It's, Cps, Hr. Or marketing for our police officer positions. So there's a chunk of money in that zone. There's also a chunk of money and training as well to train up these officers

2:16:32and some of the things that the city manager and I are talking about is we're getting closer to the budget are what is the proper allocation for things like advanced software for analytics.

2:16:44Is it in the budget this year? Is it to try to move forward with a grant to fund that? And then.

2:16:51you know, see where we are at mid year. So there there are a lot of asks right now that we're really trying to see if there's the money for. So what are you going to see in your final version? It may just be a continued operational ask.

2:17:06with some extra money for building maintenance and some extra money for training some extra money for recruitment. Or it may be an ass that has a person and software and is a more robust increase.

2:17:20Okay. you would just a few of the things that we were that I was interested in big involving equity. But what do you believe is your biggest challenge

2:17:32going forward as chief in the city with equity, diversity.

2:17:36Well, I think that my goal of making sure our officers know that they're appreciated and valuable. That will also continue to be a big challenge for us. It's. It's important for me to create a workplace that

2:17:52demonstrate that, but it's also compelling for officers in the long run. There's officers that really enjoy their time here, but they sometimes feel that you know just the experiences that are available to them are too limiting for their personal grow. So we're we're trying to be creative to create these other opportunities for people.

2:18:11and it takes retention to make those things happen because we have to have the people that have put into them.

2:18:18But I think that'll be kind of our big challenge over the next, You know, 3 to 4 years is to take this momentum with hiring, and where it's got us, and then, you know, Continue that into the development of our employee, and we move to make that a big focus.

2:18:33And and you mentioned training will be part of that increased training. Can you specify what that

2:18:39might be right now the increased training cost is kind of modest in the budget. It's only about 10%, but I think it's important for Council to understand that there's a lot that goes into training or an officer beyond the basics.

2:18:54There's things like Di Enforcement training special schools for that radar and lidar school so that people can do traffic enforcement effectively. Basic collision investigative schools that they don't teach in the Academy things like patrol rifle, which is a central part of police equipment that they don't receive training on in the Academy.

2:19:14There's there's hundreds of additional hours of training for those 14 employees. If you imagine every rifle school is a 24 h class.

2:19:23and then multiply that out by 14 people who need that class. That is a lot of training. So getting people up to speed and doing it in a way that doesn't disrupt all the operations it's going to be focusing on just if there's any equity, you know, pampering down on

2:19:43an event, diversity, training with traffic. You're you know you you mentioned You're increasing traffic

2:19:50that involves some ethnic issues. some equity issues, or is there training involved any of those

2:19:59sensitizing our cops. You know there's been a lot of study over the years of the impact on traffic focused officers and what their outcomes are from their tickets

2:20:12and what they found for dedicated traffic officers whose primary job is addressing moving violations. So that's things like speeding, running red lines running, stop signs driving with a cell phone in your hand those types of violations that the demographics of the people that they stop and the outcome

2:20:31very closely reflect the communities in which they're doing the Enforcement when they're focusing on things that are moving violations. So while there would certainly be more people getting tickets. We don't believe that it will necessarily result in an inequitable outcome.

2:20:46We do look at the outcome from our stops every year on an annual basis, and during the year I you know, I check to see how's the year going? Are we on track. and and we now have an additional tour that tracks all stops across the board. That's through the race and Identity Propiling act.

2:21:04So I think our members are probably live online right now. They went up. I think, mid April.

2:21:10and what we see is that typically in the self initiated stops the highest group that receives tickets or is stopped when officers are making the decision themselves are white residents, followed by Hispanic. We're sorry white people, followed by hispanic people, followed by black people. Those are the 3 big categories.

2:21:30You know the big 3, the the top 3 most ticketed groups, and the Asians are fourth.

2:21:35Yeah. Asians tend to be free. I don't want to leave you guys out. Okay. I was just going off the top 3. The the law also

2:21:47has additional categories as well. So it is interesting. So you can kind of break it out. It's a little challenging, but you can get, you know, calls for service out of there. You can get stops out of there, and it does paint a picture.

2:22:01Thank you, and I just want to.

2:22:04Well congratulate you on. Maybe that's not the right word, but thank you for your efforts on the retail theft, because

2:22:11it's not getting better, and that needs to be a point where it does. My wife just mentioned. Have you been to safeway lately, and you even have to ask a clerk over to get toothpicks. Everything's locked up, and it's just not a normal way of doing business. So thank you for that.

2:22:26We want it clear that else is not the place to come and do that. So we're with cameras and directed enforcement. We're gonna try to, You know. We will reinforce that environment. Thank you, Chief.

2:22:37Thank you, Chief. I I appreciate all your work. Question regarding right now with with the leak of California cities. We are saying, no. What can we do to to stop the drug dealers that that are here and and dealing with Fentanyl, and and then drugs like that. We we see this as the number one

2:23:03epidemic that that we're seeing in small cities and large cities. And what can. What is the police department? What are your plans? On making sure that we wipe this out in Elsa Rita?

2:23:17So one of the measures that we took in response to the proliferation of Fentanyl, was equipping all of our officers with

2:23:25not a can which is a a drug that helps reverse the effects of an overdose.

2:23:30We get a few of those a year where officers are applying our can, bringing somebody back from the edge of an overdose

2:23:36on the drug dealer side. I personally think one of the you know, the best impacts we can have is

2:23:45commercializing and normalizing the sale of marijuana. I think that that takes, you know, a big chunk out of what organized

2:23:55drug focused crime is about, so the more that we can normalize that and get people buying it from stores this front. They're from reliable manufacturers, and just like a normal part of what we do. I think that that's important on the

2:24:10the other drug side. You know the the things that I would consider hard drugs like methamphetamine cocaine heroin. It is nice to be able to focus on the dealer, but the most common people who come across are the users. So, in contrast to county the da is made, has given filing guidelines for drug users.

2:24:30so that you have to be arrested, you know, at least 3 times in the county before they'll consider charging you with the crime for drug possession or drug use. So in the past

2:24:41we might have. We might find a drug, user and we might work with the Da to say, Can we get information about the drug deal with the head of the drug user in exchange for you know something that the da offers on the case. That's really off the table. Now, with the way that cases get charged, so it's hard to get to the dealer level. In a lot of these cases.

2:25:01you know. The the tragic part is that when we get to the dealer level it often involves somebody's debt.

2:25:08because people will buy a tainted product. They'll use it at home. They'll both end up overdosing. One of them will die as a result of the overdose, the other one will live.

2:25:18And now that person is actually motivated to give up the information on the drug dealer because it resulted in their friend's death. So it's it's hard to it's harder to get to the drug dealer level and just around drugs. In general there's less prosecutorial focus on it.

2:25:34So it it is. It's a challenge. It's an absolute challenge. Now, in El Cerito. We certainly don't have the same level of street level drug dealing going on. However, there are populations, particular homeless population. We've had a couple of people that are homeless, have to get revived through Narcan, so we know it's out there.

2:25:53It's just not as prevalent as you know. Our Our city across the bay is an example, right? Right? I yeah living on the north side. I see this every day, and then walking my dog and and i'm just so

2:26:05frustrated that the system is broken, and that we cannot stop these people from going up killing themselves. So there's a lot of mental illness, a lot of bad behavior, and a lot of people that are strung out and want to continue their habits. So they go steal because they don't have any money, and then we're just seeing this around and around around in circles and and residents and and people in California are tired, and I know that there are legislators in Sacramento that

2:26:35like to work on getting rid of the dealers. Number one, because that's all part of organized crime to see people strung out like this where they where our police and fire have to give them that that special medication, Narcan.

