Regular City Council Meeting November 21, 2023

0:00:22Thank you. City clerk.

0:00:26The November 20, first, 2023 regular City Council meeting is called to order at 6 3 PM. Will the city clerk please call roll

0:00:36here, counselor Kelly, here Councillor Ricketto.

0:00:43Councilmember Quinto: here

0:00:44councilmember the first item on the agenda is consideration under A. B, 2 4 5 city clerk. Do we have any requests

0:00:56via zoom as well?

0:01:17Thank you.

0:01:19Next item is the pledge of allegiance. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance for a government assignments

0:01:28I indivisible.

0:01:45The next item on the agenda is teleconference and public comment instructions. Thank you. Mr. Provides an option to participate in person

0:01:56close caption available with the city council, or subject to the Brownout for the purpose of conducting city business. also shares the public's right to be heard. City Council is not able to respond to comments directly that will be heard. Council taking action.

0:02:16The time for public comment reach app item can be slipped to the city quick if you are in person. As selecting the hand feature via Zoom

0:02:30City Council instructions.

0:02:47The next item on the agenda is Council Staff Communications City manager. Do we have any staff communications? Sure, I just wanted to.

0:03:00December 20 first.

0:03:26So make sure.

0:03:33Upon meeting the average schedulers city calendar. But just city website.

0:03:39that's all I have to name it.

0:03:43Thank you. City manager.

0:03:45Are there any assistance from any other council members? Start with a council member, Kinto, since I don't want to miss him.

0:03:53Okay. any other announcements

0:03:57encouraging all cities to go back to hybrid formats of city council meeting, and, as I said before, so I won't even go on it with

0:04:20situation doesn't solve anything. If we can have hybrid, because we have council members out of the dial to complete. So that's it.

0:04:38Thank you.

0:04:40Councilmember Fideli. Yes, I attended along with, and pro tem. The seventh anniversary of St. Peter's Church here in El Cerrito last Sunday.

0:04:50and I took part of 2 of my advisory bodies, and I'm relaison on the Urban Forest Committee and the aging committee, and we discuss the advisory body changes that we're contemplating here. Now, soludo and I just wanted also throw out, thanks to sponsors in the chamber for the lights along our theater district. They look great.

0:05:12Thank you.

0:05:14Thank you. Member, thank you. Councilmember Fideli.

0:05:16Mayor Protemp.

0:05:18Yes, the country across the civic theater is doing a fundraiser called home for the holidays, and it's gonna be a really wonderful holiday performance. It's going to be weekends of December eighth through tenth and December fifteenth through 17. So check it out and support our local theatre.

0:05:35Okay, thank you. I have a couple of announcements. The City Holiday pancake breakfast is on December second, from 9 0 A. M. To 11 A. M. And the boomer dance is also that same day from 46 PM. And both are at the community center. The pancake breakfast particularly will probably sell out, so I recommend people get their tickets early.

0:05:57The maker fair is coming to Hana Gardens on December the sixteenth, from 10 to 2, so it'll be exciting. Sponsored by the city as well as Economic Development Committee and the Little Hill Real Estate Company, and it should be a fun and new event for us.

0:06:12So I have a couple of things. I attended the Abac Housing committee meeting on November the eighth, and at that time the staff discussed the upcoming Mtc. Reap 2 of Grant funding. So I Wanna give a heads up to staff that that will be the call for proposals will be coming mid 2,024, with a special set aside for small jurisdictions under 60,000 people which would be us.

0:06:36and the priority will be for projects that support Mtc's transit. Oriented communities policy which I think we do. So and then there will also be offering technical assistance.

0:06:47As councilmember. Fidelia mentioned.

0:06:52I also attended the Eqc. Meeting on last Tuesday night, and there was. I was there also in part to take feedback about the and

0:07:04ad hoc subcommittee on advisory bodies, and there was a lively discussion there. So both Councilmember Fideli and I are looking forward to bringing this item back to council.

0:07:16Okay, the next item is oral communications from the public. Now is the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments regarding matters not on the agenda. Consent items and presentation items request to speak can be submitted to the city clerk by completing a speaker card. Public comments will be taken in

0:07:37oops. I'm sorry this is. I'm reading the wrong one

0:07:40about any updates. Yes, I'm sorry. Thank you. So okay.

0:07:50in-person speakers can submit a speaker card to the city clerk and remote speakers should use the raise hand feature to request to speak. Please remember to identify yourself in your city of residence at the beginning of your comments. City clerk. Are there many speakers this evening that are for items, not on the agenda, and this time I have 5 in person requests to speak, and so far I do not have any remote requests to speak. Thank you.

0:08:17Okay.

0:08:21okay, we will go to our in person request first starting with Buddy at at

0:08:26Akassic, followed by Patrick Curtin.

0:08:42Good evening, City Council.

0:08:46What a pleasure to be with you this evening!

0:08:49I'm going to address the concept of assertions.

0:08:55number of assertions.

0:08:58analysis of assertions, for example.

0:09:03thesis, antithesis.

0:09:05synthesis.

0:09:07You're onto all that. It's political

0:09:11philosophy, sometimes transitions into public policy.

0:09:17In this case it's gonna be a matter of internally. You can debate it with me. You can debate it with yourself. So I'm gonna give these 3 assertions.

0:09:25Well, your conceptual skills.

0:09:29Assertion number one.

0:09:33Each urban center

0:09:36in the East Bay

0:09:37has a senior center. Some of them number 2

0:09:43associate number 2,

0:09:46each of those communities in which a senior center exists. It is a major asset to that community

0:09:57that session number 3. For the last 5 years

0:10:02the city of Elsmyer has had no senior sender, no plan for a senior senior.

0:10:09therefore no asset. and it is a conspicuous embarrassment to the city of El Cavito.

0:10:19Thank you.

0:10:25Next comment, speaker, is Patrick Curtin, followed by Stewart's sonatina.

0:10:33Corporate Panel.

0:10:35I may ask the city to take some action to veteran speed of traffic on upper line, particularly the lane stretch, starting

0:10:5536 years, and there's always been some issue. But it's it's recently

0:11:01whether it's post covid stress or whatever. But people are as fast as they can. Now II know, going down the safety issue, perhaps, for going up here, and there's a tremendous noise issue that

0:11:18pick up trucks running their engines up there. I don't know the best solution. And to think at the very minute there's sign. Perhaps the kind of sign they have at the bottom of it

0:11:31checks your speeds. You go by the school

0:11:34anything would help, maybe something physical but definitely that traffic is not turned on. They particularly have to see what you got ahead.

0:11:51Thank you. Skipper Stewart

0:12:04already getting better at this. I know about the mic. Now.

0:12:09okay. Stewart. Sanatino, Elserito. I'd like to start with the the fact that

0:12:20Ours are the number one killer of Americans, one through 54

0:12:26and that fact is

0:12:29to dismiss in your

0:12:39that knowledge that field and and

0:12:42comments that everybody is constantly looking about. Cars move too fast, so you can't let your children or your dogs, or in the streets, or any side block that

0:12:52as they're separated from traffic ships, from pulling their cars.

0:12:57And that's no business

0:13:00streets like San Fernando.

0:13:02And so.

0:13:09traffic con. There's a telephone.

0:13:14We'll walk. And so people stay in because

0:13:20but just bite you, and the tax will empty. And so 100,000 people

0:13:25like, you know, because it sucks to.

0:13:32And so I'm just, too.

0:13:34Kids go further instead of using. But I must say then, and let's then give exercise. And you know. I believe just kind of believe it

0:13:45and send it back.

0:13:47patient as the chemical

0:13:50fantastic

0:13:52juice our leaders don't really like.

0:13:56It sets for the community I was working with and with us every

0:14:05you can make sure that there are no that are less wide of the line view

0:14:11to traffic on an edit, or if you're ever being distracted

0:14:17surfaces traffic.

0:14:19and then to slow, pause down and

0:14:26come from

0:14:28from the cops. That's stense sounding physical for the difference in height.

0:14:38super high.

0:14:45But Congress.

0:14:47I'll discuss meaningfully surface staff. It's a pretty

0:14:56it's traveled

0:15:01is also listening to kind of common admissions.

0:15:06So that's it. Thank you.

0:15:11Thank you. It's Catherine

0:15:17and Santa Gina from Global Head.

0:15:26Huh? What's that? Me?

0:15:30I'm gaia government El Cerrito. I biked here with my children. It was terrifying except for the 20 feet by basking Robbins.

0:15:40But then you're dumped out at a

0:15:42a really awful turn signal at the light, and we had a car

0:15:47in the middle of the pullout, so we had to go around him.

0:15:51I ride my bike around with the kids often on the back.

0:15:56They often ride their own bikes.

0:15:59which is wonderful while terrifying.

0:16:02We're constantly being

0:16:06aggressively humped at or aggressively passed. And they I never feel safe. I'm incredibly anxious biking with them. It's a

0:16:19you have a really fun experience as a parent biking with your children, and it should be. and

0:16:27other parents around the school, or

0:16:29equally stressed out liking their kids in the morning when many families will not let their kids bike because they are afraid that their kids are going to get hit, or you know the worst.

0:16:40that would be really great, particularly around the schools where there's lots of young children

0:16:48is

0:16:51just removing the cars. and it's a big ask and

0:16:57protected bike routes.

0:16:58particularly parents, where children, frequent networks and so

0:17:04like to walk from your house.

0:17:13crosswalks with flashing lights with

0:17:19those people called passing guards.

0:17:25She can't. Larger radius

0:17:29places to start would be Fairmont eastbound direction where there is

0:17:35Hello. Glenn! Not even a cheryl

0:17:39for the first half of it from San Pablo up.

0:17:43and

0:17:44and then the sheriff's make cars feel like it's totally cool to, just as around you, crossing the double yoke that's really scary, especially when there's other on kind of traffic.

0:17:55yeah.

0:17:59can't get cars out of those areas

0:18:02to make it really inconvenient, so that they have to be down for children. Name Orton. Thank you.

0:18:12Thank you. Experience Greg.

0:18:14or to our new request to speak

0:18:18some numbers. Major Squareline. Yes, really, to take on the presenting with a shot of holidays displayed

0:18:28Savada, December sixteenth.

0:18:31It's first night of like 5 to 10 PM.

0:18:34To see if it's last item lighting on Tuesday, December 20 sixth. Let's display that.

0:18:49We're perfect

0:18:50figures. This last song, so the display will actually have the fingers. They haven't been seen.

0:18:58says, Resent us in the work.

0:19:00I'm so repeat, restored reputation.

0:19:06Some shots of gibsy. What will come out and draw it at some point.

0:19:12See her? Thank you.

0:19:14Thank you. That's good request to speak, which we will go to.

0:19:32Ira Sharenow: is it for Ira?

0:19:34I see what you're doing now.

0:19:36Ira Sharenow: Okay, first of all, I can't understand what any one is saying, so there's a problem with the sound again.

0:19:42But anyway, I'll I'll I hope you can understand me. I read the submissions by a number of community members.

0:19:50In particular, I saw the comments by those promoting the library project. One comment caught my eye. The individual wrote, I am president of the El Cerrito Library Foundation

0:20:03and part of the committee where the Plaza Station Library driven. El Cerrito needs wants and deserves a new Library. the Plaza Station Library.

0:20:14The process for getting a new library includes voter approval for funding

0:20:20the polling report before you shows the current economic and political climate is not favorable for passage, especially with the current requirement of a 2 third approval vote.

0:20:32Although the polling in October

0:20:34showed a significant reduction in this support down to 69 to 59%

0:20:40unquote. Assuming the person knew the October survey results.

0:20:45I am wondering why the people who made open records requests were not also given that information.

0:20:52Can someone please explain that?

0:20:55I think the city needs to provide to the public the reports on both surveys and the financial analysis.

0:21:03I am having an extremely difficult time understanding what people are saying.

0:21:08because it is sound issues that I agree with the first speaker who spoke about the need for a senior senator.

0:21:15I know that when the city was promoting the measure V. Real property transfer tax. One reason given by the mayor and the then city manager

0:21:25given to vote for it was the need to pay for the senior center. Now the Council does not even consider a need for a senior sinner. That is very disappointing.

0:21:36I also had trouble understanding

0:21:39what the person was saying about bicycle safety, because it's but I also agree that bicycle. Safety needs to be addressed. By the way, Can, if someone could tell me, could you understand what I was saying?

0:21:55Was I speaking clearly.

0:21:59okay. are you common.

0:22:05I'm I'm just wondering if my voice is coming through. Clearly.

0:22:10Ira Sharenow: I can't actually understand what you're saying. So I'll I'll just finish at this point.

0:22:16They'll say, Thank you for the time

0:22:21questions, I think, this time.

0:22:24Thank you. City clerk.

0:22:28The next item is

0:22:30presentations. Citizen street oversight can be, and whether for fiscal year, or 25 to 2022, we shall be presentation.

0:22:46I think. council members, Matthew Carey and the outgoing chair of the Citizen Street oversight committee.

0:22:54So tonight I'm here to provide you with. The fiscal year 2122 annual report so on September 20 fifth of this year the committee met to review expenditures of measure a revenue collected

0:23:09to determine whether those funds were expended for the purposes specified in the Fy. 2122 expenditure plan as approved by you. The Council those fiscal year 2122 expenditures were summarized in the city's Annual financial

0:23:26comprehensive report

0:23:28and the committee reviewed that report along with the agreed upon procedures. Report that was issued by the city's independent auditors. And that report indicated that no exceptions were found to the expenditures so the committee also previously reviewed a detailed list of vendors to whom those expenditures were made.

0:23:50So by a unanimous vote. The committee found that the expenditures were an appropriate use of the pothole and local street improvement and maintenance transactions and use tax that's mouthful as approved by the Council.

0:24:05So tonight, I'm reporting our findings to the Council and to the citizens of El Cerrito. Pursuant to section 2.0 4 3 20 c. Of the municipal code. So, furthermore, the committee acknowledges and supports that the city Council, in their resolutions authorizing

0:24:22expenditures of these funds as budget amendments are confirming that the expenditures are an appropriate use of the tax.

0:24:30So it's been an honor to serve as the chair of the committee for the past 2 years, and I'd like to acknowledge our staff liaison Yvette Ortiz, for her time and attention this past year, and especially for providing committee members with a tour this spring of the 2023 Slurry Seal project on Waldo Avenue

0:24:50and surrounded streets. It really gave the committee members a better idea of how complex the planning for these projects are, and actually deploying these projects within the city. And and as well as how these projects impact the cities

0:25:07pavement condition index. And you know, the the members are concerned about that. And just to support some of the earlier statements tonight. A good pavement condition index, for the city is not just good for vehicles, but it's good for bicyclists

0:25:24walkers and transit vehicles as well. So that's my report tonight. I'd like to thank you for your time.

0:25:31Thank you very much for the report, and for your time the Citizen service oversight Committee is actually very important. And you guys do some really need digging. To make sure everything is is is good. So I really appreciate that. Are there any comments from Council members?

0:25:48I see a handout from Council Member Quinto?

0:25:51Councilmember Quinto: Thank you, Mayor Mackay. I'm I want to say thank you to our committee member and and sharing this and your leadership through the years. Know how much we appreciate that. I remember. We did get some comment from some residents

0:26:09asking why? You know they they were complaining about the deterioration of our roads, but I know for a fact that we've been waiting for and collaborating with folks like Pg and E. In East Bay mud to, you know. Get their work together. Because why would we wanna fix the road when it needs to be taken out? And

0:26:33so I wanted to let the residents who have been who sent that email to know that? You know, is because we are trying to collaborate with folks like East may mud, and with

0:26:48Pg, and E and that's it's difficult to coordinate. But our staff are doing a fantastic job to make sure that our residents, especially the ones that live on streets like Richmond and Waldo know so but so, chair. Thank you again for all your work. And yeah, if II

0:27:09do, I buy my old street where you live on now, and and brings back great memories, and to see Lexington Avenue. And and how you know that street is well maintained, and great staff and great Committee. So again, thank you, sir.

0:27:27thank you very much.

0:27:31Okay. The next item is A/C transit draft route changes. Can we please have the presentation?

0:27:56Yeah.

0:27:59Check.

0:28:14We do everything for the Gamma.

0:28:16But Mayor Botan Rudnick.

0:28:19council, member staff and members of the public. My name is Ryan Lau, external Affairs representative that Ec. Transit joined here today by Robert del Rosario, the Director of Service Planning Service development and plan. I can never do his title.

0:28:35which is our initiative to design the transit system in week of the pandemic. Today I'll be providing a high level overview, and then I'll turn it over to Robert to do a deeper dive.