2:26:50You know it's happening here, and and I see it every day at Baxter Creek all the way to the North side, and that empty lot

2:27:01when I get my car washed at at the local car. Wash there, and I see people wandering there aimlessly, and you look like they they look like they haven't slept in in days.

2:27:12They're looking for drugs, and and there's that camp out there that you know. You see people riding bikes around there, and and so there's a lot of of drug doing going out there, and we can't do anything about it, and that's the frustrating thing as local elected officials. The system is broken. So i'm hoping that you know in in the future that that you know cities can help in legislate good

2:27:41legislation to get these drug dealers out of town, or you know I know there are looking at what we can do, we

2:27:49for sanctuary cities, and everyone knows who the drug dealers are, but they can't do anything because they're living in cities that are classified as sanctuary cities. So the problem that we see in San Francisco and Oakland we're we're seeing our own. You know a lot of people from the homeless community that we have no for years here, that that are all strung out, and we can't help them, and they refuse our services. So again, seeing this

2:28:18going around in circles, and and nothing is happening. I never do see the frustration every day, and our fire department as well. But you know our our core group that have to see the same people over and over again.

2:28:32because they're they refuse services. And and so i'm. I'm hoping that you know we we can all work on this together and work with the county to make sure the county does their job, and instead of they're, you know, leaving it up to cities who are on the front line. And

2:28:56and it's basically not your responsibility as as a police officer in our our department to take care of the the social inequities and and and the the mental health issues that that

2:29:12are the responsibilities of the county. And I know we have larger cities here than in our area that are trying to do this on their own. But listen. This is not a city responsibility, and I know we will do what we can

2:29:26if we have extra money to help them out. But you know, and let's let's work with the county and our county supervisor, and contrast to health to to work on this together, because, you know, we're seeing a lot of our new residents moving in

2:29:44from San Francisco and Oakland because they had in the of the anarchy and the bad behavior, and the crime, and and people in Chinatown. They are afraid to get out of their homes, to go shopping to see small business owners ruined and lost all their money because of smashed and grabs.

2:30:03and they don't want to tell their insurance companies that they've been ripped off again. And these are the same people that are committing these crimes over and over and over again. So

2:30:15you know, as as as someone who

2:30:18once the city and and cares about our our residents, especially our our seniors and children, to to walk down the alumni Greenway and see this mess

2:30:31that we see every day, because government is ineffective in Canada's done. I'm i'm they're on, you know. I'm. I'm. I'm

2:30:41because this tour is a broken system. So you know you've heard it before. But you know, seeing what largest cities next door are doing, and and they're compounding the problem.

2:30:57and I don't want to see San Francisco. Bad bad decisions from San Francisco happen to you in contract cost because we're hiring them in the county. Then, when that's the truth, then we need to be honest about this.

2:31:13and and and not playing politics when it comes to taking care of our young people and people that are that have the need dealing with homelessness and drug addiction, and mental health is just. Let's help them, and so i'm. I'm. I'm clateful to the contract customers when I was chair of the Mayor's conference. It was a Republican mayor from the city of Walmart Creek that, said hey.

2:31:43the mayors, we want to do something, so thank you to the mayors. It didn't happen in this part of the county. It happened in the city of Wallet Great for, said we need to stand up to this and same Well, and so my rant about this is to see

2:31:59the same people over and over and over again that that you're helping all the time. So the we all know them by the first and last name. Some of them grew up here or attended else to read or high, and it breaks my heart to see them. I'm. In time of ground. So. But

2:32:16yeah, regarding the bicycle, the

2:32:21least so are you. Do you have that in your budget for for the future, because we have a lot of clients going on and be a lonely green way. We need to do tickets, or or those citations for people riding these. You know, these these electric bicycles who are speeding the mile. And and so we're getting a lot of, you know, issues dealing with.

2:32:47But yeah, generally we do a lot of the Greenway once again.

2:32:51So when it comes to police bicycles, I was just trying to do the math in my head. Of how many more hundreds of hours I have to add to 2 officer training to get a bicycle school in there as well.

2:33:02We, I I would say that you know as a city. Maybe we're reaching that point where we're getting close to revising kind of the the rules for the use of the green line. I know I've heard a couple of public speakers come up here and say, hey, it's out of control on the the Green way, and people are driving their electric bikes.

2:33:20I know from experience that those things are capped out. I think it like 28 miles an hour about the speed that someone could go on their normal bike. So right now we're kind of in that room, or it's a courtesy thing, or maybe a lack of courtesy when someone goes flying by you.

2:33:35But we're not really with the is it a regulation issue yet?

2:33:39So you know, as a city where we move it there some additional work for us to say, let's look at the Greenway and decide, how do we really want this thing used. Do we have bifurcated areas for pedestrians and bikes? And if so, how are we? How are we working that out?

2:33:56I love the bike up and running. We have a lot of stuff to get people through to get to that point. It's a on the horizon. It's just not immediately on the horizon.

2:34:07I would love to get people into it this year. I just don't know if it's gonna be realistic with all the other training demands. Yeah, but hopefully in the future, and there'll be a let your bike, so I hope this will be allowed on the part of that.

2:34:18and we've been seeing a lot of bad behavior on the road. So i'm I'm: so it's a to have your police officer back and and they have more tickets, because it's been really ugly out there to see

2:34:33such a bad behavior and people speeding. And I know people that live off Sant Pablo Avenue event almost gotten run over. So yeah. So whatever we can do.

2:34:47speeding again and and traffic control and and traffic calming, and there that goes hand in hand with what Paul is trying to do and transportation here.

2:34:58But know that you know we're beginning to see the stuff that we see in Berkeley and Oakland every day, and and and to s beginning to see it here, and I was very, very frustrating.

2:35:11Thank you.

2:35:13So thank you for that great presentation. I did have a question about bicycle patrol, but Council Member came to ask it. I know that we have discussed this before, and always it's been having enough officers that you can devote to this, so I hope that we

2:35:31are approaching that critical number, because I think, having going back to Council Member Weis and your point of having that direct interaction with the public with our officers is always going to be really helpful and creating that sense of community. So bicycle tech has come so far I can't wait.

2:35:50because it'd be great to have officers out there on electric bikes that can still rapidly deploy to other parts of the city, too, so much better than

2:35:5918 years ago, when I was riding a boat and trying to go from the south end all over the north, and they cover somebody on a bike east west side of the hills.

2:36:10So I think that you know. I hope that that's something that we can work towards, because I think there are concerns on the All in the green way, and only way you can really sort of see what's going on is to be on the green way.

2:36:24I also am glad to hear that you're doing more speeding and traffic enforcement, because I know we've had concerns about speeding on Ashbury in front of the school, so I hope that that's something that can get addressed.

2:36:37I had a question. I think you've answered it in a certain way, but you know, in your kind of

2:36:45critical areas of of what you got done, and how you're approaching things. You don't talk much about culture, but it seems like there is kind of a distinct culture that you're creating. That's really positive. And I was wondering, you know, how do you convey that to all the officers?

2:37:01Oh, you know it comes with the just from the chiefs interview on. You know the things that we highlighted the the performances of our officers that we highlight. You know how we approach our training program.

2:37:16how we talk about the community that we serve.

2:37:19I mean, I think it kind of goes all the way through. Every department has their own culture, you know you.

2:37:25You go to some departments, and you know you'll never see anybody in the department. Laugh. You know they all take their job the utmost seriousness, and nobody smiles under any circumstance. And

2:37:37you know one of the things I like about the city. We've about the else through the police in particular is that you know we can laugh at ourselves. We can find the humor, the Joe, and the work that we do we don't think that you know we're just these perfect machines. You know. We recognize that we make mistakes, and you know we grow from them. So

2:37:54I I think it's that kind of, you know, thinking culture that goes through the organization. We try to uplift the people in our organization. They're gonna continue to push that out there.

2:38:05We we we promoted for Sergeances last year. So these are our officers who had a lot of time in our department. It's certain supervisor rules before.

2:38:14But we really we're careful with you. Promote because we want to make sure that they're gonna be that person to support the people on their team to understand that we're in a learning environment, whether we have brand new cops or whether we have veterans, it's a learning environment.

2:38:30So

2:38:31you know, I think, that it's all of those things. So. Yes, i'm a organizational culture in there. But question is one of those things that sometimes with seeds in the background for you. You don't really, you know, appreciate it until you're on the outside looking in.

2:38:44So I I think it's a lot of those things. We've had a really good people.

2:38:48I I, you know, given the sort of the recent examples about like Antioch, and how terrible that was. I think I really appreciate. You know the culture that you've created here, and I think that's that's really important to all of us in the city.

2:39:03So one other question is, how how how much training do people get for mental health issues? Because it seems like oftentimes the the first person to to interact with someone having an issue. A mental health issue is is an officer.

2:39:20And how how is that covered in this training

2:39:31to 24 to 30 at the more advanced level. We try to make sure everyone gets at least that 8 h. Initially, you know how to recognize the mental health crisis. And this is the this is Post Academy, so they get it in the Academy as well. But this is Post Academy training

2:39:47and we will also try to get officers more time, like. If the 24 h quote 24 h course. There's no kind of set understanding of how long that class has to be

2:39:57but like. I really have at least you know, any additional hours of specialized training.

2:40:01Little things that are kind of, you know, not necessarily focus for the police department anywhere, but something that relates to the city in the New Year is that the counties a through program as anyone anywhere, anytime

2:40:13is really growing, and it's effectiveness. They've got 15 teams staffed up. Now, as of the game of April. They want to try to get to 30 staffed up teams and competition with staff members from

2:40:24all the other counties in the bay area as well. They're all trying to hire the same pool of people, but they've got 15 teams. They're up to working from 8 in the morning to mid right now.

2:40:34It doesn't mean that they're available for every single call, but it is another resources out there. So you know, we're trying to also leverage those teams as well. When we have calls of people in mental health crisis, I hope that there's lots of training to coordinate with those services and core and other

2:40:52other resources as well.

2:40:57interconnectivity that needs to be established.

2:41:00And then just closing, I know that all the recruits had said that they wanted to work with dogs. How are you going to allow them all to work with dogs or retention? I I do like came in down. So I was just from to a of a one K 9 unit right now. We've been 10 a second camera in at the end of summer or fall.

2:41:23Right now. We're gonna to see what kind of dog that's gonna be. There's legislation up at the State capital. This being considered, that would make all dogs no bite dogs. I don't want to make any investments in a bite dog if they're going to be no bite dogs, and if it's a no bite dog, we have to figure out how. How's that animal going to play a role in our

2:41:43Enforcement strategy? So is it going to be a

2:41:47drug dog with a find a person dog, but don't bite them kind of dog we don't know yet. So we're we're so kind of evaluating where our canine program is going to go.

2:41:59But yeah, I that's so. This one of 2, or maybe 3 dogs, is. It's me to get 13 dogs. Thank you very much. It

2:42:07Oh, one more comment from Council Member talking to question, quick question regarding, I want to say thank you for you know, solving a crime. Your police department and and the the recent gang activity. Do we have any environment in our police department that just deals with

2:42:26gangs?

2:42:27We really don't have a dedicated gang person. We do rely a lot on our relationships at the regional police department, the open police department, the Sand Power police department where they have more home grown playing issues. They really help us

2:42:44put together connections between people. When we have a crime that involves a gang in our town. I think kind of the nature of organized criminal groups like that is really changed over the years and the focus of you know what these organized groups are focused on is changed as well. So that's where we will leverage our relationships with other departments. Okay, thank you very much.

2:43:05Thank you very much.

2:43:09Thank you. Thanks, Chief. At this time, I think. Madam Clerk, if we could take some public comment because we are approaching 90'clock. is there any public comments, or any of anybody raising their hands to speak, or any speakers.

2:43:28I don't have any cards in the room. If you on the zoom call would like to provide public comment. That would be the time to raise your hand. and you have one hand

2:43:54it. Okay, we did a couple of hands actually now. So i'll go to our first speaker, Cordel. I'm. Right then. Begin your time. Now

2:44:08cordell hindler: can you hear me, Harley?

2:44:09Yes, we can.

2:44:10cordell hindler: Yeah. So good evening. Mayor Moti. I'm. A Council members. I am Cuddell Hendler, and I am a rich and resident. So

2:44:18thank you, Chief Key, for that presentation. So

2:44:21and I was a, and I will let the record reflect that I was the one that had brought this a matter to you to the Council's attention about

2:44:29speeding along Ashbury, because it is getting to be a a concern, because because I got a lot of feedback from some of the surrounding businesses along the corridor, and they're saying

2:44:39people continue to speed every single day. So my my other wish list would be to have an officer right there on on that particular corner, like, you know, in the in the daytime that would be very helpful. So it's like

2:44:53cause that way, because we are because we're going to be in approaching summer at like in another month, and so I would hope that there will be a officer right there on that particular corner

2:45:03as we start the new school year off without a hitch. So that's that.

2:45:10My next speaker, Robin Mitchell Robin, you should be able to unmute him. Begin your time now

2:45:16Robin Mitchell: this is Robin Mitchell. Can you hear me?

2:45:19Yes, thank you.

2:45:21Robin Mitchell: Yes, you can hear me.

2:45:22It's speaking.

2:45:23Robin Mitchell: Okay, thanks. So. My name is Robin Mitchell. I'm a resident of El Cerito, and I put a written comment into submitted it today, but I wanted to just say it verbally, and I must say it's been a bit tedious to listen through 3 h of this before I could make a public comment. But anyway.

2:45:42so i'm a member of the Urban Forest committee. But these comments are made as a resident of El Cerrito. El Cerrito has an online inventory of city trees. It's easily accessible on the city's website this inventory contains approximately 10,000 trees. The last time this inventory was updated comprehensively, was in 2,013.

2:46:01Robin Mitchell: The city's current tree maintenance contract includes funding for the contractor to update the tree inventory. When they prune a tree, however, the number of trees that are updated in this manner is quite small compared to the total number of trees in the city

2:46:13mit

2:46:30cause 32 tree failures in our city. This number of tree failures is unprecedented according to our city arborus. Stephen Prey. Our current contractor is paid $4 per tree to update the information about it in the Tree inventory, extrapolating that out to 10,000 trees. That's a cost of approximately $40,000. I would urge the city to budget funding to update this inventory, starting with the 2024

2:46:55budget that you are currently considering. I understand that it may not be possible to allate allocate funding for the entire amount this year, but I hope that the city could commit to funding this update over the next few years. Starting this year.

2:47:08tree stress from climate change will only increase over time. So determining the health and structural integrity of our city street trees is critical and updating the tree. Inventory is the best way to evaluate the status of our city trees. Thank you.

2:47:22Thank you. Now, just quickly. Once we did receive it in public comment for this item from Robert Mitchell, Kathy Brier, and Jennifer Kite. and that information is posted on many supplemental materials, and it's this concluded request to speak at this time.

2:47:36Q.

2:47:41We have our next presentation, please

2:48:13Council members, and that is the same as public works directed. and I was trying to

2:48:25by clicking anything else.