0:28:54So just for background is the transit is the largest public bus only tram transit system in the State of California, providing lifeline service to essential workers, students, low income individuals.

0:29:07students. They're se seniors. Excuse me, commuters, individuals with disabilities, and anybody wishing to reduce their carbon footprint we operate service on the western side of the East Bay from San Pablo Brante down to Fremont and Newark.

0:29:24Our riders are 65% low income, 75% people of color and 43% are transit dependent. Which means that they write our service in order to work at school medical appointments, and just generally conduct day to day business.

0:29:43So this is the service as it

0:29:47exist today, and else room, though. The red lines are most frequent service, running 20 min or better along San Pablo Avenue routes in blue are 30 min or better along cutting Arlington and Mcdonalds.

0:30:02Finally, the routes in gray have varying frequencies which are our trans service. Fever bird service, which is the service we operate help bar out with early morning track, repair, and that sort of stuff. And our overnight house service.

0:30:21So what is real line realign is is to transit review of the A/C transit bus network to determine where they're going, how often they're running. This is the weekly they're running and what times of the day they're running.

0:30:37And while we're doing it, chiefly because of all the differences in transportation patterns in the post pandemic era 75% of our service. But ridership rather is, is back as compared with pre pre pandemic

0:30:56which which is primarily around major routes and outside of traditional work hours.

0:31:01But we do some significant challenges, one of which is operator recruitment and retention. So we're we're working with something to bring move drivers online. But we're also having a lot of them. You know, retiring out

0:31:16and then also, as probably you're all familiar with revenue and funding in the future.

0:31:25So we're now in phase 2 of our realign initiative. In August we showed our board and the public all the work that we've done in the previous 2 phases.

0:31:37Which have basically fed into phase 3. We now have some draft proposals, actual maps of routes, and that sort of thing.

0:31:47that have been shaped by guiding principles, and some of the import that we got in the previous phases. We're looking to have a final plan adopting with April of 2024, and then in summer, 2024, we're gonna be developing new service standards. With the goal of a go live date. Implementation. By August of 2024.

0:32:12The board approved in September. guiding principles that were shaped by

0:32:217 community events. Including 914 touch points and one trilingual digital workshop. Is, I think, very self explanatory. It's ensuring that we are providing service to equity priority communities.

0:32:39Reliability. The buses are coming when they're supposed to frequency. They're coming. As often as possible. And it's it's important to note that these are not mutually exclusive, and so I'll pass it over to Rob.

0:32:55Thanks, Ryan, so that we received the touch points that Ryan mentioned mentioned include scan

0:33:06survey results. And some level done scenarios to get

0:33:14sacrificing cover more detail.

0:33:56So personally, knowledge. As I mentioned, it's really taking Soc transit has today, which is a pretty good balance routine coverage and frequency. So we don't particularly have

0:34:10access to destinations and destinations that we know we haven't been serving well since the pandemic recovery so represented with transit demand, was upon some of the the data that we looked at. Trying to simplify some of those routes which we'll do in both scenarios. And then better match the the service to where the demand is highest. Next slide.

0:34:32the frequent scenario. This makes sure that every route that we provide has service at least 30 min are better. Today we have lots of service that's greater than that, especially since the pandemic. And then we try to focus our resources more on the trunk routes. We still want to simplify those routes for better legibility of the service, and so eliminate anything that's not productive next slide.

0:34:55And then, as I mentioned the unconstrained vision service. That's kind of more of both, more frequency, more coverage. Restore the service that we fully restore a service that we suspended during the pandemic, and then proposed some micro transit zones on-demand micro transit zones which you can see in in those blue shaded areas on the on the map, really, where that's where on demand service would exist

0:35:18next slide.

0:35:19So now I've done some key highlights of the details of these different scenarios. The first one next slide

0:35:25is line 72. So I wanna spend a little bit of time here. Yes, we're proposing that the 72 rapid goes away. But we're really looking at an overall improve quality of service on Samhabra Avenue right now. There's 3 routes on Sampo Avenue 72, the 72 M. Which splits off at Mcdonald's and down into downtown Richmond, and then there's a 72 rapid which goes all the way up to college.

0:35:49These 3 routes are very difficult for A/C transit to keep on time, and reliable, and anyone riding the service, particularly the peaks. You'll notice that. These these buses are often coming bunched. So really, that that spacing in frequency that we we want for this corridor, we're not achieving it today. If we go to a 2 route model, which is what we're proposing. The the rapid would go away, but we would actually increase to stop spacing on the 72 and the 72

0:36:14to be better spaced. And then those that actually have 15 min frequencies each. So, for instance, today, at at this bus stop in Manila in front of City Hall. Right now that bus comes every 15 min, either 30 min M. Or 30 30 min local bus. There's no rapid stop at Manila and the new proposal. There'll be a 15 min local bus and a 15 min, M. Bus, meaning that a bus will come every 7.5 min. So you're actually

0:36:39increasing free access for for folks at all. The bus stops along San Pablo, and then the fact that you have the same running times, and then you and even spacing. We think we can do a much better job at keeping this bus reliable and and better space for the customer. So that's the rationale behind the the decision.

0:36:58Next slide

0:37:00line 17 line 27. We replace line 79. Lot of this, the touch point the line 79 is fair amount down to the Plaza barge station for the most part, and elsewhere. This route stays the same where it changes. Is on the southern end. You can see there in the map, instead of going out to to Rock Ridge, via the clambered neighborhood. It would then travel down

0:37:20Ashby Ashby to the Amtrak station so just making the route a little bit longer and serving a little bit more with it next slide

0:37:32line 7 is also a an lcerita route. For the most part in the in the northern part of the route which is we've done. The way to all of that would stay the same line 7. Right now is the one that travels down Ashby, which is the segment I showed you in the last slide. We would then continue with further south, along Adeline, and then to Stanford, and power

0:37:56going into Emoryville. And the reason why we want to do this is that we want this to align with the line F, which is also route that travels around the Uc campus and also takes staff and out of line. We're seeing a lot of crowding on that route. So this route would supplement that route, and we'd have more service to to to the campus between Campus and Emeryville

0:38:15line 70 is a routes, apparently through Richmond and city of San Pablo, we would increase the frequency of that to every 30 min to match demand, and then we would also extend it from the Richmond station, further south and east. It would travel on cutting and terminate at the Delmar tapeart station. This would allow us to have a more frequent service on another corridor that we'll see with with high demand, which is cutting boulevard, and there we would have 15 min service when you combine that with the existing route that's already there.

0:38:44Next slide.

0:38:45And then finally line L is the Trans base service along somehow. Avenue and then going into San Francisco. We will combine the L. And La extend that service all the way up to the Rich and Parkley Transit Center. For the most part we're keeping Trans based service. flats in terms of the the amount of service we're providing. There's capacity on Bart. I know that the Trans Bay experience is different from Barts.

0:39:10but in times of scarce resources we really wanna focus that service more on local service. We think that's where we're just gonna get more demand and more need for the service. So that that service is basically combining 2 routes into one.

0:39:22So when you look at what this looks like under different scenarios. Look at the existing network as well as the balance coverage proposal. We have those pretty much stay the same. The number of routes that you have a high frequency. And then the the total number of routes actually goes down a little bit. That's because we're combining some routes here and there, but under the frequency scenario, and you'll see that the number of routes that are 10 min or less, and then 10 to 15 min and and 30 min or better, those all go up. And so we're really challenged out of the focus on frequency.

0:39:51What we've seen then what studies have shown is that when you provide more frequent service, akin to what you see in other countries, that's more group and service means more riders. You just have to wait less for the bus, which is a really good thing for the for the passenger experience. And then the unconstrained version scenario again. That's if funding falls on a lap in a in a, in a future time everything just moves up. We have everything at really great frequency. And

0:40:16really good coverage for the area

0:40:17next slide.

0:40:20I'll turn it back to Ryan.

0:40:22Thanks, Rob, so you just got a sort of a high, level overview of what we're planning in the real line initiative.

0:40:31what we're asking from you is obviously you. You all know your communities

0:40:35best. But also we would like you to sort of amplify this out through your networks. Obviously, you, you know a lot more riders than you yourselves. And so we wanna make sure that we're getting the broadest amount of input possible. Obviously, if we're designing a network that isn't gonna work from people, they're not gonna use it. So we need to make sure that we're we're hearing from as many people as possible.

0:41:01And so we are also offering a variety of other opportunities to provide input.

0:41:10So we have 20 plus can pop ups planned pop ups and pops in we're gonna be at 30 plus council meetings square board meetings and and commission presentations. We have a lived experience advisory group, which is basically like a like a focus group, or populations.

0:41:33In in our service area, we're partnering with 10 different community based organizations to make sure that we are reaching into particular communities that that are of interest. So that we're getting a a good pulse from from those folks.

0:41:49And I think one thing that I wanted to. Highlight is, we have an upcoming virtual workshop on December seventh. You can find out more about that workshop at our website. Www, dot A/C transit.org slash realign and then we have another

0:42:06update at our board meeting along with our open house on December thirteenth. All of that is at our website along with the various pop ups and pop ins. And what have you?

0:42:21This is kind of an overview of all the different tactics that we're using. A lot of them were digital. But we did recognize, especially during the pandemic that not everybody has digital access. We wanna make sure that we're not leaving out people that are not

0:42:37as comfortable with in a digital setting. So again, we have a lot of different in person opportunities. But we're also hosting at 20 different libraries throughout the service area. A large booklet of all of the different route profiles in English, Spanish, and Chinese along with an opportunity to provide written comment. And so we're

0:42:59huh!

0:43:00Picking those up routine and feeding them into the system, so that we

0:43:04what people are saying about our service. Our proposals? Rather.

0:43:09I'm also gonna leave with Holly here. Some tink ones out in your communities your your pancake breakfast few? You could take them along and and pass them out as as you see fit.

0:43:23And yeah, with that I will

0:43:28open up for questions this is how you can reach me. I'm pretty sure you all know how to reach me, but also this is our our Director of of service development and planning. That was right right personally, is the planner for this particular geography. So that would be the appropriate person to reach out to

0:43:49great. Thank you very much for that very thorough presentation. I hope the services stay consistent in El Cerrito as they do in Albany. Are there any council questions or comments? Do you have a hand from me, or can you see him on the screen?

0:44:06Councilmember? Kingto?

0:44:08Councilmember Quinto: Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Ryan, for this great presentation, you know. Counsel.

0:44:17I'm unmuted. Can you hear me now?

0:44:25Can you hear me now?

0:44:27We we still cannot hear you. Council member can tell. Perhaps try disconnecting from your audio.

0:44:35Councilmember Quinto: I'm unmuted.

0:44:40Hello.

0:44:46can you hear me? Okay? Is, gonna look into what issues. Perhaps we can.

0:44:54Okay, any other council members go first.

0:44:57hey? Councilmember fidelum

0:45:09to be reevaluating the meetings and the costs of everything. I was just said, 75% of your customers are back. I have this number. But transit agencies are having financial difficulty for shortfall. It's over the next.

0:45:33So we're less reliant on fares than, say bark, or many other trans operators. Calf is another one that relies on fares

0:46:28in a way, at our barge station. So I was really happy to see the 7 coming back

0:46:34longer hours or service. My my daughter, just 2 days before this, and I was reading that packet said she was so happy to have dinner out in Berkeley at 100'clock, and was able to catch

0:46:46the best and get home. And so that was wonderful. And most of you got an email from Joanna. Ride on the bus with her. I was the first one to do so on the 7, and Berkeley, and she said, No, we're going to Barrett.

0:47:02And we went on together that this week, and went down to the Denmark station, which is, as you know, cleaned up and looking better. There's a great screen on there that talks about all the transit connections you can make in the room. So I know Emily well, and it's just

0:47:18I kind of know about transit. But this was like, this is easy. So this was really good. So so thank you for that really good stuff going there.

0:47:25This counsel before members passed a resolution in support of a bus lane only over the Bay bridge.

0:47:35Do you guys still support? That? Is that something you still care about? Because it used to be with the traffic and going queueing into San Francisco a big deal. Yes. It is something that we are are still interested in.

0:47:49the focus right now is on real line and local service, of course, but we still carry about 3,000 passengers a day over the over the bridge, and those buses are definitely delayed. I think there is opportunity. Maybe it's not quite in the near future, but for the East Bay to to connect with San Francisco and have a dedicated lane would definitely allow for.

0:48:13or more buses to to travel through. I think right now the challenge you have is that the bridge is at capacity in terms of cars. Bart is not at capacity and so we'd need all of our assistance to to start going back up to capacity or pre pandemic. And then at that point we would definitely take advantage of a of a dedicated. It's a post. Pandemic has changed, and everything has been here

0:48:36this question, and we're tack a little bit. And one of one of the issues I get working from the aging is bus stops

0:48:44and also we know the shelters that are not covered. It's a city that it's an issue that involves city transit and sponsors of the bus stops. I think, with tax gonna be trying to help out for a year coming up working to fund improvement with our city. But it's a long term issue, and I hope A/C transit will work with us to make sure that it's a long term solution to making sure our seniors and others have bus stops and shelters.

0:49:11Yes, and then we do appreciate the partnership with Waite Tech and the and the the the need to, at least in previous in the short term, and think about a long term solution. One of the things that at transit has done over the last year is we've taken over ownership of the transit shelters, and that's why we're looking for additional resources to maintain them before we add up a contract with clear channel outdoor advertising. So advertising they maintain them. It wasn't

0:49:36the best level of of maintenance. And so we think that we're going to bill to increase that level of maintenance. By taking the the service in house. Let's work together. Thank you very much. Thank you.

0:49:48Thank you for the presentation. First. I would love to applaud that outreach effort and the engagement that you guys have done. It's been really fantastic, exemplary, and really just thoughtful. I was a few months ago Richmond covers when there was the event, kind of launching at the start of this. So to wait and see now that we're in phase 3. How much work has been put into it.

0:50:14I also really appreciate the guiding principles that have come out of that, because I think it's very reflective of what we're hoping for here.

0:50:21I will not mention Joanna goblin in this conversation, because she was such a champion specifically for the 72 line. But of course, lots of other lines

0:50:33and concern about elimination of 72 are. So I appreciate that you broke down that it actually would

0:50:43the frequency of the buses coming by spacing it out. You said something I was curious about which was the actual bus, stops themselves. What does that gonna look like here in El Suito?

0:50:56Yes, great question. So we haven't looked at the specific stop locations yet. But right now the rapid is every half mile. So I think there's Trarrow, and then Mosure, I think is stop space, and I think it's the Plaza

0:51:11so under that this area it would be closer than that, but not as close as as local stops, probably a third of a mile spacing. What we've seen and and other examples of this of this kind of rapid hybrid model is that third of a mile spacing is is sufficient enough one to keep the bus moving along, but also 2 to still maintain that access, so that folks walking down from the hill. Say, don't have to walk too far with a distance on, so power to get to

0:51:36near a stop, so we don't have the specific locations, yet the rapid locations would most likely stay. And then we'll try to fill in some some stops in between there to try to get to around that third of a while. Space stops for us to find out here in El Cerrito, because then we can speak with our constituents about it, especially for those who are reliant on the 72. We just want to make sure that you know if we're moving your stops.

0:52:00any of those things would be good to know just one thing out of curiosity, mentioned that there's now 2,000 or so riders who are on the Trans base service every day with the pre pandemic numbers team. So it's a big difference.

0:52:18a

0:52:20audio effects.

0:52:28That's what I'm working, too.

0:52:29Councilmember Quinto: Thank you. Can thank you, Mayor. Can you hear me now.

0:52:34Hello! Can you hear me?

0:52:39Oh.

0:52:41Council Member Kinto, we still cannot hear you in the room, so it's

0:52:51trying to figure

0:52:57Can you hear me.

0:53:00too. Funny.

0:53:05I think we're okay, councilman. We can go.

0:53:11I told him her email.

0:53:13Councilmember Quinto: You can hear me.

0:53:15You're very muffled, so I can't understand what you're saying.

0:53:20Councilmember Quinto: Yes, we can hear you. Okay, thank you. No, thank you. And thank you to it for working on that. You know, as I was going to say earlier. You know 3 of our council members castle Member Fidel, myself and Council Member Weiss grew up in El Cerrito. So. You know all 3 of us took every single route that would take us to Berkeley. So you know, with our baby boomers retiring.

0:53:49and the double the doubling of our senior population. I'm hoping that we can consider a tax to

0:53:58gonna add some of these routes like the 67 and the 68 that disappeared during the great recession of the 2,008

0:54:09if II know the tax fail here in Contra Costa, but I truly believe we should try again. You look at the map and you see how robust bu bus services in Alameda County, and you just see a shell of what we used to have before the great Recession. So but hopefully we can all work on that with

0:54:33with tax, Ccta. And all the cities in West contra Costa so, looking at that and looking at, and I'm reminded because I attended the A/C transit meeting at el Cerrito City Hall. When Mayor Rita Xavier of San Pablo mentioned that a lot of people

0:54:56use the 72 R. And we're talking about the most needy of our population in West Contra Costa that. Use it to travel from San Pablo and Richmond, North Richmond, to get to their jobs in Berkeley and Oakland. So this truly is affecting. You know, our meet and most neediest of population, and they are the majority of who takes

0:55:23the bus daily, so I know it will return. And I look forward to making sure that we get some of these routes back when things are better. You know, things are better in the 2,000 after the great recession was over. And unfortunately, we just didn't have the votes

0:55:45to re, you know, to put that tax on there. But this truly is important when you see baby boomers. And now, Jenxers will be retiring as well, and the doubling of our population, who will not be able to drive a car

0:56:02and and many of them truly live up in the hills now. And so II look forward to having these routes back but also making sure that the neediest, of course, Contra Costa, have the routes there. II saw the route to the what is that? The 79 that was changed, and the current route there going through Richmond. Those are low income areas. And a lot of people take those buses. Now. They have to walk

0:56:30a long ways to get to the future bus site. So I just, you know.

0:56:34But I'm I'm just getting a West County perspective, and someone who has taken the bus for years since I was a kid. So Ryan, thank you for that presentation. And hopefully, we can keep A/C transit alive. Because this is a transit that a lot of people depend on. And I once did, and I will probably depend on it, in the near future. So again. Thank you, Ryan.

0:57:05One more thing I wanted to mention. You know, if my colleague, council Member Abelson, Mayor Abelson, we're live today. She would be stopping on and and and screaming right now, what you're getting rid of her favorite wrap the 72 R. So know that a lot of disabled people use that 72 r as well. So thank you again.

0:57:33are there any other comments from council members?

0:57:37I just wanna check whether any request for comments by the public on this item we do have. I do have one additional request. If you would like to take that. Okay.

0:57:57okay, Ira, you can unmute and begin your time. Now.

0:58:01Ira Sharenow: Yeah, thank you. I actually wanted to speak on the streets proposal. I had my hand raised.

0:58:06and somehow it got lowered. So I'll just be brief on this. I want to say I want to thank Council Member Quinto for his concerns about the pavement condition index.

0:58:17But I'm not sure if I see things quite his way. Let me just read to you the scores from 2,016, through 2022 these'll be the one year scores 2,016 was 85, which was one of the best in the camp in the whole Bay area.

0:58:342,017 dropped from 85 to 83, 2,018, and dropped to 82

0:58:402,018 and 2,019 was an incredible drop. From 82 to 74, 2,01920, 20 dropped from 74 to 72,

0:58:522020 dropped to 2021 dropped from 72 to 70. And now there are new results which I just got about a week ago. 2021 to 2222 dropped to 69. So we're just mediocre

0:59:08My understanding for reading the engineering report. I didn't read it closely was that the engineers were recommending the city spend 2 million dollars a year, but instead, the city on most years, maybe not this year. That most years is just spending 700,000 or $800,000 a year.

0:59:29so the score is expected to continue to go down over the next few years. I recommend that the council. Take a close look at this.

0:59:38and really discuss a strategy so that these roads don't continue to decline.

0:59:45It's more than just like one or 2 streets

0:59:48that caused this decline from 85 to 69, which is just about the biggest decline in the Bay area. I think especially over what happened in the last few years, even though we actually have a tax. For that covers a pavement. And of course, although the Pavement Condition index

1:00:08doesn't cover the bike route. I know there was something like

1:00:13I asked for some repairs on the bike route. I think it's about 2 years now, certainly. Well, over a year.

1:00:20where, like one spot. the city marked it up as a dangerous spot.

1:00:26but still hasn't fixed it. So that's been quite some time. I think a lot more has to be done. Bicycle safety.

1:00:35I appreciate the committee's work.

1:00:38Ira Sharenow: To check that. The taxes were spent properly.

1:00:41but that brings up another point, I think Measure V was also supposed to have a committee. You're supposed to be audited, and then

1:00:49the Financial Advisory Board was supposed to review the auditor's report. I don't think that has occurred, but please correct me if I'm wrong, so I hope Measure V will also have an audit. So thank you very much

1:01:06further questions, Mayor. Click.

1:01:09and thank you again for the wonderful presentation. I hope that we can all help you with getting additional outreach of bus services so important for our community.

1:01:19Thank you. Thank you. Yep.

1:01:23Okay. The next item is adoption of the consent calendar, which includes the following items.

1:01:30monthly disbursement and check register. Report for October 2023. An amendment to the city's classification plan. Are there any brief questions or requests by the Council, or requests by the Council to pull items off the consent. Calendar

1:01:50councilmember King, I see you shaking your head, I take. That's a no.

1:01:54okay. I do have some questions on

1:01:59the check register, and

1:02:03I also have a couple of questions on the reclassification.

1:02:11So

1:02:21question so on the

1:02:24check register.

1:02:27I did see that we have a very expensive line, second installment for workers. Comp. And I was wondering if you could tell me if the cost has been going up, or if there's any, if this is an unusually high number, or this is just the typical cost for workers. Comp, so for the workers, Comp, it's paid upfront in the beginning of the year. I'm not exactly sure if it was increase. I'm sure there was a slight increase over last year, but it is paid out, the majority in the first quarter.

1:02:57Thank you. Great. And then That was my question. Thank you.

1:03:06And then I have a question about the reclassification.

1:03:17It's Canada. Can be helpful. Alex. Alex. Thank you. And here.

1:03:36So

1:03:40is that specific question. Yes, I had a question about the week classification. And I was wondering if you know, I said, it looks like it's a requirement bill financial specialist position to have a bachelors. Okay.

1:03:57that can you just explain? That is that typical can be.

1:04:05It should be variants. could be some other get to the screens, but doesn't seem to.

1:04:11It was a job announcement

1:04:14and thank you for the question. Just to confirm.

1:04:22So that would be the estimated for this position

1:04:25could standard

1:04:47background education to central functions of the shop.

1:04:56So I have some questions typical to

1:05:00to have it strong to say that the bachelor's degree is required. That's typical.

1:05:09eternally healthy mind, whether, without speaking to, as if I think it has effects of equivalent to a degree

1:05:18intentionally equivalent to. So maybe if someone comes in with 1516. Edge has a bachelor's degree.

1:05:28just some other than experience have type of degree that could so we try to take a look at all expenses, and we might have

1:05:42especially to degree as well. So

1:06:03so so, just to clarify. You don't have to have a bachelor sooner to do this job. Get the get up and quiet, but it's addiction. There could be a competition.

1:06:21So thank you.

1:06:25So theoretically

1:06:40date those situations.

1:06:42you say, for sure.

1:06:44Thank you. I just want that clarification. I appreciate that. And I appreciate that this is coming out of the class and Comp study. Can you just give us a

1:06:55Seventh

1:06:56Class and Comp study. Yeah, sure. And so it's definitely been a detailed project. We, as you know, haven't had class and Comp study for quite some time. So there was a lot to dive into each department. Yeah.

1:07:12but I'm scared

1:07:13classification portion and just click some few and to the next step above our department.

1:07:25Hopefully, we will complete that right of the process through December especially. Well, the increases that will be reflected their agency's website so that we can have true data. So hopefully, beginning of February, we can start to have

1:07:50information, please. towards hopefully, a council presentation of actual data to present

1:07:58is that coming? Do you think? Sometime in March or April zoom? So hopefully,

1:08:10to go to council?

1:08:12Great. Thank you very much. Thank you.

1:08:16Okay.

1:08:18I would move the consent. Calendar. Second, second, a motion by Council Member Fideli, second by Curtinick

1:08:28Sharona.

1:08:29I may appreciate. Councilmember Fideli.

1:08:33councilmember, King Taylor.

1:08:35Councilmember Quinto: No one's present in the room, and I am voting. Yes.

1:08:40thank you. Councilmember leisinger. Aye, motion carries.

1:08:44hey?

1:08:46So our next item

1:08:52is policy matters. The school year 2023, 24, general fund budget Quarterly. Update through September 2023. May we please have the staff report?

1:09:05I think so I think so. And if I may, just if we have, we are experiencing some challenges with audio on zoom. Unfortunately, there's only so much we can mitigate because of the equipment we have in this room. But from what we understand there are no issues with audio on our live stream. So folks that are listening from home. If you're on zoom, you can get onto the live stream, and that may help you.

1:09:31alleviate some of the audio challenges that we're having at the moment. Thank you. City clerk.

1:09:35Okay.

1:09:56good evening, Mayor. Members of the Council. I'm crystal reams finance director. Today. I have for you the first quarter of 2320,

1:10:05Joe bye.

1:10:09reading all of this to you. I'm just going to go through some of the highlights scroll down to.

1:10:16It's pretty. Our biggest revenue source property tax doesn't come in until December or in April, so that's why revenues are a little are a little slower. They definitely come in on a pattern. So we will definitely have more revenues coming in with the next quarterly. Update

1:10:34this just outlines the the bits of revenue that we have received as a percent of total budget. And you can also compare to the prior year the same quarter, the prior fiscal year, same quarter. So we're kind of comparing apples to apples here.

1:10:49And so we're at 8% of total taxes, which is slightly lower than the prior fiscal year. And then we're at 14 total overall, which is a little bit higher. So we are up in the the other categories that are not specifically taxed.

1:11:09And then we have a comparison of the revenue by department, and you can see those. The taxes are grouped with non-departmental. So again, that's why we're so low there that will trend higher next quarter.

1:11:26and then we have down here at the expenditures the expenditures are tracking right in line with the quarter we're in the first quarter. So at 25, some areas personnel is Yup, 24 and overall

1:11:44we're tracking at

1:11:4725%. So total budget of 48, 48 million, and Our expenditures are higher for this quarter than the previous quarter of last fiscal year, mainly due to the bill vacancies. So we see a higher cost for personnel.

1:12:08and we can also see down here, broken out by category.

1:12:15Oh, what I did want to highlight, which kind of lines up with your question, Mayor, earlier about the the large payment. Our large payment is in here in the administrative category, so you can see that? That's a little higher, but that's because we pay a big chunk of it out in the first quarter

1:12:34overall. It's tracking within the 25%. We're right where we should be

1:12:41okay.

1:12:42And so in conclusion, we are on track to meet our fiscal year 2324 budget goals. Revenues, like, I said, are not received in equal quarterly releases primarily due to the Biannual Funding cycle. December and April for property taxes. Expenditures like I said, are on track at 25,

1:13:02and we are continuously monitoring revenues and expenditure trends, and any trends indicating a need for our budget adjustment are determined after the completion of the second quarter, and will be reported to the city council at the fiscal year 2324, midyear budget session.

1:13:17That was some of the highlights.

1:13:19Great? Any questions? Thank you very much. So are there any questions from council members?

1:13:26Mayor pro tem. In the first table? The Webinar section is it? Are we really at 84% of our business license tax? Yes. So the business license annual.

1:13:40So in July, so and then it kind of tapers up. Okay, that makes sense, which is great. That's good to know that it's aligned with the payment of that tax. And then also, I really appreciate the department based budgeting. It really does help, you know, this is not sent to us. And they started on council so that we can see this, because now I can look at it, the department and see what that you to date

1:14:09and the actual. So it's it's really helpful. Thank you.

1:14:15Other questions. Councilmember. Padone. yeah, thank you for answering my question.

1:14:21Registration, high level of expenditure. On the

1:14:29the property transfer tax. I don't know where it was now, but there was some information in that. There's an additional amount of money that would

1:14:39add the 5 74 up to 700 and 674,000 or something. Is that

1:14:47money due to come in somewhere, or

1:14:50I don't know why I read that.

1:14:54Is it in the

1:14:57oh, it's in the yeah. So that was not added to this. I was just wondering why. And

1:15:07oh, that? Oh, so 2, the 266,000. Yeah. so so that would increase the percent of the budget as well. Right? So so.

1:15:20But did that in October should vote be reflected in the October amount, cause we it was a lag of when we received the payment.

1:15:27And we typically don't accrue that

1:15:30end of the fiscal year just for consistency in general, too far behind our original estimate in the budget

1:15:42and you use the word on track a few times, generally overall.

1:15:46See exactly where they're tracking, and

1:16:11in a very timely manner. So thank you.

1:16:15Okay. councilmember King.

1:16:19Councilmember Quinto: Thank you. Mayor. Crystal, thank you. Great presentation.

1:16:24a question that that

1:16:27get that was already discussed with Council member mayor pro tem regarding the business taxes. For July, the business license tax. How does that look? Because I'm thinking of the rent registry on this? And how does it look now, compared to last year?

1:16:55It does look like it's trending higher. Then, at this time last fiscal year. So last fiscal year we're at 475,000, and this year we work for the at 964. So we're trending. It could be for various various reasons.

1:17:16Councilmember Quinto: But definitely a strong, a strong number. Okay? And you probably don't have this now. But in the future I'd like to know?

1:17:26yeah, we do have a lot of mono pop landlords. And I wanna find out, are are they participating in large numbers? Are we getting the mama, pop, landlord, signing up and giving us information that we have asked for. And I know with that it was like a 40% that it's getting, you know, a few years ago. And I just wanna know.

1:17:49are we at the 75 or 80 now? And if we can send more notices to the folks that have not signed up because they are, they do have a small business

1:18:03by being a mom and pop landlord, I wanna make sure they play by the rules. And then I know there are some that have not done anything yet, and I hope Staff can look into that to make sure that they fill out the paperwork when they renew their license. So thank you, Crystal.

1:18:25it's a bit.

1:18:29I mean just 3 taking care of.

1:18:34You're still at some point, sir, knock

1:18:47great. So I do have a. I also have a couple of questions, or the increase for community development on the revenue side that 43% of budget does that tie back to some of the license taxes or license fees? Or does that really more tied to increased renovations because my understanding was that our ourpt are real property transfer tax numbers were a little bit lower

1:19:17because of slower sales, but that they were largely offset by higher numbers of permits for renovations which also increase property value.

1:19:30Right? Let's see. 100 question is regarding to allow these

1:19:42into a 43%. And

1:19:46is like Shannon. Is in transit coming for the next item. So I'll miss the beginning of that. So if I don't answer the point. But often we actually even have a couple of items that we might still even do journal entries from so depending on the timing of permits. But the affordable housing project, for example, submitted. It's sick. It's a plan review and paid the plan review. So sometimes we do get

1:20:12ahead when a big one comes in, but it could be paying for something that occurs over the year, or even 2 years. So I watch it carefully to kind of watch where those things are going, but they do

1:20:23like business license. I heard right? That will sometimes come in. So it doesn't really always track exactly with the month in the year that you're in. since it's not a month of fee, it's a big deposit. So my my question was more around increased, permitting for renovations to offset the fewer sales.

1:20:43So property values changing. How I've shared this incredibly stable and a single family. We talked about 10,000 households that might be true at some scale. But when I'm looking, when I do back out the larger projects that I was just referring to, we seem to be tracking strong, but not like exceptional. And I think that we find that rule. I think we've said year over year. But we do look at that like

1:21:10if the big projects are pulled out. What does what does it look like? Monthly in terms of our sometimes we call it even better, but it's really more just the the largest volume of courses in a single family. So I would say that the remodels are strong for the past several years, but not like exceptionally out of what they've been for the past few years.

1:21:31So that

1:21:32is, you know, you don't really anticipate

1:21:35increased renovation work

1:21:37and increase in property value offsetting any kind of loss that we might have from a reduced your property transfer tax. Yeah, 10,000. It's a certain 10,000 individual household, even if the certain percentage. I don't think that it it

1:21:56that balances itself out. So I mean Google, look at you know, we'll end up seeing it. But I think it would be modest in terms of the overall budget. Okay, thank you.

1:22:06Hello.

1:22:08I do look forward to the next quarter to see how we are doing and tracking. That now is the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments

1:22:18on this item in person, request to speak, can submit a speaker card to the city clerk, I mean, the speakers can use the raised hand feature to request, to speak. Please remember to identify yourself and your city of residence at the beginning of your comments. City clerk. Please proceed. Thank you, Mayor. We only have one request to speak on this item, so I'll go straight to Ira. Ira. You should be able to unmute and begin your time now.