2:48:36If you usually can do this, I have no idea what's happening. There you go. I have to press it harder.

2:48:42Well, good morning, good evening again, and thank you for the opportunity to present on the public. and

2:48:51so I

2:49:02landscapes, and so it management services, and

2:49:13that she was like, just head back to me. Traffic, See the and

2:49:19yeah, just attention to. For example. It's like, what are you?

2:49:25This dial currently consist of 2 divisions.

2:49:42what time? See here at some time.

2:49:48Okay?

2:49:58And then also sorry I've been told to. But so we have

2:50:04just recently restored the technical position. You did that at your your budget, and then we have a management assistant position that's been vacant for

2:50:17so definitely

2:50:20struggling with those vacancies. The larger division

2:50:24department is the operations and the Services division which operates out of their recycling and the corporation, and that's about 22,

2:50:37it cool.

2:50:38and with superintendent supervisors.

2:50:43and the

2:50:53superintendent and actually as a Friday of the third one. It's our expansion specialist.

2:51:02she it's my husband said to me the opportunity, and she said, she's served with this. I have a sleep over 20 years, so

2:51:15she's. Okay.

2:51:26So

2:51:27that

2:51:33station. So

2:51:37the more distance between you and the mic. It's hard to hear on.

2:51:43Okay.

2:51:46let's see. So just moving out to highlights, despite some vacancies, there are a lot of available accomplishments in the department that i'm excited to share with you all.

2:51:57Of course I didn't have been.

2:52:02I recap some of the

2:52:04outside a guys that we would secure about a

2:52:10so about any, about projects and programs, and the both the complete streets on the Channel Street, which is the largest one way, but also just with the facility enhance, for example, the building water heaters, and also the

2:52:28time that for the hillside natural area. another major accomplishment that I was very important to our community and the Council that was in several years, and she the update to the climate action plan, and that plan is going to provide us a robot to really do our greenhouse gases, and that it a climate change.

2:52:50It also includes a detailed inventory, the current science, and also important, the equity framework in terms of both outreach to our community and its developing strategies.

2:53:04the next

2:53:06that their accomplishment is also the tony objects in. I assume them, I said, the that that has been a major spike in the permits shoot to the tailor's just as other utility companies are doing infrastructure. The real projects. They have seen Spike. So

2:53:33seeing it too, and

2:53:35projects with yeah each other companies the next the accomplishment is set of accomplishments is the

2:53:44the last Year's adoption of I. I speak to you in the we've been implementing that that a short-lived climate, or

2:53:55as as as well as I, expand it through the audience and our E. The shaded franchise.

2:54:04a space monetary which had an

2:54:07it's for style and the I'm. Working between implement.

2:54:13We constructed several projects on the Rmt. Hardware replacement project about to complete the activity, pull the plastering project in coordination with with recreation, As you can see by now in town, we're doing the 2023 slow seal project. I you can't sit definitely. Today was a there was some rain delays. But today was a full day of.

2:54:41and then also then other urgent to the storm.

2:54:45In addition, we've designed the conclusion of the design for the art and to Park Clubhouse, and as you've heard in times the it's a bit of a trans or Oriented Conference streets and project

2:54:58about a $11 capital construction, and we are waiting for just my final trans approval, working very closely with Caltrans and Ctc California Transportation Commission Staff to get all the funding Omega for that project.

2:55:14In addition, we've continued our interdepartmental coordination efforts on on identifying encampments in on private top, on public public property and identifying

2:55:30it's the company safety hazards identifying resources for the individuals who are experiencing homelessness. We have update our standard operating procedures and our as a department on a core meeting. They clean up.

2:55:45Yeah.

2:55:47Another major accomplishment this year is just preparing for and responding to the major strong events that we had just this past few months. As as mentioned earlier today, we had a lot of

2:56:03public trees that failed. And so we have been responding to that. But we also distributed 2,000 sound box to our community, and did the proactive and and monitoring.

2:56:16Yeah, so it's.

2:56:19And our Finally, we, they related our program to pursue so claims for damages to city infrastructure and Management Assistant Eddie that did a great job, securing the tax of like 200,000. There's the cost to use one of those items that had been bought

2:56:39to you as the like. I'll i'llings back to the I'll tell you about guide where we're replacing it. Secure most of one of those costs.

2:56:54This moving off into our focus areas, and that we've been working on for

2:57:03the last a year to balance people given our broken seeds and just our our structure project not off, so we would like cool, so we can evaluate the structure of our department stacking levels.

2:57:16And one of the things we are looking at is how to boot. Our can be a really big strides in addressing the different meetings. And so that's part of that evaluation it's working strives to a. As we've heard from our on the the conditional facilities.

2:57:34And

2:57:35so we're looking at the the structure of our our our users our department to see how we can build our focus on that type of work

2:57:44and related to that or all this one really focus on on the on equipment

2:57:49and attention staff. And we're looking forward to the completion of the custom compensation study.

2:57:54So part of the you know, focus on deployments, and and it's been our on the City Council strategic plan goals. It is to develop a deferred maintenance, a plan for deferred maintenance. So my goal next year would be to develop a plan really assess at least the priority facilities develop a cost for it. Up to some of those assessments that have been in the recreational facilities as part of the training team like some recreation

2:58:25master plan, but not for that non recreational facilities. So I really want to focus on some higher priority facilities to turn the costs developing a 5 year, 10 year More than that plan to really start

2:58:38like the strides. And you know, pairing our facilities. And so that's a goal.

2:58:43Another goal is to bring our customer service and efficiency for our permits and encryption permits and and address our records with tension backlog by mostly implementing the technology that we have on hand, and the updates as needed to that are more public works, specific

2:59:02and updating some of our processes.

2:59:05our our our our focus for next year is to initiate an enhanced trash reduction plan forward study, and the private lab ordinance to comply with our new clean water, permit our requirements.

2:59:20and also to begin the development of a lot of rest Enforcement program buildings of that discharges and violation of our public Training Share Board.

2:59:30In addition, we. We have several plans that are in the works and and plan plans. So we're gonna to think of development of the climate, action and adaptation plan our storming master Plan the hillside, our Metro Air, fire, Resilience, and

2:59:48Laura's Conservation Management Plan and the local railway safety plan. The local mobile safety plan has been we are.

2:59:57That's the place to do for a few years, but it has to be done with coming in as requirements for Federal and keep that. I'm working with that enhanced and

3:00:08comprehensive safety. They're working very closely with the contra cost of transportation authority, and I complete all those. So it's apparent to get that done because it's really tied to

3:00:21Nature Federal funds as well as

3:00:29streets. By.

3:00:30So I've been struck several capital improvement projects, so I just like the complete streets project the Arlington Park

3:00:41project the access modifications side one prepares, and the he'll sign Natural and Science project that one.

3:00:54In fact, we continue compliance with the Sp. There's a lot of elements, too.

3:01:00And to that again, direction and post correct

3:01:03post collection services

3:01:10I can called. Is it tuition? And to your questions.

3:01:16Are there any questions from Council

3:01:21Council Member for this?

3:01:22Thank you for all that

3:01:26we see everywhere the city, and thank you for helping the staff

3:01:31representation. I appreciate that.

3:01:35Can I go over again? You've got some vacancies. and are you planning to replace any with all that work that you have to do. What's the plan for a replacement of Philly in for a new engineer, or whatever I've got you asked. So we're all excited. Actually, the is your own technical position that you just restored. We have interviews scheduled for

3:01:59next week this week on Thursday, so I think i'm excited. I think there's a very strong candidates there, and that will be but of being someone on board soon, the management assistant as well. We have a recruitment under way for that

3:02:15lots of applicants. So we're excited about that, though, because if we've been struggling with that's been working for a year, we've done 3 different types of recruitments is the associate engineer position. That's what we've struggled, but we're not a lot of a lot of agencies that are St. When we're going in there in positions.