1:22:42Ira Sharenow: Okay, thank you. First of all, I want to say, Staff was completely incomprehensible. Councilmember Quinto came through very clearly.

1:22:52and the mayor was also very clear.

1:22:55But it's kind of disappointing. I don't know where the streaming is.

1:23:00Ira Sharenow: So I'm I've had to stay on zoom

1:23:03for me. The biggest consideration is whether the city's going to have a surplus or a deficit, as I recall from the June budget there was a surplus of a hundred $1,000, but then there were one off expenditures that were 1.6 million dollars, and some of those were construction projects

1:23:24who are, which are apparently more expensive than originally anticipated, based on previous council meetings. So that would seem there would be a general fund deficit of 1.5 million for starters, and then, with the real property transfer tax

1:23:41coming in way below projections

1:23:44that would seem the General Fund deficit would be several 1 million dollars. The citywide budget, as I recall.

1:23:53was a deficit of multimillions at the start. And now, with these other issues would be even more.

1:24:01I would like to see the finance director give a report on the status in terms of deficit or surplus, you know. Partly, I'm guessing. It's extremely difficult to get information from the city.

1:24:15Now, in terms of the real property transfer tax. I looked at the

1:24:20information given by staff.

1:24:23and it said, $670,497 for the first 3 months of fiscal year 2024.

1:24:30So I multiplied that by 4, because, you know, we had one quarter, and that's a projection of $2,681,988,

1:24:40and given that the projection was $4,300,000. That's a shortfall of $1,618,012. So 1.6 million dollars shortfall

1:24:53and I know that future years on the five-year budget project growth over the 4.3 million.

1:25:00So II have a lot of concerns about the budget and

1:25:06I think we need more realistic numbers. So again, my my main.

1:25:12my main concerns are, what's the general fund. Deficit and the city wide deficit. It would be nice to have some projections like we used to get a few years ago when we got monthly reports.

1:25:27Why? So this council voted to put 1 million dollars in a section 1 15 trust. But apparently the city actually hasn't done anything yet.

1:25:36so it would be nice if we could get an update on that as well. Frankly, I don't see why you're not leaving the money in a late account, which is almost risk-free.

1:25:46So, anyway, that's what I have to say. Thank

1:25:54you. Say correct.

1:25:56Think we are done. I've been ready to go. City manager would like to make any comment. I know that we have for coming, and I am looking forward to some exciting news that you have, but I will not spoil surprise. So

1:26:14hey.

1:26:16okay, I don't think you're referring to confirming our

1:26:21surplus

1:26:49regarding the Hu afford affordable housing, finance, and development. One of the clients to satellite, affordable housing associates or sawa. Sawa is a member of the development team selected for Bart for the plaza to d project

1:27:02immediate importance is not advising, sah, about the plaza to D project, and there is no financial relationship to the project. Nevertheless, to avoid any concerns, I will now be participating in this item, I will pass it over to the Mayor Protem, and will return following this item.

1:27:21Thank you, Peter, and sorry to see you go.

1:27:26All right. Can you please have a staff work?

1:27:31Take a moment to get love, you

1:27:35to to leave the room.

1:27:56I'm how alright and thank you. 10. And

1:28:02hopefully, also because I couldn't take the clicker works, just gonna sit here and drive.

1:28:10So thank you again. And people to provide an update on Serita library.

1:28:25so long presentation as you have seen in packet and online. But it's essentially 3 presentations, one agenda, as you see on screen here. I'm going to talk a little bit about the background, how we got here.

1:28:41how we actually been working on this trying to build new library in the city of El Cerrito. We will be talking about the poll results that were done surveys that were conducted, and after that we will be talking about next steps, Timeline, and then any questions that the Council may have.

1:29:01So I just want to note that we have staff here. We also have Nick Wilder, who's the Assistant Vice President of? Related California? That Louis Principal Property Development Officer from but Brian Gobby of Gabby Research, Jessica Reynolds, of rental strategies may be missing

1:29:21other people. But we do have all sorts of staff here as well city staff that can answer various questions. So, as you see. Like, I said, we'll be going through this this evening.

1:29:34So this is the timeline for planning the new else Rita Library, and, as you can see. Hopefully, that's not too terribly small for everyone. But we embarked on this in 2,002, and it is not a coincidence that I started in 2,001, because this was a project that I've been working on since 2,002. When I came to the city as the assistant to the city manager.

1:29:59At that time there were state construction grants that were available for shovel, ready projects that had completed the needs assessment and a building program, and the city hadn't done that at that time. So in order to take advantage of what we were had heard about and move Grant opportunity that was slated to be on the ballot in 2,006. The city began to plan, including the needs assessment. Hiring an expert consultant to look at the current conditions

1:30:23and compare them to industry standards along with developing a building program that would incorporate all the needs for a new library, and we'll talk about the needs assessment in this coming slides.

1:30:34Unfortunately, the Grant opportunity did not materialize because the State ballot measure for the construction grants failed.

1:30:40and no new construction bonds have since been placed on the State ballot. However, the city did continue to try to find a place for the library and funding for the library. This included attempting to leverage redevelopment, agency funding, working with the school district. However, that didn't materialize, and soon thereafter redevelopment agencies were dissolved. We lost all of that funding we would have been able to use

1:31:03not long after that, as you can see in 2013, the city confirmed that a new library was a priority in our strategic plan. So we continue to work toward analyzing sites, analyzing funding options. And we updated the needs assessment in 2,014

1:31:21in 2016 the city approach Bart. About studying feasibility of the plaza to do project as a site for a library, and that began the partnership, which is what is underway as continued as of today.

1:31:37But unfortunately, in 2,016, as everyone knows. We put a measure on the ballot, and it fell just short of the two-thirds requirement. City staff, however, continued to work with Bart on the prospect of the Tod idea continued to solicit feedback from the public, and once the development team was chosen by Bar. The city then began to work with the entire team moving forward with plans to include a license

1:32:01library which has brought us to where we are at this point, and you can also see that going forward? There's still planning and pre-planning. Ha! Pre planning and planning happening for the greater project. Not just the library. And this is what we're trying to make sure we're we're keeping in time with and doing, being a part of.

1:32:22So the library needs assessment. Originally conducted in the early 2 thousands and updated. I think it was completed in 22,004 and updated again in 2,014. So, as you can see these main points here. I won't read them aloud. But essentially the assessment found these main points. The library building was built originally in 1,948 expanded in 1,960. It does not meet current earthquake, health, safety, or any building code standards for certainly for libraries built today.

1:32:52The assessment found that it's significantly under size for the population of our community. It doesn't have space to meet the current needs and current and future needs for a modern library. Including the library being packed with kids, it's overcrowded, and there's no space to be able. When there's, you know, there's no reading space. There's no really no space at all. You've been there, you know. It's one kind of big giant room.

1:33:18and doesn't have any community space or a separate space for things like reading or or groups.

1:33:25the it also suffers from major structural and building system deficiencies. It doesn't have air conditioning. The windows don't close properly. It's it's an old building that

1:33:38is beyond its useful life. There's just no question of that that impacts not only where it says safety, comfort, and functionality of the building, but also impacts the library staff that work there. And

1:33:49and as a note, the library building is owned by the city, and it's maintained by the city. But we contract with the Contra Costa County Library. They operate the library, they hire the staff, and they do the programming and provide the collections. As a note. As you all know, the current library is open for 40 is currently open for 46 h each week.

1:34:12The base of that is provided by the county that pays for the staff and the city funds 6 extra hours for a total of 46, because of the configuration of our library and the size of our library. It is not possible to be open any further any any longer than those 46 h

1:34:30and again, accessibility is an issue. So, seniors and disabled residents, if you've ever tried to go into the bathroom in there, it's a great challenge. So

1:34:41the needs assessment called for a facility that would be about 20,000 square feet in size in order to serve our population. So for reference. The current library is 6,500 square feet, and again, can't accommodate the needs and services for current and future populations, and it also should be noted that the property that the library sits on is pretty much the parcel that we own right next to Fairmont schools. Just the building.

1:35:07the parking spaces right behind it. It's not big enough to build a 20,000 square foot facility on that spot.

1:35:17This chart shows the information of other recently built libraries. With with similar populations in comparison to ours. The current is all the way at the bottom, as you can see, 2 5 square feet per capita

1:35:32at 6,500 feet, and it's well below comparable cities. So, as you can see there, Lafayette, Milbury, Los Gatos, Hercules, Pleasant Hill, Belmont, San Pablo. Those were again picked as recent and similar in population size, and you can see that in the middle we've shown that our 20,000 square foot proposed building will be right in the middle. We're not building the biggest library in county. We're not building the smallest cavalry

1:35:57county library in the county. It would be right right there set for our population. Of course, that's as of the 2,020 census.

1:36:08So over the past several years city staff has continued to gather information. not just the technical needs assessment process, but also soliciting a lot of public comment and feedback. We've held multiple workshops over the last several years we've commissioned the National Community Survey. We've had online surveys. We've gathered feedback. At city events, all of this feedback has resulted in several priorities that residents have indicated are important to them which are listed here, one of the biggest ones that we found.

1:36:37and is that obviously we want the library to meet current health, safety, and seismic standards, but also especially in these times of climate change, with the recent wildfires, with all of the things that we've had going on weather wise to have a cooling center or a warming center when necessary, or a charging center during extreme weather events, air quality.

1:37:01All of those things which is is a huge, huge priority.

1:37:06Being able to have room for summer reading programs, literacy to literacy, tutoring family programs and children's programs as well as for students. One thing that has certainly come up over and over and over is expanded library hours. Again. We can't expand them any further with the size of the library we have, and that is part of the county. That's not.

1:37:27That's not me. That's what the county has told us, and also again improving access for seniors and disabled residents.

1:37:35Further, a lot of comments have have come to us again. Highlighting. We've got a lot of new families in town highlighting a children's area for story times that is separate

1:37:46from from other from other quiet reading spaces. Public access computers, free Wi-fi, that's highly used. Community meeting rooms and classrooms. This, again, a new library would allow for that which also would allow for expanded connections and better access. And of course this has been a big question. Of course, space for the friends of the library to conduct

1:38:10their booksell.

1:38:14So working with Bart and the developers. The location that's proposed for the library, as we've been sharing over the past over the past several months since the last time we spoke to the Council about this in February

1:38:26would be at the corner of Fairmont, and Liberty in the To D project. So right here on the corner

1:38:34and as noted there locating the library here, would save approximately 10 million dollars from a standalone location as reference. The previous ballot measure in 2,016 was for 30 million dollars, Standalone, assuming a standalone library, and that's 2,016 costs. So the same cost of 30 million in 2,016 would be even more expensive today.

1:38:57So the cost savings would be significant by locating it in this project. Then, if we had to build a standalone library. Furthermore, there's not any land at this point that we would be able to build such a library on, so that would have to include site costs or land costs of that anything of that nature to be able to facilitate.

1:39:16Another space that would be for a library. So. But this location has a lot of highlights to it. As we've been talking about again, with the project in general, it helps create a downtown. It allows for other amenities and services. As you can see in this portion there would be a public plaza along Fairmont.

1:39:40the the on street parking. There's been a lot of questions about parking the city would control the parking along Fairmont, and Liberty, which would be closest to the library. But that is all. Still to be determined, and studies are being conducted, and we would do that, or we would bring that back to the Council when it's ready. But at this point. That's what we're we. It would not necessarily be within

1:40:04the building or within a structure that would be farther away from the actual building.

1:40:10It would draw, it would activate the pedestrian street as it shows and it's contemporary energy efficient. And the design which will, of course, be coming. And there's no design that's happened yet. But the idea would be that it would be able to to function as a full library with the full complement of services with all of the needs to try to be addressed. And of course it's a transportation trouset hub, as we all know.

1:40:34so that you can get there pretty easily. Whether on Bart or A/C transit from anywhere in the city.

1:40:43So some of you may recognize this. This slide from what we may have what we did several years ago, and this was in conjunction with Group 4 who'd helped us do a lot of the public workshops and create some

1:41:01trying to create the ability to look at the various sites back in 2,016 we analyzed a lot of sites. And this was. This chart shows the criteria that was used over the years to determine what would be a good place for the location.

1:41:17An option one is blank because we don't have the land or a place to put any of a standalone library at this point. And I should note that back in 2015. When we started this we did take a look at what might be a cost, effective location, whether the city would have to buy land. Would we lease something? And we looked at all of our current land, which, as you know, isn't much.

1:41:40We tried to work with the school district at the time, specifically looking at the lower play field. At the former Portala site the school district chose not to move forward. With that

1:41:49we even looked at the Contra Costa Civic theater. Some of you may remember that. To try to maybe develop a joint facility there, but that was very cost prohibitive to put a brand new theater in a in a new library, in a building compared to what you know library itself would cost. And also, there's some grading issues with that site that made it more expensive to develop there as well. So at any rate, we didn't find a site at that time.

1:42:13and we still haven't really, truly, at this time. That would include all of the criteria that you see here, which is one of the main reasons that we worked with Bart back in 2,016, and approach them to have a conversation about whether or not this would fit into the development, and, as you can see, it really does check all the boxes for the criteria that we've talked about.

1:42:34The timeline again, for construction would be between 26, and 28. It wouldn't involve a land cost. It also wouldn't take any properties off the books, because this is proposed to be in the building that is affordable housing which would not take away any. You know there's no property tax that's generated by an affordable housing building. And so this would be. Actually, it's it's quite good synergy for for everything as shown there, the program synergy.

1:43:01and again, to do a standalone site, a standalone library, including perhaps land costs or lease costs would be up to in in today's dollars, probably around 35 million dollars. But right now, as we're looking, if we co-locate within the option, too, at the Plaza. It's about 20 to 22 million dollars. You can see the significant savings. So we'll get into the budget a little bit as well.

1:43:28So this is a timeline, and we again we have staff to answer questions. Once we get to, once we get to some more of the questions or discussion, if there's anything that comes up. But, as you can see, we're right here

1:43:43in 2023. This is just this is for the full project, not for the library, but, as you can see here, the planning for the station access has gone on. The master plan is being designed. There's been community engagement all along, and we're at this point here with the Master Plan entitlements that's happening. So the construction

1:44:02for all of the project would go into 6 phases. There's been varying phases, and this is is still going to be, you know, again, working with the the development team. And they've been really great to work with on helping us try to define all of this and what the phases would be. They have expressed that they're very excited about the idea of the library in a project, and they want to work with us as best they can to make that work.

1:44:28And so what this looks like here is that the proposed library would begin right about here in phase 4, so that, you know, vertical design would probably begin sometime in, you know, spring 2025 around this time here, and then moving forward into construction.

1:44:46That's just kind of a timeline of the entire project for reference.

1:44:51So these were the items and factors that were taken into account when we came up with a proposed estimated library project Budget specifically with respect to construction. So we worked on this estimate with the help of Group 4 of Nh. Financial advisors. I saw Craig how is also

1:45:08on the call and our developers. And this was for the purposes of considering a ballot measure. What? What would the construction costs include? And it's all of these things.

1:45:20including, you know, the site costs the job site management, the soft costs which would include design fees and construction management permits, etc., contingencies both, you know the you know, kind of an overall contingency and the specific project contingency allowances for Ffne that stands for furniture, fixtures, and equipment signage and technology that the city would be responsible for. And as again, the County Library

1:45:50provides a baseline of ours and technology. Anything above and beyond that is the responsibility of the city. At this point. Of course, an escalation trying to compound that over time and any additional things like improved technology,

1:46:06power storage after hours access a lot of there was a lot of expressed desire for not just a community room, but a community room that could be accessed separately from the library hours, so that would require the city to be able to make all of that work.

1:46:26So this shows kind of encapsulating the the chart on the or the table on the left is taking into the factors of that previous slide. So again, the this was worked out, and I can

1:46:39we can ask specific questions about this budget of I, again, of some of the staff that we have on it. Counsel has specific questions, but these are the estimated costs. And again, these are estimates the projected it includes an escalation of costs, considering inflation and a potential increase in construction costs over the next few years. So the total projected budget, as you can see, is about 21 million dollars.

1:47:04The revenue sources which that's the key issue here is we're trying to find the revenue to pay for all of this. So this is based on a parcel tax balance measure that would raise at the minimum what would we would be looking at a necessity for 2.5 million a year. That would be not just for the debt service, which, as you can see, would be about 1.6 million dollars, and that includes everything on this left side of the chart.

1:47:29But then additional, which would be about 900 to a million dollars all told. Once the revenue would be collected would be for things like library hours, the technology, the maintenance, and not just the maintenance of the building, but we also need to consider the maintenance of the plaza outside and including escalating costs. Now, again, once the bond, the debt service would be projected at perhaps

1:47:53perhaps 20 to 30 years. Once that is paid off, that could be as has been brought up. Before that the Council could consider lowering the rate if they wanted to, to just pay for the maintenance and pay for the library hours. But in 20 to 30 years we're not quite sure where that would be. So that would be something for Staff in the future to continue to monitor that

1:48:23these are again all estimates, but they would continue to be refined, assuming that debt service and allow for the city to use the process for the future

1:48:33potential financing sources. These are the current ones that are before us. This is a little different from a similar slide that the Council saw in February.

1:48:44because Staff is continued to look at, analyze, look at any various sources and in in February we talked about a potential, for perhaps in Eif that doesn't appear to be feasible at this time. So we're looking at. These are the main 4 that we're looking at. Existing reserves in general fund financing, coming from the general fund, which

1:49:08I think that you know that. You know as we're building back the general fund. I don't believe that that again. I would never presume a council vote. But I'm going to guess that the Council doesn't want to drain the 20 million dollars out of the general fund reserves in order to pay for the library.

1:49:24But could they? Could you use some reserves for part of it again? That would be up to the Council, of course. A ballot measure, which is what we've been looking at. Private placement financing. This would essentially be a loan or taking out a mortgage that would be have to be paid for out of the general fund, so it wouldn't be cash out of the general fund for the entire project. But we could take out a loan.

1:49:46To pay for this, and it would be the responsibility of the general fund if we were not. If we didn't have any other additional funding to pay for

1:49:54the State Library infrastructure. Grant! There was a round that was just awarded that A lot of people noticed. This was a competitive grant process and required a 50% match. So at the time that this came out, we again did not have the general fund to be, or even to come to the Council to ask to commit a match. If we wanted a 20 million dollar one we'd have to commit

1:50:1910 million.

1:50:20and we didn't have that, and we don't have that to commit at this time, according to the current general fund policy of the Council, however, there are other options that we might be able to look at, including, if we were to finance, or if we were to perhaps work with our legislators to provide some budget money from the State or the fed if that were possible.

1:50:44We could maybe leverage that for a grant, but at this time it could be from any of those other sources. But at this time that Grant, we believe there will be another round of funding that's coming up

1:50:56next year, so we will continue to monitor that and see if there's a way for us to be able to participate in that program as well. Of course, any other grants that come up, or anything that comes across

1:51:07any other construction grants, we would certainly be looking out for that. Our Grant writers and our lobbyists are absolutely on that to let us know.

1:51:17So based on everything. So far, this is the option that's been pursued by the staff, and this is also per council direction back in February. So a parcel tax would allow for both constructing the building as well as for library hours, maintenance costs, and any other additional program costs, for that would relate to the library.

1:51:36So a measure for 17 cents per building per square foot or building square foot, I'm sorry, would raise approximately 2.7 million each year, certainly covering the estimated budget

1:51:49as previously discussed, and allowing for continued improvements over the years, so that has been

1:51:54proposed for consideration very similar to the streets measure which our citizen oversight. But committee just reported on that raises a certain amount annually which goes toward the debt service and continued annual maintenance. So it's it would be a similar structure.

1:52:11the measure it would be budget stable meaning. It would not impact the city's general fund because it would be a separate restricted fund that can only be spent on what is outlined in the ballot measure.

1:52:22It would be part of the annual Audit and the Financial Advisory Board. Every year they do review the audit and it would take the lead in reviewing the audited numbers and reporting anything to the City council.

1:52:37So, after the direction from the Council in February 2023, and the development and analysis of the costs, the language for the ballot measure was developed, and the surveys were conducted so, as you can see by this list, there was robust community engagement throughout the spring and summer of 2023. I do want to take a moment to thank our residents for providing so much great feedback. It's truly help shape this project, and it's truly help shape our plans. Moving forward

1:53:05so, as you can see the study session, there were mailers. We met with library groups and stakeholders. We gathered feedback online survey. And we did have a public forum in September. A lot of what you're hearing tonight was also shared at that Forum

1:53:21in September. And then, of course, the voter surveys were conducted, and so at this point I am going to turn it over to Brian Godbeam and Brian. If you want, I can drive

1:53:36the the Powerpoint.

1:53:39Brian Godbe (Godbe Research): Great. Thank you very much, madam. City manager.

1:53:43I'm Brian Godby. I'm pleased to be here tonight to present the results of our updated updated survey next slide, please.

1:53:51Brian Godbe (Godbe Research): Thank you. As the Karen alluded to, we conducted a survey it looked at a variety of things. First of all, kind of a warm up section, where we discuss satisfaction with quality of life in El Cerrito city services and management of public funds. Then we looked specifically at a parcel measure as Karen indicated earlier as one of the potential funding sources

1:54:16to replace the library. We looked at a variety of different projects and programs that would be funded with the proceeds. And we looked at both positive and negative statements

1:54:29and then, of course, there's a wide variety of demographic information and behavioral characteristics. That we use to make sure initially that the sample is representative of the likely universe that we're interested in for the city and also can segment the data on the back end.

1:54:49More specifics about the data collection. This was an online and phone survey online meaning text invitations and email invitations to an online survey on any device phone meaning landline. Yes, there's some people out there that participate by landline. We wanna make sure everybody has an equal opportunity to participate

1:55:10and cell phones as well. But obviously the online is the biggest contributor to the number of completes that we receive

1:55:18the universe we looked at with likely March 2024 voters, as that's the next election opportunity. We were in the field in mid October the survey was 18 min long, based on phone timing, which is still our metric for doing that. The sample goal was 400. We completed 443, which gives us the margin of error plus or minus 4

1:55:405, 7%

1:55:42or 4.6 even 5.0 rounded. next slide

1:55:49so this is that introduction section we started with the quality of life. And if you had to vary in somewhat together, you see, we're at

1:55:5787 are satisfied with the quality of life in El Dorado. We've got a lot of data going back as far as may 19

1:56:06pre pandemic. And you see, the May 23 survey, we were virtually the same level, but in May of 2,019 we were at 93 satisfied with the quality of life. Virtually every city in school district took a hit on these kinds of dimensions as a result of the pandemic, but very few of them are at 87 today.

1:56:28So that's to the city's credit.

1:56:32Next slide this is satisfaction with the city services, and again adding the variance somewhat together. You see where it's 78 satisfied.

1:56:42That's a little higher than in May of this year. And just a little bit lower than May of 2019. Again, the same caveat stand the you know city did take hit. I've seen this hit down to the 40,

1:56:58so it wasn't as bad in El Dorado, and it is certainly trending upward again. If only a small amount

1:57:06next slide

1:57:08next is satisfaction with the feed handling of public fund. And again adding the variance somewhat together. You see where 56 54 satisfied in this survey that is almost always lower than that satisfaction with services. And that's because there's a big chunk of people who don't know and they're honest, and they tell us that but still 54 is great. And again, you see that up from the May survey

1:57:37And when I look at May 19, it is a little lower but again, the same same issue is is still the challenge.

1:57:45next slide, please.

1:57:47This is where we switch gears and the survey and started looking specifically at a potential powerful measure for the for the library and you see here a couple of key things that are required by State law. First of all, the 17 cents that Karen referred to earlier. You see, a term which is until ended by voters, which is, I've been tested and validated by courts. It requires a State law requires that you have how much it raises annually, which is 2.7 million dollars

1:58:17and largely, the rest of it is ours to work with to describe the project within the confines of a 75 word statement

1:58:26again adding it definitely and probably yes, together here, as we do for feasibility purposes. You see, we're at 57 which is certainly positive. It's not a bad place to start for a parcel measure that requires two-thirds. So there's some room to improve here

1:58:45as well, although one additional possibility as we move forward towards 2,025

1:58:53is. There's a measure named Aca-one, that is likely to be on the ballot in November of 2,024 and if that is successful it will bring the threshold down to 55, the same as it is for school. District. Bond measures.

1:59:10So next slide, please.

1:59:14This is a list of the things that we might spend the money on. They were provided in a random order to the respondent. And basically, we're looking to see what are their priorities for the components of the library? We've done an intensity scale here, and that's the one that you see. But we've also added the much more likely, and someone more likely together. And those are the percentages represented by the Blue Arrow range on the right hand side.

1:59:44So at the top of this list, most important to the respondents, was, provide a library that meets current health, safety, seismic standards, including providing cooling, warming, and charging centers during extreme weather. Events

1:59:57then provide safe energy, efficient library that meets earthquake fire and green building codes provide improved access for seniors and disabled residents, provide space for summer reading programs enhance children's programs and provide space for literacy

2:00:13tutoring programs next slide, please.

2:00:17And this list continues on all of these, you know. And as you saw in the first slider in the seventies. These are in the high sixties now. And we have provides children stories, time. So there's lots of children's programs that are priorities from the voters create space for family programs, provide additional space for books and up to date resource collections

2:00:40library hours expand senior programs and provide homework centers again for students. The lowest here is 67 the highest on the previous page was 74 all of those are certainly very, very strong.

2:00:56Next slide, please.

2:00:57The. At this point we switch gears a little bit. This is more of an advocacy component. It tells us what people wanna hear about? Why, the library would be

2:01:08necessary and are the basically the positive statements. The scale is a little bit different, but the idea is the same. And you can compare with the previous slide.

2:01:21So at the top of this list we have locating a new library and Bart project will save elsewhere taxpayers more than 10 million dollars that, 74% at least somewhat more likely to support the measure, so that.

2:01:34you know, effort that's gone into finding the right location and saving money. Doing so is something that voters are very, very supportive of.

2:01:44None of the money would be used for city administrators. Salary. That's a fairly typical accountability provision.

2:01:51El Tredo's library condition when compared to nearby libraries.

2:01:56Brian Godbe (Godbe Research): For a variety of reasons. When school gets out, the library is packed with students the library is built in 1948 doesn't meet current standards. All of those in the low 70

2:02:08at least somewhat more likely to support the measure next slide.

2:02:13Brian Godbe (Godbe Research): And this is the continuation of that list of items. Next is providing updated facilities will ask will allow for more after school programs

2:02:25the new library will be larger than the current library and accommodate growing collections

2:02:30measure requires independence oversight. Another accountability provision

2:02:36the new library can, be a safe community space during extreme weather events

2:02:41similar to one of the other items we saw earlier.

2:02:44The measure is and again, all of these are in the low seventies, which is, certainly a good indication

2:02:53next slide

2:02:55and this was a long list. So this is the remainder of the items. Here. We started in the low seventies again and go down to right at the 2 thirds threshold and we have again more information about that library when it was built accommodate the needs of children and a wide range of citizens.

2:03:15And on down the list next slide, please.

2:03:19of course. They're also in any kind of ballot measure context. So this is an effort to, you know. Look at both sides of the coin these are the negative items. We don't put a minus sign in front of the numbers to make them seem

2:03:35so the higher they are, the worse they are for the potential measure. The money will not be spent as a profit instead, city needs to solve it. Other general fund problems. That's a fairly standard anti-tax kind of thing at 57 at least. Someone more likely to oppose, to measure the measures of forever. Tax will never end. That's the other side of the until ended by voters coin

2:04:01the city is just asking for more money to cover up past financial.

2:04:06Brian Godbe (Godbe Research): the voters path to property tax 2019 transfer tax in 2,018 sales tax in 2,014. We don't need another tax. Pre standard anti-tax. Arguments as well. Next slide

2:04:20the average voter or average residents already paying extra taxes to the city and school district, and now they want more the measure would cost the average homeowner $300 a year. And then the one that is next item C, given inflation on groceries, gaps, and household necessities and increasing interest rates. We can't afford this tax right now.

2:04:43Of all of these items you see the the green and the berg into bars, the one that increased the most from the spring

2:04:50and open on everybody's mind, and every media outlets mind almost constantly. I mean, it's just the, you know, inflation inflation issue. And you know, part of that is, groceries. Part of it is gas and the other side of that coin is interest rates and giving mortgages

2:05:10and then, finally, if our tax dollars weren't going to high salaries, we wouldn't need this again. A standard anti-tax argument, but we are looking at both sides of the coin. So we can then come back to our ballot question in the next slide.

2:05:25And you see that we started at 57%. And we were looking for some growth and even testing positive and negatives. We're now at 60 in round numbers. We're up a little bit from where we started. And that's certainly encouraging for moving forward. It's probably not ready right now. But it is certainly going the right way, even after people hear the negative. So I think that you know, thinking about some of the options

2:05:54for the future is certainly good. And as I mentioned Aca, one is certainly one of those another opportunity

2:06:03present themselves. That's all the slides I have. I'll turn it back to the city manager. For

2:06:12additional discussion.

2:06:14Great. Thank you, Brian, but before we leave the polling, since that was pretty kind of condensed does the Council have any questions of Brian looking at

2:06:26regarding the polling results on this section. Any questions councilmember Fidelis over last statement

2:06:35and how we can.

2:06:40Brian Godbe (Godbe Research): I'm sorry, Council Member, you broke up a little bit I couldn't really hear. Could somebody repeat that question? Presentation on the support for parcel text message? Obviously, and not ready right now.

2:06:54can you elaborate on that?

2:06:56Brian Godbe (Godbe Research): Yeah? Well, right now, I mean, there are deadlines for all of the elections. The first election that presents itself in 2024 is March

2:07:05and the deadline for that is the week after next. So we're not ready to put something on the ballot

2:07:13in 2 weeks

2:07:15but other opportunities. Actually.

2:07:27So

2:07:28do you have questions.

2:07:30See you on here?

2:07:35So so people are not legit. It sounds like

2:07:39it's not, miss. That's the

2:07:44reality of the numbers and what it's telling us.

2:07:48Brian Godbe (Godbe Research): Again, I'm sorry the audio is breaking up on us here.

2:07:54So telling us that it's okay.

2:07:582024.

2:08:00Brian Godbe (Godbe Research): Yeah, I think that's from what I could hear. Yes, that's correct.

2:08:04Not not ready for 24.

2:08:08Everybody else

2:08:10talk louder and slowly. It's like fucking in a foreign language. If you talk louder, they're supposed to understand you.

2:08:19Some people pollsters have said

2:08:22that even with you're above what you hope to get by a few points percentage points

2:08:29that you should assume a loss.

2:08:32I'm wondering if

2:08:34you believe that's true.

2:08:37And I thought.

2:08:39didn't we go down a couple points from the initial test. Is that not right?

2:08:46Brian Godbe (Godbe Research): Well, we're 57% on the initial test. In this survey, we were 60% on the second test. So we did, in fact, go up

2:08:55from the May survey. We did go down. That's certainly true. But again, I think that has to do with the economic climate in the general grumpiness is that's a technical term that is being, is it showing up and polling from the national to the local level. It's everywhere. There's lots of dissatisfaction among every voter group.

2:09:17With respect to the margin of error, II do agree. Because we've got a 4 and a half or 5% margin of error to be safe. It's always better to be

2:09:30plus or minus

2:09:32Brian Godbe (Godbe Research): the threshold that you need to get to. So if you need 66.7 you need to add 5 points to that, and that's a better cushion on the downside.

2:09:44II rarely think it's a good idea to say. Oh, we're at 61, and we've got a 5 margin of error, so we could get to do 30. That's not a safe bet at all.

2:09:58The ballot draft the 17 cents. that come from our staff cause, I mean, I don't think I don't think Council really had

2:10:12a a review of that, or approval of that amount. That was, that was the result of the budget. The slides that I went through earlier, based on the 21 million dollar budget. What ballot measure could, what a parcel tax could generate? So 17 cents would generate about 2.7 million dollars a year, which could fund

2:10:34the debt service for 20 million dollars project plus maintenance. Again, those are all estimated costs, but that is what we provided to Brian for the purposes of developing the ballot. The potential ballot question that you see here that would cover the full scope of what the direction was from the city council. So that was done in conjunction with

2:10:58with our financial advisors and construction costs and trying to make sure that we had obviously enough to pay the debt service. That's the most important part, and the people in this survey were aware of. I guess the $300 per year is the amount that

2:11:16the 17 cents is an average came out to be

2:11:20Brian Godbe (Godbe Research): yeah, we they were. We asked it as a negative, and so it was part of the mix of information that gets provided during the context of the survey which is designed to mirror the context of a campaign. So by the time they get to this second test, yes, they're aware of it.

2:11:423 arc.

2:11:45Sure. Great.

2:11:48Thank you, Brian.

2:11:51Brian Godbe (Godbe Research): Thank you.