3:02:35So we're hopefully that we are. We do have

3:02:41a small of polar candidates that were we we that were interviewing for that engineer position in a week. So hopefully that is successful, and the money for those 3 positions will be in the budget that we see.

3:02:55They are budgeted positions. They are budgeted positions. The last one that you was stored was it made here? Which is the technician we could go to recruit for that position.

3:03:08Your thoughts on equally your your department and what your goals are.

3:03:12Yeah. So I think as a department, of course, we strive for equity on and

3:03:18and on my large.

3:03:20with our large projects and finding efforts there, something that we incorporate into the scope of services that that we do like. For example, as I mentioned, the climate, action, and adaptation plan. The consulting thing that we chose actually had a very strong focus on equity from right the very beginning we do have demographics analysis, and then they

3:03:42make sure that when they're doing out groups that they're reaching the demographics of our population, and they'll adjust their scope to make sure they're reaching out and hearing from our community.

3:03:53And then, also, as they are developing strategies, they are looking at impacts to across our county.

3:03:59and then

3:04:01and then prioritizing the strategies that are equitable. So that's

3:04:06and on a prior level. That's what we do. And for example, they'll also be doing that for our local, locally safety, and there's gonna be an equity to it. Similarly, for projects large grants. When we apply to large plans very of is especially the transportation class. There's a

3:04:25I already was given given to underserved communities. Yeah.

3:04:29the Metropolitan Transportation Commission has identified equity priority communities, and that's used as you know, a criteria for selecting projects. I think there's a lot more that we need to learn and understand, so that we will. All are on more about ongoing and moving services

3:04:48that we're still on our communities. So I think that's that's where our next step is to be more consistent and no

3:04:59traditionally. And in in all the projects you do. Of course, Aba compliance is one of the big equity issues that you have to deal with. Correct. Janet would appreciate that. So Thank you.

3:05:12You

3:05:15me and for him.

3:05:18Thank you, Mayor. When

3:05:19Dr. Ortiz I could give you a really huge head by world, because I know how much you're doing with the staff impact, and we are so grateful. And thank you for your dedication and work because this this is a lot a lot.

3:05:35There's a lot. There's a lot, a lot, and this is a lot a lot, and you're doing it. So I really appreciate all the work that you're doing. My question

3:05:43is around some of the technology enhancements for encroachment permits and record retention. What does that look like? And how does that impact the public?

3:05:53Yeah, what that? What that looks like in terms of the encroachment is like you using the software that's currently being used for the building permits and making an online poll for encroachment. We haven't gotten to that step yet. And so we've been working with it and the

3:06:10the software or central square to get encroach improvements online as well. So that's the immediate. A very doable technology implementation for encouraging permits to be a module up and track it.

3:06:24Yes, it's it's it's a module within a track it that exists, and it just needs to be customized for encryption permits. And then, in terms of records, retention really building up what the Sydney clerk has done with Laser Beach. But we really have to focus now on getting a lot of record documents for public works like capital improvement projects really getting that online. And so it's easily available to staff as not on this a cloud based software, and to they're able to staff. And also we can more readily respond to records, requests.

3:06:59Excellent! Thank you so much again. You. I know how much you're doing so. I really appreciate all that you're doing. Thank you.

3:07:09Well, I also want to say thank you for all the work that you do. I think people don't realize how important your work is until something bad happens like the big storms, and I know that you're being proactive about cleaning out the storm greens and being prepared for that prevented a lot of other accidents. So

3:07:29you know, I'm, I'm very grateful that you guys are really on it all the time.

3:07:35I was gonna ask you about the Arlington guardrail, and I'm excited to hear that we got reimbursed.

3:07:40Are there other accidents that happen in town that that will have major reimbursements that that will help replenish the budget.

3:07:51What we have had the the typical infrastructure of damage is street lights along some Pablo avenue.

3:07:58and so we have been able to get a reimbursement for that. That can be 6 to $7,000 per street, right? And we've been successful in La, all, but much more than we have been in the past

3:08:11great.

3:08:12And also please give our best to to Laurentine. I will thank you so much that that's a loss to us. Yeah.

3:08:21Yup. Absolutely. Please wish her well, especially for me. Thank you.

3:08:31Thank you very much. Could we have our next presentation?

3:08:35Last, but not least.

3:08:37the department of fun.

3:08:42Thank you. Good evening, All of the Mayor and Council members. I'm. Chris Jones, your recreation director.

3:08:48Thank you for continuing the tradition of saving the best for last.

3:08:55Oh, I have to control this Don't. I

3:09:00all right.

3:09:01So you know, looking at our organization chart here, we're pretty fortunate that we only have one vacancy, one custodian right now, which we're back filling with contract.

3:09:14and we are actually recruiting for the assistant Recreation Supervisor, that you recently approved at mid year.

3:09:22But I think our chart kind of reflects just like the city as a whole. The recreation Department has been steadily recovering and expanding our programs and services as situations allow, and so starting full strength a few years back, at 23 positions, we went down to 18 positions during the pandemic.

3:09:42and now we're back up to 20, which is, which is great. At the same time responsibilities have been redistributed amongst staff

3:09:51and programs have been consolidated from 2 main centers into one. in addition to our childcare clubhouses.

3:10:01So you know, this chart represents a a a great team of individuals, along with up to 150 part time employees depending on the time of year, who provides

3:10:12whole gambit of services from the young infant getting into the pool for the very first time to older adults. It's some who are 100 plus years old, getting rides to important

3:10:26medical appointments and coming to our lunch program or getting a meal delivered in coordination with the county nutrition program

3:10:36and everything in between over the past year. 4 years we've had to really, literally, as you know, we invent kind of every the way. We did this us during the pandemic kind of just start over and then. Now we've been slowly building back up towards our new normal.

3:10:55and we are now essentially back at or exceeding pretty pandemic levels in terms of enormous and services provided.

3:11:02despite some areas that are still waiting to catch up due to staff as we staff up, or because we do have less program space.

3:11:12So an example of this is that in 2018 19.

3:11:16Before the pandemic. We processed over 85,000 transactions, so 85,000 somethings mostly registrations drop in, but also things like cancellations transfers schedule changes and stuff like that.

3:11:31And this year to date we've already surpassed that number. We at 87,000 transactions or just over 87

3:11:391,000 transactions, and we still have kind of our busiest season to go

3:11:46Total activity enrollments during the pandemic kind of peaked at 50,000

3:11:50in 2021,

3:11:53and most of those were actually laps home reservations, which you might remember from what kind of a hot topic during the pandemic

3:12:00this year today, with no rafts of reservations, we already have over 80,000 and counting activity environments.

3:12:08And finally, just what else this staff is delivering. Despite the closure of the midtown activity center, we are seeing steadily increasing amount of older adults in world in our programs.

3:12:22Since the beginning of this year we've had over 800 individual patrons doing 6,000 enrollments, mostly at the community center. and that number continues to grow, but it continues to grow in a in a different way. This is more of the active adults and exercise and enrichment programs.

3:12:43So we're seeing.

3:12:45you know, kind of a silver lining of being at the community centers that we're attracting.

3:12:48Maybe the next generation of of seniors.

3:12:58Okay, so highlights this year. I was just gonna kind of paint a broad picture here. Our highlights really reflect again the themes of rebuilding.

3:13:09focusing on financial sustainability and cost recovery and efforts to more efficiently serve our residents and and customers. He and me, Zeppelin so was reaching an agreement with Kensington to take over one of our empty modular buildings that used to have some nips in an activity center.