2:11:56Okay. So now the third part of this of this presentation discuss going forward and next steps so parallel to the Voter Survey Staff has been in negotiations with the development team from related California to discuss the project schedule, the phasing, and when costs would need to be committed for the library to be included in this project. This agreement is still under negotiation, and the terms of this agreement are not completed or ready for the public at this time. So therefore, we're being a little careful in what we discussed tonight, but

2:12:26we do expect that this will be brought to both Bart board and the City Council for approval in the spring. What we can share is that parcel, C. West.

2:12:36We're here

2:12:38where the library will be included on the ground floor aims to begin detailed vertical design in order to submit for building, permit application in the first quarter of 2025, depending, of course, upon funding

2:12:51construction would aim to begin then, in the beginning of 2026. This means that design costs would start to be incurred in early 25, and construction funding would be needed by the start of construction in 2026.

2:13:05Staff had anticipated. Of course, as we discussed about measure in March 24 that would have taken advantage of the high turnout for the Presidential for the Senate, primary and Presidential primary, and to lock in the commitment for funding sooner rather than later.

2:13:20But since the funding commitment is not needed until 2025, this does allow the city Council to consider other options than a ballot measure in March 24.

2:13:30This could include the other funding sources that we had previously described, or perhaps a special election that could be held in 2025.

2:13:42So the options essentially are

2:13:45this. First and foremost, the city Council

2:13:50could could direct staff tonight to place a ballot measure on the ballot for March fifth, 2024. If the Council decided to do that, staff would bring the Resolution ordinance and the documentation necessary for City Council approval at your next meeting on December fifth.

2:14:05or the City Council could direct staff to continue to explore financing options, including a potential ballot measure in 2,025

2:14:14And as you see here, this means that as the project progresses, we would continue to firm up the design and construction costs to include the library in the Tod project. The project will certainly be continuing and and starting, and can be going under construction, so the project itself will also be more fully formed, if you will, before 2025

2:14:34staff will continue to work with the development team on the term sheet and the timeline for the city's funding options that will be brought back to the city Council staff would also work and is actually already working with our Grant writing team and our lobbyists on any available grants, as well as requests from State and Federal legislatures, legislators for potential earmarks, for various functions for the library

2:14:58and then consider options for perhaps a special ballot election ballot measure on 25. This could be either a parcel tax for construction, operation, maintenance, and hours, which, as the one currently proposed would be would still require two-thirds approval or a parcel tax for facilities only. If aca-one, that Brian referenced passes that would require 55% instead of two-thirds.

2:15:23however, it would not include operation, maintenance, and hours that would have to be funded from another source. But again, that would also. That, of course depends on whether that passes in November 24. But that gives the city council time to discuss those options. Look at other funding options and decide, you know, going into 2025, what kind of a ballot measure you would want to propose if

2:15:46if you want to do so. Neither of these options affect the construction timeline. And I think that's important to note is that if the city council does not decide to place something on the ballot tonight for march. It doesn't

2:15:59push back the construction of the library. We will still have to figure out the funding in 2025, to be sure, however, if we're able to do that. If we're able to hold an election, or we make other decisions on funding, it will not infect the construction timeline. It would still be constructed at the same time.

2:16:20so the potential next steps then, would be that the city would continue to plan for the library at the Elfredo Plaza Bart. Station project that would include then the site planning with the development team in Bart we would continue to revive and validate the cost estimates as the project moves forward, and again the proposed terms of agreement will come back to the city Council into Bart. In spring. We would go further to develop the parking program with the library in mind.

2:16:47I know that this was again a big this was a lot of questions about parking that we have not been able to answer because the devout, we haven't developed that program yet other than we know that we would be able to provide on street parking that the city controls. But as the project progresses, this will allow us to refine that parking program as well.

2:17:07Continuing the financial analysis, we would continue to provide updates to the city council along the way. And of course, the exciting part would be to begin the community design process, which is what you know. Again, that would be beginning, whether we had a ballot measure in 24 or 25. But to continue to really start to work with the community and realize what the library would actually look like, including

2:17:32and what amenities it would provide to the community. So, and in this case we would also continue to continue to

2:17:39continue our community engagement and providing public information updating our website, continuing to have workshops and any other information that we can that we can provide to the public.

2:17:53so that the timeline then would be, as you see, in the middle right now, is where we are now. If the city council provides direction to the staff. So then, if you know, assuming that option 2,

2:18:06then Staff would work with the development team again on the planning, designing, and the costs and finalizing the agreements and the public engagement, the construction and design for phases, one and 2 would begin in 24. So again, the project will be moving forward. The question just then would be.

2:18:24it, would the library be cont be contained in that project which we are hoping to make sure that it does so again, throughout 24 and 25 we would continue the options analysis and bring it back for the City Council consideration. And then in 26, through 28, the construction would happen.

2:18:44So that concludes my formal presentation. And again, we have a variety of people here to be able to answer specific questions. so I, and certainly provide some comments from the public. I know that the public is interested in providing such comments, and so at this I turn it back over to you, Mayor time for any questions

2:19:06at, thank you, city manager, and if I press the city clerk to briefly describe where on the website folks who would like to stream this versus on Zoom, I think there's a lot of audio issues on Zoom. So I want to make sure that folks know where on the city website they can go so that they can watch the live feed.

2:19:26Certainly. Sorry if I can turn on my mic. The live stream is available on the same website where our council meeting materials and our archive of our meeting videos, ours, which is

2:19:37L. basero.org backslash counsel council meeting materials. And if they click on today's meeting, there is a tab for media and they can pull up the live stream there any questions from Council?

2:19:56Yes.

2:19:59And I do want to get to the public comments here, but I do have a lot of questions that I I've been asked by folks in the community, and then I'd like to hearing in a public, quick answer to but but I

2:20:14I remember, want. Want to start with

2:20:20this the news about a phase 4. I. This is kind of new news to me. It's been a phase 3.

2:20:26My, my, my concern has been. If anything happened in the process and the planning of this library.

2:20:32we wouldn't be matching up with parts, timetables, and designs, and we would lose this great opportunity that that's been my biggest concern. So now now we're in the phase 4, which is good news I'm hearing. If if

2:20:46things don't work out, can I?

2:20:49And I think with any answers that we may have, I'd love it if they weren't real long, because I've got a lot of quickies that I have to get to further back. Good evening. I'm Melanie Muller, Community Development Director.

2:21:06and the saving has just been

2:21:08more detailed. As you see, there's more phases. So the phases early on, when we were talking about 3 and 4 phases, it was in bigger, bigger blobs using a technical term. And now we're getting to the building. So when you see those phases now, there are 6 buildings in the project, and this would be the fourth, as you know, and maybe some of the public knows. I like to say, if we had the money in the bank it could have been phase one, and so we have worked with the developers to move it to the latest phase possible. So it's the last

2:21:38formal, affordable housing project, that building that will be built. So it's phase 4 as city manager said the beginning, it would be going to vertical design.

2:21:48And that's possible, because Bart is also taking longer and getting this development. So the developers themselves, who are putting together all the funding stacks that make affordable housing possible, helped work with us to look at that schedule they were working on. We had thought maybe we'd be going to the spring ballot. So we were looking at that. But looking at the various Grant cycles that go for affordable housing, cap and trade, and others. That's the schedule as it as as it's gotten refined. So this city. You all made the decision about phase.

2:22:18for now, because of the polling

2:22:20so, as as the city manager said, this bill to this building is on its own. We asked the

2:22:28project developers the latest that we could participate the latest they would need. As as I think the city manager said it'd be if we

2:22:41new March that we have the funds we might be able to. Yes, it's on the same schedule

2:22:47issue that I kind of had before I get to my quick questions here. That I think the public would like to hear is

2:22:54think the biggest frustration has been the public to meet is asked, what's going to be in the library? What's the design?

2:23:01What? When are we going to have this? Why don't I know that this is going to happen all those questions that Karen just mentioned.

2:23:08And what I'm hearing is that

2:23:11maybe we need to get there during this time that we this additional time that we may have now

2:23:16a little more specific about

2:23:20what will actually go in there. So we can build some support for this library. That's right. I want to give one part answer to that question, and then city manager might want to add. But what I do want to share at this project as you saw on the phasing diagram that's on there now is in master planning. So it's looking at

2:23:39all of the buildings together, all of the circulation all of what's needed on on the site. So that's what's going to be going forward, for example, to the Drb. Probably in January or February.

2:23:52in order to get to that phase, we did work with the county librarian and a library consultant to make sure, we think, with the design team, to make sure that master plan was being set to really accommodate library needs, for example, so that people could get to an Ed book, drop off

2:24:09from the sidewalks and not need to go in to be able to deal with. I think it's called automated materials handling amh, automatic machine handling. Yeah. So so we did work to make sure that the the 20,000 square feet was all well thought out. For example, there's a courtyard above it that allows daylight into the building, so we looked at the shell to make sure it worked. But that's right. We would be excited to get to the inside if we knew we wanted to proceed. We could start

2:24:37difficult to deal with both sides.

2:24:40because usually it's let's make sure we have our financing before we get to the design costs. So what right

2:24:48have to in order to perform design? Yes, it would have a cost attached. So this potential extra time could be more time on public input. This portion, because it's the ground floor of the affordable housing building has been the the developer has carried the costs to this point. If we wanted to get inside, that would be the city's project.

2:25:09So if I can get to a lightning round here, okay, real quick. So we can hear from our public. But what is the county's role when a city decides to build a library

2:25:22is Allison? I don't know if Allison is on the II have a lot of residents. Say, what is the county going to do? Why aren't they helping us more? Unfortunately, it looks like Allison is on the call, but we've been in in close contact with the county librarian and their staff, and what they think coming from them certainly encourage all of us to discuss this with this Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors. But because certainly I you know the the library, I believe, could be

2:25:51be funded differently. But that's just an editorial comment. But at the same time the the there's a clear distinction between the ownership of the building and the programming inside. So anything to do while we have been in close contact with them to make sure that we are building a program building that allows for their program to be best utilized, build and maintain the building.

2:26:15explain the $1 a year rent proposal, which is a good deal for this library

2:26:22again, so in spring that terms will be brought forward to both Council and the Bart. Board. But the developers are are, as I don't know if we use the word, but they're an ex in an exclusive negotiating agreement with Bart, and so they are actively working on their full term sheet with Bart, and we are a part of that through our partnership on affordable housing a year lease

2:26:50at this point the affordable housing developer is looking at maintaining its same ground lease with Bart. And so what it looks like is, we would be part of that. We would be part of that. That's okay, thank you. I think we'll explain the 10 million dollar savings several times by being part of this Bart project. And again, why not the present location Karen you mentioned. It's too small. There's not enough we can do with that.

2:27:18Some have said the library that we're going for is too big, but it's as you showed the graph. It's right in the comparable size cities that we have. And Elserita wants to have a good.

2:27:30a good thing, a good project here right just to see it out loud to that right? That it it's as you saw, for those that are listening as well. It is in the middle. I don't remember the slide number, but we do see it as as modest compared when you look at all of the other libraries in the Bay Area would continue to be modest with our

2:27:49current and projected population. Thank you. Again. Parking comes up a lot. I'm looking forward to Liberty street right next door to the library. Possibly being parking. I can keep talking about that for the next year. Then, right? The other thing I would like to emphasize. That's right. So it's both library and short term commercials. So because transit users might be using it for all day or other users, our intention is to manage the streets as

2:28:12close to the library in the commercial areas for short term, 2 h commercial, and and then the surrounding streets would allow for also longer term parking. What will the real oversight entail independent audits, and more than Fab? Right? We have some real oversight and a committee to look at the finances of going forward

2:28:32the streets?

2:28:34so so the difference between what say other ballot measures we had in the Streets committee is that the Streets Committee that was written specifically into the ballot measure for a separate committee to be able to provide that for the for auditing purposes and reporting, as they did for tonight, for the others. All of our taxes and all of our general fund taxes and other restricted

2:28:57funding is outlined in each year in our annual comprehensive financial reports, which are indeed viewed by the Fab we hadn't discussed a separate committee for library funding at this point.

2:29:12That could be something we think about that it's not. It's not legally required, but it be a separate entity. We during one of the revenue measures that Council put on the ballot.

2:29:25Develop the idea and propose to counsel of assigning that role to the Fab. I think Staff would say it's been pretty successful in having them do go do the review of the Financials? But ultimately that's a decision for Council to make about whether to continue that practice, or similar to streets set up a separate committee to do that that oversight. Thank you. The word leverages come up with part. Obviously the whole

2:29:49Pam

2:29:50asset that we have.

2:29:52The bonus that we have is the Bart project going in there and leveraging means we're getting the 10 million dollars. Yes, that's right. One of the things I wanted to share when we were talking about that you can imagine right now that project has a very strong team moving it forwards. Excellent architects, etc. You can imagine. If we were to start something fresh we'd have to assemble all of that. I'm not even sure. So we're getting to kind of ride along with that wave.

2:30:19As you were. And that's in addition to, of course, all the site, utilities and everything. The project is going to be built there, and we get to come in. And really, yeah, right that way.

2:30:30Ballot past March.

2:30:35This people have also raised concerns about this foreverness of this, the citizens can stop it. Yeah, that can. The council also say, yeah, we want a 30 grant. Okay? Yes, and I don't know if Brian wanted to chime in on this, but generally the

2:30:54until repealed by voters is the strongest in the polling usually is because that gives the power to the voters that they could repeal this or the Council as it could review the costs every single year to make sure that it's covering the bond costs. The maintenance costs whatever is necessary. And they could.

2:31:17And I'm gonna look at Sky. We actually back several years ago, the Council actually did do this with the original measure, a swim center where it did lower the parcel tax each year to match specifically only the debt service that was being paid off. So that is in the power of the city council. Yeah. So 17 cents a square foot rate

2:31:41would be written into the materials. So that it's a ceiling. Under that ceiling the city Council would have the flexibility to adjust the rate every year.

2:31:53Of course, if the city issued bonds to be financed by the tax revenue, then it would have to annually set a rate at a level sufficient to make the bond payments.

2:32:04but everything above that would be up to the city council to make an annual decision as part of budgeting, to make a decision about the level of operational needs that it wants wanted to fund from the tax measure. And then, once the bonds were paid off, that component of the tax would no longer be necessary, and the Council would be able to drop that down. But again.

2:32:26additionally, once the bonds are paid off, the the city Council could decide. We want to repeal the tax. We want to change the tax the the the leading it open until ended by voters gives the flexibility both to voters and to the council to make that determination. Okay, so still debatable. Moving forward. Just 2 more questions here.

2:32:48Big, the big A. CO. One Assembly constitutional Amendment Could be beneficial with the 55%

2:32:59vote for a positive vote. but it would only be allowed for capital costs, so we might benefit from passing something easier. But we're going to need to maybe look back to our city in the general fund for any operational costs. Correct. And so that's why I think when we're

2:33:19we're getting closer to actually discussing with the Council whether or not there will be a ballot measure placed that will have to discuss the council, whether to go for a parcel tax at two-thirds or the ace, and again, that also assumes that Aca, one passes in November 24,

2:33:36okay? And actually, 2 more questions. So a lot of talk about seniors

2:33:42senior. The word seniors listed on various things. This is going to be a great

2:33:46entity for seniors, but also for teens, for children, for

2:33:51groups, but will benefit from this library with the space

2:33:55plan. When you have 20,000 square feet you would be able to create. You saw something about outdoor a independent access. We've heard from the community, for example, that there's not enough meeting high quality meeting spaces, for example, after hours to planning that the the 20,000 square feet allows for I think someone city manager mentioned the current libraries kind of one big room, but it would have different spaces. So for example, after school, when it really is, gonna, have high demand

2:34:19kids there would still be like, for example, quiet reading rooms, or could be senior programming. But it would allow that kind of multiple programs to happen, separate from each other, from a sound and

2:34:30and field standpoint. So thank you. And and and if there is, it's looking like there will be a little bit longer time to reach out to our efforts the city outreach efforts. Do we have that assistant outreach person here to assist because we're gonna have to do lots of stuff.

2:34:47only informational stuff. That's correct, but not campaign stuff. That's a whole separate entity. But that's correct. He'll be back at the beginning of the year.

2:35:03Yes, recognition that there's a lot there will be a lot to do, and particularly if we're starting the project as the project moves forward. And we're looking to do some design elements we definitely want to make sure that that is, you know, is is is engage with the community as possible, so that we can hear all of what really wants to to be put in that building.

2:35:25and and I'll have some comments at the end. But thank you very much. I'm please add, looking forward. Let's move on. Councilman Licenner. Yes, II is this thing on. Can you hear me? Yes, okay, good. I'll be very, very brief, because, as you can see, I don't like to do a bunch of talking, but I wanted to thank the team, the the polling team who did such a robust deep dive into the polling numbers. I mean, I'm a big fan of strategic polling, because it doesn't just tell you if it's an up or down, but it actually tells us what the community was saying about the measure.

2:35:59And you know this is really a gift. I wanna thank Melanie for, you know, working her working with the development team. Because that's giving us such a longer runway to answer those questions at the community and brought to the table. And really look at the the additional funding sources, which is a really really big deal. I mean the idea of not having to do the same robust, valid measure, maybe talk, maybe convincing the county probably not

2:36:22to to give us some earmarks. I know we've had conversations with our Congress member as well to look into earmarks. So I think that having this longer runway to really look at additional financing is, gonna you know, benefit so much more. And I'm I really said that we have people who think that we don't need. But there needs to be a bigger library. I mean as a literary advocate and as a member of this Council, there's so much community benefit that's gonna be

2:36:47brought to our city by this library to all be doing everything that we can to help our city staff to find an additional funding. And I know we have a lot of our library advocates here in the audience. I know they're going to definitely be with diligence, and I'm just excited about it. And looking forward to the next phase. So

2:37:04right councilwoman Quintu, do you have any questions?

2:37:08Councilmember Quinto: No questions. But I'm anxious to hear from our audience and our residents.

2:37:14Excellent! Thank you. I have a few quick questions.

2:37:19So reason that you brought it. But

2:37:21automatic machine handling. And then also in the presentation, at 1 point there was kind of a discussion about the technology that the county is responsible for, and the technology that the city is responsible for. And the one thing that I know, you know, when we're thinking of a new library in a 20 First century library. We have to think about it serving the 20 first century needs of our community. So the delineation between

2:37:45the technology that the county provides I'm assuming is the laptops, the computers, the things like that. But then things like

2:37:53the automatic machine handling will have those exterior induction points that look like ATM machines. But that's how you return a book. It's all very cool and high tech. That's also really important for the larger scale of how libraries operate. Is that the kind of stuff that we would be responsible for paying for is that the thing that the county would be responsible for. Is there any? And then I don't know that there's

2:38:17we don't have the county representation, don't? But as I've been working with the county librarian to

2:38:25The agreements between the cities and the library do assume again any additional as you just described any additional costs. It looks like this year's costs

2:38:35or about

2:38:37in our current. In our current facility. We're looking at things like servers, switches and the self check meet the maintenance for the self check machines. We're probably looking at about $15,000 a year at this point. In this

2:38:53it's current configuration. So we pay for that. We will be responsible for this year in addition to the hours. So you know, again, we could. depending upon how it's designed and what would be needed. But essentially, the division you were talking about is about correct and the lease agreement, then, would be more specific to this building, depending upon. You know what obviously it would have the most up to date technology that would be able to go into the library.

2:39:20The hours would also be. And you know, if it's anything we've learned from this list right here that you see before us, with all of these libraries that have been opened. If you build it, they will come.

2:39:33And so we know that there will be a lot of use and the hours will be necessary. The technology will be necessary, the self-check machines, all of that will be necessary. So again, that would be worked out directly with the county. But that's a general that's a general division between what they would bring and what we would have.

2:39:52I'm really glad you said that it's also aligned with.

2:39:55If the library is built at this location, the South Side location. It's not worth looking at. That library needs assessment slide. Now, it's not just contingent on our own population, because in that location. It's also going to be Richmond in Albany, in Kensington, at that South Side location. And then also, we talked about this community room. And how would be, you know, access to a more modern community room. I also want to think about the AV. Needs of that community room

2:40:22absolutely. There's so many wonderful comments we're going to be hearing from all the speakers. I wanna make sure that we take some time. So now is the time for members of the public who wish to provide public comments regarding this item

2:40:35in person. Request to speak can 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 and your city of residence at the beginning of your comments. City clerk, please proceed. Thank you, Mayor. We have 9 speakers at this time. We'll go to our. We'll start with our in person speakers beginning with Dr. Barry Coops, followed by Charles Taylor. May I ask how many online speakers who have 9 in person? We, we have 8 in person, one online, 8 in person, one online.

2:41:06but we have 2.5 min. certainly, and a half minutes. Thanks.

2:41:17Nope, and just put it in. Sorry one step.

2:41:21Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

2:41:24Name is Barry Copes.

2:41:26I have lived in El Cerrito for 10 years.

2:41:31I'm a member of the committee, the Committee for

2:41:36Plaza Station Library, and we have been meeting for a couple of years, and I won't be providing details of our discussions, but I strongly endorse and support the the values and the programs that you are considering right now.

2:41:58And this is a visionary thing, and I know a lot of things that councils have to deal with are not very pleasant. They're just

2:42:08throwing out the basement. This is a visionary thing, and I just urge you don't go real and good works.

2:42:19Thank you. Our next speaker is Charles Taylor, followed by Georgina Edwards.

2:42:31Good evening, Council members. I'm Charles Taylor and I have lived in Nelson Riddo since 1984,

2:42:38with my wife. We raised our 2 daughters here in El Cerrito, going through the schools. and we've been avid users of the El Cerrito Library with them, and now with our grandchildren, who also live in El Cerrito.

2:42:52I also am a member of the committee for the Plaza Station Library. and have been working with that for about 4 years.

2:43:01Recently I have been speaking to members of the community about the Plaza Station Library.

2:43:09at events like the Fourth of July celebration

2:43:13at Cerrito Vista Park, the national night out

2:43:16at the senior center, at events in schools, in neighbors and friends across the city, and they've all had very positive responses.

2:43:27People asked many questions that focus on the location.

2:43:32on the timeline and the cost, all of which we've discussed somewhat this evening. but there was near unanimous agreement that we need a new library that is a safe haven

2:43:45in the event of emergencies such as heat, smoke.

2:43:49power, shut offs.

2:43:50and earthquakes.

2:43:53that we need more hours of operation that we need more space with separate rooms for differing activities as well as an expanded collection of books and modern technologies.

2:44:04I have more that I could say, but in light of the time I will just cut to the statement that the slides that the city administration presented

2:44:13show how old and unsafe the present library is.

2:44:19In West County. We have the oldest and lowest square foot, square feet, square feet per capita of any city-owned library.

2:44:29and yet we are the most popular library in the West County by far. Thank you.

2:44:36Thank you, Speaker, joining Edwards, followed by outdoor.

2:44:48Good evening, counsel. My name is Georgina Edwards, and I've lived in El Cerrito since 2,005. I'm raising my 2 children here, and I'm also part of the committee for Plaza Station Library.

2:45:01Needs and wants to deserve a new library. The Plaza Station Library. Some of you may know that in 2,016, my my daughter, who was then 7 years old, and I worked hard on the ballot measure that's been talked about a little bit this evening, along with many other families at the school and in our community back then

2:45:23nearly 64% of the voters voted. Yes, and that continues to show us that El Cerita wants a library.

2:45:32The recent polls also tell you the majority of us Reentan's support, and are willing to pay for a Sizealy, safe library.

2:45:39however, at the corner of Firmware, and Liberty will form an important keystone in a robust downtown. It will be another attraction drawing people to our core shopping district. My daughter, now 14, absolutely is one of those

2:45:53we have a limited time, and once in a lifetime offer available to us. Brenda Library is part of the Bart Plaza station transit oriented development that is currently underway. And it was good news tonight to get get an Update on that. And this project will be built either with us or without, with or without library. It's up to all of us to ensure that it includes the Plaza Station library.

2:46:17As for your needs, wants, and deserves in your library the Plaza Station Library. Thank you.

2:46:24Thank you. Our next speaker is Al Miller, followed by Claire Sheridan

2:46:34Council members

2:46:43and cried because I stationed in Bury

2:46:52as you've been here.

2:46:53calcium needs and abundance.

2:46:57They want a new library, and they deserve a new library. We believe it's a Palazza Station library. The process of giving longer clips voted for for funding

2:47:12a poem before you. Bashar's cup

2:47:16is not favorable for passage, especially with the current requirement for 2 thirds approve vote.

2:47:25although the poll October showed reduction support, I believe because

2:47:31reduction

2:47:34factors beyond the control of you say, cerrito.

2:47:41that inflation conflict are number waste.

2:47:45So setting is a smart

2:47:52doesn't know this time for the city to trust things that

2:47:57cool.

2:47:59The apprenticeship was a state agreement with satisfaction as soon as

2:48:05provision for service. including that book.

2:48:11Fiscal responsibility.

2:48:20Sony, was Lisa

2:48:22Screw.

2:48:24so I can see.

2:48:27Jump up as soon as the workshop goes on.

2:48:31precise cost, I think. Lost. What would you

2:48:37threshold of 55%? So, Giovanni. so is it. Construction

2:48:51was greater clinical. Apply with Jacob

2:48:54Trust for trusted potential of. So

2:49:01it's a strategic decision.

2:49:05and I'll show you

2:49:08station, whatever. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is clar shared and followed by Michael Fisher.

2:49:20Good evening, Council. My name is Claire Sheridan. I'm a resident of El Sr. Have been for 21 years now. I also volunteer with a libraries Literacy program.

2:49:31and I drive to the San Pablo Library twice a week in order to tutor in a private room which they also read, a library lacks. I am also part of the committee for a Plaza Station library.

2:49:46as you have heard. and we'll hear again. El Cerrito needs

2:49:51wants and deserves a new library.

2:49:55and by far the best option is the Bart Transit Oriented Development Project at the Plaza station. Why? Because it offers certainty.

2:50:07Elseritans, the majority of Elseritans support a new library, but they want a plan for their investment.

2:50:15They want to know where the new library will be built.

2:50:18how much it's cost. It will cost, and what the schedule will be. The proposed Plaza Station Library checks all of those boxes.

2:50:27First location, certainty. The developer of the Plaza Station Project, as you have heard, has agreed to set aside 20,000 square feet for a new library.

2:50:38The city can fund it.

2:50:41We know where it will be, as you saw, on the corner of Liberty and Fairmount.

2:50:46there are no other but viable alternatives.

2:50:50There are no lots of sufficient size for a library available in El Cerrito. Moreover, the city would have to purchase such lot

2:50:59right there. We can't build on the current libraries footprint, because that would require

2:51:06building up

2:51:08and staffing tooth floors. which would be very costly.

2:51:13Renting a commercial space would also require an investment of retrofitting the interior, and would mean the city would require, would have to pay commercial rents in perpetuity, and be at the whims of a landlord.

2:51:27Second schedule certainty, as you heard, if the city notifies the developer. By November 2025, that funding is available. The library will be included in the plans. Construction will begin in 2026, and library patrons can look forward to the doors opening in 2028,

2:51:45third, and most important cost certainty, because the Plaza Station Library will be part of this larger building project. There are significant cost savings over constructing a standalone library.

2:51:58As you saw the cost estimate for construction and funding of this Plaza Station Library is 21 million compared to between 30 and 40 million for stand alone library, which would require the city to purchase land and shoulder all of the infrastructure costs. Finally, a ballot measure in 2025 will improve the city's ability to act.

2:52:21predict the total cost as it is closer to when construction begin, I urge you to support this project. Thank you. Our next speaker is Michael Fisher, followed by Greg. Ryman

2:52:39and Councilmembers. My name is Michael Fisher. I have been a resident of El Cerrito since 1,998,

2:52:47and I have the honor, privilege, and responsibility of being your library Commissioner.

2:52:55I am part of the committee for a Plaza Station Library.

2:52:59I will note that their yeah URL is Steve, the number 4 psl.org.

2:53:08And I'm speaking tonight as an Elsa Readen who strongly supports our library. Elsa made our needs. wants, and deserves a new library.

2:53:21as others have already said

2:53:24as councilmember, Fideli has noted, the city must engage the community in what

2:53:31that new library includes.

2:53:33and how it will serve our diverse population.

2:53:39When a ballot measure was being considered for the March 2024 election.

2:53:45The city said it would use the time following the vote to get further public input to finalize what that new library should include.

2:53:56The city now needs to engage with the public in advance of voting.

2:54:02To ensure the planning and design. Consultants will have the necessary public input.

2:54:09Since 2017

2:54:11the Restorative Library Foundation has annually asked residents what they want in a new library

2:54:20leverage that experience and form an ad hoc committee

2:54:25under the auspices of the Library Commissioners and the Executive Committee of the Library Foundation.

2:54:35who George R. Public. so that the new library can best serve all of our library patrons

2:54:43need we want? We deserve a new library at the Plaza station. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Greg Lyman, followed by Tom Panis.

2:54:58Good evening, Mayor Barton, Council members. It's my pleasure to be here to night. I am Greg Lyon, and have lived in Los Rita since 1981.

2:55:08I am a former mayor, and I've been working on the new library for almost 10 years. I, too, am part of the committee or Plaza Station Library.

2:55:18Elsworo needs Lawrence and deserves a new library, and I stand before you in support of your strategic decision to delay a public vote on the funding valid measure.

2:55:31For all the reasons the speakers have given tonight, I call upon to make this decision and active decision to support conclusion of the library in the Bart project.

2:55:45Please give clear direct guidance to the city manager and staff to receive, as

2:55:50the ballot measure has passed

2:55:54best will the sailor of the city more than $10 is to invest. Now Plaza

2:56:02is probably at the powering station.

2:56:04I support the same manager's suggestion that you could.

2:56:09Resources necessary to ensure the widely of our future is equipped. And into this development

2:56:15investment of $300,000 over the next 10 years. We hold excellent returns.

2:56:21saves 10 million dollars.

2:56:25seems to be scheduled as part of Facebook

2:56:29and signed, started under construction.

2:56:35Q. 2 and 2026. It's remarkable.

2:56:40considering sort of communication method as part of that. Valentine's staff needs to repeat, start

2:56:48solicitation, to hide the design

2:56:51that will be part of the 2024 engagement process participate in the design and complete the library. Design 2025.

2:57:00This active engagement will foster community support because your residents will participate in the process and get the answers they want on location timing and cost.

2:57:11You need to behave like the library will be under construction in 2 and a half years. Do not delay your commitment to this location

2:57:19Act tonight to delay the vote and to passionately commit city resources to a Plaza Station Library. El Cerrito needs.

2:57:27wants

2:57:28and deserves a new library. The Plaza Station Library.

2:57:33Thank you. Our next speaker is Tom Panis, followed by Elizabeth Basher.

2:57:44Good evening, Mayor pro tem rudnick, members of the council and city staff. My name is Tom Panis, and I live at [address removed], in El Cerrito lived in El Cerrito since 75.

2:57:54I like to thank the city manager and the staff for the conscientious work on the library project. I'm also very appreciative of Mister Godby for long standing support of our community.

2:58:05as well as all the Bart staff and the other members of the team who are helping push this forward.

2:58:10I'd like to thank the members of the committee for a Plaza station library for sharing their thoughts and comments this evening.

2:58:17Agreement with the sentiments those individuals have expressed, and I certainly agree with our city manager's recommendation to you. This evening.

2:58:25Going forward, we have an opportunity to strengthen community

2:58:29sentiment and further broaden that sentiment for the library. I'd like to remind the Council and the staff that both the Library Foundation, the friends of library have received significant donations that can be used before a formal library billing program has been adopted.

2:58:44Those uses include community outreach and engagement as well as preliminary program design development.

2:58:50Both organizations would welcome the opportunity, support the city's efforts in this area.

2:58:55Thanks so much for your time this evening.

2:58:57Thank you. Our next speaker is Elizabeth Basher, followed by Irish Sherna.

2:59:05Hmm!

2:59:10Hello, councilmembers! And I hope you have a very happy Thanksgiving. I have finished the gravy base, and so I was able to come on down and join you.

2:59:21I want to thank councilmember Fideli for roaching a lot of the questions that people have asked him. And

2:59:31I would like to say that I'm when I hear that

2:59:36the alternative of moving forward is to

2:59:39do more negotiating with Bart and the developer. This seems to be what is always said about this library and congratulations, by the way, to the very effective committee for a Plaza Station Library. But councilmember Fideli sort of brought up what I am thinking. I think that

2:59:59public involvement should look a little bit different. and I think that seniors should be involved

3:00:07in a different way. Maybe schools. Perhaps there could be informational meetings at Ptas.

3:00:13Maybe other community organizations that have asked about the rooms that would be in the library. I myself would really like to see I'm very concerned about the lack of dedicated on-site parking. I hear this about Liberty Street, and I hear about controlling parking. But when you're talking only parallel parking for a lot of people in downtown, El Cerrito I am wondering about that would love to see a meeting with a map and a picture. Even an in-person

3:00:44person meeting down at the site. If you're trying to truly gather support. So people can understand. Like to see a written agreement with the county about how things are going to be managed with materials. Tech who you know, what will be contributed? Because, for instance, I would like to have more audio books. But will I pay $300.