3:13:25And actually, if you notice the other one recently

3:13:29left. It's 5 year home on on Monday, and so we are done with that liability.

3:13:37We have a very successful fundraising effort, thanks to members here and some community members for to bring back the Fourth of July last year, and we're already hit the ground running this year with with good donations and commitments

3:13:55we've resumed in our rentals and events. And we're also trying to implement technology improvements to facilitate, increased and hopefully easier online transactions.

3:14:07And of course, you know we're great over support and appreciation of our residents and customers as reflected in the National Citizen Survey, and a very dedicated group of Parents

3:14:18Magazine, where we we'll see 26 best of country Costa counter awards for our youth programs. You know. I think this reflects the hard work of our staff, but also, maybe a little bit of a pandemic silver lining again, where people now value, they value parks, you know, as as a a resource during the pandemic, and I think that is continued now through a post

3:14:47and a post-pandemic valuing parts failing space, valuing community gatherings, and and so forth, so

3:14:55as we say, in our industry. Parks make life better

3:15:04in terms of our focus in our work plan for next year. You know it's we're really trying to continue to ramp up Our capacity to meet the public's demand

3:15:16in an efficient in an efficient and cost-effective manner that emphasizes customer service and community.

3:15:22You know one of the critical issues we're facing right now is recruiting and retaining part Time staff. which is currently our biggest challenge as we try to grow and maintain this high quality program.

3:15:35We're not offering, for example, nearly the number of swim lessons that we can, and that there's demand for because of lagging recruitment of Life guards and some instructors.

3:15:47We're also depend highly dependent upon expensive temp agencies, and our child care programs to

3:15:56maintain state mandated ratios.

3:16:01And you know, also, we could be probably providing more

3:16:06rides in our Para transit program. But currently we just have one van driver, so we're hopeful that the class and Comp. Said, we can can help. you know.

3:16:19provide a justification for more competitive our little wages, because we do believe that if we can offer these services we can actually make the revenue

3:16:29back to pay for higher wages for these part time employees.

3:16:35Other focuses are. We're looking to restore more special events, especially those that provide helpful resources and information to the community, like the senior resource there.

3:16:45and we'd like to bring back our crowd, feed Scholarship, which is a fundraiser for our scholarship fund.

3:16:52and

3:16:55the thing. and also what we're really trying to look at is how can we increase senior programs. despite the fact that we have less program space.

3:17:07And so we're looking into that

3:17:10in a number of ways we would really like to expand and do a more robust effort to reach out to seniors to to let them know about our nutrition program and other things that are going on. But we're still finding that folks, I think, are still a little fearful of coming out because we have contacted all of our traditional lunch participants, and

3:17:31we get, on average 15 to 20, where we used to have maybe 40, 40, plus to 50. We're also still a pick up site for lunches, but that's gonna get faced out soon by the county, and so we want to be prepared for some growth. Maybe because of that

3:17:49we also are working to explore, providing.

3:17:54you know, when the senior center closed one of the big things that closed with it is kind of that informal gathering space where people can just kinda come and hang out and talk to folks, and you know.

3:18:09and the center is not the ideal location for that. But we really do want to try to

3:18:17build in some time for that, especially as I said, as the lunch is hopefully ramp up, and we can add more days of lunch.

3:18:26And finally we want to try to leverage unbalance that we built in our Par transit Fund during the pandemic, because there wasn't a lot going on and look into full subsidy programs. So, for example, our easy ride program can't take t can't take folks to like Richmond Kaiser. It's too far off

3:18:46our our service area. But we could.

3:18:51you know, look into like a voucher system, or something where they could call a taxi and go to their medical appointments. And Richmond Kaiser alt debates. You may be the Va. Or something like that dental appointments especially. You know where that you can't really schedule your return time, because your appointment ends when it ends.

3:19:08And so that's what we're hoping to do, to really try to increase services for older adults.

3:19:16And then also in terms of seniors, we're hoping that we can provide some space to

3:19:24profit nonprofit partners, such as folks that offer real low cost, legal advice, and just, you know, rather than you know, just being a space for that to occur similar to how we handle high cap counseling, which is Medicare Medicaid counseling

3:19:41as well as aarp tax preparation, which is, which are, you know, examples of things that we have restored.

3:19:51So that's that's kind of it in a nutshell. I can certainly, you know, go into more detail or

3:19:57talk more about what we do on a daily daily basis. But

3:20:01it's getting late, so I could. I could stop there and take some. Take some questions.

3:20:06Thank you so much for that, Chris, and I remember that I was going to give you some sense of the clever place to ask people to say something incredibly inflammatory, so I hope that you're up here. You know what we're talking about, for the equity required balance, and so happy

3:20:22that we are putting so much focus on providing services for our senior. The one thing that we will see a cost to Avenue and I anticipate to go up it. The police need for services for people who can't find for my children low income families, people who are coming from outside of Illinois

3:20:39who don't know the parks that are around the point chat out. We can start sending the emails regarding you. But I wanted to put this to you as a director, because I mean, I said to myself today, standing with my patio. I just can't wait for the since the next to come out.

3:20:54I anticipate. I anticipate and really jump in those you. I'm seeing those who are just a playing in the and playing with common spaces where they shouldn't be.

3:21:04I mean, I don't want to be the lash key, child, I don't know the children to see as an avenue are definitely lash key children. So what can we do to increase services to these black, indigenous youth of color that are going to be coming up and down

3:21:22our our avenue. I know that we already have a transportation system for our senior to get to our services. But what what can we do to support those youth who may be close to a part? But they are not allowed to walk to the park.

3:21:34or they don't have transportation to the Park, or they their parents? Simply don't know if that's available to them. Do you anticipate creating a plan for this growth of you that's gonna inevitably impact our city.

3:21:45Yeah, it's a good question and it I think it's a it's a difficult one to ask? Answer, because we do have dedicated pair transit funding for senior and disabled individuals that's provided through the county transportation tax measure. J.

3:22:02We do not have any sources of funding outside sources of funding for any other group in town, and you know

3:22:13we've always strongly emphasized, cost recovery in Elsa Rita, which is important, especially now, but that does come at a cost meaning that not everyone can afford it, you know, and that is an issue, You know, child Care, for example, is really expensive to

3:22:30enroll your children in, and it's really expensive to run, and it's it's not only a statewide problem. It's a nationwide problem. Some cities do have dedicated child care funds that they've

3:22:42that they funded one way or another, sometimes through sales tax, or sometimes to a a special assessment.

3:22:49But you know they're really there are no grants out there, you know. Unfortunately, and especially for El Cerrito, where we might serve

3:22:59folks who are lower income, but they don't live in town, and therefore our metrics kind of Don't line up with some of these funding opportunities. And so it is. It is a difficult, it is difficult, because certainly

3:23:14we think that everyone is entitled to these experiences.

3:23:21You know that we offer, you know, and it's not really the child's fault that the parents, you know, can't afford certain things it's gonna be. I mean, I keep saying it's option to you to say it

3:23:35of this city is shifting, and I think that especially when you come to child care, we're going to start having support children and you in a way where we normally see cities like Richmond, because most of us honestly, we're on the other side of that one. So you know I look forward to supporting you in in the years from now it's gonna be here.

3:23:56Yeah, thank you.

3:24:00Thank you, Mayor. My.

3:24:04I wanted to check in with you with the things that we were able to complement with with other agencies that do the same thing. For example, the the school, district and and senior education, and and I've had the the the pleasure to to

3:24:24be with many of our seniors being a senior myself now, and and an Aer P. Card. I remember about the importance of adult education and

3:24:36the St. John's facility, and also the

3:24:45and attending those, both of them and the Secura Call group where I was in. I'm. Tired of making sure that that program continued, although it was in Avlado school. So, looking at that, and looking at our demographics that we have right now and

3:25:05and and to see how it complements.

3:25:09Because basically it's the same group of people that you see attending many of the programs that you have. Is that correct. Yeah, I think it is. And you know, when we when we try to strategically reintroduce programs like that, you know, one of the considerations is okay. Maybe the the need is met on Mondays and Tuesdays at Christ, Lutheran and St. John's, and so maybe we should be focusing on Wednesday through Friday, or you know, or

3:25:36something like that, because

3:25:39you're right, you know. See.

3:25:42the senior programming and services are really going through a generational shift. So there are folks that are really

3:25:51rely on and appreciate that traditional senior center. And then there are folks like my parents are like I don't want to go to a senior center. I'm not a senior center. I don't want to hang out with the old people, you know, you know.

3:26:05and so I feel like we are actually better room and needs of like those baby boomer seniors than we were before, just because of the dynamics of the facility at the community center, and the kind of the the synergies.

3:26:19but there is still definitely a population that would benefit from like what I was talking about, like what Saint John's and Christ, Luther offers, and hopefully what we can get going in some form at the community center. So, as a as a member of the the end of the the baby boomers and and the Gen. X's just stuck in the middle there

3:26:40a lot of up for the Punk rock generation, and and to be, and to see a lot of funds that at a recent birthday party at the Community center it was great to see that opening up again where residents can rent that. So where I attended the the sixtieth birthday of our first poet Laureate, and to see so many people that that I've known back in the day, who are now seniors.

3:27:05and and now that they don't want to do the things that that that you know, seniors and my parents age are are doing. They they they want to hang up, and they want to be active. These are active seniors, and I know the majority of our seniors in elsewhere are very active.

3:27:21and and they can do these things with with field trips and go to the symphony. Ghana, the opera go to Berkeley Rap. These are things that many of our residents are able to do, and they still do, because i'm you know I I see them. We're not out. So

3:27:39So i'm thinking about the most neediest of residents that that move the services that that that are available for our residents, not the ones that that can go. Our cruises around the world, and and you know, attend the same driving events that I attend on the weekends. But but the mediest ones that that need food

3:28:02that that that need the attention that need roommate. I need their their nails things from an Emily boss, and cause you're gonna see the of seniors and just the end of 2028, 2029, the doubling of our senior population here in the city of Elsa Rita. So we will continue to be the largest voting block.

3:28:29But we have to be realistic, and also know that seniors from from this generation the Gen. Xers and and the end of the baby boomers are not like the ones from the the the seniors, like my mom, that are in there at the end of their eighties and and early nineties, and these are many of the residents that we have still have here in El Cerita, that we would like for them

3:28:57to spend the rest of their lives here in El Cerita, instead of having to go to a system living. So so

3:29:07I I know we were looking at outside, you know, groups like on block, and and know that that was a plan at the the affordable housing when when it was built, to have groups like on block, and seeing how cities are looking at these different groups because they're preparing for the the large onslaught of the doubling of the population. And you're gonna see the doubling of

3:29:37folks with Alzheimer's and memory loss. What! What's your take on that in the future with our senior programs.

3:29:46you know. I think, in in smaller settings. It's hard to find outside service Providers, you know, that. Want to come in and just take over a senior center, for example. But there are plenty of examples of homegrown, like senior foundations that are actually quite adept at raising funds and

3:30:05and trying to, you know, and interacting with their own community about where those needs are, and then helping fund that, you know. That's pretty much right. But the most senior center is

3:30:15is a pro popular place, and it's really only been open this long because of the efforts of their senior foundation. You know Albany has a friends group and other things like that, so we would certainly hope to encourage folks that would be interested in something like that.

3:30:36But you know, out again, i'll set up

3:30:39available outside funding, You know. I think we work like You've been talking about regionally and a special, and make sure that folks know where the resources are. So, which is a a one. Why we want to bring back our senior resource there as well, and you know, and also work towards.

3:30:59maybe not a brand new senior center, but maybe a

3:31:05larger center that has dedicated, you know, senior space, but then also kinda utilizes and shares classrooms, so that because I think folks now are liking to being together more absolutely. And and I know the number. One thing that

3:31:21that that seniors like my mom, are dealing with now our loneliness, and they had a lot of folks that are in their homes, or 3,000 script at home all by themselves, and and we have a lot of residents like that here in El Sritos. So the and I know that some of my classmates call me to check on their moms so but that the this is what we're dealing with, and in the future they have. I. Would it be part of this this group like so I've been seriously thinking about.

3:31:50you know, but the the future plans of of living as a senior citizen, and and knowing that the onslaught of memory, loss, and and other things that we're not prepared for because of the lack of nurses, a lot of professional people, and with the dealing with geriatric care we just don't have that Not would we could ever afford having personnel like that

3:32:19here. So by looking at that and looking at this is mostly a cabin problem, so complementing our work with the county, and and seeing what they do with with feeding or senior population.

3:32:35Yeah, that that's the thing that I think small cities like El Cerrito can can successfully deal with in the future is

3:32:45working with our partners in the county and and working with nonprofits like on Block and and I've I've seen great programs that other cities are doing with with

3:33:01companies like on block nonp. It's like on lock and like in the city of San Francisco, and like the city of Fremont

3:33:09to see a lot of communities of color that specialize in Asian geriatric care, you know, or occasion teriatric care, because those are our main demographics and Elsa Rita. We we're mostly 50% Caucasian.

3:33:2830, 31 Asian, American, and and but we are going to include everybody. But we have to be reasonable and know what our 2 demographics are, and it that's going to be like that for the yeah, your future. Thank you. Councilman, can just and me a per 10, All right. Thank you very much.

3:33:46Great work that you and your staff do such a fantastic job of dividing recreation services to the city. It's, and it's really one of the crown rules of our city. We use the number 800 is that most 800 older adults, you know.

3:34:01currently enrolled at programming. It's 800 and individuals that have been world in classes like this season.

3:34:10So

3:34:11so that's that's, you know, but it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's a

3:34:22and it's it's true. It's shifting, and it can relate where you know

3:34:30I want to go to anything senior. It doesn't mean that we don't have those resources available. So i'm really glad that you're considering the resource there. The only thing I would to do is if we can figure out ways to engage our senior community and disaster preparedness the emergency preparedness, and making sure that there's a connection between sir, as that back again, and that that's a really great way to be involved in the community, and also but those are some of these vulnerable folks.

3:34:57It's the case of a a disaster, is it? It's timeline from the county when they're going to be doing the nutrition? Is it the the delivery of the drop off like that in the June end of June. So so we're hopeful, and you know we do want to

3:35:16reach out to folks and make sure that we everyone that currently picks up has been getting several flyers saying that this is gonna change, and and they can come to us. And then hopefully, if we see the demand we'll be able to. We've also

3:35:30hoping to put in the bedroom a little extra funding for some part time. Help to kind of facilitate

3:35:35that program more days.

3:35:49And how is it that we can move forward? I love the idea of having like really thoughtful around what times we are having space for us to be able to drop in. The other thing is, I really love the idea of shared space. If we look to other countries where they are, you know there's so many other people around the world

3:36:08where seniors and children are together, and how that is one of the things that really helps in which in in which folks in their in their senior years is being around children I love the idea of, if we can, you know.

3:36:20share those spaces for that reason so. And then also again, I always plug how my my daughter is such a a heavy user of the the recreation services. She's very excited for summer camp. And again I appreciate all that you guys are doing.