3:01:07I a year. I guess it is. Will I pay all this money, and then I won't have any of the services that I need at the library. So I really would like to see a different kind of public engagement program. Oh, and the last thing

3:01:24appreciated the speaker. I appreciate Greg Lyman. Good job organizing and wonderful job with El Cerrito Democratic Club. But

3:01:34to go forward to ask the Council to go forward with funding and staff authorizations, as if a library measure has already passed when it has not, seems to me undemocratic. Small D and these are not times when I would like to see something undemocratic. Thank you.

3:01:54Thank you. And we'll go to our finance speaker online, Ira, you should be able to unmute and begin your time now

3:02:02Ira Sharenow: 2.7 million dollars for ever at 5%. Has a present value of 54 million dollars.

3:02:11I think. In February it was 1.7 million dollars for just 30 years. Why, the explosive growth in cost?

3:02:19I asked. That. God be research. By the way, great job by your surveyors, I was actually surveyed. They're excellent. But anyway, I asked that, God be research, the raw data and the reports to the public

3:02:33from online comments. It seems that certain people were given the data that other residents could not obtain. We need realistic cost estimates. Also, the city has 85 million dollars in pension liability, and there is a need for a senior center.

3:02:50The city has 250 million dollars in construction needs

3:02:55with people moving more towards online resources. The city needs to reconsider what it is doing.

3:03:02The city probably spent a quarter of a million dollars in the library project that could have paid for a couple years of rent for a senior sinner.

3:03:10We have a library. We do not have the senior setting.

3:03:14Please end this expensive project. Please release the polling and financial reports.

3:03:21Why so? Where is the Q. And a. We were promised? Where is the transparency?

3:03:27Where is the documentation for cost?

3:03:30The uncertainty of dealing with art is of great concern.

3:03:35Just look at the multi 1 billion dollar increase in the San Jose station, and the time increase in many years of delays also can so and please talk about metered parking and the parking tickets are expected to be given out around the library. The cost will be enormous

3:03:55for the taxpayers with very little benefit, as people moved more towards online and less towards going into libraries, as we've seen from the data that the library actually has.

3:04:09Thank you very much.

3:04:12Thank you, Mayor. Pretend that concludes our request to speak.

3:04:16Thank you so much.

3:04:20If there any council comments.

3:04:25any council comments? Hmm. yeah. I see. Councilmember. Quinto.

3:04:32Councilmember Quinto: Thank you, Mayor, for Tim.

3:04:34I would like our residents to know that that we have.

3:04:41staff that has been working on a library

3:04:46and residents working on the library for more than 20 years now. And I've been working on this for

3:04:5510 years on the Council and years before that. So looking at this presentation, and what needs to be done in the future? There, right, I do support looking at

3:05:11and exploring more financial options. And and be transparent about that. I am looking forward to ec, a one and that is similar to the bill that Senator Dodd tried to pass

3:05:29in back in 2016, and that truly was just for libraries. So aca-one. You know, that will be on the November ballot, and I look forward to having all of our residents look at Aca-one and vote for it. This is something that this community needs is a new library. We have one of the most

3:05:57intelligent and educated group of residents that live here and that have lived here for generations. And I wanna continue that we have a large group of students coming in from San Pablo, North Richmond, Richmond, and other areas. And they're able to come here to attend school.

3:06:20and they have a better bet of getting a great education with a new twenty-first century Library, and to attend school in El Cerrito here. And and it's always been like that. And this is why else Cerita join the Richmond the old Richmond school district is to make sure that we always work on equity, and we always work on diversity and inclusion, and speaking to my many of my

3:06:47classmates, former classmates. We have many of them that are quite successful because of the education that they are paying here at our local schools

3:06:59and visiting the library regularly here in El Cerrito. So this is something that it was my idea. Back in 2015 and 2016, and I brought this over to former city manager, Scott handen, and we took it to Nick Jessup and Senator Wiener. And we spoke about all this. I spoke to the former Bart.

3:07:24Executive director. And so it's it's something that I truly believe this community wants, and this community will support. So II do support option 2. And look forward to making sure this becomes a reality. This is why I'm doing this third term is to make sure

3:07:50that we pass this so, looking at that, keeping our fingers crossed and all voting for a Ca. One next year will help us get us there. But in the meantime, we will work on the things that we have to work on, and I'll reach out to every community and every neighborhood group.

3:08:10We have a new generation of families who have moved here, who have had it for big cities like San Francisco and Oakland, and have moved. Here we have a new group of people moving to our transit oriented developments many of them have children, and and I know they will enjoy living here in El Cerrito. So

3:08:35You know, I've I've been to most of the libraries and Contra Costa County. I've been to the Palace library and Walla Creek and Lafayette and the the library that was that past when ours did not in 2016 the Pleasant Hill Library. It's beautiful. And they have a so many people looking at that beautiful library and use it regularly. I want that to happen here

3:09:02Councilmember Quinto: and the town that I grew up in, and I wanna make sure

3:09:06that we reach out to everybody that we work with Bart.

3:09:12And Bart works with the yeah, with everyone else. And to get the word out the parking. We got extra money for this parking study, and to build a parking lot, and to get the the future parking done we did get special funding for that. So things are, things are happening and things are happening now.

3:09:36So I saw the the goddamn the

3:09:45presentation.

3:09:46and I agree with that. It with what's going on around the world with 2 wars going on, and many people who had to get a variable rate on their mortgages. This is not the time to do it. In 2024. I truly believe that hopefully, better times are ahead in 2025.

3:10:12And I wanna thank so many of our residents who have reached out to me when I brought this forward back in 2,016, and when we

3:10:23spoke about this, and we spoke to Bart about this Rebecca Saltzman. I wanna say, thank you. For taking the lead on this and making sure that the new executive director, and you new. Your new colleagues were on board on this, and they certainly are so to me this is a win win situation. Especially

3:10:45for our seniors who will be able to have free meeting rooms. And I know many of our seniors have been complaining because they don't want to pay the extra money at in renting a room. Public libraries are free

3:10:59libraries are free for seniors. They are also free for children and all residents. Not just El Cerrito, but in Richmond, and for all the students that come here because they want a good education. So. But I wanna move forward on this. And I know this council is dedicated to making sure this becomes a reality. So I wanna say, thank you to everybody on this. Let's move forward. Thank you

3:11:28to the people.

3:11:30but

3:11:35it's the heart. So you can really hear. And and it's one of those things where this is.

3:11:41You know, I can think of it as a public administration raising like we need to come together to make this happen. We all might not necessarily agree with specific details of it as we get there. But I think the important thing is that this is a very public process, and that this is a process where we can daylight any of these issues as we are getting closer to our goal, which is, we can't miss the board on this. We really can't.

3:12:08I don't want to miss the boat on this, because it's just too important. I also in hearing everyone's comments. I do wanna say that there was one for Mr. Share. Now, where that the thought was, information was given to some members of the public before others, I can say that it's not true. We put out on

3:12:28Thursday the survey results from God. B. So that must be where the information was collected from. So there's no no information is getting. You know this. It's a complex project

3:12:42that I think that staff in our community has been really good at kind of connecting the dots and seeing that this is something. This is active. This is, this is going. This is a momentum that is happening. And the more we can create the public process for, and I certainly hear that we need to have more. Q. A's out there. We need to be doing more to make sure that the public

3:13:05has their say in this, because this you

3:13:09II reject the notion that more things are going online. Therefore we don't need to have public space for people you know we need. This is the time that we need to be creating more public space for people. Because if we just think that the future is everyone being on computers? That's not the future I want to see.

3:13:26I want to see a future where we can have a space for seniors, for children for anyone in any stage of life to be able to come to a library that is a crown jewel of a community, and it should be reflective of El Cerrito.

3:13:39So I really wanna thank everyone for being here, staff and everyone on the call who is involved in this project. Thank you so much. And again, thank you to everyone who came out here and is sitting in those uncomfortable chairs for so long.

3:13:53So I would. And I we yes, please.

3:13:57Well, I wrote a couple of things down so my head's gonna look down a little bit. Everyone else can speak from

3:14:06their head. I'm not so good at that. And thanks thanks again to the public and everyone joining us here, I just want to say that 7 years ago, when I first ran for City council.

3:14:18also on the ballot. Besides Donald Trump.

3:14:23Was the measure that would approve a library bond for 30 million dollars, with no venue identified. I wasn't on the Council yet, so I wasn't involved in drafting the measure.

3:14:34but I did support it because the new library was a campaign goal of mine, and I told residents. If it did pass, I would be involved

3:14:43with the details and planning, and we would have additional public scrutiny from council going forward, and that measure did fail by about 500 votes.

3:14:52In the 7 years since then much effort and thought by the Council's staff, residents, volunteers, Bart.

3:14:59Local dub developers, had gone into what many believe might be an innovative and news worthy plan for a new community library. Here we pushed forward we jumped many hurdles with public involvement

3:15:13to seek a new library of similar size to other cities of our size, seeking a place in it in the new transit oriented development site at the Plaza

3:15:24Art Station.

3:15:26and next to retail in a way that would create a new urban center and a public plaza for our city.

3:15:33But let's be clear tonight.

3:15:36Those discussed indicate that we need more time.

3:15:40more time to allow greater scrutiny before finalizing a new ballot measure.

3:15:45And when municipalities seek local financing for a major public project like a library, I believe there's it's the job of the elected officials to do 2 things. Number one to come up with a good plan, and I think we have a good plan

3:16:02and number 2 to determine when the best time is to put a proposal on the ballot for a vote. I think that's effective leadership.

3:16:11Unfortunately, as I've said, the polls are not ripe for a March ballot.

3:16:15and this means our residents aren't ready for whatever reason. Maybe, as people have said, it's world events in difficult financial times to make new financial commitments. Maybe it's the competition with other possible upcoming ballot measures which is a real reality.

3:16:32Maybe it's local social media that has stirred additional concern here in our city.

3:16:37I think it might be about trust of El Cerrito. Of some people that some people have mentioned.

3:16:44as we all know also would have got to a bad place financially, that still leaves a bad taste in some people's minds. and even though our city has come a long way back, re-earning that trust.

3:16:56we can, and we must do additional work to better assure our community of the financial sustainability we've gained over the last 3 years.

3:17:04and we must demonstrate going forward that we will have adequate safeguards for a library with independent reviews and audits.

3:17:13Our effort here, and else will be able to get a new library will continue. I've heard that tonight. I'm very happy about what everyone has said, but it's time to switch from a sprint to a marathon. Thank you, Greg for that line. Greg Lyman, give me that line, and I'm hopeful that we will have time to still align ourselves with the construction timetable

3:17:33of the important part development that has allowed us this great opportunity. I'm really glad about a phase 4. This is a wonderful thing gives us time opportunities like this to pop up the quality of life and elsewhere. Don't come along often or easily.

3:17:55As for me, here I go. I'm on council or off.

3:18:01however long it takes. I'll continue to work toward our librarians, community worthy of our residents and our future. Thank you.

3:18:10Yes, please thing, Mayor pro Tim, since council member to fill it. At least that started choking up. I would like to add to what our community member said and give the full line, said, Do not grow. We're do not go weary and well doing. You will reap if you faint. And so it sounds to me like the Council is saying that we will continue to go. We will not faint, because we know that we will reap. I'm not a huge fan of Elvis.

3:18:34but I do know that Elvis also said, only fools rush in, so I don't think that we're going to fresh rush in either, but I like the the Bible verse better. that's all.

3:18:44Thank you for clarifying my my emotions here. Thank you. And is there, is there a motion that we need to make? Yes, we can. The motion to approve staff direction for option. 2.

3:18:58Councilmember Quinto: So. But

3:19:00moved by Quinto, second seconded by Weissner roll call, please.

3:19:05Mayor protemudnick. Aye, councilmember fideli aye councilmember quinto

3:19:10councilmember weisinger aye, motion carries. Yes, there! There is no one else in in this room. And with me, and I am voting. Yes.

3:19:26thank you, councilmember, and thank you. Motion carries all right. Sounds like we can have the mayor come back if the mayor's here.

3:19:39The mayor left her back here, so I assume the mayor is still here. There's a dog with Councilman, Briginto wrote

3:19:47Bye.

3:19:48Councilmember Quinto: I would have pointed it out if that dog was a bit bait in this room while I voted.

3:19:54She's not

3:19:58being specious here.

3:20:04She's coming.

3:20:30Okay. Should we tell her what happened?

3:20:34I was. I was watching it, experiencing all the wonders of our

3:20:41audio issues.

3:20:43but I this is a comment. Thank you, Mimi. Thank you. Counsel

3:20:49for all your robust discussion.

3:20:53Okay, the next item is city council, local and regional liaison assignments. Are there any Council reports?

3:21:07Okay? Oh, I see. Councilmember Quinto.

3:21:09Councilmember Quinto: Yes, thank you. You know, as as second vice President for the the League of California Cities. I flew out to Atlanta with City manager, Karen Pincus for the National League of Cities Convention, and

3:21:26I was not able to attend a lot of the the functions cause I was part of the nominating committee where we interviewed many, many candidates for the Board of Directors as well as a second Vice President. So was able to complete that. And know that. I look forward to

3:21:49Councilmember Quinto: working with the new president David Santa, who was Mayor Potem from the city of Rancho Cordova, which is a a suburb of Sacramento. He is the new President, and the convention will be held next year in Tampa.

3:22:07So look forward to having

3:22:10many of the councils and mayors in California attend this.

3:22:17and to attend the Congressional

3:22:21Meeting that Council, Member Weissger and I

3:22:26attended earlier this year. So it was a great event, and one speaker that I would love to have

3:22:35here in California. Is a writer. I believe her name is Beth Macy, and she wrote a book on the Fentanyl.

3:22:48problem that we're having across this country especially hitting people in the Appalachian Mountains and West Virginia and Virginia.

3:22:58There you have seen

3:23:01whole communities and and many, many families ruin because of the Fentanyl problem. And we certainly have that problem here. We have seen families ruined. What I found out is that the other States have good legislation and laws that were put to wipe out the dealers, and to help and support the people that are dealing with addiction.

3:23:30And so I am here and look forward to working with the Assembly and Senate and Sacramento to make sure that they do the same thing. They put the many of the Fentanyl legislation was put on the shelf by the the Assembly.

3:23:52part of pup the Public Safety Committee, and know that I look forward to building bridges with them to make sure that we end this epidemic that has ruined cities ruined cities near us, and has affected families even here in El Cerrito and Kensington. And it was

3:24:13Councilmember Quinto: quite moving to hear what the braille had to say, and I know city manager Karen Pink has listened to it as well. And and part of what's happening here in California and what it's done

3:24:282 communities up and down the State of California. So I'm here to make sure that we collaborate

3:24:34with our our partners on the State level, but also on the Federal level, and to make sure that they do the right thing in Sacramento and help cities who are on the front line dealing with this and our residents so anyway, that it was a a good trip, and I wish my colleagues were there to join us, and I look forward to hoping that they'll join us next time. Thank you.

3:25:03Thank you.

3:25:05There I have some report outs. So

3:25:11On November eighth I attended the Abag Housing Committee, and I already reported about the potential funding from Reap 2. On November eleventh Veterans day. I attended the Lions Club veterans day observance at Sunsetview Cemetery, and helped plant flags at the graves of veterans along with scouts from Elstredo and Berkeley also on veterans. Day I attended the

3:25:35Tibetan Association of Northern California's Thanksgiving lunch and learned a lot and enjoyed some really nice cultural performances. On November fourteenth we hosted the Cub Scout at 104 here at the City Hall chambers, so they can learn about local government and participate in mock City Council meeting, which they did a great job in order to earn a badge.

3:25:58and that same evening I attended the Eqc. Meeting to mostly respond to questions about the ad hoc subcommittees, recommended recommendations to council about advisory bodies.

3:26:09and on November fifteenth Council, Member Fideli and I and the City clerk had brought together our ad Hoc Subcommittee for advisory bodies to prepare for bringing that issue forward to Council on December the fifth, and on November eighteenth I attended the Asian Pacific Islander Coalition Civic Leadership, U.S.A. National Elected Leaders Conference in San Francisco, and heard some really great and inspiring stories of some women elected women around the country.

3:26:38So

3:26:40with that

3:26:43the time is now 9, 30, and we are adjourned. The next regularly scheduled city Council meeting is Tuesday, December fifth, 2,023, at 6 pm. Thank you very much.