3:36:34We appreciate you using our programs.

3:36:39Yes, thank you. I'll try to be brief, and I Won't add to the senior discussion. But thank you for the focus on it. It's really important, and the programs you have in the catalog, and

3:36:50it sounds like it's something fully attended to, and one thing I wanted to say about that is on with the West Contra Costa Transportation Advisory Committee.

3:37:00We are coming up with a pilot prop program for seniors

3:37:05in West County who need to go to the doctor outside of our in the there's a Walnut Creek or to Oakland

3:37:11for Free and Wetex, also working for a/C transit. To give you some free bus trips where we've extended that from just a high school students to lower and the grade school kids, too. So the concepts are out there about. How do we get people to those places? 2 quick questions.

3:37:31What is in your mind the big budget issue that we're going to be facing on the Recreation Department in the next few. you know I we don't have any big asks, and that's primarily because I you know where the modular buildings have have gone.

3:37:47And so we're hoping to reallocate those resources and not, you know, ask for a huge

3:37:53increase in in resources, so that you know, and we also have some practical realities, too, of we don't have any more desks, for you know, 3 more people to sit out right right now. So you know what we're trying to do is bring on board the 2 new staff members, and then really try to

3:38:15recruit and retain the staff to deliver increased services so kind of like an infill strategy. Because we still have. You know, we have kind of like the the framework, but we still have some more capacity if we can, if we can get those folks in.

3:38:30Thank you, and you hit on a couple of things on the Equity front.

3:38:33You're gonna get a question like everybody else about the ability to pay, and maybe the scholarships, and they give me more money going for scholarships to help those people who want to use our facilities. But what is your your equity? Lens on your Department. Your views? Well, yeah, I think it's just barriers and overcoming barriers, you know. So.

3:38:52for example, it was really important for us to despite it.

3:38:57Not insignificant. Well, I shouldn't say that, despite more push back than you would think, it was really important to us to we distribute our printed guide, because there's so many folks that you know

3:39:11either just don't use technology or don't use it for that purpose. And so, you know, every time our guide hits mailboxes, our phones just kind of start ringing off the hook for the next 4 or 5 days. So that's an important way that we're able to make sure to reach folks and kind of bridge that technology gap.

3:39:29But then, on the flip side of that is that we're really trying to invest in technology and our online registration so that folks that are working all day can actually, you know, have equitable access to our programs because they can register online and not have to take time off at work, and you know.

3:39:45line up around the block at 9 am. For summer camp, which is the way it used to be, I mean, maybe 10 years ago.

3:39:52you know. And then all of our projects have a angular component, and you know it's. It's important that we kind of improve that physical access

3:40:03in addition. But you know, cost cost. Recovery versus affordability is.

3:40:08is, it's not very straightforward, like I don't know that you could just say, if if we had a bigger scholarship program it'd be all good it, you know, if there was really a philosophy behind it, because, you know, For example.

3:40:24the traditional senior center is kind of just like, you know. If you're a senior

3:40:28here's all this stuff, you know, regardless of the fact. Honestly, if you can afford to pay more, you know. And so if we talk about fees, and really wanting to dive into that, we would really need to come up, you know. Do a fee study. Come up with the city's philosophy on.

3:40:43You know this is an individual benefit, and you can afford it. So you're going to pay 100% of the cost. And this is more of a community benefit, and you have a barrier to your participation one way or another. And so this is how much

3:40:59we can subsidize it, you know. So it's kind of a it's more of a nuance conversation rather than

3:41:04then. You know. Just kind of let's have that conversation. Thank you very much. Thank you.

3:41:10So thank you for the presentation. I think that

3:41:15the having all the programs starting to come back has been so wonderful, particularly the indoor ones. I hope all you know, all the ones that I missed, you know, like the trick or treating with the cars, and

3:41:28and you know all the crab feeds and things like that. It's it's just so nice to cause that build such a sense of community, and that's what the direct department is so good at is making us all feel like our Alsredo family.

3:41:41So thank you for that. I do have a question. I was looking at the State auditors feedback to us from September.

3:41:53and their last report back to us, and in that we had promise to do analysis of demand and fees for the senior programs, because in the audit from their perspective we were subsidizing the senior programs to about 75%,

3:42:11you know, on the dollar as opposed to other programs that we're providing. And I was wondering if that was in your work plan and kind of where where we are with that, because the the the auditors report does say that we will be doing this and providing the information to them in in the fall.

3:42:29Well, so we just internally we do a fee. Study every masterpiece schedule, because, you know, with an I towards cost recovery. We want to know that we think

3:42:41we can charge without pricing ourselves out of the market or driving folks. You know other places in terms of senior programs, you know. Really.

3:42:51I feel like the State Auditor.

3:42:53Just look at the different divisions, saw the bottom line and said, that's a problem. And you know, in senior services. That was a problem, because we're paying $125,000 per year for these modular buildings. If we own the building that the services were provided in the cost, recovery would

3:43:12would be, would have been much better. And so and then, in addition to that. the consequence of

3:43:21not having a senior center anymore is that we just don't have the space for kind of these what we're doing free and low cost activities, or

3:43:30you know other things that were definitely subsidized. So now most of our programs are on a

3:43:37a a revenue share with the instructor. So typically the instructor will get 60% of the revenue in the city will get 30%, and we have established minimums to kind of ensure that, you know we don't lose money on those on those types of classes. So

3:43:57so yeah, that's that's what it looks like in in senior services. And we just don't. Really. For example, we don't have those we used to sell a a a a book of tickets, you know, like $3, $5 classes, and you could just go to a bunch of different things and punch it. We don't have those

3:44:14don't have those classes anymore. So we don't have those more subsidized items. Do we do Ted dances anymore.

3:44:22We do not have a fee dancing. Well, what we have. We have some very successful line dances that we just started, so the total I had No, and I wouldn't got

3:44:35yeah. So we're looking at, you know. We don't, you know the the participants have been asking for a month, really, and we kind of want to expand, to like quarterly or something, you know. So we don't dilute the demand, but it is one of those programs where you know

3:44:52kind of what I think Council Member Kinto is talking about. Folks are taking, you know, like a whole bunch of zoom. The participants are going to the line dance, and then they're telling all their friends. And now a bunch of them are in our our adult that way class, and you know it kind of just builds from there because of, you know, being together again. So

3:45:16anyway, I feel like I got off the topic there. But we don't have 2 dances. We we have line dances, and they've been very popular. Yeah.

3:45:22because that was the highlight of Fourth of July in the old days where they had the t dance tent.

3:45:28Yes, yes, okay.

3:45:33Thank you very much.

3:45:36hey? I do have a bit of housekeeping. I think we were supposed to

3:45:40cause emphas to our public Works director and take a picture.

3:45:44Was that what we were supposed to do with this proclamation

3:45:49with the Public Service proclamation? Oh. we don't have to do that at this hour, but we are very grateful to the City Council for okay. It will be a great full to the City Council for recognizing all of the public employees that we're excited for the city of and on the real estate, how many local levels? So? Thank you so much.

3:46:11I think Council Member for Delhi. You wanted to make a comment before adjourning.

3:46:17Yes. Well, I know that that Chris died last week at the age of 91, who was really an icon in the music world nationally and internationally, and

3:46:29has the downhill music and the foundation. All of his research on music, of every ethnic group in the nation, changing Mexican

3:46:41blues. So all everything. And I just wanted to it be able to

3:46:49in his main way tonight. Thank you, Councilman, for deli.

3:46:55Does any other councilmember have any comments? Okay. So the time is now 949. And we are adjourned.